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Vol. 13 No. 33…Dedicated to the Dialogue on
Race…August 15, 2010
Venue for an Artist
The Problem
By John Greenleaf Whittier
NOT without envy Wealth at times must look
On
their brown strength who wield the reaping-hook
And scythe, or at the forge-fire shape the plough
Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam;
All who, by skill and patience, anyhow
Make service noble, and the earth redeem
From savageness. By kingly accolade
Than theirs was never worthier knighthood made.
Well for them, if, while demagogues their vain
And evil counsels proffer, they maintain
Their honest manhood unseduced, and wage
No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain
Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain,
And softer pillow for the head of Age.
And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields
Labor its just demand; and well for Ease
If in the uses of its own, it sees
No wrong to him who tills its pleasant fields
And spreads the table of its luxuries.
The interests of the rich man and the poor
Are one and same, inseparable evermore;
And, when scant wage or labor fail to give
Food, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live,
Need has its rights, necessity its claim.
Yea, even self-wrought misery and shame
Test well the charity suffering long and kind.
The home-pressed question of the age can find
No answer in the catch-words of the blind
Leaders of blind. Solution there is none
Save in the Golden Rule of Christ alone.
About
Me: John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 - September 7, 1892) was
an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of
slavery in the
Swimming
By John Burl Smith
A recent newspaper picture of a
hot summer afternoon with family and friends frolicking on a sandy bank,
splashing and floating on tubes in an old-fashioned swimming hole could have
been an idyllic Norman Rockwell painting. Beginning on Friday evenings, the
river came alive with families lighting up grills and playing music while
children experienced the nearest thing to a beach vacation in
Raining on beach goers' party,
When the newly constructed
2.4-mile South River Arabia Mountain Trail opened, no signs warned county
residents not to bathe and fish in the river. Oblivious to the fact that the
water was contaminated with fecal coliform, PCBs,
sewage spills and private dumping, people have been partying in a longtime
DeKalb funk factory.
South River is listed by the
Residents have safety concerns
for those coming in contact with the water, sand and pathways along the river's
edge. Residents who walk along the county-maintained path complain that on some
mornings there is a smell, "an awful stench," along the riverbank.
Community activist Jerry Wyatt
says, "Ten years ago we expressed concerns about the pollution in
Disclaiming knowledge of the problem, DeKalb District 5 Commissioner Lee May
said, "I didn't know all that was going on but that's a public safety
issue. I'll see what can be done to discourage access to the river." May
seemed more concerned about the county's liability issue than the health
problems a polluted river poses to the community.
DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis' office
was completely missing in action on this matter. His office said, "Signs
are going to be installed along the park property along
Gordon Cargle, a DeKalb Environmental Health
official, said people who bathe in water contaminated with fecal coliform are at risk for a number of bacteria and viruses
that cause diarrhea and stomach illnesses."They
resemble food-borne illnesses and people often think they have eaten something
bad, but actually, it is the water in which they bathed," he said.
Susan Salter, manager of the
Impaired Waters list for the Georgia EPA, said that "all 14 miles of the
South River in DeKalb County between Atlanta and Flakes Mill Road is
"impaired," containing fecal coliform and
PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). "Fecal coliform
is a bacterium that lives in the intestines of humans and other warm-blooded
mammals like dogs."
PCBs are toxic man-made organic
chemicals known as chlorinated hydrocarbons, which lodge in the tissue of fish
and if consumed in large quantities can be very harmful to humans. They were
used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications including
electrical, heat transfer and hydraulic equipment; as plasticizers in paints,
plastics and rubber products; and in pigments, dyes and carbonless copy paper
before they were banned in 1979. Today PCBs can still be released into the
environment from poorly maintained hazardous waste sites; illegal or improper
dumping; leaks or releases from electrical transformers; and disposal of
PCB-containing products into municipal or other landfills not designed to
handle hazardous waste. PCBs do not degrade readily and remain for years,
cycling between air, water and soil.
The Arabia Mountain Heritage Area
Alliance sponsored a 58.5-mile kayak trip (2006) for Richard Grove, a river
enthusiast, from the South River's origin near East Point down to where it
joins the Yellow and Alcovy rivers to form the
Weekly, thousands of gallons of sewage are spilled into Shoal Creek, Cobb Creek,
Intrenchment Creek, Snapfinger
Creek and others - all ending up in
South DeKalb is a "dumping
ground" for many of
Adam Clayton Powell,
Jr. (1908-1972)
Born
November 29, 1908 in
Handsome and charismatic, Powell
became a prominent civil rights leader in Harlem during the Great Depression;
he succeeded his father as pastor of
In 1941, Powell became the first
black elected to the New York City Council. Three years later, Powell was
elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. With his
congressional election, Powell became the first black Congressman from
As one of only two blacks in Congress, Powell challenged the informal ban on
black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for white members only.
Powell took black constituents to dine with him in the "whites only"
House restaurant and frequently clashed with many segregationists within the
Democratic Party.
In opposition to his party, Powell supported the presidential reelection bid of
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, because the Democratic Party's civil
rights platform was too weak. Efforts to oust him by the Tammany Hall machine
in 1958 proved unsuccessful.
