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Honest Appraisal

1

"In the 1960s, my husband helped the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission de-fund the pioneer Head Start programs in our state," said Courtney Tannehill, the widow of former Neshoba Democrat editor Jack Tannehill, "and he worked to promote the Commission's segregationist agenda to Mississippi industrialists."

"I am here today to acknowledge the truth about my husband's participation in Mississippi's brutal racist regime," Mrs. Tannehill continued in her address to a group of African-American and white community leaders in Philadelphia, MS. "If we cannot tell the truth about our past, we cannot establish the trust necessary for meaningful reconciliation and improved race relations in Neshoba County today, in 2006."

Sadly, I am putting words in Mrs. Tannehill's mouth. Though Courtney Tannehill is a member of the Philadelphia Coalition, the quotation above was an exercise in wishful thinking about what it might look like if the organization were truly engaged in racial reconciliation.

In June 2005, as reporters anticipating the trial of of Edgar Ray Killen streamed into Philadelphia, MS, current editor and publisher of the Neshoba Democrat and co-chair of the Philadelphia Coalition, James E. Prince III, bragged that

[t]he editor of The Neshoba Democrat is one of the first persons these reporters seek out. They came to talk to Stanley Dearman (still do) and to Jack Tannehill before him.

Since the indictment of Edgar Ray Killen in January there have been so many reporters that I can’t possibly keep track of all the conversations and interviews.

While Jack Tannehill's widow did not ever say the words attributed to her, above, there is indeed evidence that her late husband worked with the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, the state spy agency, to enlist business owners in "solving problems" associated with the Civil Rights Act and to keep Mississippi's Black children undernourished and undereducated.

2

On February 26, 1965, Jack Tannehill wrote a letter on Neshoba Democrat letterhead to Erle Johnston, Director of the State Sovereignty Commission (emphasis added):

Dear Erle:

On behalf of the East Mississsippi Management Club, I want to express our appreciation to for the very timely talk you gave us last Tuesday night. Without exception, every one of the 28 members present said they thoroughly enjoyed the program and learned so much of the Sovereignty Commission's work which they never realized meant so much to them and this state.

Information on the Commission's work and its policies and accomplishments was all new to many of the group. It caused them to realize that the Commission was sincerely interested in helping industrialists, as well as others, without being radical and advocating policies which might be detrimental to our progress.

As you know, this was a meeting of industrial management of east central Mississippi towns and cities at which the members discuss mutual problems in an informal manner. Every thing said and discussed is strictly 'off the record'.

Many of the members asked me to say that they felt now they had a place to get some assistance in solving problems which might arise from pressure groups and the recent enactment of the Civil Rights Act.

In short, those present appreciate the image you have been and are creating for our state. As one put it, "I'll have to change my opinion of the Sovereignty Commission's philosophy since listening to its director talk."

Erle, thanks again, and I hope you will return for this or another type meeting here in the near future.

Yours truly,

Jack [handwritten]

Jack L. Tannehill

cc: Gov. Paul Johnson
State Capital

While I often emphasize the Sovereignty Commission's spying activities, and its direct assistance to White Citizens' Council and the Klan, the Commission was also a public relations agency. The Sovereignty Commission emphasized its "dual function" in an undated informational pamphlet, which I believe was intended for the members of the MS state legislature in 1966:

The Sovereignty Commission has operated a dual function of investigation and indexing subversive groups and individuals operating in the state and also a public relations program to correct false statements about Mississippi and enhance the state's prestige to offset impressions made by a few regrettable incidents of violence. Information about subversives has been exploited on occasion to reduce their effectiveness.

In its public relations function, the Sovereignty Commission cultivated contacts with the editors of many of the major newspapers in Mississippi—including Jack Tannehill at the Neshoba Democrat. The meetings, such as the one organized by Tannehill, above, were far from unusual. Numerous Sovereignty Commission documents detail major industry and business leaders serving in official advisory roles for the public relations activities of the Commission.

3

In fact, the Mississippi agency's two functions frequently overlapped. In 1966, when Mississippi's white power structure pulled out all the stops to cripple existing Head Start programs and redirect federal funds to new organizations that whites could control, the Sovereignty Commission marshaled its cadre of newspaper  editors for the cause.

Some background from Susan Klopfer's book, Where Rebels Roost:

The Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) was one of the country's pioneer Head Start programs, providing poor children with medical care, hot meals and preschool training. Some employment was also provided for several hundred local people who worked as teachers and helpers. So of course it was target for destruction by the planter hegemony. . . .

All of Mississippi's Congressional representatives voted against funding the poverty programs in the first place. The Jackson Daily News compared such programs with those in "Soviet Russia . . . and Hitler's Germany."

Head Start and other poverty programs represented "the most subtle mediums for instilling the acceptance of racial integration and ultimate mongrelization ever perpetrated in this country," the JDN editorialized.

This attitude was shared across the state, as several CDGM workers were shot at by racists; local schools would not rent their buildings and buses to the program; and in one Delta town, Anguilla, plantation  owners would not allow sharecroppers' children to enroll. Klansmen there burned a cross in front of the Head Start center to make their point.

Even though the new educational program was seeing successes, many white state political leaders tried their best to destroy CDGM, charging financial mismanagement. US Senator John C. Stennis was contracted and he demanded that Sargent Shriver, head of the US Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), withhold funds. (548)

And that's where Jack Tannehill and his colleagues came in. On October 7, 1966, Sovereignty Commission Director Erle Johnston wrote a memo to Martin Fraley, Director of the Mississippi state branch of the Office of Economic Opportunity, about a telegram sending campaign to shift funds from CDGM to a new state agency, Mississippi Action for Progress (MAP).

In line with your suggestion, we made contacts on Thursday, October 6, to have a variety of telegrams sent to Sargent Shriver supporting the new Action for Progress committee in Mississippi.

We composed telegrams and read them over the telephone and all were supposed to have been sent by Thursday evening. We made our contacts chiefly in those areas where CDGM had operated headstart [sic] schools.

The contacts were state senator E.K. Collins and thirteen newspaper executives, including Jack Tannehill at the Neshoba Democrat. Johnston indicated that the anti-CDGM telegram sending campaign was suggested by Fraley. Fraley was director of the state arm of the federal agency responsible for administering President Johnson's War on Poverty programs, including Head Start.

Before taking his post as director of the Mississippi Office of Economic Opportunity, Fraley was chairman of the Mississippi parole board. Frank Barber, a well connected political operative, who held high political offices in Mississippi and also worked for infamous racist and Mississippi Senator James Eastland in DC, characterized Fraley as "a man of all work-advisor, strategist, technician, tactician" for Governor Paul Johnson. The governor of Mississippi was, ex-officio, chairman of the Sovereignty Commission.

4

The telegram campaign against CDGM was suggested by the top advisor for the Sovereignty Commission's chairman to the director of the agency, Erle Johnston, who, in turn, asked Jack Tannnehill and his colleagues to participate.

[A]fter two years of investigations, surveillance, firings, audits, press attacks, closures and threats, CDGM died in December 1967. Mississippi Action for Progress or MAP gained control over most of CDGM's funding and projects. (Klopfer, 549)

Klopfer quotes John Dittmer on MAP, saying, "the poverty program in Mississippi had divided the black community into warring factions, often pitting the poor men and women who had become politicized in the early 1960s against the old, traditional, middle-class leadership.

