Page A4
MARCH 11,1998
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p e r
s
though they be....and w ould have
quoted fifth-hand testim ony w ith as
clear a co n scien ce as docu m en ts
them selves."
E ffe c tiv e e d u c a tio n a l u se o f
d o c u m e n ts is p r a c tic a lly im p o s
s ib le u n le s s th e ir c o n te n t c a n be
re trie v e d by m e a n s o f an in f o r
m a tio n s y s te m w h o s e o p e r a tio n
an d in te n t is as c o n s is te n t an d
tr u s tw o r th y as th e h u m a n c o n d i
tio n w o u ld se em to p e rm it. L a w
y e rs, ju d g e s , s ta te s m e n an d p o li
tic ia n s , s c h o la r s an d s tu d e n ts ,
w rite rs , p u n d its a n d k n o w le d g e
a b le c itiz e n s h a v e all c o m e to
a c c e p t C o m m a g e r ’s m a g n u m
o p u s as a c r e d ib le p r o d u c t (B u t
C a re fu l, fa c ts ca n m is le a d y o u ).
E v e r s o o f t e n I d r a w th e
r e a d e r ’s a tte n tio n to th is ty p e o f
e v id e n tia r y s u p p o r t fo r u se in
th e ir e f f o rts to a u th e n tic a te m an y
o f th e fa c tu a l = b u t n e v e r th e le s s
c h a lle n g e d - a c c o u n ts o f A fric a n
A m e ric a n h is to ry . N o w , it is th e
c a se , s o m e tim e s , th a t th e s u p
p o rtin g fa c ts a n d d o c u m e n ta tio n
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'E hank Y ou F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver
We Need To Heal, Not Hurt,
Children In Trouble
B y M arian W right E delman
A harsh S enate bill that w ould
treat children as young as 14 like
hardened adult crim inals by tossing
them in adult jails has a serious chance
o f becom ing national law this year
unless our com m unity takes action.
S enate Bill 10 (S. 10) threatens to
w ipe out m ore than tw o decades o f
progress in p rotecting children from
adults in jail. T he C h ild re n ’s D e
fense F und’s(C D F ) w ork in the early
1970s to expose the horrors faced by
children locked in adult ja ils helped
lead to passage o f the Juvenile Jus
tice and D elinquency A ct w hich guar
anteed that children w ould be sep a
rated from adult prisoners.
N ow politicians are poised to re
m ove those safeguards. T he H ouse
has already passed a com panion bill
to S.IO and election-year politics
could put this m isguided, m ean-spir
ited law on a fast track.
B esides su bjecting ch ild ren as
young as 14 to adult jails, the bill will
treat nonviolent offenders and run
aw ays and truants harshly by allo w
ing them to be locked up for up to 14
days, and held in adult ja ils up to 24
hours.
O f all youths arrested, only one in
20 youths is arrested for a violent
crim e, yet the bill allow s the juvenile
ju stic e system to be underm ined
based on a m inority. S. 10 is based on
fear, not facts. M ost children are
arrested for nonviolent offenses like
vandalism and shoplifting.
“T he current politically driven
debate ignores not only the signifi
cant recent drops in crim e, ju v en ile
crim e, and hom icides, but ignores
the lessons o f the past decade on how
to reduce crim e,’ says C D F A ssistant
G eneral C ounsel Kim W ade.
T h ere’s clear evidence that S.IO
poses a serious danger to o u r young
people. C hildren jailed with adults
are eight tim es m ore likely to com m it
c
t
i
v
e
H ave you ever heard that fam iliar
legal phraseology delivered in such
solem n and serious tones as when
V em on Jordan, the P resident’s good
friend, described his ow n testim ony
w ithin the grand ju ry room ? Or, as it
had been put, “nothing but the facts,
m a’am !”
But the W hite H ouse aside, w e
w onder how m any o f our readers
m ay have noticed the passing o f noted
historian, H enry Steele C om m ager
at age 91. A nd if the nam e proves
fam iliar, it is, because I have so often
cited his best know n w ork in support
o f facts that might raise eyebrow . For
alm ost fifty years Steele edited the
authoritative, “D ocum ents o f A m eri
can H istory.”
His forew ord says it quite well,
“ Here are the fundam ental sources o f
A m erican history w hich all students
o f the subject read about, but for the
m ost part have not read; in this they
share em barrassm ent w ith m any o f
their teachers, w ell-read scholars
B y T he R ain B ow P i sh
C oalition
dressed this issue and hosted the sec
ond annual “C losing the G ap” E du
cation policy conference Sunday,
March 8-T uesday M arch 10.
The h igh 1 ight o f the conference was a
three-stoptourofasuburbanhighschixil
(N eu q u a V alley H igh S chool in
Naperville, IL), an urban high school
( DuSable High School in ( Chicago), and
the Cook County Corrections Center.
Rev. Jackson said, “This tour is a
poignant illustration o f the disparities
between the haves and the have-nots
and why poor children end up in jail
Thirty years ago, the Kemer Com
mission reported that America was in
danger ofbecoming two societies - “one
black, one white; separateand unequal.”
This week the Milton S. Eisenhower
Foundation’s report finds that the Kemer
Commission’s predictions have been
realized. The structural, vertical gaps are
widening despite the 1954 SupremeC’ourt
ruling in Brown v. Board o f Education.
