Newspaper Page Text
8A
JULY 15, 1999
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL By Bernice Powell Jackson
Mississippi memoir
‘ knew I was standing on hallowed
'@ ground and that it would be one of
M thosemomentswhich Iwould always
‘8 remember.lwas standing in front of
the modest tombstone of one of the great
?heroes of our time, Fannie Lou Hamer.
‘A woman I never met but have come to
love. A fearless, truth-telling, powerful
singing, unblinking, plain spoken, jus
tice loving woman of God. An extraordi
nary human being whose force of person
ality threatened even the President of
the United States. I know I was standing
of hallowed ground.
- The graves of Mrs. Hamer and her
husband are in a small, unadorned public
ark and nearby the boys from the neigh
gorhood are playing ball. Here, in Sun
flower County, Mississippi there are
moments when I felt like I had stepped
intoatime warp and that it could be 1969
or 1869. But, then I look down the street
and see the cars and know that it really
is 1999 and only a few months from the
turn of the century.
It was to this little, tiny town of
Ruleville that Mrs. Hamer when she was
forced off the plantation where she had
lived and worked for 18 years when she
dared to try to register to vote. Within
hours of her first attempt to register, she
and her family were evicted with all their
belongings. Asllook around at the small,
shotgun style houses, | wonder how much
protection she could have found there.
The Klan must have know where they
were.
That’s what else I notice here in the
Mississippi Delta it’s so flat that you can
see for miles. No place to run, no place to
hide. And between Yazoo City and
Indianola, only small hamlets amidst the
fields.
* Last year the Commission for Racial
Justice released a report on the rampant
environmental racism which we found in
Convent, LA, a little town along the
Mississippi between Baton Rouge and
New Orleans. We entitled it From Plan
tations to Plants because it seemed to us
that that area which once was planta
tions where black people worked as slaves
and then share croppers, now is being
urned into plants, whereblack residents
pre being subjected to a new kind of
pppression.
{ The Mississippi Delta feels to me like
Elantations to plants all over again. But
this time, instead of chemical plants it’s
gatfish farms. Driving on Highway 49, all
I can see for miles in both directions are
the pools where catfish are grown. There
still some cotton fields and now some
E;; fields, but many ofthe old plantations
ave been converted to catfish farms.
Processing plants have sprung up across
tl;e Delta to package and ship catfish
ound the country. Not one is owned by
an African American. And even the plan
;:ations which do still exist, plantations
which were built off of free labor and
learly free labor for two hundred years,
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are still owned by white families. Mostly
rich white families many of whom now
live in Texas or Florida somewhere far
away.
We talk with a woman who has been
trying to organize the workers in the
catfish processing plants, which have
frown astronomically over the past de
cade or so. Before the unions there were
less than humane working conditions,
few or no bathroom privileges for those
working on the processing line and no
bathroom doors in the women’s room,
little job security, low wages, no pension
plan, segregated work places (few or no
African Americans working in the office
jobs and few or no European Americans
working on the lines, job safety issues on
the line. With the unions, much of that
hasimproved, but still not black workers
in the offices and still no white workers
on the lines. From plantations to plants.
The more things change, the more they
remain the same. But the spirit of Fannie
Lou Hamer lives in this woman and
those who are standing with the poor and
the workers in the Delta.
And then there are the schools in the
Delta. The city of Metcalfe is in a nearby
county. It’s a mostly African American
city which has only been incorporated for
20 years.
Its mayor, Shirley Allen, is proud of
their new sewer and water and gas lines
and of the fact that they are now an
Empowerment Zone and are building 500
new homes. Feisty, energetic, and en
thusiastic, she’s now challenging the
schools, where black children receive
inferior education in inferior buildings
and where there hasn’t been a school
board election in 13 years. The spirit of
Fannie Lou Hamer lives.