Divide and conquer. Bait and switch. Keep some (less militant) Black people visible in the newly configured MAP-controlled Head Start programs, while obtaining more of all that good federal money for the benefit of white folks. I believe researchers will find some interesting results if they compare how many whites and how many Blacks got Head Start jobs and contracts under CDGM and then under MAP.

There has been some popular debate about whether Jack Tannehill was speaking about the Klan or about civil rights workers when, in an April 9, 1964 editorial, he wrote, "Outsiders who come in here and try to stir up trouble should be dealt with in a manner they won't forget." James E. Prince III, is the only person who has seriously claimed in public that Tannehill was not threatening civil rights workers but rather telling the Klan to get out of Neshoba County.

As usual, I think Prince is full of it, but focusing the historical debate on this one anecdote is a way to avoid the history of white supremacy in Neshoba County and in Mississippi as a whole. Jack Tannehill didn't just incite his readers to perpetrate violence against civil rights workers. He was active in the work of the white power structure to keep resources out of the hands of African Americans. He was also active in the white power structure's public relations campaign to sell to the world a fictional image of Mississippi while Black children starved and white, racist murderers roamed free.

5

"We challenge our fellow citizens to join us in an honest appraisal of the past."

The Philadelphia Coalition
June 21, 2005

RELATED POSTS

• Progress?
• Products of the Environment
• Foreword for Susan Klopfer's Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited (2005)

“Land of The Free and Home of The Brave?”

by MarshaRose
July 4, 2006

The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States.  Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, wrote the lyrics in 1814 after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland by British ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.  It became well known as a patriotic song to the tune of a popular English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven."  It was recognized for official use by the United States Navy (1889) and by the White House 1916), and was made the national anthem by a Congressional resolution on March 3, 1931.

Most of us cannot sing the song and those who can, only sing one verse.

Did you ever wonder why, if the song has four verses, only the first is commonly sung?

Well I’ll tell you.

Growing up in Baltimore, the place is so rich in history.  From America's infancy, democracy's first dream to today's realities . . . Baltimore always figured in the struggle.

My family has lived in Maryland since 1773.  My Great-grandfather, John H. Murphy, Sr., founded a newspaper more than 115 years ago (The Afro-American Newspapers). Moving to Baltimore in 1941, I learned at a very early age about being a Negro (that is what we were in those days).  In the 40's as a student in "segregated" elementary schools I was taught to hate the Jews because “they were Christ killers” and in the middle of war, hate the Germans and the Japanese, while the white man hated me—how absurd!

Every morning in our “separate but equal?” school, we stood to pledge allegiance to the flag – “with liberty and justice for all.” Justice? And oh, the field trips—Historic Baltimore is an abundant resource for teachers—the many many field trips to Fort McHenry—we ran across the ramparts, climbed on the cannons, peeped into the dungeons, imagined the bombs bursting in air—and the flag is still waving.

Oh, how many times had we as children, fought that war—Baltimore being the only school District in America where the children knew about the War of 1812 let alone the Battle of Baltimore?  Each time we held our heads up high and sang,—

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Not ever giving one thought to the mockery of the words –

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

At that same time America was at war using segregated troops—some African-American soldiers were lynched in uniform.  Black newspapers were charged with sedition for “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” for telling the truth about discrimination in the U.S.

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Even as an adult I climbed on the cannon to watch the new flag with it's 50th star being raised at Fort McHenry. As we celebrated the taking of an indigenous peoples’ land—again not seeing the travesty in the words—

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?

Would you sing these verses of the song?

Finally, People stood up—enough was enough—enough discrimination—enough disparity—enough injustice—enough inequality—enough of an unjust war—the words rang true—

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

“None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.”  (Pearl S. Buck)

Here is the full song – all four verses- for your singing pleasure — [below the fold]

"Another SNCC warrior has died."

Those were the first words from Scott B. Smith, Jr when he reached me on the phone earlier this afternoon.

He wanted to inform me and all who knew her that Linda Dehnad, his wife, died this morning of undetermined causes at age 69.

Linda went to Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, AL last night because she was suffering from severe stomach pain. It happened to be her and Scott B's wedding anniversary. Exteremely frustrated and at her wits end after waiting for more than five hours to have her pain treated and her condition addressed, Linda asked Scott B to take her home around 9:30 PM. Scott B took care of Linda through the night; he fell asleep for a couple of hours at about 4 AM. When he woke up again at about 6 AM, Linda was dead.

Scott B said, "Linda came back to Montgomery with me to work with the people of Lowndes County. Though she was treated badly, she loved Lowndes County. Linda was a warrior. She never stopped trying to work with people. Anything she could do: she was doing it. She was concerned about the children. When she was teaching and was asked to use corporal punishment, Linda said, 'I am not a slave owner. I am a teacher.'"

In her last years, Linda had ongoing pain from fibromyalgia. Linda remained a gifted writer, teacher and photographer and a committed activist. She taught and mentored many, many people, including me (Ben).

Linda has requested that she be cremated. There will be a memorial service on Sunday, July 2, at the Unity Baptist Church in White Hall, Lowndes, County, AL. Church service begins at 11:00 a.m. Memorial service begins at 12:30 p.m.

Scott B welcomes phone calls, email and postal mail with condolences or memories of Linda. He would also welcome financial assistance to pay for Linda's autopsy. You can reach Scott B by phone at 334-262-7547. His mailing address is 2010 McKinley Avenue, Montogmery, AL 36107. His email address is scottbsmith_jr at yahoo dot com.


UPDATE#1 (6/28): I made a mistake on Scott B's phone number. Area code is 334, not what I had before. The number, above, is now correct.

UPDATE#2 (6/28): There is now a time for the memorial service, added above.

~
Read an interview/conversation with Linda Dehnad and her fellow Civil Rights Movement veterans, Jimmy Rogers and Bruce Hartford.

Four Black Students Suffer From Another Katrina Race-Related Injustice

Hattiesburg, MS (BlackNews.com) - William Carey College, a predominantly white Southern Baptist private school, has recently wrongfully expelled four black students for using an electric generator during the Presidentially-declared disaster.

Immediately following Katrina, several students of the college were stranded due to road blockage, gas shortage, or distance from their homes. A student went into a maintenance shed that had been ripped open by high speed winds and made use of a generator that remained on the campus.

This reportedly helped students recharge and use their cell phones while the land lines were down as well as give them lights at night. The men's dorm lobby, where the generator was being used, also became a safe haven of sorts for some of the remaining female students.

As the days passed and roads and gas became more available, the only students that remained were those whose homes were out of state, overseas, or destroyed. This small group consisted of three William Carey basketball players and one former player as well as others.

Senior Jeremy Irby, Junior Marvin Flemmons, Senior Dante Hardy, and Junior Jeremiah Blackwell were all expelled for using the generator that many students participated in using including school staff. They were told and given written notice that they were being expelled for conduct that was contrary to the schools handbook and there was not to be any appeal nor could they return to campus as visitors. This action itself was against school policy.

The students were escorted off campus by police with armed military personnel and had to immediately take with them all of their belongings with no place to go. No other students were expelled or repremanded. When asked what their plans were Marvin Flemmons replied, "We are looking for legal representation and we want our story to get out so this does not happen to anyone else."

IF YOU CAN PROVIDE LEGAL HELP AND/OR ANY OTHER ASSISTANCE OR WANT TO SHOW SUPPORT, PLEASE CONTACT:

Dante Hardy
118 College Drive #8177
Hattiesburg, MS 39406
mdantehardy AT yahoo DOT com
601-297-4365

Equality in Education - Day of Action

[If you are in the Boston area and are free tomorrow afternoon, come support this action. --BG]

Join us as we gather 400 supporters to represent the number of Massachusetts high school graduates every year who are denied access to higher education.
Let's show the legislature that the everyone deserves the right to an education.

