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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 1981)
Emerald Vol. 82, No. 80 I Eugene, Oregon 97403 Friday January 16, 1981 I Allied against racism 9 1 I Emerald graphic BSU honors black activists while Atiyeh condemns racism • • • By PAUL TELLES and LISA TAYLOR Of the Emerald Noting that American race relations may be as bad today as ever, Eugene’s black community joined with blacks and others in the United States Thurs day to celebrate the birthday of former civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. “He (King) would be impressed by the degeneration of race relations since his death,” University Law School Dean Derrick Bell told about 250 people at a “Celebration of Humanity’’ in Gerlinger Lounge. Castigating Pres.-elect Ronald Reagan and the Republican majority in the U S. Senate for anxiousness to revoke or gut desegregation laws, Bell said the conservatives are building up the American military at the expense of social programs that are necessary to guarantee some measure of racial equality. The result will be a greater crisis at home than any overseas disaster imaginable, said Bell, the first dean of a predominantly white law school. "Even the blacks who benefited most from the civil rights era must realize that they are less trailblazers opening the way for others" than tokens used to justify a racist society, Bell said. He cited Gov. Vic Atiyeh’s recent call for anti-racial harassment legislation as a sign of the severity of race relations in Oregon. Bell also told the predominantly white crowd that "integration means less that blacks demand they be let in as that whites realize they (blacks) are being left out." The reception, organized by the Black Student Union and the New Age Council, also honored Bell, a veteran civil rights activist Earlier in the day in Washington D C , about 3,000 people marched from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, where they joined an estimated 7,000 others for a rally. Organized by musician Stevie Wonder, the rally called on the U S. government to make King’s birthday a national holiday. The day's events honoring King capped off a week-long celebration and remembrance in many cities. More than 1,000 University students and faculty members signed petitions circulated by the Black Student Union. The petitions, which supported the proposed national holiday, will be for warded to Wonder, according to BSU Pres. Donald Brown. Although generally pleased with the response, Brown said he is worried about the lack of negative response to the BSU's week-old drive. "The silent ones are the most dan gerous ones," he said. "They’re doing more thinking than talking and we want to know what they're thinking about this." Although the celebration was meant largely for blacks, Brown said King’s message is equally important to whites "People think that because he was black that he spoke only for blacks," Brown said. “He really spoke for all people." The BSU won’t discontinue its peti tion drive until a decision is reached on whether to make King’s birthday a na tional holiday Although it is already a holiday in a few states, the 96th Con gress rejected a move to make the day a national holiday last year King, who was slain in Memphis, Tenn., by James Earl Ray in 1968, would have been 52. By RICHARD WAGONER Of the Emerald Local minority leaders and civil rights specialists are 'pleasantly surprised'' at Gov. Vic Atiyeh’s plea this week to end bigotry and make racial harass ment a felony. But minority leaders also warn that without convictions in the courts and jail sentences for violators, laws prohibiting bigotry are merely lip ser vice Atiyeh condemned bigotry and called for penalties for racial harass ment in his opening address Monday at the state Legislature in Salem. The governor’s comments were prompted mostly by a cross burning last summer on a black family’s lawn near Portland Other incidents of har assment have been reported in some Oregon towns. “I'm definitely surprised, especially because he is the governor of a state that is notorious for it’s Ku Klux Klan activities,” says Donald Brown, pre sident of the University Black Student Union. Derrick Bell, University Law School dean and a leading civil rights activist, agrees with Brown. “I’m pleasantly surprised,” says Bell. "Laws do have a deterrent value They show that this kind of conduct (racial harassment) is not condoned .” But both Bell and Brown were cau tious in their optimism, noting that getting convictions from racial harass ment laws isn’t easy. "Getting convictions is always dif ficult,” says Bell. 'But we have to start somewhere.” Brown says it will be up to judges to decide if the law will be effective. Kent Gorham, Eugene human rights specialist who works with the city’s minority commission, says he hasn’t received any reports of racial violence such as those cited by Atiyeh. “Eugene hasn’t approached that kind of problem as described by the governor," says Gorham. Although some racial-oriented har assment has been reported at the University, the campus affirmative ac tion director also says racial violence is not a problem in Eugene. Most complaints received by the af firmative action office are from people who feel they have been treated differ ently by an employer or a professor because of race or sex, says the of fice’s director Bean McFadden But while overt racism may not be a problem in Eugene, Brown says covert racism does exist "Overt harassment, no. But I can speak from personal experience that there is racism here,” Brown says. Brown says he has been discrimin ated against when looking for housing and has had racial slurs yelled at him by passing motorists He says he has tried to rent apartments with for-rent signs posted only to have the owner or man ager say no rooms were available. The potential for overt racism in Eugene is "frightening" because of a small, spread-out black community, Brown says. A black may have a hard time finding help if he or she is alone and harassed by racists, he says. Brown hopes a state law making racial harassment a felony would prevent violence against minorities in Eugene "(The governor) is looking ahead,” Brown says. "He’s starting to do something now. But that doesn’t mean anything until we see some action in the courts — until we see someone go behind bars.”
