July 26, 2017
Page 7
Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the
Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and
story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com.
O PINION
Men and Women on the Side of Right
A civil rights
icon charts a
new course
M arc h. M orial
After 12 histor-
ic years leading the
North Carolina chap-
ter of the NAACP, the
Rev. Dr. William Bar-
ber is stepping up to
a new challenge. It’s
one posed by the late
Martin Luther King Jr. nearly five
decades ago to unite the poor and
put an end to the social inequities
and universal indifference that
breeds poverty in our nation—and
our world.
Rev. Barber’s activism—pow-
ered by morally induced outrage
to unjust policies and the abuse
of the most vulnerable—has taken
on many forms and roles, moving
him from national stages to the
streets.
In 2013, as the chief architect
of what would become the ongo-
ing “Moral Mondays” movement,
an extension of the NAACP’s For-
ward Together movement, Rev.
Barber stood and protested with
impacted people, civil rights ac-
tivists and community leaders in
front of the North Carolina state
legislature to challenge discrimi-
natory voter access laws and other
by
state-sponsored attacks on civil
rights.
Protestors sang “We Shall
Overcome,” held signs, blocked
the doors to the Senate chambers
and got arrested. Described in his
own words as the “largest
state-government-focused
civil disobedience campaign
in U.S. history,” the first pro-
test would, thankfully, not be
the last.
Crossing traditional bar-
riers of religion, race, class,
political affiliation or sexual
ber, several times.
Under the umbrella of Repair-
ers of the Breach—a nonprofit
founded by Rev. Barber that de-
velops church and lay people into
leaders who strategize and orga-
nize for progressive, moral agen-
das—Dr. King’s Poor People’s
Campaign will find new life. The
new campaign, now the New Poor
People’s Campaign: National Call
for a Moral Revival, will pick up
where his assassination left the na-
scent movement.
A year before his death, Dr.
People’s Campaign at a staff re-
treat for the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference in 1967.
He described the campaign as a
“highly significant event,” adding
that the campaign was “the begin-
ning of a new cooperation, un-
derstanding, and a determination
by poor people of all colors and
backgrounds to assert their right to
a decent life and respect for their
culture and dignity.”
He planned on descending on
our nation’s capital with scores of
poor people to demand fair wag-
Today, Dr. King’s legacy in the fight for
economic justice for all Americans has
been passed on to Rev. Barber, and I am
pleased that Rev. Barber has answered the
call to lead this effort in the affirmative.
orientation, that first Moral Mon-
day has inspired tens of thousands
of people to lock arms in solidar-
ity and protest beyond the state
of North Carolina, undeterred by
the very real threat of arrests, with
over 1,000 protestors handcuffed
and jailed—including Rev. Bar-
King shifted his focus to econom-
ic inequality, and as he did with
civil and voting rights, he was
committed to making poverty and
the plight of all our nation’s poor a
top priority on our federal govern-
ment’s agenda.
Dr. King announced the Poor
es, unemployment insurance and
quality education. He would not
live to join the protestors who
would eventually descend on
Washington, erect a protest camp
and demand economic justice, but
the campaign was short lived, and
we continue to fight for that same
justice Dr. King understood was
essential to achieve, if our nation
was truly committed to giving ev-
eryone, regardless of color, gender
or zip code, a fair chance at life.
Today, Dr. King’s legacy in the
fight for economic justice for all
Americans has been passed on to
Rev. Barber, and I am pleased that
Rev. Barber has answered the call
to lead this effort in the affirma-
tive.
As a historic civil rights orga-
nization dedicated to economic
empowerment for the poor and
underserved, The National Urban
League will honor Rev. Barber
and his long-time commitment to
civil rights and justice during our
annual conference this year.
We live now in worrisome
times where a robust movement
is afoot to limit Americans’ access
to the ballot box, where millions
of people worry that they will not
have healthcare next year, and
where the stock of private pris-
ons continue to soar as the Trump
administration finds more people
to criminalize and occupy pris-
on beds. So we are fortunate to
have men and women on the side
of right, like Rev. Barber, who
contemplate action in the face of
abuse and refuse to remain silent
in the face of injustice.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer of the
National Urban League.
Republicans are Right: Going to College Hurts
But not for the
reasons you
might expect
j essicah P ierre
Going to college is
a good thing, right?
That’s at least what I
was told as a kid, and
what led me to get a
college degree. I was
the first one in my
family to do so.
Yet new public opinion polling
shows most Republicans think
colleges have a negative impact
on the country. Unfortunately,
they might be right — but not for
the reasons you might expect them
to give.
Attending college has been
proven to unlock opportunities. A
report by the Association of Pub-
lic and Land-Grant Universities
found that college graduates are
24 percent more likely to be em-
by
ployed than high school graduates
— and earn $1 million more over
a lifetime.
Those with college degrees are
also more than twice as likely to
volunteer, and over three times
more likely to give back to
charity.
College educations also
affect the way people vote.
Three-quarters of bachelor’s
degree holders vote in pres-
idential elections, compared
to just over half of high
school graduates.
So why might some view col-
lege negatively? Well, there’s a
lot of reasons — 1.3 trillion, to
be precise. That’s how much debt
students, current and former, are
carrying in this country: $1.3 tril-
lion worth, and rising.
Who’s hit worst by this sky-
rocketing debt? Women -- who
owe two-thirds of that amount —
and especially black and Latina
women.
A recent report from the Amer-
ican Association of University
Women found that the average
woman who graduated from a
four-year university between in
2012 carried $21,000 in college
debt. That’s about $1,500 more
than the average man. Black
women are even more nega-
tively impacted, averaging over
$29,000 in student loans.
Worse still, women are paid
about 80 cents to every dollar a
man makes — a number that falls
to 63 cents for black women, and
just 54 cents for Latina women,
when compared to white men.
That means these grads start out
deeper in debt and then have a
much harder time getting out.
So, is rising Republican op-
position to the academy a result
of their concern for the econom-
ic well-being of black or Latina
women? Doubtful.
After all, our GOP-led Con-
gress refuses to engage with po-
tential solutions to close the gen-
der wage gap, which could make
huge strides in reducing overall
student loan debt. And not a sin-
gle Republican senator support-
ed the Pay Check Fairness Act,
which would make it harder for
employers to discriminate based
on gender.
Same goes for the College for
All Act, a bill put forward by
Senator Bernie Sanders to create
a debt-free higher education sys-
tem and help student borrowers
refinance their debt. A lot more
effort is needed on the federal
and local levels to remove this
economic burden systemically
placed on women.
Unfortunately, the Pew study
that showed Republican oppo-
sition to universities didn’t dive
deeper as to why. However, an
old quote from Karl Rove, the
Republican mastermind responsi-
ble for bringing George W. Bush
into office, offers a clue: “As
people do better, they start voting
like Republicans — unless they
have too much education and
vote Democratic.”
What else about college might
rub conservatives the wrong
way?
Colleges provide a space for
critical thinking where students
can expand their minds and be-
come more knowledgeable of the
world. That might be why uni-
versities have historically played
major roles in the resistance to
bad public policy — from Viet-
nam to Iraq to today’s #resistance
to Donald Trump.
Fixing higher education means
reducing barriers to college, not
increasing them. Greater invest-
ment in debt-free higher educa-
tion and debt relief for the most
impacted students, including
black women like me, is what’s
needed — not mindless broad-
sides against the idea of educa-
tion.
Jessicah Pierre is the Inequal-
ity Media Specialist at the Insti-
tute for Policy Studies. Distribut-
ed by OtherWords.org