The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and
the C itizenship Education Fund ad-
a re c o r o lla r y , r a th e r th a n d ire c t.
For instance, w hen I w as m aking
the case that the o p p ortunity for
A m erica to obtain all those tens o f
m illions o f acres o f land through the
“ L ouisiana Purchase” com e about
because o f the indom itable courage
o f the revolting H aitian slaves u nder
the leadership o f the black generals,
T o u ssain t L o u v eratu re and Jean-
Ja c q u e s D e ss a lin e s - N a p o le o n
B onaparte realized he could never
hold the far-away W est Indies against
these freedom fighters - 1 used sp e
cific docum ents from “C om m ager’s”
to illum inate the stage.
“D ocum ent No. 107. Jefferson On
I he Im portanceofN ew O rleans April
18 ,1 8 0 2 .” In this letter to the A m eri
can m in iste r in F rance, T h o m as
Jefferson expressed his extrem e n er
vousness and “concern o ver the o c
c u p a tio n o f N ew O rle a n s an d
F lorida.” At the sam e tim e Jefferson
tells British he w ould rather “m arry
their fleet” than see France control
the M ississippi.”
“ D o c u m e n t N o . 1 08, T h e
suicide, five tim es m ore likely to be
sexually assaulted, and twice as likely
to be assaulted by prison staff.
This bill will m ake an already
unfair system even tougher on Black
children. Even though Black chil
dren represent only 15 percent o f all
children in the United States, they
constitute m ore than h alf o f all chil
dren transferred to adult courts. Even
w hen prior records are sim ilar, Black
youths are m ore likely than W hite
youths to be arrested tried as adults,
convicted, and im prisoned. This bill
does nothing to address the higher
rate o f m inority youth confinem ent.
It is particularly distrusting that
S.IO also fails to break the deadly
link betw een children and guns, al
though the availability o f cheap guns
lies at the root o f the problem o f
youth violence. In 1995, 83 percent
o f m urdered children over age 12
w ere killed w ith a gun.
S.IO w ould not spend a penny on
program s that prevent crim e. T he
city o f Boston has lost only one chi Id
to gun violence since July 1995, a
dram atic record m ade possible by
church-led efforts to give children
opportunities to be nurtured and grow
so they can becom e productive, law-
abiding citizens ready to take their
place in the world.
C learly new strategies are needed
to address a violent crim e problem
that has left too many neighborhoods
unsafe and too m any young people in
prison, injured, or dead. But politi
cians shouldn ’t overlook proven pre
ventive m easures in favor o f politi
cally popular approaches that will
surely m ake youth crim e and vio
lence worse.
Join D C F ’s Black Com m unity
C rusade for Children (B C C C ) in
opposing S.IO and call your Sena
tors today at the U.S. Capitol sw itch
board at 202-224-3121 to urge them
to vote against S.IO.
s
and affluent children end up at Y ale.”
N euqua V alley H igh School - A
$62 M illion Model
* N ine specialized com puter labs,
tw o gym s, and exercise room , and an
O lym pic-size sw im m ing pool.
* T each ers’ salaries are as m uch
as $20,000 higher than their inad
equately funded urban counterparts.
DuSable High School, by contrast,
simply does not have the resources to
compete. It is the ultimate statement o f
cynic i sm for the state to ha ve con fidence
in jails over schools and to fund them
C essaition o f Louisiana A pril 30,
1803" Jefferson and his advisors in a
“state o f consternation” as they learn
o fa secret agreem ent by w hich C atho
lic Spain ceded all o f the territory
W est o f the M ississippi back to
France. A lm ost overnight a frantic
U .S .
C o n g ress
a p p r o p r ia t e s
$2,000,000 for the purchase o f this
“ L ouisiana T errito ry .”
H ow ever, in the forew ord to this
quite ‘ factual ’ docum ent, C om m ager
supplies this historic fiction. “For
reasons prim arily concerned w ith the
critical m ilitary situation on the ‘co n
tin e n t’, N apoleon decided to sell the
w h o le o f L o u isian a.” (W h at you
say!).
W hat happened to the “slave re
v olts” that struck terror in the hearts
o f A m e ric a n c o tto n g r o w e r s ” ?
T o u s s a in t L o u v e r a tu r e a n d to
D essalines? See "B efore T he M ay
flow er” by L erone Benne Jr. and see
books by J.A. Rogers. N apoleon got
m ore m ileage out o f these tw o black
generals than the 12 on E uropean
staff.
accordingly.
A c c o rd in g to th e E d u c a tio n
T ru st’s 1996 Education W atch State
and N ational Data Book...
* School districts with less than
5% o f their children in poverty spent
on average $6565 per student.
* School districts w ith m ore than
2 5 % o fth eirch ild ren in poverty spent
$5173 per student.
Poor children, w hether urban or
rural, need m ore support, not less, to
overcom e the obstacles to learning
in their daily lives.
___
City, Stale:____________________ _____ _________ __________
Zip-Code: ___________________ .
e
“The Truth, The Whole Truth, And
Nothing But The Truth”
(The P ortiani) (Dbscrucr
Charles Washington
Publisher & Editor
p
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