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Vol. 14 No. 7…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…February 14, 2011
Executive Orders
By John Burl Smith
On February 8, 2011, Independent
Lens presented the award-winning documentary film, When I Rise on PBS. This
powerful story is about Barbara Smith Conrad, a gifted black 
mezzo-soprano
international opera superstar, who attended the
Presidential jawboning from the
"bully pulpit" is one such use of executive power that shows
leadership by drawing attention to an issue. A more direct application is an
executive order, which gives the full force of law to a situation pursuant to
Acts of Congress. A powerful tool, executive orders guide officers and agencies
of the Executive branch in a particular direction. Presidential authority to
issue such orders is based on power inherently granted to the Executive by the
Constitution. Although no Constitutional provision or statute explicitly permits
Executive Orders, Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 grants "executive
power" and the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully
executed" in Article II, Section 3, Clause 4, has been construed as the
legal basis of Executive Orders.
The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1,
1863 is one of the most famous executive orders ever issued. It immediately
freed 50,000 of the nation's four million slaves. President Woodrow T. Wilson
used executive orders to establish segregation throughout the federal
government and enforce segregation across the
President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10479 on August 13, 1953
to establish the anti-discrimination Committee on Government Contracts, which
created a mechanism to enforce FDR's order. President John F. Kennedy's
Executive Order 10925 required government contractors to "take affirmative
action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated
equitably during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or
national origin." It established the President's Committee on Equal
Employment Opportunity on March 6, 1961, which later became the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Executive Order 11246 was issued
by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 24, 1965. It required Equal
Employment Opportunity by "prohibiting federal contractors and federally
assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in
Government business in one year, from discriminating in employment decisions on
the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." It also
required such contractors to implement affirmative action plans to increase the
participation of minorities and women in the workplace if a workforce analysis
demonstrates their under-representation.
President Richard M. Nixon issued
Executive Order 11478 (8/8/69) prohibiting discrimination in the competitive
service of the federal civilian workforce, including the United States Postal
Service and civilian employees of the U.S. Armed Forces. It stated that,
"It is the policy of the Government of the United States to provide equal
opportunity in Federal employment for all persons, to prohibit discrimination
in employment because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap,
age, sexual orientation, or status as a parent and to promote the full
realization of equal employment opportunity through a continuing affirmative
program in each executive department and agency."
Although Dido was a black
Carthaginian Queen, Barbara Conrad was replaced by a white female. Such absurd
acts of discrimination remain systemic barriers to thousands of blacks who are
judged not on ability and character but solely on color. Today, no one
remembers the white girl that replaced Ms Conrad. That denial did not block Ms.
Conrad's audacious hope of developing her great talent and fulfilling her
dream, but it did deny the University of Texas and its students the opportunity
of being a part of a positive statement about the values "freedom,
justice, fairness, perseverance and indomitable courage"-- which America
claims to cherish.
Ms.
Conrad, during her dark hours, was aided by Harry Belafonte, who helped open a
door and encouraged her to step through. For thousands of blacks, this is all
that is needed to help break free of the vestiges of ongoing discrimination in
the
During Kennedy's Presidential
Inaugural address in 1961, he promised to end racial discrimination. Today,
The Obama administration is like the
Belafonte on Obama
The following are excerpts from
an interview conducted by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now with legendary singer,
actor, humanitarian and activist Harry Belafonte in
AMY
GOODMAN: I'm looking at a headline, as we sit in
HARRY BELAFONTE: If I take a
shift from how confused and how complicated the politics of this country is,
I'd have to first of all say that the fact that the collective power of the
voters of this nation, among all of its citizens, should have chosen to elect
him as the president of the United States says something about America's deeper
resonance. Where really lies Americans',
And I'm reminded very quickly of a story, sitting with Eleanor Roosevelt, told
us one night up there in
And when you ask me about Barack Obama, it is exactly what happened to Kennedy.
