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SEPTEMBER 10, 1998 AUGUSTA FOCUS
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL By Bernice F Jackson
Lament for our children
ust when we think maybe
it's getting a little better, it
seems we are confronted
again with a horrible mur
der of a black child by other black
children. This time it was a little
black 11-year old girl killed by two
little black boys, ages 7 and 8 in
Chicago. The lives of three chil
dren and their families destroyed.
And the African American commu
nity once again facing the reality
that something drastic has gone
wrong and wondering when will
the killing end.
When will the killing end? The
prophet Jeremiah warned thou
sands of years ago “The harvest is
past, the summer is ended and we
are not saved.” Is our harvest past,
is our summer ended and are we
not yet saved?
When will the killing end? The
harvest is past. Many of our fami
lies have seen financial successes
they could never even have imag
ined. Many of our children attend
the nation’s best colleges, drive
nice cars and spend vacations at
the beach or skiing. It has been a
time when this generation is reap
ing the rewards of the sacrifices of
every previous generation of Afri
can Americans, from those who
survived the Middle Passage and
the slaver’s whip to those who
endured Jim Crow schools and jobs
as domestics and porters.
The harvest is past, but many of
our young people have little knowl
edge of those who planted the seeds
and little desiretounderstand what
those planters sacrificed so that
generations later might flourish.
When will the killing end? The
heat of the summer is over —the
heat of the summers of struggle
when young and old, black and
white, confronted the injustices of
a segregated society. The summers
when we marched and picketed
and registered folks to vote and
sought a betterworld. Those sum
mers are over as we havebecome a
people too comfortable with our
own personal situations to be out
raged at the injustices of others.
Even the heat of the summers
when those in the cities burned
their own communities in a act of
spontaneous combustion and rage
seem to beover. As self-destructive
asthose rebellions were, they were
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asign to the nation that something
was terribly wrong and forced
Americans to examine the discrep
ancy between what they said and
they believed and what they lived.
Now the summer is ended and the
rage seems to have turned inward.
The harvest is past, the summer
is over and we are not saved. We
are not saved when our children
are still killing other children. Still
throwing children out of windows,
still beating children todeath, still
shooting innocent children in the
wrong place at the wrong time,
still shooting those whose shoes or
jackets they covet, those they think
have just looked at them wrong.
When will the killingend? When
more of us take responsibility for
all the children, not just our own
biological children, but those chil
dren whose mothers are children
and whose fathers are in prison.
When every church and mosque
hold parenting classes for parents
who haven’t a clue about what it
takes to be a mother or a father.
When every civil rights and com
munity organization makes sav
ing our children its number one
priority for the 21st century. When
neighborsbecome neighbors again,
unafraid of reprimanding children
as they once did and willing to
become extended family to families
broken by divorce or prison or
abuse or death or geographical
separation. When every teacher
and school administrator re-com
mits to providing a good education
for every child. When every mayor
and governent official turns the
rhetoricofbeing “education gover
nors or mayors” into reality and
sets aside funds for computers, for
books, for adequate school build
ings and for support services des
perately needed by poor students.
When more young parents take
their responsibilities seriously and
turn away from the streets and
turn toward God.
Until we do those things, we will
continue to mourn the deaths of
our children, who were killed by
other children. And until then, in
the words of Jeremiah, “For the
hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn and dismay has taken
hold of me.”
When will the killing end?
Editorial
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AUGCYSTA CAMPAICA/ 98 :
R T AR 0 U eBVIe TS R e B LY R e O X
TO BE EQUAL By Hugh B. Price
Joining the real Million Youth March
f you think you've missed the
Million Youth March, put that
out of your mind.
There’s plenty of time for
you to join in.
I’'m not talking about that event
in Harlem last weekend that was
never meant to be anything more
than a platform for the odious
antics of Khalid Abdul
Muhammad.
Although some newspaper col
umnists and politicians insist
upon acting as if Muhammad has
some significant following in the
black community, there’s never
been any evidenoce that the over
whelming majority of African
Americans think se. There was
none, again, in Harlem last Sat
urday.
