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How did the changing nature of the civil rights movement and protest activity affect your work?
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Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: You've been in this a long time, as we've said. Do you think that there have been changes in
the Civil Rights Movement that have affected the way you work? And if so, what are they?
Answer: Certainly one difference is that there is less official opposition now to the concept of having
civil rights. I think that nowadays, it's very rare to find someone who reports to be opposed to
civil rights and equal opportunity and non-discrimination. Now what that would look like is
another issue, and even as we were watching the [John] Ashcroft hearings [confirmation hearings
for appointment as Attorney General under President George W. Bush] recently, I think we were
certainly aware of the fact that opposition to civil rights is a difficult thing to recognize in a
person.
I think that from the perspective of communities of color, in many ways, the civil rights issues
have been more difficult to deal with because the racism and discrimination that they see have
become more covert. And because of that, you don't have the national outrage at the lack of civil
rights. Many whites in this country who aren't somehow involved in or immersed in the civil
rights and race relations issues, genuinely believe that everything's fine. Yeah, you have your
occasional Jasper [Texas, referring to the dragging death of James Bird in 1998] which is oh,
that was horrible and you have a Rodney King, which shouldn't have happened. But they really
believe that for the most part there is no more racism, there is no more discrimination. Yeah
there's some idiots out there, yeah there's still a few Klan folks and skinheads, but everybody
knows they're idiots, it's no big deal. There is a perception that people are just "playing the race
card," if you will, that they're just the troublemakers, and that things really are okay in the great
scheme. And if somebody discriminates, they're prosecuted and dealt with.
One of the stories that I always use in talking to white friends, is of a colleague of mine, a
mediator from one of our regions who travels a lot. He's a tall, black man, athletic, and he likes
to run in the morning. When he's traveling, he has learned that before he runs in the morning, it's
a good idea to call the local police department from the hotel and say, "Look, I'm so-and-so, and
I'm with the Department of Justice Community Relations Service. I'm staying at such-and-such
hotel, and I'll be out running from five to six in the morning. I just want you to know about that."
If he doesn't do that, guaranteed he's going to be stopped by a cop and asked, "Who are you?
Where are you going, and what are you doing here?" You see a black man running down the
street, and you assume he's running away from something. And he's accepted that, and most
times he laughs at the whole thing. He'll see a patrol car and they'll wave at him, because they've
gotten the word. If he doesn't make that call, though, they'll stop him.
People don't think that sort of thing is happening, and what's even more sad and dangerous, if
you will, is that even the cops who would stop him don't realize that their actions are racist and
discriminatory. They think they're doing their job: If you see a black man running down the street
and he doesn't belong there, you've got to question him. And so, now the whole racial profiling
issue is hitting the papers. It's been there forever, though; it's not a new phenomenon. People of
color have been aware of that for a very, very long time, and they're not surprised by it.
But you know, the perception is largely that everybody is being treated fairly. And when that's
the perception, it's much more difficult to make the case that "something's rotten in Denmark,"
or in this case, Colorado. Anymore, it's not so much the officially-sanctioned discrimination that
results in outcries; it's much more subtle forms of discrimination that are ongoing. So, well-
meaning, well-intentioned people really believe that some people will just never be satisfied and
will keep playing the race card. They end up wondering, "What does Jesse Jackson want,
anyway?" And so that mindset makes it more difficult to get people to acknowledge that there is
a problem that needs to be dealt with. You'll find that, to some extent, in almost any white
community that you go into.
My job is to try to persuade and convince them that it's important to address some of these
problems that they really are problems. You know, I tell them, "I'm not accusing you of being
racist, and I'm not accusing this community of discriminating. I'm saying that as long as that
perception is out there that there is discrimination and racism you're going to have a problem.
So let's see whether we can get the parties together and deal with it." And then once you get that
rolling, once that community of color has a chance to explain what they see as being racist, you
can begin to deal with that. We have to get away from the finger-pointing, and cooperate to
figure out a solution. And that's fine. But I don't know whether that answers your question.
| Leo Cardenas
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
How have things changed over the
years?
Do you think that the changes in the civil rights movement or the conditions in the cities have
made CRS's job different over the years that you were there?
