NEWSLETTER OF THE

LOUISIANA COUNCIL BATON ROUGE COUNCIL

ON HUMAN RELATIONS ON HUMAN RELATIONS

Volume 44, Issue 1 February 2008 Volume 43, Issue 1

Paul Y. Burns, Interim Editor

LCHR Board Actions January 2008
The Board of Directors met at the home of Corresponding Secretary Patricia Rickels, Lafayette, on January 19. Richard Haymaker, Membership Secretary, reported that in December he had sent out a dues letter ($15 Individual, $20 Family, $1 Student and/or Hardship–to be mailed to him at 254 Nelson Dr., Baton Rouge LA 70808). He said that when members pay dues they often mention that they appreciate our newsletter. Paul Burns said he was still working on his project of finding out which of Louisiana’s Newcomers and/or Moms Clubs discriminated against blacks. He learned that the Layette and Lake Charles Newcomers clubs are open to all skin colors. In attendance were Board members Patricia Rickels, Doris White, Brad Pollock, Joe Dennis (presided), John Mikell, James Cross, Barbara Conner, Shirley Burris, Dick Haymaker, Paul Burns, Elnur Musa, Greg Richard, Joe McCarty, Thelma Deamer, Ted Hayes, Peter Bonhomme, Anthony Navarre.
LCHR’s statement about the Jena 6 case was discussed; Board member Brad Pollock said he had written a rough draft for a statement from LCHR. He averred that the bottom line was that the issue was the reaction to the actions in the case and the racism in the way the authorities handled the matter. For example, he noted that the tradition of the “whites only” shade tree at the Jena High School had been permitted by the school authorities for many years, until challenged by a black student. Also, that the wife of the Superintendent of schools in Jena works at the Jena high school. It was agreed that Pollock, Joe Dennis, and Pat Rickels, on behalf of LCHR, would write a statement, to be publicized, about the Jena Six case. Burns asked that for a future Board meeting that Cross bring a proposal for human relations awards by LCHR for schools. Doris White’s proposal to survey teachers with the assistance of the J.K. Haynes organization was adopted.
Greg Richard told the group that a lecture was scheduled on Jan. 24 in Lafayette by professor Adam Fairclough, a Britisher. His topic: “How the Civil Rights Movement Changed–And Did Not Change Louisiana.”
Fairclough wrote the book Race & Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana 1915-1972. Univ. of Ga. Press, 1995, 610 p. Burns wrote a review of this book, printed in the September 1995 LCHR newsletter.
Board member John Mikell pointed out that there was an excellent article about the Jena 6 case in the January/February issue of The Atlantic, written by Amy Waldman, The Atlantic national correspondent. She related how the Jena Six had become icons of a 21^st-century civil rights movement, which culminated in a protest march drawing 20,000 people to Jena, which is a few miles northeast of Alexandria, La., in LaSalle Parish. Joe Dennis, LCHR’s president, attended the rally.
Joe McCarty announced that a group from Hiroshima Japan will be arriving in New Iberia and Breaux Bridge this week to promote the critical need for action to eliminate nuclear weapons.
Burns handed out a statement for each Board member from the Internet opposing torture (LCHR opposes torture). The Board agreed to accept Doris White’s invitation meet on Saturday April 12, at her home in Plaisance.

More about Torture

TORTURE IS A MORAL ISSUE. A Statement of Conscience of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT).

Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest ideals, hold dear. It

class=Section2>

degrades everyone involved -- policy-makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable. Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed? Let America abolish torture now -- without exceptions.

More than 18,000 persons have already endorsed this statement. You may sign it on the Internet. If you agree with this statement, you can add your name to the 18,000 or more who have signed it. The web address is www.tortureisamoralissue.org. The website has suggestions for what you can do to stop torture: Write a letter to a newspaper editor, put an insert in a church bulletin, and hold a public meeting to hear a victim of torture speak. Unfortunately, Congressional Democrats are going along with President Bush’s torture policies. They endorsed Attorney General Michael Mukasey even though he was not willing to label waterboarding as torture. Waterboarding involves strapping a suspect down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face until he has the sensation of drowning. Perhaps worse, the Democrats chose retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to give their response to the President’s State of