The event will run from 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM and be held at the Grand Staircase.

Get more information

To RSVP, please contact Carlos Saavedra at csaavedra AT miracoalition DOT org

(From the information link, above:)

The Issue
Each year around 400 hundred high achieving students, who have lived in Massachusetts for most of their lives, are unable to pursue higher education because of their immigration status. Currently, students without permanent legal status must pay out of state tuition to attend state and city universities and colleges. Out of state tuition is three to five times the cost of in state tuition. As most of these students cannot afford to pay out of state tuition, they are forced to forego college and work in low-paying, low-skilled jobs.

The In-State Tuition Bill S. 764/ H. 1230
The bill allows students to pay the same in-state tuition rates as their peers at public colleges and universities provided they have attended a Massachusetts high school for three years and have graduated or received the equivalent of a diploma. If the student is not a legal permanent resident, they must sign an affidavit stating that they have filed an application to become a legal permanent resident, or will file an application as soon as they are eligible to do so.

Current Status
New Mexico, Texas, Utah, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Kansas and Oklahoma have already passed similar bills. Governor Romney vetoed the bill in Massachusetts in June 2004. This session the bill was reported favorably out of the House Ways and Means Committee and is currently awaiting a full vote on the House floor. Governor Romney is expected to once again veto the bill, therefore we need a 2/3rds majority in the House to move forward. We are currently counting votes and urging House leadership to bring the bill up for a full floor vote.

Also see this, which explains that nationally "approximately 65,000 undocumented students . . . graduate from high school every year without the opportunity to go to college."

New Orleans: Leaving the Poor Behind Again!

By Bill Quigley

They are doing it again! My wife and I spent five days and four nights in a hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. We saw people floating dead in the water. We watched people die waiting for evacuation to places with food, water, and electricity. We were rescued by boat and waited for an open pickup truck to take us and dozens of others on a rainy drive to the underpass where thousands of others waited for a bus ride to who knows where. You saw the people left behind. The poor, the sick, the disabled, the prisoners, the low-wage workers of New Orleans, were all left behind in the evacuation. Now that New Orleans is re-opening for some, the same people are being left behind again.

When those in power close the public schools, close public housing, fire people from their jobs, refuse to provide access to affordable public healthcare, and close off all avenues for justice, it is not necessary to erect a sign outside of New Orleans saying “Poor People Not Allowed To Return.” People cannot come back in these circumstances and that is exactly what is happening.

There are 28,000 people still living in shelters in Louisiana. There are 38,000 public housing apartments in New Orleans, many in good physical condition. None have been reopened. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimated that 112,000 low-income homes in New Orleans were damaged by the hurricane. Yet, local, state and federal authorities are not committed to re-opening public housing. Louisiana Congressman Richard Baker (R-LA) said, after the hurricane, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”

New Orleans public schools enrolled about 60,000 children before the hurricane. The school board president now estimates that no schools on the city’s east bank, where the overwhelming majority of people live, will reopen this academic school year. Every one of the 13 public schools on the mostly-dry west bank of New Orleans was changed into charter schools in an afternoon meeting a few days ago. A member of the Louisiana state board of education estimated that at most 10,000 students will attend public schools in New Orleans this academic year.

The City of New Orleans laid off 3,000 workers. The public school system laid off thousands of its workers. The Archdiocese of New Orleans laid off 800 workers from its central staff and countless hundreds of others from its parish schools. The Housing Authority has laid off its workers. The St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office laid off half of its workers.

Renters in New Orleans are returning to find their furniture on the street and strangers living in their apartments at higher rents – despite an order by the Governor that no one can be evicted before October 25. Rent in the dry areas have doubled and tripled.

Environmental chemist Wilma Subra cautions that earth and air in the New Orleans area appear to be heavily polluted with heavy metal and organic contaminants from more than 40 oil spills and extensive mold. The people, Subra stated, are subject to “double insult – the chemical insult from the sludge and biological insult from the mold.” Homes built on the Agriculture Street landfill – a federal toxic site – stewed for weeks in floodwaters.

Yet, the future of Charity Hospital of New Orleans, the primary place for free comprehensive medical care in the state of Louisiana, is under furious debate and discussion and may never re-open again. Right now, free public healthcare is being provided by volunteers at grassroots free clinics like Common Ground – a wonderful and much needed effort but not a substitute for public healthcare.

The jails and prisons are full and staying full. Despite orders to release prisoners, state and local corrections officials are not releasing them unless someone can transport them out of town. Lawyers have to file lawsuits to force authorities to release people from prison who have already served all of their sentences! Judges are setting $100,000 bonds for people who steal beer out of a vacant house, while landlords break the law with impunity. People arrested before and after the hurricane have not even been formally charged by the prosecutor. Because the evidence room is under water, part of the police force is discredited, and witnesses are scattered around the country, everyone knows few will ever see a trial, yet timid judges are reluctant to follow the constitution and laws and release them on reasonable bond.

People are making serious money in this hurricane but not the working and poor people who built and maintained New Orleans. President Bush lifted the requirement that jobs re-building the Gulf Coast pay a living wage. The Small Business Administration has received 1.6 million disaster loan applications and has approved 9 in Louisiana. A US Senator reported that maintenance workers at the Superdome are being replaced by out of town workers who will work for less money and no benefits. He also reported that seventy-five Louisiana electricians at the Naval Air Station are being replaced by workers from Kellogg Brown and Root – a subsidiary of Halliburton

Take it to the courts, you say? The Louisiana Supreme Court has been closed since the hurricane and is not due to re-open until at least October 25, 2005. While Texas and Mississippi have enacted special rules to allow out of state lawyers to come and help people out, the Louisiana Supreme court has not. Nearly every person victimized by the hurricane has a price-gouging story. Yet, the Louisiana Attorney General has filed exactly one suit for price-gouging – against a campground. Likewise, the US attorney has prosecuted 3 people for wrongfully seeking $2000 FEMA checks.

No schools. No low-income apartments. No jobs. No healthcare. No justice.

A final example? You can fly on a plane into New Orleans, but you cannot take a bus. Greyhound does not service New Orleans at this time.

You saw the people who were left behind last time. The same people are being left behind all over again. You raised hell about the people left behind last time. Please do it again.

Bill Quigley is a professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans where he directs the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center and the Law Clinic and teaches Law and Poverty. Bill can be reached at duprestarsATyahooDOTcom

Professor Kim Live Blogging From Buffalo

This year's annual convention for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History is being held in Buffalo to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Niagara Movement.

Professor Kim is there and she is live blogging with audio posts.

Particularly interesting was the interview with Dr. Gwendolyn Webb-Johnson concerning her work on something she calls "instructional racism," the racism that causes teachers to have low expectations for African American students and to funnel them through the special education system, in which they are grossly over represented.

A Tale Of Two Parishes

SCHOOL OPENINGS [as of 9/26/05]

ORLEANS PARISH

• Public: Some schools may reopen late this year or early next year
• Teachers and other public school employees can pick up their checks at any Western Union office in the country

JEFFFERSON PARISH

• Public: Oct. 3 target date for some schools
• Ecole Classique to open Oct. 3. Call (225) 819-2846 to register
• Concordia Lutheran in Marrero to open Oct. 3
• John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge to open today

(Also see Rita Won't Delay Jeff Schools Opening.)