We, the American people, made the history of that time come to another place by
our passion and our commitment to change. What is saddened--what is sad for
this moment is that there is no force, no energy, of popular voice, popular
rebellion, popular upheaval, no champion for radical thought at the table of
the discourse. And as a consequence, Barack Obama has nothing to listen to,
except his detractors and those who help pave the way to his own personal comfort
with power--power contained, power misdirected, power not fully engaged. And it
is our task to no longer have expectations of him, unless we have forced him to
the table and he still resists us. And if he does that, then we know what else
we have to do, is to make change completely. But I think he plays the game that
he plays because he sees no threat from evidencing concerns for the poor. He
sees no threat from evidencing a deeper concern for the needs of black people,
as such. He feels no great threat from evidencing a greater policy towards the
international community, for expressing thoughts that criticize the American
position on things and turns that around. Until we do that, I think we'll be
forever disappointed in what that administration will deliver.
AMY GOODMAN: And to those who
say, "If you want President Obama re-elected, you will undermine him if
you criticize him; and consider the alternative"?
HARRY BELAFONTE: I think we will
not only undermine him, but undermine the hopes of this nation, if we don't
criticize him. Absence of protest in the times of this kind of national
crisis--Theodore Roosevelt once says, "When tyranny takes over the
national agenda, it is that time that the voices of protest must be awakened.
And if you don't raise your voice in protest, you are a patriotic
traitor." And I believe that patriotism is betrayed by those voices that
are not heard. Those who would detract you from that fact are those who have a
vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Nothing will happen but good for
Barack Obama and the
Come on and Bring On the Reparations
By Sekou Sundiata
Oh master of the perfect word Universe
Tricknological forked tongue
Riddle me this
If the Chinese can
come from
And the French can
come from
What made you think
you could get Niggers out of
Just because you put puppies in the oven
That don't make them biscuits
Reparations on GP
Come on and bring on
the Reparations
For all the unrequited home runs
Brothers be burning up the bases
The crowd be going mad
Brothers be crossing over home plate
Go outside and can't catch a cab
For Little Richie teaching the Beatles how to scream
Like Aunt Jemima without her pancakes
And all the other dark and unknown rockers
Electrified the republic...Sanctified...
Shaking that Cold War out of the booty body politics
Come on and bring on
the reparations
For the beat in beatnik...White Negroes and such
Getting off up under that great music in them little ass five spots
For the jazz in the jazz age
Making your women wiggle and squirm
And you trying to twist and do the worm
You know abstract expressionism gism dripping
You might say
If I was you, I would go on the road and howl too
Jimmy Dean and Elvis, they can go wherever they went
Marilyn too, since she got caught in a trick
And got bent out of that cute little shape she had going
Come on and bring on
the reparations
For the
Four little girls come Sunday
For the Jesus remix and those red neck
Street fire hose, mad dogs crucifix
And what exactly did you say you were doing at the time
About soft shoe on the rock of edges
For the privilege in your skin
A
Come on and bring on
the reparations
For the spook with the metal detector
Sitting by your door
Open just enough probably
To a spoon full of cocaine on the table
Monica on her knees doing secret service
You humming Mon monda rap song
What about all those flags we so proudly hail?
Marvin Gaye singing "Oh say can you see"
Wearing shades like mirrors at the all-star game
So you can reflect yourself...relaxed and feeling good
The dark looker doing his looking like he was blind
Bearing witness to the whiteness of whiteness
Pretending you was the only one who could see
Tis after all about thee...Just like you like it
Mercy, mercy me
And so on and so forth
For the missing royalty checks...And so on and so forth
For VD in
And so on and so forth
Think of it ...think of it as the down payment
On the interest compounded
Them 40 acres not withstanding...
That mule not withstanding....
Multiplied, quantified, digitized
What to say about forgiveness between you and your god?
Come on and bring on
the reparations.
