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Bv J a m s A dams
On August 29, 1957, Congress
passed the Civil Rights Act o f 1957.
Despite some official efforts to limit
Jim Crow, not since 1875 and the
end o f Reconstruction had the
fed eral g o v e rn m e n t m ade a
definitive antisegregation strike. Yet
the 1957 act was a step backward
for the movement. In its language,
if not its intent, it undermined the
federal governm ent’s pow er to
in te rc e d e in C iv il R ig h ts
enforcement.
When the Congress passed the Civil
Rights Act in memorium o f the
recently assassinated President
Kennedy, it once again sacrificed
the justice due people o f color for
accommodation to a guilty South.
Congress “negotiated” voting rights
out o f the Civil Rights Act o f 1964.
On July 2,1964, President Lyndon
B. Johnson signed the beleaguered,
hard-won, albeit watered-down, bill
into law. Buried in the bill was its
g re a te st leg acy - T itle V II:
Employment, which opened the
door to legislation on “affirmative
action.”
D
E
4 t
o’r
February 16, 2000
Focus
was posted on the FBI’s “Ten Most
Wanted” list o f felons. In a national
dragnet, women with natural Afro
for Emanuel
h airsty les co ast-to -co ast w ere
harassed in the name of the law. in
October 1970, Davis was captured Hospital Urban Renewal
in New Y ork, extradited, and Project
imprisoned (often in solitary) to B y P ortland B lrlal ol P lasm , s c
await trial and, as detractors hoped, In 1967, needing to expand or
execution for a crime all knew she re lo c a te in o rd e r to stay
had not committed. Just five days technologically abreast and
before hei trial, the state Supreme competitive, Emanuel Hospital
Court abolished the death penalty - annou n ced th a t, w ith the
and with it the grounds upon which assistance o f federal grants, it
she had been denied bail. She was would build a 19 acre health
campus. The project required
released.
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multiblock land clearance o f the
Central Albina area, now called the
Page 3
Eliot Neighborhood. Since 1962,
PDC wrote off the entire Eliot The
Black protestors march at Emanuel Hospital in 1972. Emanuel Hospital
announced that, with the assistance o f federal grants, it would build a 19-acre
health campus. Families immediately surrounding the Emanuel Hospital were
confronted with the expansion plans which included the land o f many o f these
residents. Residents were required to move within ninety days.
IH cn ien a m in s k en n ed y School
II GRAS
In the end, Kennedy did not deliver on the promise fo r which
blacks had helped elect him. For all he offered in glamor and
hope, Kennedy too often sacrificed black justice fo r southern
votes. It took his successor, a Southerner, Lyndon B. Johnson,
to break the mold and enact the Civil Rights Act (1964),
Executive Order No. 11246 on ajfirmative action (1965), and
the Voting Rights Act (1965).
Jazz D in n e r
for Davis, Angela
B y J a m s A dams
On February 28, 1972, The People
o f the State o f California v. Davis
went to trial at last. It had stemmed
from a 1970 courthouse siege that
left four dead in a failed plot to free
George Jackson - the author and
brother o f the raid ’ s seventeen-year-
old leader, Jonathan.
In the prisoner’s rights movement
ofthelate 1960s,theelderJackson’s
plight was championed, and he and
his family were befriended, by
Angela Davis - a young UCLA
professor o f philosophy infamous
in her own right as a political target
o f the then-govemor o f California,
Ronald Reagan. Her principled
refusal to sign a loyalty oath as a
term ofher contract made her perfect
cannon fodder. W hen Reagan’s
attack yielded threats on her life,
she purchased and legally registered
a gun for her own protection - a gun
later used in the courthouse siege.
She was charged with murder and
kidnapping, and a warrant was
issued for her arrest. Knowing the
charge to be political, she fled and
« « t »
tb u rsd a y , fe b ru a ry 24
Live M u sic with
the Black Sw an Classic Jazz Band
Doors at 6:30pm
Show at 7pm • Dinner at 7’30pm
Reservations required • Cost $28
•
• McMenamins Kennedy School
575« NE 33rd • Portland, Oregon • (503) 249-3983
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