Here's why we're told Orleans Parish cannot open its schools anytime soon:

A few of the 126 schools in New Orleans' public system are expected to reopen during the next two months, but education officials say that most won't be up and running until January. By some estimates, the schools, which serve 60,000 children, won't be fully operational until the fall of 2006.

And the 22-school parochial school system is debating when and how to open its doors, though some of its 20,000 students are expected to be at their desks sooner than those in public schools. Meanwhile, private school teachers, unable to work here, are getting jobs elsewhere.

"If you have kids, you don't want to come back here right now. You can't, really," Gartman said. The toxic sludge left behind in many areas, he said, was another disincentive for parents contemplating a return.

Presumably conditions are significantly better in Jefferson Parish.

Well, not really. According to parish president Aaron Broussard:

We are at a catastrophic, disastrous impasse. There are a tremendous amount of trees down, gas leaks, low water pressure, and downed electrical lines which could start a fire that we have no way of putting out. There are no traffic controls. Many places are still flooded and this standing water will become toxic.

Jefferson Parish emergency managers will need this time to at least clear major East/West thoroughfares so that you can enter Jefferson Parish. However, I strongly suggest that you just come here to gather more belongings and leave, as it will still be a dangerous place. I cannot stress strongly enough that there will be no stores to purchase food or supplies so please do so prior to coming back to Jefferson Parish.

Try to stay with friends and relatives out of the hurricane affected area during the weeks to come. We cannot sustain any viable quality of life in Jefferson Parish at this time or for some time to come.

That was a statement released on August 29, but as of last week things do not appear to have gotten substantially safer in Jefferson Parish.

Here is some other relevant data:

According to Census 2000 in Jefferson Parish the racial makeup was

69.82% White, 22.86% Black or African American, 0.45% Native American, 3.09% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 2.03% from other races, and 1.72% from two or more races. 7.12% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

According to Census 2000 in Orleans Parish the racial makeup was

67.25% African American, 28.05% White, 0.20% Native American, 2.26% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.93% from other races, and 1.28% from two or more races. 3.06% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There are already reports of non-Orleanians coming finding employment in New Orleans.* What Orleanians with families, who need work, will return to their homes to look for it if there are no schools for their children?

~
*Warning: The TP intermixes some anti-immigrant overtones with the substance of the linked article. Here's the main point, if you don't want to read the rest:

It will be impossible to get every New Orleanian to move back to the city. Some are making better lives for themselves elsewhere and can hardly be faulted for staying where they are.

But there are plenty of residents who are longing to get home and have yet to make lives for themselves in other cities. These are the people who should be at the top of the list of prospective workers in the rebuilding effort.

Of course, you can hardly entice them back if you're only willing to pay poverty level wages.

But in the wake of the disaster, President Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act that required employers to pay locally prevailing wages to construction workers on federally financed projects. The declaration applies to parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

At the same time, many contracts being given to corporations are not subjected to competitive bidding.

In essence, there's no ceiling preventing sky-high profits for these corporations and not much of a floor to ensure that wages to workers are not abysmally low.

There is an intelligent way to rebuild our city.

This, however, isn't it.

While Americans Are Talking More Openly About Race And Class

There are two posts from the last week that I found particularly moving and important. Neither Jeanne D'Arc nor Kim Pearson are new to such writing. They are both writers with impressive range, but it just so happened that they each wrote compelling, personal posts about their own experiences on the same day. I think our current, more collective experiences of this country's profound, systemic evils may have something to do with that synchronicity.

If you haven't already read Jeanne's "Being Poor," go . . . but then please come back and follow the link to Kim's "Labor Day, 2005: What's Going On."

Kim does an amazing job bringing together her own experiences of race, gender, motherhood and disability. It's very moving writing on the personal level and deeply important politically.

Allegations About Dr. King During Hearings on the Public Accommodations Bill and the Administration's Response: July 1963

Allegations of Communist influence in the civil rights movement were widely publicized in the summer of 1963 by opponents of the administration's proposed public accommodations bill. On July 12, 1963, Governor Ross E. Barnett of Mississippi testified before the Senate Commerce Committee that civil rights legislation was "a part of the world Communist conspiracy to divide and conquer our country from within." Barnett displayed a photograph entitled "Martin Luther King at Communist Training School" taken by an informant for the Georgia Commission of Education, which showed Dr. King at a 1957 Labor Day Weekend seminar at the Highland Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee with three individuals whom he alleged were communists. When Senator Mike Monroney challenged the accuracy of this characterization, Barnett stated that he had not checked the allegations with the FBI and suggested that the Commerce Committee do so. The FBI subsequently concluded that the charges were false.

Later that day, Senator Monroney asked Director Hoover for his views on whether Dr. King and the leaders of other civil rights organizations had Communist affiliations. Senator Warren G. Magnuson also asked Hoover about the authenticity of the photograph, the status of the Georgia Commission on Education, and the nature of the Highlander Folk School. Director Hoover forwarded these requests and similar inquiries from other Senators to the Justice Department with a memorandum summarizing the COMINFIL* information about SCL [sic]:

In substance, the Communist Party, USA, is not able to assume a role of leadership in the racial unrest at this time. However, the Party is attempting to exploit the current racial situation through propaganda and participation in demonstrations and other activities whenever possible. Through these tactics, the Party hopes ultimately to progress from its current supporting role to a position of active leadership. [Emphasis added.]

In the same memorandum, Director Hoover brought up the subject of Advisers A and B's alleged Communist affiliations.** He claimed that the Communist Party had pinned its hopes on Adviser A, and that although Adviser B had resigned from the SCLC, he continued to associate with Dr. King.

On July 15, Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in opposition to the Civil Rights bill, berating officials for "fawning and pawing over such people as Martin Luther King and his pro Communist friends and associates." Wallace referred to the picture displayed by Governor Barnett three days before and added:

Recently Martin Luther King publicly professed to have fired a known Communist, [Adviser B], who had been on his payroll. But as discovered by a member of the US Congress, the public profession was a lie, and Adviser B had remained on King's payroll.

On July 17, the President announced at a news conference:

We have no evidence that any of the leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States are Communists. We have no evidence that the demonstrations are Communist-inspired. There may be occasions when a Communist takes part in a demonstration. We can't prevent that. But I think it is a convenient scapegoat to suggest that all of the difficulties are Communist and that if the Communist movement would only disappear that we would end this.

On July 23, Robert Kennedy sent to the Commerce Committee the Justice Department's response to the queries of Senators Monroney and Magnuson:

Based on all available evidence from the FBI and other sources, we have no evidence that any of the top leaders of the major civil rights groups are Communists, or Communist controlled. This is true as to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., about whom particular accusations were made, as well as other leaders.

It is natural and inevitable that Communists have made efforts to infiltrate the civil rights groups and to exploit the current racial situation. In view of the real injustices that exist and the resentment against them, these efforts have been remarkably unsuccessful.

Burke Marshall, who aided in formulating these responses for the Justice Department, told the Committee that rumors of communist infiltration in the civil rights movement had caused the Administration considerable concern.

At that point, in some sense the business was a political problem, not from the point of view of the support that the civil rights movement was giving the administration or anything like that, but how to be honest with the Senators with this problem facing us and at the same time not to give ammunition to people who for substantive reasons were opposed to civil rights legislation.

Generally, for years the civil rights movement in the South and to some extent in some quarters in the North ... were constantly referred to as communist infiltrated, communist inspired, radical movements ... So that the political problem that I would identify with this whole situation would be that and not a question of whether or not there was support given the Administration by civil rights groups in the South.

