Page A6
Jarliani* föbsern er
Civil Rights
Experience
Stories
Wanted
March 17,2004
Hewlett-Packard
Honored for
Racial Justice
VAf
AARP and the L eadership
Conference on Civil Rights are
unveiling a year-long project to
build the w orld's largest archive
o f first-hand accounts o f the civil
rights struggle in America, sup
ported by an array o f media ven
tu re s , e x h ib its an d s p e c ia l
events.
"Americans have stories and
we want to hear them, to collect
them and to archive them at the
team members o f Vancouver are honored with the Val Joshua Racial Justice
Library of Congress. For unless
we remember, neither we, nor fu
ture generations can understand,"
said AARPCEO Bill Novelli.
The project will go beyond
collecting stories o f the Free
dom Rides, lunch counter sit-
ins, and the 1963 March on W ash
ington to include the memories
o f those who worked— and co n
tinue to work— to stamp out
discrim ination against women,
people with disabilities, Hispan
ics, and others.
Throughout the year. Voices
(A P)— The 50th anniversary of
o f Civil Rights will collect and the Supreme C ourt’s landmark
preserve thousands of poignant
Brown v. Board of Education de
memories o f people who wit
segregation decision, has gener
nessed or took part in the civil ated an outpouring of enthusiasm
rights struggle. Much o f the and a flood of events by schools,
p ro ject w ill be an online
libraries and other organizations.
w w w .voicesofcivilrights.org.
"It's a more emotional issue. The
A book titled “My Soul Looks mood is more personal,” said Sylvia
Back in W onder: Voices o f the Cyrus-Albritton, interim executive
Civil Rights Experience” will be director of the Association for the
published in May to correspond Study of African American Life and
with the 5O‘h anniversary o f the History.
Sylvia Cyrus-Albritton, in te rim d ire c to ^ fth e A s s o c ia tio n fo ^h e
Supreme C ourt’s Brown v. Board
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme
o f Education ruling, which de Court ruled unanimously that sepa study o f African American Life and History, speaks at a sym po
c la re d “se p a ra te but e q u a l’ rating black and white children in sium on black history at Howard University.
schools to be unconstitutional
public schools was unconstitu- inherently unequal.”
A m e ric a n a p a r th e id ,” sa id
A dditional stories, features, tional. Segregating students solely
The ru lin g o v e rtu rn e d the
Theodore
Shaw, associate direc
interview s, and essays will ap on the basis of their race denied court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson
tor-counsel
o f the NAACP Legal
pear in a special edition of A ARP black
c h ild re n
the
14th decision, which concluded there
D
efense
and
Educational Fund,
“The M agazine," followed by Amendment’s guarantee of equal
,
was nothing u n c o n stitu tio n a l •nc. ....
It
was
a
case that finally
coverage throughout the year in protection under the law, it said.
about a Louisiana law that re breathed life into the 14th Amend-
all AARP publications and radio
In the field of public education, quired separate but equal rail
men, for African A m ericans.”
program s as well as on the Lead the doctrine of ' separate but equal’
road cars for black and white pas
Brown gave the c.v.l rights
ership Conference W eb site at has no place,” the court ruled.
sengers.
movement
a great boost,” agreed
www.civilrights.org.
Separate educational facilities are
“Brow n broke the back o f historian John Hope Franklin,
Congratulations are going out
from the YWCA o f Clark County to
Hewlett-Packard, Vancouver for
their leadership in advocating for
racial justice.
The company and its employees
were recently awarded the Val
Joshua Racial Justice Award by
demonstrating leadership in work
ing to eliminate racism, significant
involvement in the struggle for
peace, justice, freedom and dignity
for all people and demonstrating
the commitment to self-determined
social change for all people.
The company has a strong com
mitment to this work through many
diversity and inclusion activities at
its Vancouver site, including imple
menting adiversity leadership coun
cil, adopting diversity curriculum,
employing and recruiting diverse
interns and holding a diversity and
inclusion speaker’s series.
Victory for Equality Celebrated 50 Years Later
Brown v. Board
of Education
struck down
segregation
Who helped develop the legal brief lawed in public parks, recreation
that led to the Brown decision. “It areas, interstate and intrastate
ecame an arm or in their fight to
equalize opportunity — no, only
education, bu, in other areas, too.”
A year and a half later, a tired,
black seam stress named Rosa
Parks refused to yield her seat to
a white passenger, launching the
yearlong M ontgom ery bus boy-
cotts. The campaign ended after
a Supreme Court decision de-
com m erce facilities, libraries,
courtroom s, hotels, restaurants
and other public places
Some caution the anniversary
events should be infused with a
careful exam ination o f race rela-
tions today. Schools across the
nation are becom ing more segre-
gated for black and H ispanic stu-
dents, a recent report by H arvard
f
Brown broke the back o f American
apartheid. It was a case that finally
breathed life into the 14th
Amendment fo r African Americans.
- Theodore Shaw, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
d a re d the city ’s segregated seat
ing unconstitutional.
It was a sign of how Brown
energized both activists and the
courts. O ver the next 12 years,
the Supreme Court “handed down
decision after decision that fol
| 0Wed the p a th B row n had
opened,” Richard Kluger writes
in “Simple Justice," a book about
the decision,
Segregation was finally out-
X
U niversity’s Civil Rights Project
found.
“W e’re at a really serious risk
o f losing what w e’re celebrating,”
said Gary O rfield, co-director o f
the project. “W e’re trying to in
je c t into this a sense o f both the
am azin g ac c o m p lish m e n ts o f
Brown and the Civil Rights Act
and the fact that w e ’ve been
pretty much going backw ards
now ever since the early 1990s.”
After Hours Emergency Numbers in Multnomah County
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during the I6,h century.
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Adult C om m unity Justice A fter Hours line
Child A buse R eporting L ine.........................
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B radley-A ngle H ouse........................................
Volunteers o f A m erica..................................
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ventured into the area
Cote d ’ Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
centives for different tribes to isolate themselves from
dictable worldwide reces
sion soon caused extremely high unemployment
one another, thus adding to the problem of one good
» .I d historical record of the area and its peo p le.
rates and the country was struggling once again.
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leadership. Sadly an unpre
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reared well by the French as they received job security,
cent Muslim and 60 percent indigenous beliefs £ ,e
educattonal«7pportumt.es. economic stability and land
country’s inhabitants still wish for total indenen
rights. Though this satisfied small numbers of govern-
dence and a bright future