About
Me: Poet, performer, playwright and teacher, Sundiata's subjects
included Jimi Hendrix, Mandela, and reparations for slavery. A Sundance
Institute Screenwriting Fellow, a Columbia University Revson Fellow, a Master
Artist-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the first
Writer-in-Residence at the New School University in New York, a professor at
Eugene Lang College and featured poet on two occasions at the Geraldine R.
Dodge Poetry Festival, Sundiata died of heart failure on July 18, 2007. This
spoken word piece is best experienced via video. See
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWhnZPeW644.
Dr. Conrad Walter Worrill
Born August 15, 1941 in 
Conrad
Walter Worrill was greatly influenced by his father's activism. His father was
active in the NAACP and YMCA and he was one of the leaders of the NAACP that
led efforts to desegregate Brookside Park, where blacks were not allowed to
swim, except when the pool was drained. At age nine, Worrill's family moved to
Worrill, an avid athlete gained his first racial consciousness through
competitive swimming when his black YMCA team faced serious heckling. In high
school, he played football, basketball, and ran track. He entered
After receiving his Ph.D, Worrill
taught for two years at
Through his work as an educator, newspaper columnist, community organizer, and
radio talk show host, Dr. Worrill has become a preeminent figure in black
activism From his beginnings in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s through
his mobilizing role in the Million Man March, he has consistently probed issues
of power in African American life and emphasized the need for greater
independence.
For the past thirty-five years, Dr. Worrill has held a variety of positions
both inside and outside academia. Throughout this period, his overriding
concern has been the development of viable strategies and tactics to advance
African independence and self-determination at "home and abroad." In this
regard, Dr. Worrill has combined his skills as a scholar, activist, speaker and
writer to participate in numerous local, national, and international issues
affecting African people.
Dr. Worrill has served as the National Chairman of the National Black United Front
(NBUF). Under his leadership, NBUF worked tirelessly to change the American
public school curriculum to more accurately reflect the contributions of
African and African people in
Dr. Worrill's vast experience in
education makes him a sought after consultant and lecturer. He is considered a
major expert on Black Movement History in the
Dr. Worrill is married to Talibah
and is the father of two. (Sources: www.thehistorymakers.com/
, www.answers.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Worrill)
The UN and People of African Descent
By Dr. Conrad W.
Worrill
We must regain the momentum which
the Reparations Movement had in the first few years of this century. The United
Nations World Conference Against Racism in 
Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade and Slavery as a Crime Against Humanity for which Reparations are
due!
The U. N. has declared 2011 the
"Year for People of African Descent." There are different activities
being planned. As Malcolm X taught us, we must use the international arena to
highlight our National Human Rights' Demand for Reparations! Let us review the
work of the December 12th Movement and NBUF leading up to the World
Conference Against Racism.
In 1999, the National Black
United Front (NBUF) joined forces with the December 12th Movement in organizing
a delegation of Africans in
The December 12th Movement
International Secretariat, the International Association Against Torture, North
South XXI has official Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status with the
United Nations. Over the last twenty years, this group has committed much of
its organizing efforts to participating in the United Nations Human Rights
Commission by presenting numerous issues that impact African people in
As Atty. Roger Wareham of the
December 12th Movement recently revealed in an article circulated on the internet,
"Since 1997 , when the U.N. agreed to hold this World Conference, the
United States, Canada, and Western Europe (the WEO Group of countries) have
done all they can to prevent it from succeeding."
In the spring of 1998, at the African Group meeting during the Commission on
Human Rights in
At the African Regional
Preparatory Conference for the World Conference Against Racism held in
· Affirm that the slave trade is
a unique tragedy in the history of humanity, particularly against Africans, a
crime against humanity which is unparalleled , not only in its abhorrent
barbaric feature, but also, in terms of its enormous magnitude, its
institutionalized nature, its transnational dimension and especially its
negation of the human nature of the victims.