After15 years in Congress, Powell
became chairman of the powerful Education and Labor Committee in 1961. He
presided over federal programs for minimum wage increases, Medicaid, expanding
the minimum wage to include retail workers, equal pay for women, education and
training for the deaf, nursing education, vocational training and standards for
wages and work hours, as well as aid to elementary and secondary education.
Powell orchestrated passage of
the backbone of President John Kennedy's "New Frontier" legislation
and was instrumental in the passage of President Lyndon B. Johnson's
"Great Society" programs and the War on Poverty. His committee passed
a record 50 bills through Congress in a single session, a record which still
stands.
Powell was instrumental in passing legislation that made lynching a federal
crime, as well as bills that desegregated public schools. In addition, he
challenged the Southern practice of charging blacks a poll tax to vote, and
stopped racist congressmen from saying the n-word in sessions of Congress.
By the mid-1960s Powell was being increasingly criticized for mismanagement of
his committee's budget, taking trips abroad at public expense (including travel
to his retreat on the Bahamian isle of Bimini), and
missing sittings of his committee. Following allegations that he had
misappropriated committee funds for personal use and other charges, including
evading a subpoena in
Powell urged his supporters to "keep the faith, baby" while the
investigation went on. On March 1 the House voted 307 to 116 to exclude him.
Powell won the special election in April to fill the vacancy caused by his
exclusion, but did not take his seat. He sued in Powell v. McCormack to retain
his seat. Powell was again elected in November, 1968, and on January 3, 1969,
was seated as a member of the 91st Congress, but was fined $25,000 and denied
seniority. In June 1969 the Supreme Court ruled that the House acted
unconstitutionally in excluding a duly elected member.
In June 1970, Powell was defeated
in the Democratic primary by Charles B. Rangel. After resigning his post as
minister of the
A section of
We Have Been Here Before
By John Burl Smith
The Tea Party Movement is not new;
this nation has been here before. When President Rutherford B. Hayes pulled
federal troops out of the South (1876), ending Reconstruction, the federal
government turned its back on freed slaves and ceased enforcing the 14th and
15th Amendments. The US Supreme Court rolled back all gains former slaves and their
descendants made that resulted from the passage of civil rights bills. States
enacted grandfather clauses, literacy tests, poll taxes and property
requirements in order to vote, disenfranchising blacks.
Intimidated, powerless and
without any economic base, blacks spent the next seventy years trying to build
socioeconomic and political clout. Following the Black Political Convention
(1969) held in
Throughout Jim Crow segregation
(1890-1970), white politicians, even those elected from majority black
districts, did not represent black people. Consequently, when blacks were able
to elect a black representative, that person stayed in Congress many years
building seniority. Until about 2000, seniority did blacks little good.
However, votes of CBC members became crucial as partisan division narrowed in
Congress. Unable to defeat CBC incumbents, conservatives -- Republican and
Democrat -- employed a new tactic - ethics violations.
Created in 2008, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), an arm of the House
Ethics Committee, has increasingly singled out members of the CBC for
investigation. There are 435-members in the U.S. House of Representatives, but
15% of the total House Ethics committee investigations have focused on CBC
members (9.6%). Supporters of the CBC believe the high proportion of black
lawmakers under investigation is an attempt by the OCE to disenfranchise slave
descendants and drive black representatives out of congress.
The last time we were here was
during Reconstruction (1866-1877); then there were blacks elected to Congress,
the Senate, governorships and state legislatures across the South. White
politicians created suspicion about black politicians' incompetence, spreading
rumors and innuendos of corruption. White groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan,
used lynch law and mob rule to force black politicians from office and black
voters out of the political process. Afraid to support each other or try to
defend the rights of black people, black politicians stood idly by while other
blacks were driven from office and black people denied access to voting polls.
It was not until Adam Clayton
Powell (D-NY) was elected to Congress in 1945 that slave descendants began to
rebuild political representation in the
Facing the tactics of the OCE,
black people recognize that "we have been here before." This time,
Congressional ethics investigations are the tool being used to do what white
politicians cannot do at the polls -- defeat black congressional candidates. In
2008, a self-described "conservative watchdog organization," the
National Legal and
The Washington Post reported that House ethics investigators have been
scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides for
issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according
to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July. The OCE has
investigated at least eight members of the CBC, and referred four to the House
Ethics Committee, but it has investigated only one -- Chairman of the House
Ways and Means Committee Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) .
Acting on news reports supplied by the NLPC, the OCE zeroed in on a 2008 trip
to St. Maarten. The trip taken by Rangel and four
other members of the CBC last November was initially billed by sponsors as paid
for by a nonprofit foundation. But later, it turned out that the three-day
luxury resort junket was underwritten by corporations such as Citigroup, Pfizer
and AT&T. Déjà vu an Adam Clayton Powell setup!!!