Answer: There's certainly recognition today that minorities are full partners in communities. Some by
sheer number, others by the fact that the educational level has been raised, but certainly more
important, by the almighty dollar. There's recognition today, that in terms of numbers,
computers, they can pinpoint how many dollars the minority community generates in terms of
jobs and spending. That is translated now into the public budgets that those services have to be
as equitable as possible. Certainly, we see it in the selection of school superintendents and
police chiefs today that their abilities to communicate to the total community (and the total
community means the minority community today) is what their job depends on. Job descriptions
of any manager, middle or upper, contains performance factors affecting their ability to relate to
the minority community. Those things certainly didn't exist in the seventies. They thought that
they were in full control and that they were hired to be in full control. That's not the case at all
today -- we see it in the tenures today. Probably, two to three years, anybody that lasts, any
superintendent or police chief that lasts anything beyond that becomes suspect as to why they're
not moving anywhere, why they're staying, or if they have a tremendous amount of ability. We
see it within our own communities as our own organizations, non-profit organizations who have
executive director positions through grants, where the executive directors themselves don't last
but two or three years. The communities themselves are now demanding more than they were
before and there's recognition on the part of the leadership that they indeed have to serve this
community.
Question: Does that make your job easier or harder?
Answer: Harder. Harder because the managers still do not know how to handle a minority
community
in an emerging community. By emerging I mean, how we deal with the Vietnamese community
and its size is something we still have to learn. So it's a learning process. The expectations of
the minority community are higher then they've ever been, now that their level of education and
knowledge, and presence in the corporate world and in the private world is higher. So the
disputes today are about money, or about very specific resources. We didn't even have computer
screens, so those things are very different today.
Question: Does that determine whether or not CRS becomes involved, if you
frame it in terms of the money issue, it's no longer a race issue, does that remove CRS?
Answer: It becomes a race or an ethnic national origin issue by the fact of who the minority
community is, whereas it used to be that when we would get involved with a minority
community, it would be the black community or the Hispanic community, or the Latino, or the
Indian community. And now it's a combination of all of the above. We will get called in by a
group which happens to have the better of the resources, but what we find is that it's a coalition
now. And we used to have to suggest that people coalesce and while they always agreed that the
idea of coalition was very good, they seldom did it. They didn't have the means, and neither did
we, for them to coalesce.
Question: Do you have to do less -- I've got a loaded term -- empowerment, less building up of the
minority party now than you used to do twenty years ago?
Answer: Oh yeah, no question about it. The type of disputes where we can find success has been
raised. An example is, right before I retired, there was a
NCAA dispute that initially focused on the claim that not enough minorities at that time were on
full scholarships playing basketball. Well, the Black Coaches' Association found the almighty
dollar, the so-called Final Four Basketball Tournament, which brings in the majority of the
revenue for all college basketball programs. Because the revenue, it's TV revenue, that's what it
is. Well, it so happened that one of the finalists was the University of Arkansas. In 1995, they
threatened to boycott the Final Four tournament and the University of Arkansas was sure that
they would be in the Final Four and eventually were. It was clear that there would be no Final
Four if U of A did not participate. So when CRS finally got them to the negotiations table, you
are looking at the top black coaches who are articulate and know what they're talking about, and
you're looking at college presidents on the other side. This is what we've come about, that level
of community. The Black Coaches' Association was saying that they were not hiring enough
black coaches. By the time they got to the table, the real issue was how many Freshman
individuals can you get on a team and how long can you keep them, how many can you "red
shirt", and all of those complicated things that were more complicated than the general public
knows about. But eventually it was the dollars: If you don't hold a Final Four tournament,
you're talking about the financial life-blood of the college basketball program. You're talking
about the very survival of the program. The Green Dollar-Sign Monster talks.
Manuel Salinas
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: How did the changing nature of the civil rights movement and
protest activity affect the nature of your work?
Answer: I think there was more awareness, and because of that protests would surface more often.
They were more aware of civil rights activities, and the protests increased, I believe, prior to
that.
Question: You're saying people were more aware early or later?
Answer: Later. In other words, after 1964 people became more aware that protest was a method that
could be utilized to try and solve some of those community issues that had not been resolved.
So I think that there was more awareness, and whether it was through the press or the
grapevine, or through better organizational skills like the Forum or whatever, people just
became more aware, and therefore they were able to get things done because they knew better
what to do.
Question: When you started, had Martin Luther King been assassinated?
Answer: What year was that now?
Question: 68.
Answer: 68. That's right. For the community groups in this region though, this didn't have an
immediate effect, because the black population was relatively small. This affected more, I
believe, where the black community was the strongest. In this region, protests began to occur,
but it was later, not immediately, as it was in cities with large black populations. As you know
the American Indian Movement's protest wasn't until 1972, Wounded Knee was '72, but since
that time there's been more and more activity as far as the American Indian Movement is
concerned.
Question: What was the establishment response to this activity? Did you see a change in that over
twenty years?