(UNITED STATES SENATE, SUPPLEMENTARY DETAILED STAFF REPORTS ON INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS, BOOK III, FINAL REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES, DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., CASE STUDY, APRIL 23 (under authority of the order of April 14), 1976)

NOTES
*COMINFIL is how the FBI referred to its "Communist Infiltration" investigations.
**Excerpted here is section III B of the MLK Case Study, linked in the citation, above. The background on Advisers A and B can be found in section III A, available at the same link, above. The red baiting of MLK's advisers has been discussed at length by David Garrow. Stanley Levison, Jack O'Dell and Bayard Rustin were all red baited out of prominent roles in the SCLC (Rustin was also gay baited).

Mini FAQ: Georgia Commission On Education

If you examine the fine print at the bottom right of the MLK smear flier included in yesterday's post, you'll find the words "Reprint from Georgia Commission On Education."

What was the Georgia Commission On Education?

On Dec. 10, 1953, the state of Georgia established the Commission by a joint resolution of the Georgia General Assembly.

A Resolution. To establish The Georgia Commission on Education, to define its duties and authority, and to provide therefor such funds as are necessary to effectuate the purposes thereof.

Whereas, the Constitution of the State provides for the separate education of the white and colored races, and

Whereas, necessity for further legislation or constitutional amendments in that regard might hereafter arise;

It is therefore resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives as follows:

One. The Georgia Commission on Education is hereby established.

Two. Said commission shall formulate a plan or plans of legislation, prepare drafts of suggested laws, and recommend courses of action for consideration by the General Assembly whereby the State may by taxation continue to provide adequate education for all its citizens consisted with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Georgia.

Who sat on the Commission?

Said commission shall be composed of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Speaker of the House of Representatives, State Auditor, the Attorney General, Chairman of the Board of Regents, Chairman of the State Board of Education, State School Superintendent, Chancellor of the University System of Georgia, Chairman of the Judicial Council; a representative from the Georgia Bar Association, and, representative of the State both geographically and in all segments of her economy, ten other citizens to be appointed by the Governor, one from each congressional district of the State.

Summary

The Georgia Commission On Education was a state funded agency, established to maintain segregation in Georgia's schools.

Ja'eisha Scott Update: Officers Let Off Easy, Cover-up Of School Responsibility Continues

Yesterday, the St. Petersburg, FL Police Department issued a report concerning the allegations that Officers Mark Williams and Nicholas Lazzari were guilty of "Inefficiency / Conduct Unbecoming an Employee [CUBE]" when they handcuffed five-year-old Ja'eisha Scott at Fairmount Elementary School last March in St. Petersburg. While the resultant change in police and school policy concerning children in kindergarden through third grade is good, the focus on the conduct of the officers avoids the real questions about what is happening inside the Pinellas County Schools.

Police Department investigators found that

Some department violations were committed by the officers involved. For example, Officer Williams did not properly check out on the radio on three different occasions during these events. A more in-depth and thorough investigation should have been conducted prior to taking Ja'Eisha into custody. Officer Lazzari stated in his police report and then verbally to a supervisor that he felt the Baker Act [pdf] would have been appropriate. However, he should have recognized that Ja'Eisha did not qualify as a Baker Act.

Ultimately, the final disposition was the proper one. Ja'Eisha was released to her mother at the scene. She had not been transported from the school grounds at any time. No charges were filed and no referrals were made.

Both charges were sustained against Officer Williams and the charge of inefficiency was sustained against Officer Lazzari, but the Police Department has taken no disciplinary action against them. Rather, the St. Petersburg Police Department has issued a revision of its Juvenile Procedures:

In essence, supervisors will become involved in the disposition of children under the age of eight (8) prior to them being taken into custody. Our Legal Division will also be publishing a Legal Notice to all personnel indicating that in our Circuit Court, children less than eight (8) years of age are generally not prosecuted for crimes. Our Youth Resources Division has been tasked with working with the school system to develop some training for the patrol officer in dealing with small children who are displaying violent or disruptive behavior.

Th police investigation "found no evidence of racism by the officers." I've written extensively about the racism inherent in this story and about Florida's child-hating juvenile policy. However, I'd like to return to another theme of my reporting on Ja'eisha Scott case—the cover-up of the school's role in Ja'eisha's abuse, especially the role of Assistant Principal Nicole Dibenedetto.

When I was writing about this story in April, I noted that there were two conflicting accounts as to whether Ms. Dibenedetto pursued any measures other than calling St. Petersburg Police. An early report said Ms. Dibenedetto attempted to call Pinellas Schools police, but there was a mix up and someone in the school office called the city police instead. A later report stated that "the school called city police again after Pinellas schools police could not come," suggesting that the school did, in fact, call and get through to the school police.

In the Executive Summary of the St. Petersburg Police Memorandum on the allegations concerning "Inefficiency / Conduct Unbecoming an Employee," published in yesterday's SP Times, there is a detailed description of the chain of actions that led to city police coming to Fairmount Elementary School on a call concerning Ja'eisha Scott, the week before the handcuffing that was captured on video.

On March 8, 2005, Ja'Eisha engaged in inappropriate conduct in her classroom. An attempt was made by school staff to contact her mother and grandmother to respond to the school, but neither of them were immediately available to respond. The staff contacted Pinellas County Schools police and attempted to get them to respond as Ja'Eisha was becoming more disruptive. They had no one immediately available to respond, and the St. Petersburg Police Department was contacted to respond. The Communications Center processed the call, but before it was dispatched, a patrol supervisor was contacted, and the supervisor appropriately canceled the call. The school was recontacted and was advised police would not be responding. Historically, the Pinellas County Schools police would handle all calls for service at public elementary schools if the call did not involve drugs, weapons or other similar situations.

Yet in the Executive Summary account of March 14, when Ja'eisha Scott was handcuffed and video taped, there is no explanation of what led to the police dispatch of officers to the school. The account begins with the officers hearing from the dispatcher in their cruisers.

On March 14, 2005, Officers Nicholas Lazzari and Joshua Hanes were dispatched to a "Disorderly Juvenile." The dispatcher said, "It looks like it's a battery on a school official by a 5-year-old." The dispatcher also mentioned "Ja'Eisha Scott" by name while broadcasting the call. Because they were familiar with her, Officers Williams and Westerman rightly responded to assist. The officers arrived at the same time, and while walking toward the office, Officer Williams told Officers Lazzari and Hanes that he had contact with Ja'Eisha in the past involving a similar incident in which she destroyed property and battered a school employee. Officer Lazzari said Officer Williams indicated to him that this child may need to go to jail.

What is Fairmount Elementary School trying to hide? Why are the police colluding in keeping murky the facts of what happened inside the school while Ja'eisha Scott was having her famous tantrum?

The new rules announced yesterday are a positive development:

Under the new rules announced Thursday, dispatchers who take calls involving students in kindergarten through third grade must first ask if Pinellas Schools Police have been contacted. Superintendent Clayton Wilcox has directed principals at the district's elementary schools to do the same.

If school police have been reached, city police will not be sent except in "aggravating, extreme circumstances," according to the policy.

And even in those cases, officers must consult a supervisor before taking a child into custody. The supervisor will consider alternative ways of resolving the conflict, including calling a parent and using de-escalation techniques.

These procedures should help the schools avoid future police handling of children from kindergarden to third grade. But these are bare minimum measures that do not even go so far as to protect children who are in grades 4-8. There is a documented problem with Pinellas County (and the rest of Florida) criminalizing children under 12.