-2-

the Union address in January 2008. Sanchez has been named in three or more lawsuits in Europe and the U.S. for authorizing torture and degrading, inhumane, and cruel treatment of prisoners in Iraq. Leader of the U.S. Army’s Iraq operations from June 2003 to June 2004, Sanchez in 2003 issued a memo authorizing torturous techniques such as “Stress Positions and “Military Working Dogs.” Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski was in charge of Abu Ghraib prison, under Sanchez, when the torture at this prison occurred. She told Amy Goodman about another illegal practice at Abu Ghraib, holding prisoners as “Ghost Detainees,” prisoners who were held without assigning a prisoner number or putting their names in the database, contrary to the Geneva Conventions. A former military interrogator related the use of dogs to exploit Arab fear of dogs: “We were using dogs in the Mosul detention facility. . .We would put the prisoner in a shipping container. We would keep him up all night with music and strobe lights, stress positions, and then we would bring in dogs. The prisoner was blindfolded, so he didn’t really understand what was going on, but we had the dog controlled. The dog would be barking and jumping on the prisoner. . .”
According to ABC News, acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin underwent waterboarding in 2004 when the White House asked him to rework its official position on torture. He concluded that waterboarding is torture, and he was then forced out of his job. Anti-torture activists staged a demonstration of waterboarding in November outside the building housing the Department of Justice. A 26-year-old actor volunteered to be the victim, stating afterwards: “It is the most terrifying experience I have ever had. . .when water goes into your lungs and you want to scream and cannot, as soon as you do, you will choke.” Waterboarding is illegal under U.S. law and under the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit outrages upon personal dignity, including cruel, humiliating, and degrading treatment. It violates the Constitution.
Until we ordinary Americans get upset about this issue, the U.S. will continue to torture prisoners, either in prisons in the U.S., or others like Guantánamo or in foreign countries by the CIA with the use of “extraordinary rendition.”

More about the Jena Six

Amy Waldman’s article points out that there were many charges and countercharges in Jena. One was that blacks had sometimes sat under the “white tree,” and Justin Barker, the white student who was “knocked out” by black football star Mychal Bell, was not involved in the noose-hanging or in inter-racial fights over the weekend before he was attacked. Most of the areas where blacks live are beyond the limits of the town of Jena, and all of the Jena Six lived outside of Jena. Mychal spent a lot of time when he was 16 with a white friend, John McPherson, an oil-field worker living with his wife in a trailer.
As a football star, authorities tend to look the other way at transgressions (reminds me of a white long ago Istrouma High School star who allegedly went with his buddies to the local bus station and beat up on gay men). Waldman states that in the year leading up to his attack on Barker, Mychal physically assaulted a man, punched a girl, and committed two vandalism acts–offenses of which he was found guilty in juvenile court.
The local district attorney, J. Reed Walters, seems to be puzzled by the world-wide storm he caused. District attorneys in Louisiana have a lot of power, and Walters’ character has shaped Bell’s case. Walters has lived in LaSalle Parish most of his life, where for many years the area where he lived fought a rear-guard action against school desegregation. It was not until 1969, 15 years after the famous Brown v. Board of Education judgment was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court, that the first blacks were admitted to Jena High. In 1981 David Duke, former Klansman and unabashedly opposed to Negroes and Jews, received 63 percent of the LaSalle Parish vote in a race for governor. Black areas in Jena are unincorporated, meaning they cannot vote for mayor or police chief, and they are ineligible for town services like garbage collection. Walters advises the police jury, the hospital, and the school board. A pillar of the Midway Baptist Church, a licensed minister, he seems to believe that everything he did in the Jena Six case was 100 percent correct. The parish is 7 -1 whites to blacks. Although there is one black member on the 10-member school board and on the police jury, blacks have no power. Parish-wide, in public schools, there are only 4 black teachers out of 196. He told author Waldman that the high school’s white quarterback throws to both black and white players, and this was evidence of Jena’s “perfect” race relations.
In December 2007 Bell made a deal with D.A. Walters: He pleaded guilty to second-degree battery, a misdemeanor. He acknowledged in open court that he had struck Barker. He agreed to testify against his co-defendants in case they go to trial. His sentence was 18 months, including time served. He will be admitted to a high school not yet determined, which will enable him to play football again in the fall 2008. There was a video on the Internet Dec. 29 showing Bell in the home of Audie McSwain, Bell’s foster parent, in Monroe. Bell’s attorney Bob Noel said that Bell had been evaluated by the Office of your Development and found to be no risk to the public. Recently, Mayor Murphy McMillin created a Community Relations Panel to address the needs of the community. Christine Norris, chief of the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians is a panel member. Jena has a long way to go to become like Lafayette and Baton Rouge, where there is a modicum of racial justice. Actually, Lafayette and Baton Rouge have a long way to go.

-3-

Lorna Bourg Honored by Louisiana Environmental Action Network

In September longtime LCHR member Lorna Bourg received an award for her work with rural community and housing; she is president and executive director of the Southern Mutual Help Association in New Iberia. She received LCHR’s Oliver-Sigur Humanitarian Award in 2002.

NEWS FROM BATON ROUGE

Council Holds Public Form on Mass Transit

The Baton Rouge Council on Human Relations held a public panel discussion on mass transit at the Unitarian Church on November 8. Speakers were asked particularly to address ideas for possible limited routes or shuttles that might be established to serve specific high-volume traffic needs, such as the shuttle for LSU football games. Dr. James Cross, Southern University engineering professor, drafted the proposal for citizen-directed solutions. The speakers were: Jason El Koubi, Policy Director, Baton Rouge Area Chamber; R. J. Goebel, Director of Planning, Capital Region Planning Commission; Kiran Vemuri, Director of Planning, CATS (Baton Rouge’s bus company); and Brian Goad, Landscape Architect, Reich Associates organization.

