To: Madam Secretary of State Madeline Albright

The Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. Memorial Foundation is an advocate for young, poor, homeless, elderly and powerless people around the world, particularly in America. The Foundation joined President Bill Clinton's Initiative on Race with The DISH in January 1998. The DISH's efforts in the dialogue are aimed at educating people around the world about the history of slavery, segregation and institutionalized racism in America. As an immigrant, I can understand how you may lack perspective on these subjects, which is precisely why I am addressing this inquiry to you.

Initially, several United Nations offices and representatives received correspondence regularly as part of The DISH's distribution list. Following Y2K, The DISH' s correspondences to the U N were automatically returned. Attached to all returns was this message, "You are not allowed to send mail to." Several troubling questions regarding First Amendment rights, freedom of the press, expression and protest are at issue here. First, I was not aware the press needed permission to correspond with someone in New York City. Next, e-mail is a phone call, so from whom does one get permission to make telephone calls? Finally, obviously e-mail was received from The DISH, in 1999, when and why was it taken off the list to transmit e-mails to the U N?

Madam, since the U N falls under foreign policy, I must assume stopping our e-mail has something to do with national security. Ignored completely by Clinton/Gore's evasion of reparations, I fail to see how what is written in The DISH would draw such concern. Unless perhaps, The Foundation's letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan requesting assistance in bringing charges of genocide against America has finally been brought to your attention. In that case, I recognize the footprints of Co-Intel- Pro and "Echelon." President Clinton having ended his race initiative without comment and The current White House's e-mail scandal leaves no doubt, he wishes to limit blacks' contact with the outside world. A survivor of the Holocaust, you should remember the feeling of helplessness, unable to stop the inevitable grind of the Nazi's bureaucracy. Enduring such a voiceless existence, you should be shocked and appalled at such a policy. How can you in good conscious, support a policy that forces blacks to suffer in silence?

African Americans view Clinton/Gore's efforts as raising a "black curtain" to disguise the Y2KKK's re-segregation of America. Locked away behind a "cotton curtain" for most of the 1900s, blacks endured lynchings, discrimination, racism and poverty. Except for outstanding individuals, such as Ida B. Wells, Ralph Bunch, Paul Roberson and Malcolm X, the world would not have known the dire condition of blacks in America. Most white men in power today are sons, and grandsons of the men who were responsible for the deprivation of segregation. Living in the shadow of the Confederate flag today serves as a daily reminder that blacks were once their property. Limiting freedom of the press for blacks take away our only remaining voice of protest against America's ongoing genocide.

Young black men are 80% of some prison populations, unarmed black youth are being shot down on the streets of America almost daily, young single mothers are without education and hope, while their children suffer malnutrition and a deplorable lack of health care in the richest nation on earth. They are slave descendants and victims of institutionalized racism, as you and your parents were victims of the "Final Solution." Did you not want someone to speak up for you, or better yet, speak yourself and tell your own story, Madam Secretary? Blacks in America ask no less, or are you a compassionate conservative too? I await your timely response. Thank You, John Burl Smith

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