Most essentially, however, the focus on the police and not on the school diverts attention from profound problems concerning racism and anti-child policies in the Pinellas County schools. Without a public commitment to telling the truth about what happened to Ja'eisha Scott—and about what happens to other children, especially what happens to African American children, in Pinellas County schools—there is no real hope for progress.

Related Posts

• St. Petersburg Police Bind Hands And Feet Of 5-Year-Old African-American Girl
• Arresting Children Under 12 In Florida
• Discerning The Social Fabric Of St. Petersburg, Florida (I)
• Discerning The Social Fabric Of St. Petersburg, Florida (II)
• What Is Going On In The Pinellas County Schools??
• Accounts Of Police Involvement In Ja'eisha Scott Case Raise New Questions About Assist. Principal Dibenedetto's Intent
• "I think they were good people . . . [Ja'eisha] didn't act like that over here."
• Criminalizing Children In Florida
• What's Race Got To Do With It?
• They Kept Ja'eisha Cuffed In Their Cruiser For Hours After Her Mom Arrived

Cleophus Hobbs Day

Cleophus Hobbs Day
Saturday, June 10, 2006
David Hall Campsite 1 on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail
Sponsored by the White Hall Village Educational Association

Here's the story:

After my trip to Mississippi for the 41st Annual Chaney Goodman Schwerner Memorial, I spent some time in Montgomery, Alabama with Scott B. Smith and Linda Dehnad, both from SNCC. ScottB was a SNCC worker in Alabama, with Stokely Carmichael, Bob Mants and Jimmy Rogers. They helped organize the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which was the local political organization. The symbol of the organization was the black panther, which was its origin as a symbol for Black militant groups. Lowndes County is the county situated between Montgomery County and Dallas County (which includes Selma).

ScottB was known as the Bone Man because he wore a bone around his neck to urge everyone to get together like Ezekiel's dry bones, to register to vote at the Lowndes County jail house. Whites placed voter registration at the jail house as a means to intimidate African American voters out of registering. The jail house was a place where African American men went in, frequently "disappearing," never to be heard from again. When family members came to inquire after their incarcerated loved one, they were told that the prisoner had been released and law enforcement officials did not know where the prisoner had gone.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, ScottB took me around Lowndes, Montgomery, and Dallas Counties to familiarize me with the work that he did with local communities and with some of the current conditions of African American life in those same communities today.

On Tuesday one of our stops was at the home of Johnny and Betty Hall, members of the family of Mr. David Hall, who owned the property that was the first campsite on the Selma to Montgomery March. David Hall was an African American landowner on Highway 67, off Route 80, which runs east-west through Alabama, making the major route between Montgomery and Selma (and further west to Perry County, which was where Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered by police, leading to the Selma to Montgomery March). David Hall had not been particularly involved in the Civil Rights Movement, but when he observed the beatings of marchers on Bloody Sunday, he drove his truck the eight miles into Selma, to the Brown Chapel AME Church to offer his land as a campsite for the civil rights marchers. Johnny and Betty Hall presently live on the land David Hall offered for the marchers' use.

When we arrived at the Halls' home, we were met by some of Mr. and Mrs. Hall's grandchildren, who explained that their grandfather was on his way home from the hospital, where he had recently had heart surgery. They called him on his cell phone, and when he heard it was ScottB, Mr. Hall asked that we wait for them to get home. There were chairs set up in front of the garage, so we sat down and watched two of the grandchildren, an adorably pudgy twenty-two month old boy with cornrows and a pretty, slender girl of seven or eight, play out in the driveway, he on his big wheel and she on her bicycle with training wheels.

While we sat there, ScottB started to tell me about Cleophus Hobbs, who lives just down the road in Sunshine Village. Mr. Hobbs was a SNCC worker who was well respected in Lowndes and Dallas Counties. He wore a cowboy hat and carried a gun. He was shot at a number of times by whites and shot back in self-defense. The non-violent philosophy was not dominant in rural areas of Alabama, like Lowndes County, where Klan violence was such that fighting back was often a necessity. Cleophus Hobbs was an organizer in Selma before the famous march: he worked on demonstrations around education and voter registration. Children's education continued to be a concern of Mr. Hobbs throughout the years.

Before long, the Halls' car rolled in with Mr. and Mrs. Hall and a few more of their grandchildren. Though Mr. Hall was just out of the hospital, he sat down, out in front of the garage with us to talk for a few minutes before going inside to rest. One thing led to another in our conversation, and ScottB mentioned something about visiting Mr. Hobbs since he was just down the road. Mr. Hall then told us the news: Cleophus Hobbs had died the Friday before last, on June 10. He died peacefully, in his sleep. The funeral had already come and gone.

ScottB had known Cleophus Hobbs well and worked closely with him and was devastated not to have heard about his death in time to attend the funeral. In trying figure out something constructive he could do with his grief, ScottB came up with an idea:

Next year, June 10, 2006 will be the first celebration of Cleophus Hobbs Day.

Johnny and Betty Hall have offered Campsite 1, which is still on their family land, for the event. Campsite 1 is one of the stops on the National Park Service Historic Trail, following the route of the Selma to Montgomery March, and it is on the same road Mr. Hobbs lived on. The event will be sponsored by the White Hall Village Educational Association, which was founded by ScottB and Linda.

The event on June 10, 2006 will be a celebration of Cleophus Hobbs and it will be an opportunity for people in the area to talk about the things they are currently dealing with and to strategize and organize around their concerns. The first Cleophus Hobbs Day will also be a fundraiser for a commemorative plaque to be placed in Campsite 1, in memory of Mr. Hobbs. ScottB is encouraging other SNCC members to have celebrations for others who have passed and to use these occasions similarly for recognizing deceased civil rights workers' contributions and for addressing the problems people are facing now.

Let there be a James Forman Day, an Ella Baker Day, a Fannie Lou Hamer Day, an Emmett Till Day, and so on.

ScottB points out that these events could also be used as fundraisers to do things like giving money to families who could not afford the funeral costs for their loved ones.

For more information, contact ScottB, scottbsmithjr[at]yahoo[dot]com or Linda Dehnad, lindadehnad[at]hotmail[dot]com.

Good Stuff From The Comments

• After I blogged my friend Dana's memoir piece on her 1999 trip to Auchwitz, she commented to send me over to the website of Peter Cunningham, the photographer whose photo of Dana appears in her article.

Peter has spent years photographing musicians and there is a nice link on his site to those pictures. Open it up and you see many pictures you've seen replicated in many places -- he's the guy who took them!

You can truly get lost browsing through Peter Cunningham's photos. You can also read his own documentary essay with photos of an earlier trip he went on to Auchwitz, before the one Dana wrote about.

• Elisa Salasin posted some interesting comments regarding the article on expulsion rates for children in preschool. She also left a link for her Open Letter To Jenna Bush, published on Common Dreams.

Dear Ms. Bush,

I’ve read recently that you will soon be teaching in an urban, Washington, D.C. elementary school. As you begin your career there are a few things that I would like you to consider.

I’m sure that you are entering the profession with the highest of expectations for the children who will be under your care in the coming years, that you are not someone who might fall prey to the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” If possible, though, please take a few moments to think about just what it means to have high or low expectations for your students.

I ask you to do so because I believe that much of the so-called educational reform mandated in the name of “high” expectations truly reflects very low expectations of the intellectual capacities and learning potential of children – most specifically, poor children in urban schools who are usually not white and who often don't speak English as their first language.