Another OCE hit job was reported
in the LA Times. According to the July report, Rep. Maxine Waters, another
powerful and high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee,
came under OCE scrutiny because her husband owns at least $250,000 worth of OneUnited Bank of
Then, there is Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC), who in October (2009) introduced an
amendment to the financial regulatory reform bill, H.R. 4173, which would have
placed automobile dealers under oversight of the proposed federal Consumer
Protection Financial Agency. Watt withdrew the amendment, arousing the
suspicion of the OCE, which noticed auto financing companies attended a
Democratic National Committee fund raiser held in Watt's honor 2 days later.
There were several other lawmakers implicated, but Watt is the only one under
investigation for ethics violations. Did Watt, a 9-term Congressman, drop the
amendment as part of a deal? Suspicions are all that are necessary for the OCE
and conservative Republicans to intimidate Democrats.
Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) has
introduced legislation, cosponsored by 19 members of the CBC, which would
restrict disclosure of investigations by the OCE and require it to obtain a
sworn complaint from a citizen with personal knowledge of the alleged
wrongdoing before initiating a probe. Freshman Democrats from swing districts
-- including Representatives Michael Arcuri (D-NY),
Debbie Halvorson (D-IL), Paul Hodes (D-NH), Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) Walter Minnick (D-ID),
Zack Space (D-OH), Betty Sutton (D-OH) and John Yarmuth
(D-KY) -- who should be supporting Fudge's legislation are running scared from
conservatives Republicans, hoping throwing blacks under the bus will save their
bacon, but they do not know history. Once racists in Congress got rid of blacks
(1890s), they went after everyone that was not a member of the Klan. Yes, we've
been here before!
Symptom of Housing Crisis
Metro
For the thousands of individuals
that turned out in the city of
A mob of thirty thousand,
representing three-fourths of the south Fulton County city's 40,000 population,
was triple the crowd anticipated by the authority. Confusion and chaos combined
with above 90 degree temperatures and oppressive humidity to create a scene
similar to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when thousands sought shelter at
the New Orleans Superdome.
Many of those waiting in the long
line at the
Small children and the elderly
were particularly vulnerable. People collapsed in the heat. Emergency personnel
handed out bottled water and carried the sick to area hospitals. At least 62
people were injured or became ill, including a baby.
To control the crowd, police command posts were set up;
On Wednesday, after the crowd thinned out at the
Currently, some 15,000 Georgians receive Section 8 housing vouchers; thousands
more are on waiting lists. The fiasco at
Section 8: Housing Choice Vouchers
The Housing Choice Voucher
Program (Section 8) is the federal government's major program for assisting
very low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to afford decent, safe,
and sanitary housing in the private market. Since housing assistance is
provided on behalf of the family or individual, participants are able to find
their own housing, including single-family homes, townhouses and apartments;
they are not limited to units located in subsidized housing projects.
Housing choice vouchers are
administered locally by public housing agencies (PHAs).
The PHAs receive federal funds from the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to administer the voucher
program.
Families issued housing vouchers are responsible for finding suitable housing
unit where the owner agrees to rent under the program. Suitable housing may
include a family's present residence. Rental units must meet minimum standards
of health and safety, as determined by the PHA.
A housing subsidy is paid to the landlord directly by the PHA on behalf of the
participating family. The family then pays the difference between the actual
rent charged by the landlord and the amount subsidized by the program. Under
certain conditions, if authorized by the PHA, a family may use its voucher to
purchase a home.
Section 8 eligibility is based on the total annual gross income and family
size. It is limited to
During the application process,
the PHA collects information on family income, assets, and family composition
and verifies this information with other local agencies, your employer and
bank. This information is then used to determine program eligibility and the
amount of housing assistance.
If the PHA determines that your
family is eligible, your name will be placed on a waiting list, if it cannot
immediately provide assistance. If your name is placed on the waiting list,
once your name is reached, the PHA will contact you and issue you a housing
voucher.
If you are interested in applying
for a voucher, contact the local PHA or HUD Office nearest you. In addition to
the housing choice voucher program, you may also ask to be placed on the
waiting list for the public housing program. HUD also administers other
subsidized programs and you may obtain a list of programs in your area from the
Office of Housing at your local HUD office or visit www.hud.gov.
Disgruntled wants to know:
The chaotic situation that occurred in
Disgruntled
says: There were rumors during the run-up to his election as DeKalb
County, Georgia CEO that Vernon Jones, the first black to hold this position,
was a Republican masquerading as a Democrat.
Disgruntled
feels: Lynched! Lynching in the
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email
gregdempsey@sti.net ...Cops Sued after Firing
42 Times at Carjacked Mom, Kids - The Florida Times-Union reports the lawsuit
alleges that the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has a "widespread
practice" of unjustified shootings. A mother who was shot along with her
two-year-old son when they were carjacked at a drive-through restaurant in
Email
gregdempsey@sti.net ...The New Orleans
Times-Picayune has uncovered evidence
that police officers physically attacked two city residents and a working
photojournalist, on Sept. 1, 2005, three days after Hurricane Katrina made
landfall. The story helps explain a mysterious scene we reported about last
December in a joint project with the Times-Picayune and PBS' FRONTLINE, one of
a series of reports documenting violent encounters between citizens and
officers of New Orleans Police Department in the aftermath of Katrina. The
latest news centers on a violent encounter that occurred on