No, the march I'm referring to -
-the real Million Youth March --
is the one going on in neighbor
hoods all over the country: the
long-standing one in which black
youngsters, often against daunt
ing odds, strive to do their best in
school and strive to be of service
to their communities as they
march toward adulthood.
We've seen wave after wave of
young African Americans make
that march. Some of them have
come and are coming through the
National Urban League Incen
tives to Excel and Succeed
(NULITES) youth program, now
almost a decade old. Some we
inducted last spring into the new
African World War deVelops in Central Africa
he chronic crisis in Central
Africa has developed into
what some observers are
calling an African World
War. On August 2, ethnic Tutsi
soldiers in the Cogolese Armed
Forces (CAF), in alliance with their
Rwandan officers, spearheaded a
rebellion against Congolese Presi
dent Laurent Kabila’s 15-month
old government. The Rwandan
officers had been serving in key
positions in the Congolese army
since a coalition of regional forces
defeated the Zairian dictator
Mobutu Sese Seko and brought
President Kabila to power in May
1997. The continued presence of
non-Congolese in key government
and military positions was ex
» tremely unpopular with the Con
. golese population, and in July,
: Kabila had asked his Rwandan
-allies to return home. Instead,
« they put in motion a long-planned
- mutiny.
Although Rwanda and Uganda
- deny it, both countries are assist
. ing the rebels, who have also been
\ joined by a motley alliance of op
. portunists that includes former
Mobutuist generals, dissident poli
ticians, exiled academics, and
.troops from Jonas Savimbi’s
- UNITA. Thanks to substantial
military help from Rwanda, the
rebels quickly seized agreat swath
of eastern Congo, and then hi
jacked a plane to a military basein
Thurgood Marshall Achievers
Society, part of our Campaign for
African American Achievement.
Many have come through the
youth program of our civil rights
counterpart, the National Asso
ciation for the Advancement of
Colored People, or through the
vast network of national and lo
cal social service groups, frater
nities and sororities, and commu
nity organizations. Still others
come by way of a devoted family,
or school teacher, or caring adult.
However they come, the evi
dence that black youth continue
to follow the well-trod path to
achievement is voluminous.
Do we need to inspire more
youth to follow that path? You
bet we do.
That is the point such leaders
as the Reverend Jesse Jackson,
and Kweisi Mfume, of the
NAACP, and the Reverend Jo
seph E. Lowery, the former presi
dent of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference made by
their presence and their remarks
at the Million Youth Movement
gathering in Atlanta last week
end.
One should not dismiss that
event merely because it drew such
a small number of young people:
from the first this kind of march
faced serious logistical and orga
nizational problems that its mod
els, the precedent-setting Million
Men March in 1995 and the 1997
the west, where they hooked up
with elements from Mobutu’s
former army and started advanc
ing on the capital, Kinshasa. On
the way, they seized the Inga hy
droelectric complex, depriving the
city of water and electricity.
With the rebels 15 miles outside
of thecapital, and no hope of repel
ling them with Congo’s hastily
recruited and untrained troops,
Kabilaappealed to hisneighborsto
the south for assistance. Angola,
Zimbabwe and Namibia responded
with troops, guns, airlift support
and bombers, and routed the rebels
from Kinshasa and the surround
ing provinces, ending the war on
the western front for now.
The Democratic Republic of
Congo, a vast country the size of
the United States east of the Mis
sissippi, is now effectively parti
tioned, and held hostage to the
military agendas of its smaller, but
more battle-hardened neighbors.
Onethird of the country —the two
eastern provinces bordering
Uganda and Rwanda, as well as
key citiesin thenortheastern Congo
Riverbasin --iscontrolled by rebels,
or rather, by their Rwandan and
Ugandan sponsors. As this article
goes to press, they are pushing
south to the copper-rich southern
province of Katanga. The agenda
of Rwanda and Uganda is explicit:
they want to establish a buffer
zone along the border, where they
Million Women March did not.
Rather, once should focus one’s
attention on where the action is:
in our neighborhoods and in our
schools.