· Further affirm that the
consequences of this tragedy accentuated by those of colonialism and apartheid,
have resulted in substantial and lasting economic, political, and cultural
damage caused to the descendants of the victims, the perpetuation of the
prejudice against Africans on the continent and people of African descent in
the Diaspora.
· Strongly reaffirm that States
which pursued racist policies or acts of racial discrimination, such as
slavery, colonialism, and apartheid, should assume their full responsibilities
and provide adequate reparations to those States, communities and individuals
who were victims of such racist policies or acts, regardless of when or by whom
they were committed.
International law supports the
position that the enslavement of Africans was a crime against humanity. The
Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal defined crimes against humanity in this
manner: "Murder , extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other
inhumane acts committed against any civilian population… whether or not in
violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetuated."
The African Reparations Movement
explains that, "Historians and their experts can show, without difficulty
, how the invasion of African territories, the mass capture of Africans, the
horrors of the middle passage, the chattelization of Africans in America, and
the extermination of the language and culture of the transported Africans,
constituted violations of all these international laws." Thus, the Trans
Atlantic Slave Trade was a Crime Against Humanity and, it is clear, African
people are owed reparations throughout the world.
Again, as Atty. Wareham explains, "Before the U.N. World Conferences are
actually held, they are preceded by PrepCom (Preparatory Committee meetings) in
the various geographical regions of the world where the actual content of the
final document, the program of action was worked out, and the PreComs were
completed. All of the regional PreComs are over. In Geneva, Switzerland, a
working group meeting held March 6 -9, 2001 to consider a Draft Declaration
(the Durban Declaration) and tried to resolve a dispute about whether
compensatory relief (i.e. reparations) should even be considered as a theme of
the World Conference. This was only an issue because of US and Western European
opposition." The dispute was not settled and another meeting will be held
in May in
The New York Times
revealed, "A conference on racism this summer could be one of the most explosive
meetings this organization (United Nations) has ever held, with moves afoot to
cast globalization as a racial issue and to demand reparations for the slave
trade and colonialism."
For more than twenty years, the December 12th Movement International
Secretariat has fought in defense of the human rights of African people at the
United Nations, in both Switzerland and New York. During this time, they have
come to help us understand that while we, as African people, may not recognize
the importance of the international agency to the progress of our struggle, but
the
NBUF agrees with the December
12th Movement that we must continue to organize at the international level in
bringing the issues of African people before the world and especially the issue
of Reparations. One way we can continue this work is to organize around the
United Nations declared 2011 "Year for People of African Descent."
2011 Year for People
of African Descent
During its 65th plenary meeting on December 18, 2009, the United Nations
General Assembly adopted the following resolution.
Reaffirming
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims that all human
beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that everyone is
entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth therein, without distinction
of any kind,
Recalling the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of Their Families, the Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities and other relevant international human rights instruments,
Recalling also the relevant
provisions of the outcomes of all major United Nations conferences and summits,
in particular the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and the Durban
Declaration and Programme of Action,
Recalling further its resolutions
62/122 of 17 December 2007, 63/5 of 20 October 2008 and 64/15 of 16 November
2009 on the permanent memorial to and remembrance of the victims of slavery and
the transatlantic slave trade,
1. Proclaims the year beginning
on 1 January 2011 the International Year for People of African Descent, with a
view to strengthening national actions and regional and international
cooperation for the benefit of people of African descent in relation to their
full enjoyment of economic, cultural, social, civil and political rights, their
participation and integration in all political, economic, social and cultural
aspects of society, and the promotion of a greater knowledge of and respect for
their diverse heritage and culture;
2. Encourages Member States, the
specialized agencies of the United Nations system, within their respective
mandates and existing resources, and civil society to make preparations for and
identify possible initiatives that can contribute to the success of the Year;
3. Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its
sixty-fifth session a report containing a draft programme of activities for the
Year, taking into account the views and recommendations of Member States, the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Working Group of Experts on People of
African Descent of the Human Rights Council and other relevant United Nations
agencies, funds and programmes, as appropriate.