Page 12
O PINION
May 2, 2018
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Confronting a Violent and Tragic Legacy
Honored to participate in
museum opening
m arian W right e delman
I was deeply honored to partici-
pate last week in the opening summit
of the Legacy Museum and National
Memorial for Peace and Justice in
Montgomery, Ala. These profoundly
moving new landmarks are the vision of Bryan Steven-
son, the brilliant founder and executive director of the
Equal Justice Initiative. Stevenson spent his profession-
al life fighting unjust incarceration, especially death
row cases, and fighting for racial justice in our criminal
system. This has evolved to include the consuming de-
termination to document, remember, and honor the vic-
tims of racial terror and lynchings in America – work
now immortalized at this museum and memorial which
I encourage everyone to visit and take your children
and grandchildren with you.
The Equal Justice Initiative has identified more
than 4,400 black men, women and children who were
hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to
death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950. They are
honored here in a powerful and sacred outdoor space
where their names and dates of death are engraved onto
800 steel monuments, one for every county where a
racial terror lynching took place. Many of the monu-
ments are suspended from the ceiling, literally evoking
a hanging.
The museum and memorial are part of the organiza-
tion’s mission to confront the truth about our history
and as a first step towards recovery and reconciliation
from the mass violence and legacy of slavery, lynch-
ing, and segregation. This confrontation of America’s
original birth defects is desperately needed. Lynch-
by
ing, Jim Crow, and legal segregation were all part of a
deep-seated pattern of racial subordination in America
that lasted long after slavery ended and affects us still.
Today, racially skewed rates of gun deaths, school
suspensions, corporal punishment, incarceration, illit-
eracy and poverty have become new ways of continuing
the same old patterns. Kynchings may have stopped but
the assault on black bodies, children, and communities
has not and black opportunity still lags behind that of
whites.
More than 150 years after slavery was legally abol-
ished black children and teens are still being sentenced
to physical, social, and economic death in our nation
at astonishing rates. Between 1877 and 1950 at least
one black person was killed by lynching every week
on average among the 12 most active lynching states
– Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama,
Texas, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky,
North Carolina, and Virginia – and some of the most
pronounced racial disparities today still exist in those
states.
Consider a few facts: the black child remains the
poorest child in America. In 2016, about 1 in 3 black
children was poor and a black baby was born into pov-
erty every 4 minutes. In 6 of the 12 states with the
highest lynching rates black child poverty rates were at
least 40 percent. Gun deaths remain the leading cause
of death for black children and teens. A black child or
teen is killed with a gun every 6 hours and 34 minutes.
Between 1963 and 2016, 65,947 black children and
teens have been killed by guns – more than 16 times the
recorded number of lynchings. Where is our equivalent
anti-lynching movement today to give our children a
chance to grow up safely?
More than 80 percent of 4th and 8th grade black pub-
lic school students could not read at grade level in 2015,
and millions of black students still attend separate and
unequal schools. More than 1 in 3 black students in the
most active lynching states attended intensely segregat-
ed schools with at least 90 percent non-white enroll-
ment in 2014. Black children are suspended from public
schools at a rate four times greater than white children.
Denied education is a block to success in our compet-
itive nation and world. Inside schools, corporal pun-
ishment is disproportionately used to discipline black
students. Corporal punishment is still allowed in all but
one (Virginia) of the most active lynching states.
Our school system has also become a major feeder
into the pipeline to prison, particularly for black chil-
dren. A black child is arrested every one and a half min-
utes. In 2016, the juvenile arrest rate for black children
was more than double that for white children. The 12
most active lynching states held almost half (44 per-
cent) of the total share of all children in adult prisons
in America in 2015. Police brutality continues as one
more form of assault against black bodies. According to
a database established by the Washington Post to track
gun deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers,
750 black males – including 25 children – have been
shot and killed by police officers since Jan. 1, 2015.
This is more than the 654 African Americans killed in
the most active lynching state, Mississippi, and more
than double the number of African Americans killed by
lynching in Alabama.
Confronting the violent and tragic legacy that pre-
ceded today’s inequalities is a critical step – one the
Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and
Justice help our nation to take. The truth will set us free.
But you and I must stand up and stop today’s unequal
punishments of black and other people of color across
our nation. Only the truth and vigilant action can truly
make us free.
Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Chil-
dren’s Defense Fund.
Making Informed Choices on May 15 Ballot
The case for JoAnn,
Julia, Maria and Kayse
l eW C hurCh
The May 15 primary election provides voters with four
excellent choices in local races: JoAnn Hardesty for the
open seat on Portland City Council; Julia DeGraw for in-
cumbent Nick Fish’s City Council seat; Maria Garcia for
Loretta Smith’s old spot on the Multnomah County Com-
mission; and Kayse Jama to replace incumbent landlord
state Sen. Rod Monroe.
At Portland State University, our Portland Gray Pan-
thers chapter and affiliate Progressive Student Union
have been targeting youth voters ages 18-21 to turn out
and cast ballots by May 15. Statistics show that in mid-
term elections only 15 percent of new voters under age
21 cast ballots. If we seek to harness energy from Black
Lives Matter, MeToo, and especially, the student activists
and organizers inspired to act after the school shooting in
Parkland, Fla. -- we need to actually make sure to cast
ballots!
JoAnn Hardesty, a former state legislator, announced
last year that she was running for Dan Saltzman’s long-
held seat and the millionaire Saltzman withdrew from
the race. Hardesty, the longtime community organizer
for both Portland NAACP and KBOO Community Radio
wants police accountability, supports tenant rights, afford-
able and low income housing, and the green tax.
Since the primary race features five other candidates, it
by
also has many possible outcomes.
Our PSU group wants Hardesty to win outright with
51 percent or more of the votes cast on May 15. Loretta
Smith, term-limited from running again for county com-
mission, is certainly a visible candidate, but many felt that
Smith’s advocacy for turning the Wapato jail site in far
north Portland into a homeless shelter was not a good idea.
The two least impressive candidates of the group were
architect Stuart Emmons (who came in third two years
ago in his first run for council), and an advocate for hiring
more police in Portland, Felicia Williams.
A recent op-ed by veteran Oregonian columnist Steve
Duin argued that the notion of “we need a woman of color
on city council” is a totally bogus argument. But is it?
Stuart Emmons and Felicia Williams are both white candi-
dates. Hardesty, Andrea Valderama and Smith are women
of color candidates.
Duin’s argument, of course, is utter nonsense. In 150
years, there has never been a woman of color on Port-
land’s city council. Time’s up!
In the other Portland City Council race, Julia DeGraw
is a great choice, as noted in a recent Portland Observ-
er guest commentary (Why I’m voting for Julia DeGraw,
April 18 issue). The incumbent, Nick Fish, appears to be
a ‘placeholder politician’ for the status quo. DeGraw, on
the other hand, successfully fought Nestlé’s attempts in
Cascade Locks to privatize public water resources.
For county commissioner, Maria Garcia, owner of Rev-
olucion coffee shop near PSU, is the best choice for this
open slot.
Garcia, working with Theresa Raiford and Black Lives
Matter, spoke eloquently at Pioneer Square in March for
International Women’s Day, in English and Spanish. Gar-
cia supports sanctuary cities and helped organize the event
“A Day Without Immigrants.”
Portland Gray Panthers is also happy to support Unite
Oregon’s Kayse Jama to replace landlord and ‘rent raising’
Rod Monroe in the state senate. Monroe in 2017 blocked
rent control legislation in Salem -- even though the House
had already passed the bill and Gov. Kate Brown was
ready to sign it. Monroe put landlord profits ahead of help-
ing to fix the housing crisis in our state.
At a recent Metro forum with 50 people on housing and
houselessness, rising rents were identified as the crucial
component as to why we see thousands of people sleeping
on sidewalks and camping out in tents in neighborhood
after neighborhood. Shame on Monroe!
An advantage of incumbency for career politicians
like Fish and Monroe is building massive campaign war
chests. At PSU, when we supported a not-so-well off chal-
lenger two years ago, Chloe Eudaly, in her successful bid
to unseat an incumbent politician, we recognized that in a
democracy, money doesn’t always “lock out” lesser folks
from winning elections.
On May 15, by voting for JoAnn, Julia, Maria, and
Kayse, we can elect people who will ‘represent’ the rest of
us, not just landlords and Oregon’s 1 percent.
Lew Church is coordinator of Portland Gray Panthers
and founding publisher and editor of activist papers at
Portland State University, the Rearguard and the Agitator.