We travel to another county and hear
a similar story, this time from a black
woman who sits on the school board in
her county, where the public schools are
just about 100% African American and
the private schools are entirely Euro
pean American. A county where double
orders for supplies and equipment were
mysteriously placed (with one set of pub
licly paid for materials going to the pri
vate school) until 19995 when the first
African Americans were elected to the
school board. A woman who herself ran
for mayor only to have the election stolen
away from her and who has been watch
ing the dilution of the Voting Rights Act
as local towns build low income housing
outside the town limits so that residents
don’t have the right to vote in municipal
elections. But she vows to be the mayor
in 2001 and to welcome us to her town as
Mayor Allen welcomed us to Metcalfe.
The spirit of Fannie Lou Hamer lives.
The Mississippi Delta. An incubator for
race and racismin Americain the 1960’5.
And promises to be an incubator for
racial justice and economic justice in the
new millennium. But the good news is
that Fannie Lou Hamer lives.
Charles W. Walker
Publisher
Frederick Benjamin
Managing Editor
Dot T. Ealy
Marketing Director
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Copy Editor
Samuel Daniels
Production Assistant
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Staff Writer
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Opinion
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THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani :
New Yorkers for political reform
or many years, leaders in the Af
rican American community have
encouraged, pleaded, cajoled,
asked, and flat out demanded that
people vote.
Weare told thatif wedon’t vote, we are
disrespecting those who struggled and
died to guarantee our right to vote. We
areunderminingour political clout. When
we don’t vote, we don’t have a voice, we
have not right to complain about how
things are.
Now I am the last person to put down
the gains and accomplishments of the
last 150 years. I have great ‘r_esrpect,vfor
the civil rights movement, which de
manded'that African Americans havethe
same rights and political franchise as
other Americans. The Voting Rights Act
of 1964 was an important victory. The
fight to end legal exclusion from political
life was a great victory and something we
can be very proud of.
But let’s not confuse having the legal
right to vote with having political process
that invites us to participate. I would
argue that the blatant and racist Jim
Crow laws that were abolished in the
1960’s have been replaced with more
subtle but equally powerful methods that
keepmillions of average Americanslocked
out of the political process.
I don’t think simply telling people to
vote is adequate. It doesn’t engage the
ALONG THE COLOR LINE By Dr. Manning Marable %
Why are churches still burning
t was only three weeks after Martin
Luther King, Jr., delivered his mag
nificent “I Have a Dream” speech on
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,
before one quarter million people at the
historic March on Washington, D.C. a
bomb exploded at Birmingham’s Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church on aSunday morn
ing, killing four little black girls: Addie
Mae Collins, Carol McNair, Carole
Robertson and Cynthia Wesley.
This murderous assault deeply affected
African American people atthe time, and
its bitter memory is still quite vivid for
millions of us. It was not that the white
racists would strike out against us. Being
black in Americahad long since taught us
that violence against black folk was “as
normal as cherry pie,” to paraphrase H.
Rap Brown. It was not simply that our
little children had been targeted for as
sassination, We remembered the
children’s march in Birmingham earlier
that same year, in 1963, when policé
chief Bull Conner unleashed vicious dogs
and used clubs against black children
engaged in peaceful civil disobedience.
What was most striking perhaps, was the
symbolic meaning of the racists’ actions.
The African American church has been
since slavery, the central social institu
tion of the black community. It has been
spiritual heart of the black experience,
through our long sojourn through this
nation. To destroy the black church, is to
cutout the heart of the black community.
This act of brutality did not occur in a
political vacuum. The Birmingham
church bombing occurred when white
ways that people have been excluded. It
doesn’t recognize that the culture of
American politics discourages participa
tion. In dozens of ways, subtle and not so
subtle, the message goes out that our
voices are not wanted, not needed, and
not important. People vote when and
only when they are connected to the
process and feel that their vote will make
a difference.
-Many factors keep people from voting.
Thedistance between “career politicians”
and ordinary people, the lack of candi
date debates, restrictive voter registra
tion procedures , and the abundance of,
negative campaigning and advertising
prevent millions of people,from actively
participating in the political process.
InJune,l along with twenty-five other
New Yorkers, founded New Yorkers for
Political Reform, an organization that is
working to increase voter participation.