This conclusion might seem counter-intuitive. After all, your father claims that No Child Left Behind is closing the achievement gap. He claims that test scores are rising, that more kids are reading at a higher level. I see that achievement gap differently – when teaching and textbooks mirror the tests, scores indeed will rise. In the eyes of some people, high expectations for students are being met. I see the high expectations of the testing/publishing industrial complex being met as their profits soar, and the high expectations of pundits being met as their pockets fatten. Let’s say that I’m wrong, though, and children are indeed learning more in this brave new world of education. We still cannot say that high expectations are being met without taking into account some of the other effects of NCLB on classrooms. A few examples include: students reading fewer actual books in school, far less time being spent on social studies, science, arts education, or any other activity that does not fall within the realm of concepts-to-be-tested.

Read the rest and also check out Elisa's blog, two feet in.

• On the second of my two posts about Olen Burrage, Susan Klopfer posted an excerpt from her forthcoming book Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited, due out on June 15. Susan prefaces her excerpt, saying, "Look away from Neshoba County and the "regular" klansmen. So many others were involved ..." I have actually linked to a similar excerpt (scroll down to "Further Reading"), which Susan had posted previously on her website, in order to make precisely her point, that others—including Senator James O. Eastland and Representative Prentiss Walker—are on the chain of responsibility for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Here's part of what Susan posted:

.... Ninety miles away from Neshoba County in Jackson, Sovereignty Commission director Johnston was looking at a possible direct link between Andrew Goodman and "communists." The name "Goodman" had attracted Senator Eastland’s interest, since Goodman had family ties to Pacifica Broadcasting, a progressive, alternative-broadcasting network founded in 1949 by pacifists.

Goodman’s father, Robert, was President of the Pacifica Foundation. One year prior to Andrew Goodman’s death, The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), headed by Senator Eastland, completed a three-year investigation of Pacifica’s programming, looking for "subversion."

In 1962, Pacifica station WBAI was the first station to publicly broadcast former FBI agent Jack Levine's exposé of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. The program was followed by threats of arrests and bombings, as well as pressure from the FBI, the Justice Department, and the FCC. Also that year, Pacifica trained volunteers to travel into the South for coverage of the awakening Civil Rights Movement. The station also took a strong anti-Vietnam war stance, helping to prompt the investigations.

Sovereignty Commission documents in fact show that Eastland knew the names and backgrounds of all volunteer workers in advance of their arrival, including Goodman. Records show the senator requested this information from the Sovereignty Commission well before the opening of Freedom Summer.

On February 26, 1965, Director Johnston wrote a letter to newly elected Congressman Prentiss Walker, requesting that he "ask the HUAC for any information about the Pacifica Foundation of New York…. We have reason to believe this foundation also is subversive."

A good source on the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner is Susan's chapter on that story (scroll down past the web form), currently posted on her website.

Susan is now also keeping two new blogs: Civil Rights Books and Emmett Till. Civil Rights Books is intended as "a forum to share civil rights history in Mississippi." There is already quite a bit of interesting posted there. Susan's Emmett Till Blog promises to soon be a place to go to follow the developments in the new FBI investigation of Emmett Till's murder.

Photo by Peter Cunningham

America vs. Its Young

Youngest Students Most Likely to Be Expelled
Preschoolers' Self-Esteem at Risk, Study Says

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 17, 2005; Page A02

Preschools are expelling youngsters at three times the rate of public schools, according to a nationwide study by Yale researchers, prompting concerns that children are being set up for educational failure at a very young age.

The first nationwide study of expulsion rates in state-supported preschools, scheduled for release today, found that boys are being thrown out of preschool 4 1/2 times as frequently as girls. African American preschoolers are twice as likely to be expelled as white or Latino children, and five times as likely as Asian Americans. Twice as many 5-year-olds face the ultimate sanction for bad behavior as 4-year-olds.

"These 3- and 4-year-olds are barely out of diapers," said Walter Gilliam, an assistant professor of child psychiatry and psychology at Yale University and author of the report "Prekindergarteners Left Behind." He said the lack of support for troubled youngsters could lead parents to "view their child as an educational failure well before kindergarten."

Los Angeles-based child development expert Karen Hill-Scott said the study provided scientific validation for the impression conveyed by the popular television show "Supernanny" "that there are a lot of out-of-control children out there." But she and other experts put much of the blame for the high expulsion rate on teachers and administrators rather than on children.

Child-care experts said that many expulsions could be avoided with better teacher training and greater support from psychologists and social workers. They noted that most states spend less than $5,000 a year per preschooler, compared with average per-pupil spending of more than $9,500 for other students.

(via Steve Gilliard.)

And So Should This Comment From Sam Friedman

I sent one of my posts on Ja'eisha Scott to the Civil Rights Movement veterans list-serve that I'm on, and Sam Friedman wrote back with the following:

I think that it might be useful to tell a story here from my life. Shortly after I began kindergarden in 1947 in school-segregated Washington, DC, as a white boy in a middle class school, something upset me and I became hysterical and stayed hysterical.

I was more than the teacher could deal with, so after some minutes they called a policeman to deal with me. It was pretty impressive to confront a cop as a 5 year old. BUT, instead of handcuffs, police cars, and all that, he soothed me and spoke to me in a very friendly fashion. Within a few minutes, I was back in control and back in the class room.

The contrast to this case is obvious. It is also worth realizing that, even though I was treated wonderfully by the policeman, I STILL REMEMBER THE INCIDENT almost 60 years later.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like, and will continue to be like, for the many Black kids who get handcuffed, put in cop cars, and the like.

Sam Friedman was a civil rights activist starting with his attendance at the Second Youth March for Integrated Schools in early 1959. He also was active in the Woolworth protests in 1960 in Washington DC, and in the Glen Echo protests and sit-in in Montgomery County Maryland in the summer of 1960. Thereafter, he was very involved in the movement for years.

Now, he is an AIDS researcher who is an author on over 300 publications in many journals (including Nature, Science, New England J of Medicine, etc.).

This Ought To Be Part Of Discussions Of The Ja'eisha Scott Case

You know, when they start saying knee-jerk stuff about how the problem is Inga Akins' parenting of Ja'eisha.

Tying such dire predictions of social decay to divorce and single motherhood seemed credible in the 1970s and 1980s. But a funny thing happened in the 1990s: Almost every negative social trend tracked by the census, the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Justice declined.

Teen birthrates fell by 30% between 1991 and 2002. The number of violent crimes in schools was halved between 1992 and 2002. Teen homicide rates dropped to their lowest level since 1966. Teen suicides decreased by 25%, and drug abuse, binge drinking and smoking all fell.

Yet the number of couples living together unmarried increased by more than 70% over the decade; the population at large increased by only 13% during this period. Gay and lesbian parenting became more common. The number of families headed by single mothers rose five times faster than the number of married-couple families.

Obviously, attributing the improvements of the 1990s to the continued increases in families headed by single moms is as absurd as blaming all the social ills of the 1980s on divorce.

Single parenthood does increase the risk that teens will get into trouble. But so do poverty, parental conflict, frequent school relocation, parental substance abuse and even an emotionally distant relationship with married parents.

Studies show that the majority of teens who exhibit serious behavior problems have five or more separate risk factors in their lives.

From an op-ed by Stephanie Coontz in the LA Times: OurKids Are Not Doomed (via Alas, A Blog).

Stop The Schoolhouse To Jailhouse Track

Between 1992 and 2002, nationwide violent crimes at schools against students aged 12 to18 dropped by 50%.