Baton Rouge Loses Its Liberal Radio Station

WPYR–AM 1380 came on the air two years ago, as an Air America (liberal) affiliate talk-show station owned by Clear Channel Communications (large conservative corporation). Operating from sunup to sundown, it was the only liberal radio station Baton Rouge has had in at least the past 53 years that I have been listening to radio here. Clear Channel changed it on December 3 to a gospel music station, perhaps because of low Arbitron ratings. There’s an effort by some of us to bring a liberal station to Baton Rouge, but the prospects aren’t good.

class=Section3>

Dr. Diola Bagayoko Receives Award

In November Southern University Distinguished Professor of Physics Diola Bagayoko, received the Benjamin Banneker Legacy Award in Washington, D.C. He is a former member of the BRCHR board of directors and director of Southern’s Timbuktu Academy. Banneker was a famous free African-American astronomer in the U.S. in the late 1700s, a strong advocate of equal justice and peace .Comedian Bill Cosby presented the award.

Deaths of Rupert F. Richardson, Margaret Jane Pereboom, and Dorothy Green Taplin

Mrs. Richardson passed away in Baton Rouge Jan. 24 at age 78. She was an alumnus of Southern University and McNeese State University and held an honorary doctorate from Colorado Technical University. Although she was well known as La. NAACP President and national NAACP President, she also received the BRCHR’s Humanitarian Award and served a term as a member of the its board of directors. She served on many other non-profit boards and was a charter member of the Louisiana Women’s and Louisiana Black History Halls of Fame.

Dr. Pereboom died in Roswell, Ga. Jan. 18 at age 79. She was a charter member of the BRCHR, receiving its humanitarian award in 2000. She resided in Baton Rouge for 47 years. She served a term on the EBR Parish School Board and founded Agenda for Children, a nonprofit for children’s rights. Holding a Ph.D. in educational psychology, she won many awards for her achievements. A memorial service is to be held at 1 p.m. Feb. 16, at the Unitarian Church, 8470 Goodwood Blvd., Baton Rouge.

Mrs. Taplin passed away Jan. 23 at age 90. A longtime member of the BRCHR, she was a graduate of Southern University and Atlanta University. She was principal of Scott St. and Polk Elementary Schools in Baton Rouge, retiring in 1977. A member of Phi Delta Kappa and Delta Sigma Theta, Mrs. Taplin received many awards at professional meetings and seminars. She worked in a large number of church and civic volunteer ministries.

Community Preview of New TV Documentary on Segregation in Old South Baton Rouge

The public preview of “Baton Rouge’s Troubled Waters: Brooks Park and Beyond” was held Jan. 31 at McKinley Middle Magnet School. The program will be broadcast on WLPB Tuesday Feb. 26. Judge Trudy White, a So.B.R. native, apparently inspired it, and Dorothy Kendrick of WLPB put it together with the help of its skilled staff. It was professionally done, and I recommend it highly (besides, I’m interviewed in it!). It tells the true story of racial segregation in the Old South Baton Rouge community from the 1940s on until the present, mainly by the use of interviews with people who knew first-hand about the local race relations. I knew most of them, and a number were active in the BRCHR, formed in 1965. Some of those I knew were Joe Delpit, Horatio Thompson, Thelma Tacneau, Dupuy Anderson, Johnnie Jones, Sr., Marian Wells, Earl Taylor, Maxine Crump, Freya Anderson Rivers, T.J. Jemison, Troy H. Middleton, Woody Dumas, Betty Claiborne, Pearl George, Murphy Bell, Willie Spooner, Huel Perkins. After

-4-

the showing, a few of us came forward and spoke to the group, including Joe Delpit, Collis Temple, and me. Among those present were Inez Anderson, widow of Dupuy and mother of Freya, and several other members of the BRCHR.

The story of how the Rev. W.K. Brooks in 1947 led other blacks from Old South Baton Rouge, with help from a few whites, to form the “United Negro Recreational Association,” which provided a swimming pool and a recreational facility is fascinating. In 1947 blacks were not allowed by BREC and the city government to swim in “Whites-only” City Park pool, the largest and nicest in Baton Rouge, and close to Old South Baton Rouge. African-American children were swimming (and drowning) in the dangerous Mississippi River and in local mud holes after a rain. The documentary highlights the grit and know-how of the South Baton Rougeans, and also covers the attempted “swim-in” at City Park, the attempt to integrate City Park’s golf course, the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, and the 47-year-long Baton Rouge Schools Integration case.

If You Haven’t Already, Please Send Dues to Receive this Newsletter (Fiscal Year Began 07/01/07).

$15 Individual, $20 Family, $1 Student and/or Hardship.

For non-BR residents: make check to LCHR. For BR area residents: make check to BRCHR.

Send checks for LCHR and BRCHR to Richard Haymaker, 254 Nelson Dr., Baton Rouge, LA 70808.

We welcome those who agree with our principles, which are to strive for equal opportunity and good relations for all human beings, whatever their race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin.

Louisiana Council on Human NON-PROFIT
Relations and the Baton Rouge ORGANIZATION
Council on Human Relations U.S.POSTAGE
254 Nelson Dr. PAID
Baton Rouge, LA 70808 Permit #413
Baton Rouge, LA

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED