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8A
JANUARY 6, 2000
?I)':;E(i;?::ddf for Year 2000 living, you must prepare
re you ready for the Year 20007
You may be, with great justifica-
A tion, tired of the crescendo of
publicity, and hype, about the
turning of the millennium
You may have, as some of us did,
avoided the glitzy mass celebrations New
Year's night and celebrated rather qui
stlv with a small group of friends, or just
sat on the sidelines at home
But when it comes to actually hiving
and working in the vear 2000 itself and
he years thereafter, vou'd better not be
sitting on the sidelines. You'd better be
n the thick of the action, or preparing to
se there.
One doesn’t have to believe the
nillennial hype to understand that we —
sitizens of the United States and citizens
of the world — have already crossed the
hreshold of a new environment, one
-uled by powerful, market-driven eco
somic forces that have no respect for
ridition, national boundaries, or previ
s condition of well-being.
Look back over the decade of the 1990 s
and recall what happened to once-pow
sriul businesses, once-stable countries
md socreties
The new constant that people all the
world must cope with is the fast-paced
shange that has the power to rapidly
affect — boost or severely undermine, or
awvon destroy — governments and multi
petional companies
Which means it can do the same to
individuals and local communities, too
The new “equipment” required of those
of us who work and who want to prepare
the next generation to work and do well
in this new environment 1s to have and
aprcad the entrepreneurial spinit.
JIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL By Bernice Powell Jackson
.
Courage from the past
t has often been said that if we don't
know our past, we will be condemned
to repeat it. So often we i the US,,
and lin particular in communities of
wlor, don’t know our own past even our
woent past. This is one of those stories
Cn November 3, 1979, 100 men, women
it children were preparing for an anti-
Llan march and conference in Greens
soro, NC. A caravan of some 40 Klansmen
ind neo-Naznsdrove up and opened fire on
he crowd, killing Cesar Cauce, Michael
Nathan, Willlam Sampson, Sandra Smith
nd James Waller and wounding eleven
hers. Those killed were voung union
g anizers who had been working to orga-
Aze low-wage textile and hospital work
ws Jim Waller had led a strike against a
Haw River plant the previous year. Bill
Sampson was running for president of his
anion local. Sandi Smith had led an orga
aizing drive at a Greensboro mill and had
just moved tohelp organize at the Cannon
mi!l Cesar Cauce and Mike had been
working with hospital workersin Durham
and was a leader in the drive to organize
Duke Medical Center
Moments after the Greensboro Massa
ore, the march's organizers began to won
der if official complicity had resulted in
these tragic deaths and injuries. March
snsors had been promised police protec
zn. which did not appear until more than
ah hour after thewr scheduled arrival time.
Nelson Johnson, the march’s organizer,
was himself attacked and stabbed and
then beaten by the police, who showed up
aftor the attack and who arrested Johnson
for inciting a not. The carloads of Klan and
Nazimembers, however, had been allowed
to escape. A massive cover-up followed.
In the months after the massacre the
FBi admitted that it had been investigat
ing the Communist Workers Party, the
organizers of the march, but said that
their investigation had ended the day be
fore the march. The FBI later retracted
this statement and refused to release fur-
m‘\ ,:‘t NAEN
GBI
NV PALLe N\ ==
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By that I mean more than going into
business for one's self, as vital a route to
economic prosperity for individuals and
groups as that is.
I'm specifically referring to an attitude
that is competitive and adventurous, and
an aptitude for learning the things that
are necessary to learn to do well in the
new global marketplace.
This is something nations, ethnic
groups and individuals must have With
out it, they'll be pushed to the margins of
the marketplace, which, more than ever,
will be no place to be somebody
The National Urban League’s historic
mission for 90 years has been to prepare
the mass of African Americans for the
modern world. It was soln 1910, when
the League was formed to assist black
migrants from the American South then
beginning to flood northern cities. Itisso
today.
We're still at work supplying the needy
and the ambitious with job skills and
with job-related know-how so that they
can get and hold a job that will provide
them with a decent income — and a place
in the world of tomorrow.
And we're still at work, through such
educational initiatives as our Campaign
for African-American Achievement, help
ing children and teenagers bolster their
natural ambitions to want to do well in
school, to want to do good.