In that regard, then, the Mil
lion Youth Movement will have
served its purpose if it reminds
more of us that the opening of
school is the equivalent of New
Year’s Day for school-age young
sters.
It’s a season of fresh beginnings
and new possibilities -- a chance
for them to step onto and move
furtheralong that path ofachieve
ment.
We adults should also take it as
an occasion to make some pledges
about our children’s preparation
and future that we’ll never break
to them, or to our people.
State after state is raising the
standards for what our children
must know and be able to do in
order toget a high school diploma.
Yet, the signs are that the
achievement gap is widening
again, pushing black children in
urban school systems further and
further behind academically.
Fortunately, black parents are
getting the message. A recent
survey by Public Agenda shows
that parents want public schools
concentrating on lifting the
achievement levels of their chil
dren.
But we cannot stop there. Let
me propose five principles that
will have a free hand to enter Con
golese territory and wage a war of
extermination against the various
warlords and militias based there,
who attack and destabilize the gov
ernments of these two countries.
Included among these militias are
the infamous Interhamwe, and el
ementsfrom thearmy of the former
Hutu Power government, both of
which carried out the 1994 geno
cide against Rwanda’s Tutsi popu
lation. Rwanda and Uganda have
complained loudly of Kabila’s in
ability to secure Congo’s eastern
border. More recently, they have
condemned Kabila’s government
for trying to work out more peace
ful compromisesto end strifein the
region, whose local people have
suffered enormously as Rwanda’s
HutwTutsi conflicts have spilled
into Congolese territory.
Therest of the country is still in
the Kabila government’s hands,
but only as longas he can continue
to rely on his Angolan and Zimba
bwean allies. These latter have
their own reasons for joining the
fight. Angola is concerned that
UNITA, an Angolan rebel group
that returned to the bush to fight
after losing UN-monitored elec
tions, has hooked up with the Con
golese rebels, and may be able to
establish rear bases there. Zimba
bwe, on the other hand, has cut
many commercial deals with the
Kabilaregime that may gobelly-up
parents should insist schools in
their communities follow.
First, every child has the right
to attend a pre-school program
that gets them off to a solid start.
Second, every child hastheright
to be taught by fully-qualified
teachers who believe they can
achieve.
Third, every child has the right
totake rigorous coursesthat chal
lenge them to reach their fullest
potential.
Fourth, every child has the right
to attend a well-run, well
equipped, and well-maintained
school whose primary mission is
teaching and learning.
Fifth, every child has the right
to participate in constructive af
ter-school programs that can pro
mote healthy development and
keep them out of harm’s way.
These principles are the foun
dation of the Urban League’s edu
cational programs. More than 90
of our affiliates across the coun
try are participating in our third
annual national “Doing The Right
Thing” celebration, September 19,
to honor ambitious and accom
plished and hopeful young people
in their communities.
These youths, part of the his
torical and contemporary move
ment of African Americans into
the American mainstream, un
derscore that putting young
people on the path to achieve
ment pays huge dividends for all
of American society.
if his government is defeated.
As Congo’sneighborsstrategize,
it is not clear how the interests of
some 45 million Congolese citizens
will fare, and how faithfully they
will be represented in the peace
talks that will almost certainly
emerge from this week’s summit of
the Non-Aligned Movement in Dur
ban, South Africa. The rebels —
externally supported, and with the
narrowest of bases among some
disaffected Congolese—cannot le
gitimately claim to represent them.
For the moment, the Congolese
have rallied around Papa Kabila,
and this fact has forced regional
heads of state to recognize the
legitimacy of his government.
Hopefully, Kabila will make good
use of thereprieve he hasreceived,
and take immediate steps to in
clude and empower the full spec
trum of political parties and civic
organizations that fought for de
mocracy and against the Mobutu
regime.
Lenora B. Fulani twice ran for
President of the U.S. as an inde
pendent, making history in 1988
when she became both the first
woman and the first African Ameri
can to get on the ballot in all fifty
states. Dr. Fulani is currently a
leading activist in the Reform Party
and chairs the Committee for a
Unified Independent Party. She
can be reached at 800-288-3201, or
at http://www.Fulani.org. 3