Between 1994 and 2002, the youth arrest rate for violent crimes has declined 47% nationally.

From 1974 to 2000, the number of students suspended out-of-school increased from 1.7 million to 3.1 million. Research conducted over the past five years has detailed the growing use of suspensions for trivial conduct, much of which is subjectively labeled “disrespect,” “disobedience,” and “disruption.”

While national data is not available, data from various districts indicate the growing trend toward using arrests to address school disciplinary matters. For example, the number of arrests in Philadelphia County schools has increased from 1,632 during the 1999–2000 school year to 2,194 in 2002–2003.

In 2002, of the 4,002 arrests of youths by Houston Independent School District Police, 660, or almost 17%, were for disruption (disruptive activities, disruption of classes, and disruption of transportation). Another 1,041 arrests, or 26%, were for disorderly conduct.

From Stop The Schoolhouse To Jailhouse Track, a website to support the recent Advancement Project report, Schools On Lockdown(PDF).

A Couple Of Good Articles On The Criminalization Of Ja'eisha Scott

Even 5-Year-Olds Have Civil Rights
By Lester Kenyatta Spence*, AOL BlackVoices columnist

I still don’t see how someone can agree with what happened in Florida just because teachers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. But people all over the country are agreeing, and many of them are black people.

Black people who believe in this claptrap are being hoodwinked into believing that our rights are based on something close to black perfection. It isn’t the first time.the civil rights movement would have looked a lot different if Rosa Parks was a single mother with a drinking problem.

Here is a lesson in American Citizenship 101: You do not have to act “right” to be treated like a citizen. You do not have to act “right” to be guaranteed an education. Wake up (emphasis added).

Granted, you can’t break the law, but we’re not talking about law breaking here.

We’re talking about a 5-year-old kid who had a couple of bad days at school. She wasn’t packing. She didn’t threaten to blow up the school. She didn’t get caught with weed in her locker. She wasn’t caught having sex in one of the bathrooms.

She.

Had.

A

Temper.

Tantrum.

That’s IT.

Racism in America has sunk to an all-time low
Baltimore Editorial Staff, The Afro American Newspapers

There must have been a better way to handle that situation.

First, the principal, rather than waiting for the student's mother to come to the school, invited the police to come in and inflame the situation. And the police, rather than reassessing the situation when they saw how quiet the child had become, shackled and "perp walked" the kindergartner, no doubt terrifying the child.

There must have been a better way.

A St. Louis principal was suspended, according to CNN, in a similar situation. The police spokesman in that case said handcuffing 5-year-olds "is not the practice of the department."

"Handcuffing indicates an arrest is being made," said Roxanne Evans of the D.C. Public Schools Office of Communications and Public Information. "In DCPS, a 5-year-old has not yet reached the age of reason to be charged with a crime. Therefore, there would be no reason for a 5-year-old to be handcuffed."

According to Baltimore City Public School System spokeswoman Vanessa Pyatt, the local policy is the use of passive restraint. The policy's description is disseminated annually to families in the "Information Guide for Parents and Students." She said a student would never be handcuffed without having been charged with a crime and being formally under arrest, which has never happened in our system to a 5-year-old.

School police would be called in because policy demands they be notified when situations erupt, but the goal is always that they be handled internally.

Florida apparently has no such policy.

The police procedures used to take that child into custody are reserved for people under arrest, who are violent, dangerous and might pull out a weapon and injure the arresting officer. None of those elements existed; therefore, there must have been another motive for such rash, demonstrative and dramatic action (emphasis added)

"Children need to have hope that they can succeed, and they need family stability and adults they can trust. They also need counseling when trauma affects them," said Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund, in reference to a similar case. "At critical points in their development, however, from birth through adulthood, a disproportionate number of poor children of color lack access to these important keys to healthy development and struggle to compete on an unequal playing field. Many fall inexorably behind. The pipeline to prison robs children of their God-given birthrights to opportunity, fulfillment and self-actualization, making it far more likely that they will end up behind bars" (emphasis added).

*Lester K. Spence is also a blogger over at Vision Circle.

A Little Comparative Analysis From Blackwell Raines

Blackwell Raines left another good comment on Monday, relating the Ja'eisha Scott story to the Jennifer Wilbanks story.

[T]he great charters--Constitution, Bill of Rights--of U.S. democracy can't just be real and consequential for some, and mere half-remembered school history for others. A basic premise in all the talk of government is the dignity of personhood. And yes, this principle extends to the very young, especially to a 5-year old, who cannot speak for themselves, or process through the events of an heavily-handcuffed arrest by three uniformed adults.

This doctrine comes with the expectation that every citizen is to be treated and accorded the equality of respect that comes with being a human being and citizen. It regards each person as an equal unit of importance because that person exist, not because given members of an institution chooses to disqualify certain persons based upon ethnic and socioeconomic grounds. . . .

A state away, over the weekend, a middle class white female was reported to have petpetuated a hoax: runaway bride: "bride-to-be gets cold feet," decides to disappear. Kidnapping was suspected, and later with the surfacing of the would-be bride, an alleged fabricated story was told to authorities. The search for the missing bride had involved 100 people on various government levels. Yet, upon learning of the fabrication, and seeing the bride-to-be arrive safely back in her hometown, there has been little criticism. In a carefully crafted statement, the police, called the experience most stressing--that is, for the bride-to-be. No charges have been filed the 32-year-old.

Institutions have long memories, and carry out their own aims and goals. The 5-year-old, acting up in kindergarten, is quickly claimed as disposable. The 32-year-old is deemed valued, and even criticism of her actions is muted, despite learning her disappearance a hoax. Accordingly, we're told the 32-year-old needs to have private time with her family, given the stress of it all. (Part of her disappearance was to Vegas.)

Two headline-grabbing examples, with the dignity of personhood being honored in one case, and summarily dismissed in the other, despite one being a very young child. But both are female.

In both instances, the institutions made judgment calls--they expressed harsh, severe reaction based upon the perceived social value of one person, while with the other, expressions of leniency, sympathetic support and even empathy, applying a different social value.

Interesting to note, there exist another disparity between the stories, on a different level: the 32-year-old received no heavy negative commentary of having been spoiled, of being overly privileged, or simply, of being too selfish, although much had been spent and scheduled for her Saturday wedding, and equally, much expense given in searching for her. . . .

Criticisms leveled against the mother of the 5-year-old are also anecdotal, and worst. They are too ready, too often, to cavalierly dismiss the brutalization of a 5-year-old as of no real consequence, a necessary function of order. They provide the strawperson argument that protests against criminalization and brutalization of minorites by institutions is, in reality, no more than an attempt to manufacture cover for wrongdoing. Even an excuse for malcontents.

It should be note that brutalization and criminalization is rarely defined by the administering of physical blows. This is why adults can win litigation efforts after citing "mental anguish" and "emotional abuse."

And Then There's That Special Genre Of Purposeful Abuse By Educators

The latest one I've heard about was in Queens, NY (via Laurence at Blogging While Black):

Haitian Children Forced to Eat Like Animals

It's the kind of spat that flares thousands of times a day in schools all over the country.

But at Public School 34 in Queens Village, Assistant Principal Nancy Miller's ghastly way of handling a minor scuffle between two Haitian fourth-graders has sparked fury.

According to parents and students, Miller, who is white, chose to punish all 13 Haitian pupils in the school's only fourth-grade bilingual class - even though just two were involved in the March 16 incident.

She ordered all 13 to sit