We, along with plenty of others, of
course, have been vigorously pushing
these ideas through our annual confer
ences —the last two of which have fo
cused on gaining economic power, and
through our publications: our scholar
volume, The State of Black America, and
ther information. An FBlinformant wrote
alettertothe North Carolina Commission
on Civil Rights stating that he had warned
FBI agents about the impending trouble.
Meanwhile, investigative reporters un
covered the role of police, who also knew
through informants what Klan and neo-
Nazi members were planning. They found
that police knew exactly how many
Klansmen and neo-Nazis were gathering
that morning and how many guns they
had and that the marchers’ point of ongin
had even been released to the Klan and
neo-Nazi attackers. They found that the
police tactical squad, which was to have
provided protection for the marchers, was
sent on an early lunch.
Three trials followed in the six years
after the massacre. Inthe firsttrial, where
Klansmen and neo-Nazis were portrayed
as patriots protecting their community
and defending themselves, they were all
found innocent. A second tral, once again
with an all-white jury, this time in a fed
eral court, once again acquitted all
Klansmen. This led to the Greensboro
civil rights suit, where much new evidence
was presented to the jury for the first time.
On June 8, 1985 seven Klansmen and
Nazis, along with several police officers
were found liable for the wrongful deaths.
Never before had police and Klansmen
been found liable together for violent acts
in a court of law.
A portion of the funds awarded from this
case was donated to establish the Greens
boro Justice Fund. In the past 12 vears
this fund has given more than $175,000 to
grassroots groups fighting against rac
ism, bigotry and economic injustice in the
South. The story of the Greensboro mas
sacre is a story which must not be forgot
ten. It was a story of courage then, it is a
story of courage now. Let us not only give
thanks to God, let us also give thanks for
those who put their lives on the line sothat
we might be free.
Editorial
our general interest magazine, Opportu
nity Journal.
Indeed. the latter’s, most recent Issue,
published this month, examined Black
Americas's preparedness to participate
in the technological and information reve
lution now underway.
The question it posed on the cover was
“Are You Wired””
As in, plugged in to what's happening
now, and what's about to happen.
As urgent as that question is for all of
us, it 1s even more so for those Americans
whose poverty has left them still stand
ing outside the gates of opportunity.
The primary challenge facing the
United States, the wealthiest nation on
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani
© ®
Pat Buchanan: anti-war candidate
woweeks ago Reform Party presi
dential candidate Pat Buchanan
called for an end to U.S_ economic
sanctions around the world and
challenged the notion that it was
America’s role to police the globe “No
one has deputized Americato play Wyatt
Earp to the world,” he said. Buchanan
denounced the terror wrought by eco
nomic sanctions on Iraq: civihans. He
decried the brutality of sanctions and
cautioned that they fan the flames of
anti-Americanism. “Have we not learned
from our own history, from British sanc
tions against the thirteen colomes?
Embargos do not cow people into sub
mission, they unite people in defiance ™
And he added, “Sanctions impose suffer
ing, not on dictators but on their op
pressed people.”
In the aftermath of these remarks, a
startled Associated Press reporter com
mented on Buchanan's anti-interven
tionist views. Calling him the “un-Pat,”
AP wrote, “Buchanan has dramatically
changed his political landscape ™ He has
He's become an independent. And that
has allowed Buchanan to speak freely on
behalf of ordinary Americans (rather
than on behalf of the special interests)
and to fill a void created by the death of
the American left
One columnist on the left-wing website
www.antiwar.com wrote that Buchanan
had “outflanked” the left on anti-war
issues. He certainly has But this turn ot
the screw is not simply a matter of
Buchanan's turn of a phrase It reveals
the extent to which the American left
has been thoroughly
compromised by its relationship to the
Democratic Party.
The left has been outflanked for some
time, because the left has become aflank
of the Democrats. As such, it is a sup
porter-however inadvertent-of
globalism, free trade and the predatory
foreign policy package that comes along
with it. If you protest in the streets of
Seattle, but go home and vote for Al Gore
or Bill Bradley, you're supporting the
globalists, no matter what your tee-shirt
says.
