Two giants of justice in America passed on Oct. 5. Here is a remembrance.
The late Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth
ATLANTIC CITY — As much as I would like to omit “race” from my vernacular, the loss of two giants for justice last week — Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Dr. Derrick Bell — reminded me that I cannot.
This ugliest of “isms” is too much a part of our country’s past and present, even though the concept of separate human races was debunked by scientists at least a decade ago.
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the co-founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, spent his adult years leading protests against racism and segregation in Alabama and elsewhere in the South.
Once vowing to “kill segregation or be killed by it,” Shuttlesworth remained committed to the SCLC’s nonviolent motto: Not one hair on one head of one person should be harmed.
Many attempts were made on his life, homes and churches in Birmingham, Alabama, and Cincinnati, Ohio.
In 2007, he returned to live in his boyhood home of Birmingham and the city renamed its airport in his honor in 2008.
He was a tireless advocate for the poor and disenfranchised until he became too ill; he was 89 years old.
Cut from the same cloth was Dr. Derrick Bell, who risked his own career as a legal scholar more than once for a cause he believed in, the fair and equitable treatment of all people regardless of color.
His Critical Race Theory, which suggests that the U.S. legal system, among other institutions in our country, is inherently biased against non-whites, made him a controversial figure in many circles.
His last appointment was at the New York University Law School, but only after two years of being absent without pay from Harvard’s Law School.
He had left Harvard in protest because the school refused tenure to a woman of color. In 1971, he had been appointed Harvard’s first African-American tenured professor; he became Dean of the University of Oregon’s Law School in the 1980s. After he resigned over Oregon’s refusal to hire two Asian-American women for its faculty, he returned to Harvard in the 1990s before leaving in protest.
When both of these men died on Oct. 5, I found myself retracing my own educational history with regards to race.
At some point, I learned that there was a Negroid race, a Caucasoid race and a Mongoloid race. This never seemed quite right to me, but I accepted that the books where I read about these concepts were factual and accurate.
Through my own investigations as an adult — and by way of many experiences with people of all colors, I must add — I came to realize that there is only one race, the human race.
The human race has people in it from the darkest blue-black to the palest chalk-white and everything in between. Genetic scientists have informed us that humans, unlike many animals, do not have any subspecies. Our physical differences, such as wider or slimmer noses, eye and lip shapes and so forth, are based largely on adaptations to our geographical environment and lineage.
Dr. Vernellia Randall of the University of Dayton explains race as a “social construct” with no scientific basis whatsoever. Others describe it as a “socio-economic concept,” which was used in more recent history to justify the extermination, oppression or exploitation of brown-skinned people on almost every continent.
Atlantic City’s Brighton Park was occupied Saturday afternoon, Oct. 22, by a group of more than 30 people who stood in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Occupy Atlantic City members plan to meet again Saturday, Oct, 29, back at Brighton Park.
“The Village,” as the Stanley Homes Village is fondly recalled by so many who grew up there, was the first public housing constructed in the state of New Jersey and one of the first “projects” in the United States.
While the older Baby Boomers are beginning to collect their Social Security benefits and the younger Boomers are still holding on to their tenuous employment, we middle Boomers are busy trying to make ends meet “on that slow crawl towards Social Security” as one author put it, many of us working more than one part-time job.
The Polaris Development Group plans to revitalize Kentucky Avenue, as well as its historic and long-gone entertainment and eating establishments.
Atlantic City, like many other U.S. cities, once had segregated beaches, but they didn't start out that way. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Blacks and whites lived side-by-side, worked side-by-side and played side-by-side.
"An urban high school is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. It’s a global world now so it’s good to get to know people from a lot of different places, with a lot of different backgrounds. You can’t learn that from a book.”
ATLANTIC CITY — The latest “Justice for Nadirah” rally was held last Monday (May 9) at the Soldier’s Home. Nadirah’s grandfather spoke, as well as Imam Wali of Masjid Muhammad, A.C., Rev. McCoy of the Fellowship of Churches, Pastor Matthews of Salem Methodist in P’ville, Rev. Delaney of Central United Methodist in Linwood, Steve Young of the National Action Network and Chief Jubilee, demonstrating a real unified concern. Among other things, the speakers reminded audience members to continue with their present community awareness, to reach out to our youth constantly, not only in troubled times, that whatever affects us in Atlantic City also affects nearby communities and that what happened to Nadirah can happen to any one of us or those we love. Chief Jubilee assured the audience that this crime “WILL be solved.” * * * * Bridge of Faith already has more than 25 sponsors for its 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Memorial. The program is currently in its planning stage, but things are shaping up nicely with representation from many diverse sections of our local community. * * * * Great news! If you missed excerpts from several of August Wilson’s plays back in March, not to worry. The Atlantic City Theatre...
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1. Ms. B. said... on Oct 16, 2011 at 08:49PM
“I agree. It is very disheartening that this idea of "race" persist. On this day that the MLK memorial was dedicated, I hope that eventually race will not matter at all.”