There’s no question that the entire nation is going through a time of economic decline.  Empty storefronts, foreclosed homes, and long unemployment lines are visuals that serve as just a fraction of the evidence of of tough times in the economy.  However, as some prominent black lawmakers and now the Rev. Jesse Jackson would like to address – the African American communities have been disproportionately affected in the time of the recession.  Obama has resisted the idea that the administration should use racial- or ethnic-based qualifiers in determining where the aid is needed most, saying:

“The most important thing I can do for the African American community is the same thing I can do for the American community, period, and that is get the economy going again and get people hiring again.”

Jackson, a self-stated Obama supporter, expressed his concern that civil rights leaders were not as involved in the recent jobs summit as he thought they ought to be.  The Obama-Jackson relationship has been tedious at times, with Jackson questioning whether Obama has shown enough concern in his past legislative duties towards the issues uniquely facing the black community; however, since Obama’s election, Jackson’s criticisms have been quelled.  Since Obama’s election, though, he has not directly met with Jackson.

Rev. Jesse Jackson

Jackson – who recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of his own run for the White House – has, independently of the White House, requested a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to discuss his ideas and the administration’s intention for economic aid for depressed minority communities across the nation – like the suffering Detroit and Milwaukee for example.  A meeting has not yet  been set.

Turning around a nation in an economic recession is certainly no easy task, and won’t happen overnight nor will it be decided by anything less than a large team of minds working together.  What say you, Sojourn to the Past blog readers?  Should extra attention be paid to communities and cities that have suffered the effects of the recession the most?  Should the demographics of those communities be taken into account so that relief can be community-specific?  Or should the government be blind to those characteristics?

The accomplished widow of noted civil rights leader Whitney M. Young Jr, Margaret Buckner Young, has died at age 88.  Among the long list of her contributions, talents, and achievements, were authoring children’s books about African-American history, writing biographies of prominent African-Americans for Parent Magazine, and serving as a long-time educator.

Additionally, Young also served a capacity on the U.S. delegation to the United Nations.  Vernon Jordan, noted civil rights leader who advised President Bill Clinton and was head of the National Urban League after Whitney Young spoke fondly of her,

“She was a loving mentor to me,” he recalled, “She always had sound advice, such as ‘Think about this,’ “

Whitney Young, who was Margaret's husband, died in 1971.

In the 50′s, Margaret was a professor in the psychology departments at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA.  When her husband drown in 1971 in Nigeria, she then became the executive director of the Whitney M. Young Jr. Foundation – named for her late husband – an organization that helped academics studying in the arena of race relations, and promoted equal opportunity.  In the New Rochelle, NY public school system, she helped parents make the transition when their children’s schools integrated.

In the 1980′s, Margaret was active in both the arts and in business; she was on the board of NY’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, and the Dance Theater of Harlem – and also was one of very few African-American women to serve on corporate boards (NY Life Insurance Co & the Philip Morris Co.).

Margaret was a 1942 graduate of Kentucky State, and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Both the unfortunate loss of her husband nearly 40 years ago, and Margaret’s passing are deeply felt losses to the civil rights community.  What these people contributed to the fight for equality in society, education, and beyond for the future African-Americans is beyond what words can describe.  Sojourn students can only hope to be lead by the footsteps the Youngs blazed on their brave paths.

Before the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in and around the 1960′s, much of the prejudice that was being addressed by activism groups, and consequently by the government, was the injustices that African-Americans were facing in the US in that era.

However, with the diversifying population of the country, and increasing immigration numbers, in a post-9/11-America, there is on the the rise other groups towards whom discrimination is being aimed.  Today, the Council on American Islamic Relations announced through their statistics that from 2006-2008, they saw an 11% rise in civil rights complaints against these said citizens.

The full report, the US Muslim Civil rights report, documents civil rights discriminatory instances, anti-Muslim violence, and harassment.

While the journey that students embark on through Sojourn to the Past highlights the key benchmarks of the Civil Rights Movement that happened long before any of these students were born, it’s important to note the goals and mission of our organization.  It is our aim that through teaching students about past wrongs and injustices that were allowed to carry on far too long in our great nation of freedom, that they can become active members of their communities to proactively and nonviolently confront injustices off all kinds – be they rooted in race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, or any identifying characteristic that should not only be accepted in our society, but embraced as uniquely American.

Only a few weeks ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that “The Lowell”, The Lowell High School student newspaper, published, inadvertently, an ad for a website promoting white supremacy.

The ad was funded by a group that seeks to “campaign to inform, awaken and radicalize our White American youth.”  The ad itself was seemingly nondescript – the text simply said “Free Music Downloads” – but the link leads to www.victoryforever.com, a site that very clearly promotes a Hate Group-like mentality.  The ad, which cost only $30, reportedly didn’t raise any eyebrows when it was first submitted, and that the web link looked drastically different from the time it was submitted to the time that it ran.  The newspaper’s faculty advisors never even looked into the Website, because they took the “deceptive and misleading” ad at face value.  Purportedly, the creators of the ad intentionally tried to deceive the newspaper faculty and students through the course of the transaction.  District spokesperson Gentle Blythe said that the remaining copies of the paper were pulled, and the mail-out subscriptions will not go out.

A separate anonymous e-mail to The Chronicle [that appears to originate at a computer at Idaho State University], stated, “San Francisco was selected because it has long suffered the ravages of liberal insanity, vile degeneracy and criminal vicitmization of it’s citzens by the very ‘diverse’ populations it seeks to embrace.”

The next week – just after the flare-up around the San Francisco incident was starting to subside – a second school paper was duped.  Parents of students at Carmel High School outside of Indianapolis were warned via mass voicemail about the compromise of their student paper, HiLite, by the same white power hate group, Victory Forever.  Using an e-mail address on the site, IndyStar reports that a response came from a person identifying as ‘Mike Shields’ and claims to be a spokesperson for the group, which is in the midst of a campaign to recruit “white youth all across America to fight for the survival of the white race,” chose that particular high school because it is one of the largest in the state and its paper is widely read and respected, and that combination gave the group “a great opportunity to spread [their] message”.

Parent Marc Allen says, “These neo-Nazis are pathetic excuses for human beings.  Their message is so poor they have to dupe young people into visiting their Web site.”  His daughter, Lauren, 18, said she doesn’t think the group would find many converts among her high school classmates, “I don’t think anyone really looks at the ads, to  be honest.  I don’t think anyone I know would go to the site and say ‘Cool, I’m going to look more into this.’”

Quotes like the one from the above student give promise to all of us working with Sojourn to the Past that discrimination and inequality are on their way to becoming a thing of the past, but incidents like these two, and the people who are behind dishonestly placing these messages in the reading material of impressionable students strengthen our resolve and remind us regularly of the importance of our mission.

After delaying the announcement an additional 24 hours, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today in Los Angeles that the current in-house Deputy Chief Charlie Beck will replace Chief William Bratton. During Bratton’s service of seven years in the position, crime decreased and he is also credited with improving race relations within the city.

The early responses to the nomination are positive from many, including the likes of other city officials.  Sheriff Lee Baca is quoted saying, “We have had a successful working relationship with the Los Angeles Police Department for many years, and we anticipate that partnership will continue under new Police Chief Charlie Beck.”

LA Times Opinion columnist Tim Rutten writes:

The mayor’s choice to lead the LAPD is committed to reform and has a strong support from civil rights activists and Latino, African American and immigrant leaders in the community.

The positive initial responses from key people in the city, as well as the supportive sentiments from those leaders representing many diverse factions of the city, are early indicators that Deputy Chief Beck will continue work on the track that Chief Bratton started – aiming for strong enforcement, while protecting the civil rights of the city’s residents.

Charlie Beck is a 32-year veteran on the LAPD force, who built relationships with many of the activists and leaders that supported him during his project of the rehabilitation of LAPD’s formerly-chaotic Rampart Division, as well as while he ran the department’s South Los Angeles operations.

How World Peace Starts, by Getty Images

Truman Capote once said, “A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue.”  Dialogue – by definition – is an exchange of ideas or opinions between two or more persons.  However, as Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk, writer, and activist points out, “In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.”  It makes one stop and think: How often are people, specifically Americans, having true discussions about anything at all – let alone in the context of the topic of race.

There was no shortage of people, who, when Barack Obama was elected 44th President of the United States proclaimed that the benchmark of selecting a non-white President meant that we were living in a ‘post-racial era’.  What we’ve seen in the months since – from the commentary surrounding a Newsweek cover asking ‘Is Your Baby Racist?’ to the sentiments that former President Jimmy Carter shared about much of the country not being ready for an African-American President – is that the nation is not living in a post-racial anything.  For better or for worse, racially-rooted issues are now just as prevalent as ever.  What more realistically has arrived through ushering in the Obama administration is that with the amount of coverage our media-savvy President receives, the idea of race weaves itself into more and more conversations.  It allows race (and racism) to be addressed, rather than something many people would prefer not to talk about.  It challenges parents and companies alike to answer questions they avoided before.  And it stirs minds – both young and old – to perhaps consider something they hadn’t before.

In introducing these fresh dialogues, Slate magazine online provides an interest-piquing commentary about racism – and how its meaning has been diluted by its somewhat over-use this year.  It has become a convenient political insult [from both sides of the aisle], instead of describing intentional disparities in equality that are race-based.

At the end of the day, it’s clear that true racism and racial discrimination still exist in a country that was founded on the freedoms that are the polar opposite of those hateful sentiments.  The answer is not simple, and won’t happen over-night because of any political or cultural event.  But, organizations like Sojourn to the Past and others who share our vision, know that inciting intelligent, non-threatening conversation and education – especially among young people – are a big step in the process.  We believe strongly that empowering America’s youth to understand the past, and to inspire others to positive action for the future is our best chance and biggest influence in the fight to equality for all.