The American left gave up its indepen
dent identity in the Democratic Party's
popular front against fascism in the
1930's and never got it back. Today it
maintains a small sinecure for itself in
Democratic politics, but it is totally com
promised.
Some people ask why the left was able
to defy the Democratic Party on the
Vietnam War in the 1960's but cantdo it
today. Here's the answer. That wasn't
the left who defied the Democrats on
Vietnam. It was America’s young people.
| It was students who rose up and chal
| lenged our foreign policy. By the 1960's
earth, 1s transforming the have-nots
among us into haves
That means finding a way to further
reduce the unemployment rate among
African Amernicans — which is still twice
the record low overall rate of four per
cent
That means finding a way tohelp those
people still trapped on welfare — and to
help those now off the welfare rolls and
working, but whose wages leave them
still subsisting in poverty.
Last August at our conference, we un
verled our Ten Opportunity Command
ments, proposals forinvesting Amenica's
financial and human capital so that all
Americans will benefit. Unlessthat hap
pens. Americaitself won't be as strong as
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the Old Left had been decimated by
McCarthyism The popular front had
heen betrayed and the left was on the
chopping block. The New Left came into
existence off of the 60's anti-war move
ment. That movement was a people’s
movement-t didn’t have an ideology, it
had a purpose-to end the war. [t was
politically independent
A few commentators have said that
Buchanan himself 1s now moving left. |
don’t agree. Buchanan 1s moving inde
pendent. That's the relevant category
The new parameters of importance are
special interest politics vs independent
politics, rather than left or right Being
independent has to
do with supporting the American
people-those who are left out and who do
not gain from the policies of special in
terests. And Buchanan's point about the
use of economic sanctions 1s that they do
not further the interests of the Amen:-
can people and are hurtful in the ex
treme to the people of the targeted na
tions.
Buchanan also raised the inconsistency
of the US. sanctions policy, implying
that sanctions are used selectively be
cause multinational corporate special
interests have different needs and dic
tate our foreign policy accordingly. They
do. Our “get tough™ Haiti policy, for
example, was designed by President
Chinton to make a cost-free human nghts
show for Black and liberal Amenrica, “cost
free” because no major US.
transnationals have significant holdings
or interests in Haiti and consequently
could have cared less what Amenica did
there
China, however, is another story The
U.S. multinationals are relentlessly
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it needs to be.
They include such measures as offer
ing quality, pre-school education to ev
ery child whose parents can't afford it,
providing affordable health care for the
41 milhon Americans now uninsured,
ehminating the digital divide by ensur
ing that all have access to computers and
the Internet. and eliminating discrimi
natory business-loan practices in order
to equalize access to capital
The need for such proposals makes it
clear that “being Year 2000 ready” is a
question not just individuals but Amen
can society itself must answer.
Hugh B Price 1s president of the Na
tional Urban League
2
champing at the bit to get access to the
Chinese consumer market, so they want
the human rights situation handled gin
gerly. Most of all, they want to give
China what it 1s demanding for that
access-membership in the WTO
Iromically the bipartisan sanctions
policy turns out not to be inconsistent at
all It's just consistent with the needs
and strategies of the globalists
In this respect, reshaping our foreign
policy along the lines Buchanan sug
gests requires reshaping the Amernican
political process to derail special inter
est control of government. That's why
we must keep going back to the issues of
political reform A “more moral foreign
policy” means a more moral political
process-one that ils based on democracy,
participation and inclusion. Reforming
our ballot access, campaign finance, voter
registration and candidate debates laws
is the precondition for wresting control
of foreign policy from the special inter
ests and putting it in the hands of the
American people
I was deeply inspired by Buchanan's
speech But | was equally struck by the
lack of media response to it. Why was the
response so muted” Because the media
and the “majors” do not want to elevate
his candidacy to be on par with them
The electoral plaving field ils not level
Independents are discriminated against.
The Commussion on Presidential Debates
fully intends to keep the Reform Party
nominee out of the debates. The Amen:-
can people will be denied access to the
anti-war, anti-imperialist point of view,
unless we can bring left and right to
gether-as independents-to take on the
See BUCHANAN, next page
Lillian Wan
Timothy Cox
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