www . theskaNNeR . Com
m ay 15, 2011
s eattle , w ashiNgtoN
V olume XXXiii, N o . 29
25
CeNts
C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow
Freedom riders
state
Budget
Bleeds
Washington leaders
push through budget
deal, cutting teachers
by mike baker
Of the associated Press
Freedom Riders sit next to a burned-out bus in an unknown location. an incredible amount of violence was directed
at Black and white activists who risked their lives to protest racial segregation in the south.
Remembering the Freedom Riders
Civil rights activists welcomed back to the South this week
by bobby harrison
Of The Northeast
Mississippi Daily Journal
JaCKSON, Miss. (AP) —
Flonzie Brown-Wright was an
18-year-old from Mississippi
living in Los Angeles when
the Freedom Riders reached
Jackson in May 1961.
After seeing reports that
summer on the arrests of the
Freedom Riders, she called
her mother to ask what was
happening in her home state.
``I didn’t have a clue what
was going on,’’ she recalled
last week. ``My mother and
daddy protected me.’’
In hindsight, Brown-Wright
said, she never wondered why,
as she walked to school each
day, busloads of white stu-
dents passed her. That was just
the way it was.
Brown-Wright returned to
Mississippi in 1963 and soon
became involved in the civil
rights movement. She admits,
however, that she wasn’t a
willing participant until then-
NAACP state director Medgar
Evers was shot dead in front of
his wife and children as he
returned to his Jackson home
one night.
Today, Wright sits outside
her office at the historic Ayer
Hall on the Jackson State cam-
pus where she is working as
the office manager to help
coordinate the 50th anniver-
sary of the Freedom Rides.
She works her cell phone like
a teenager, texting in between
answering questions.
About 100 Freedom Riders
will be on hand for this week’s
events.
In a speech to the
Mississippi Economic Council
earlier this year, Henry
``Hank’’ Thomas of Stone
Mountain, Ga., national chair-
man of the Freedom Riders,
said, ``After 50 years,
American has evolved. The
South
has
changed.
Mississippi has changed.’’
Thomas said the anniversary
observance would be a ``reli-
gious, racial, reconciliation
time.’’
Planned events include the
placing of Freedom Trail
Markers by the state in key
OLYmPia, Wash. (AP) — A tentative
agreement to fill Washington state’s $5 bil-
lion budget shortfall includes cuts in nearly
every corner of government, slashing pay
for teachers and forcing other K-12 workers
and state employees to take deeper hits.
Budget negotiators said there simply was-
n’t the money available in the $32 billion
spending plan to sustain current salaries,
and lawmakers talked openly about the need
to make equitable cuts. In total, they will
reduce spending by $4.6 billion over the
coming two years.
“There were sacrifices made in every sin-
gle part of services provided by state gov-
ernment,” said Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle.
The budget includes a 1.9 percent cut for
teacher pay and a 3 percent cut for other K-
12 employees. Teacher pay was not reduced
as much because they already had their
salaries cut when lawmakers decreased paid
teacher-training days. The changes will save
the state $179 million over the next two
years.
Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, said local
contracts determine teacher salaries, so the
legislative decision may not result in across-
the-board cuts in pay, especially in districts
with more financial flexibility because of
their ability to raise money through local
property taxes.
Lawmakers also were moving to suspend
voter-approved cost-of-living adjustments
for education employees, saving another
$300 million.
Mary Lindquist, president of the
Washington Education Association, said she
was disappointed by the spending plan and
argued that the state needs to identify a new
source of revenue to sustain schools. She
warned that the budget likely will lead to
growth in already-large class sizes.
“Let’s not kid ourselves, this budget hurts
kids,” she said.
See RideRS on page 2
See budget on page 3
iNdeX
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asthma Rates increase for all groups
Activists are struggling to motivate urban communities on clean air
Lisa Loving
Of The Skanner News
F
or asthma sufferers nothing is like the
panic of an attack – you can’t breathe,
you can’t control your body. If the
attack is really bad, you can die.
The Centers for Disease Control reported
this month that asthma rates are up for every
demographic category they track – but it’s
rising fastest among African American chil-
dren, 17 percent of whom live with asthma.
For activists around the country working
to bring attention to the issue, the current
state of environmental research and regula-
tion are standing in the way.
“People know what’s wrong with them –
everybody has a nebulizer, everybody has
asthma, they’re preaching for cancer sur-
vivors in their church or in their mosques,”
said the Rev. Lennox Yearwood this week.
“They know they have a problem, but they
aren’t connecting that sometimes with cor-
porations who are not being regulated the
way they should be.”
Yearwood, founder of the Hip-Hop
Caucus and the subject of a new documen-
tary film on the Discovery Network, was in
See aSthma on page 2