Thefounding meeting of this new organi
zation was a big success. People with no
experience is politics mingled with expe
rienced election lawyers and activists
and a dialogue ensued about how tobuild
and develop a campaign tobring millions
of New Yorkers into the political process.
What are we doing? In just four short
weeks, we have drafted legislation for
same-day voter registration which is be
ing introduced into the New York State
Assembly as well as the U.S. Congress.
segregationistin Congress were attempt
ing to block the passage of the Civil
Rights Act, which would desegregate
public accommodations throughout the
county. White Citizens Councils were
trying to stop voter registration drives
among Southernblacks. Alabama Gover
nor George Wallace was calling for “seg
regation forever,” and blocked the doors
atthe University of Alabama in an unsuc
cessful attempt to maintain white su
premacy in higher education. The bomb
ing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
was only one aspect of a long racist
assault against black people as a whole.
Why are black churches all over the
U.S. being destroyed? In the 19905, we
have witnessed a political assault by con
servatives against affirmative action.
Minority economic set aside programs
and minority college scholarships are
being eliminated. The majority leader of
the U.S. Senate, Trent Lott of Missis
sippi, affiliates himself with a white su
premacist organization, the Council of
Conservative Citizens, and almost no
body in power or the media condemns
him! Police brutality is on the rise in city
after city. And the number of African
Americans imprisoned has roughly
doubled in the past decade. All of these
trends indicate the expansion of institu
tional racism. Whenever institutional
racism increases, its cutting edge, white
vigilante violence usually leads they way.
Terror and violence are absolutely cen
tral tothe preservation and maintenance
of white supremacy.
The civil rights community and even
Same day registration is a critical re
form. It encourages young people and:
non-voters to participate by allowing
people to register at the poll on Election:
Day. The five states that currently allow’
same day enjoy 15% to 25% higher voter
turnout than the rest of the country.
We are also working to challenge other
barriers to participation and restructure,
the presidential debates, ballot access!
laws and introduce campaign finance re-|
form. i
New Yorkers for Political reform is not|
going to try and convince people that|
they should vote. Qur focus.is.on.findin
ways toimpact onthe political eultma,ag]
that millions of people will wantto vete.
We want to involve thousands of peopl_e]
developing, building and promoting this:
campaign. If you want to get involved, ori
you want to start a campaign for same;
day voterregistration in yourstate, please!
call me at 800-288-3201. '
)
§
Lenora B. Fulani twice ran for Presi-|
dent of the U.S. as an independent, mak-%
ing history in 1988 when she became the
first woman and African American to get
on the ballot in all fifty states. Dr. Fulani;
is currently a leading activist in the Re-!
form Party and chairs the Committee for
a Unified Independent Party. She can be
reached at 800-288-3201 or
www.Fulani.org.
the federal government have responde&l
to this assault against religious freedoxq.
In June 1996, President Clinton estal
lished the National Church Arson Ta:i
Force to coordinate local, state and fi
eral agencies toinvestigate the burnings
and to prosecute these offenders. At the
grassroots level, several thousands of
volunteers have gone to the South to
helprebuild African American Churches.
For the past three years, anumber of my
own students at Columbia Univerisity
have worked to reconstruct burned black
churches. !
Yet bombings and burnings contimi‘é.
On June 18, 1999, in the Sacramentq,
California metro area, three synagogue
were hit by arsonists within a span of 4;
minutes. In the worst case the fires gut
ted the temple library at Congregation
B’nai Israel, destroying collections o
Jewish culture and the Holocaust, an
causing sßoo,oooin damages. Literat
was found at one synagogue that blam
the “International Jews Media” for th
war in Kosovo. {
Intolerance never stops with one set
victims. Jews, Latinos, Asians, undoc
mented immigrants, lesbians and gays
well as African Americans all becom
targets in the political climate of ha
Dr. Manning Marable is Professor
History and Director of the Institute so
Research in African American Studies
Columbia University. “Along the Colo
Line” is distributed free of charge
appears inover 325 publications through
out the U.S. and internationally.