Answer: I think the response was positive. I think the establishment was also concerned about what
was happening. They too were talking about it, and they didn't have to be pushed to talk about
it. I think the universities were talking about it too, so they were aware.
Question: How would you say CRS changed from 68 to 86?
Answer: I think we did it more, maybe we could say more systematically. We had a better handle on
things. We weren't as naive perhaps in the later years, because we had people with a lot of
training experience who trained the new people. Early on people coming in had some feel for
mediation but not necessarily the training that would be needed to be able to go out into the
field and feel comfortable. So I believe the training did do a better job.
Question: What kind of training would a new person get?
Answer: They had a group out of New York do mediation training for the staff. Primarily what they
did is read situations, and try to find solutions to those situations and then meet head on with a
person in a role play. That person would not be cooperative, and you would see how you
manage to go through the process and find a solution. So that type of role play is what they
presented to us. Also, we talked about who do you deal with, how do you deal with things,
how you go into a community, what you look for, who do you talk with.
Question: Did you have that sort of training when you started?
Answer: No. It came about gradually over a period of time. The only one who could give you
direction, naturally, was the regional director. He would sit down with you and say, "Ok,
when you go into this situation, these are the things you ought to consider. Then we would
write reports, so they were aware what we were doing. So they would help you along until the
training came along. They tried to do the training at least once a year.
Ozell Sutton
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: How do you think the changing nature of the civil rights movement
and protest activity shaped the challenges you faced as a civil rights mediator?
Answer: First place, I must recognize the changing nature of the animal. There once was a time
when the whole issue was just black and white. The issue is no longer black and white, it's
brown, it's red, it's yellow, in other words, Hispanics, Native Americans. There are more
people in the pool now. They've always been there, they just haven't been raising issues
among themselves. Like I said earlier, there's no issue unless somebody raises it. That doesn't
mean that there's no discrimination, no repression, but until somebody says, "I want this
stopped," it isn't a conflict. Other ethnic groups are now demanding that they too must be
included.
Now you must understand that, and you have to understand the cultural background out of
which they come. So it becomes more demanding, now that I need to know more than just
black and white culture, I've got to know Asian culture, or Hispanic culture. And even within
those cultures, I've got to know there's a world of difference between Japanese and Chinese.
And there's a world of difference between Cuban Americans who are Hispanic, and Puerto
Rican Americans who are also Hispanic. And that they dislike each other with passion. The
Cuban Americans don't like Mexican Americans, because they think Mexican Americans are
submissive. Well I won't get into all that. Even within the so-called culture itself. And to say
Browns are Hispanic does not define the culture at all. Sometimes the only thing they have in
common is language. Even Spanish is spoken differently from one culture to another. So the
mediator must understand the dynamic, they must also understand the dynamic of the change
of approaches. We are no longer fighting to enter a restaurant and be served, we are fighting to
have the money with which to buy food. It doesn't do any good to get the ability to go into the
restaurant if you don't have any money. There's a shift from blatant and overt discrimination,
to the presence of blacks in certain jobs, upward mobility, and hiring practices, and
promotional opportunities and these kinds of things. A mediator now has to be able to grasp
all of these things. It's a great shift.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
These deputies
came into the room with gas masks and clubs and they sent the blood flying everywhere. Slap.
Splatter
blood on the wall here. Slap. Splatter blood on the wall there. I guess the only thing you had to
do was
make sure you didn't get any on you. You couldn't do anything about it. That's hard core
mediation.
Neither myself nor my colleague was going to stop that. All we did was record it and report it
and that was
it.
Question: That's mediation, huh?
Answer: Yes. Yes, it is. We're talking about civil rights mediating. Of
course, you know that I'm speaking basically of another time. We don't have too much of that
nowadays.
We don't have Mayor Daly coming out with his clubs and beating the heck out of anybody. That
was
another time, another era. It still happens, but there aren't as many instances because we're not
dealing
in the same fashion as in the civil rights era. We have different types of people running the show
now.
Different age groups and they have different modalities for how they want to resolve a situation.
Question: Where do you see the biggest difference between the model you followed during the civil
rights era and
now, as far as the way that you handle these types of cases. You mentioned that during the civil
rights era
it was something common to see sort of the bloodbath going on. Now you said it's changed a
little bit...
Answer: Only in the sense that they stopped doing as much of it. We don't have as many
demonstrations and
marches. In a lot of instances the perceived injustices are still there, I'm speaking to the volume
of it. Do
you remember Robert Vortier?
Wallace Warfield
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: Did the changing nature of the Civil
Rights movement play into this at all?
Answer: Say more about that.
Question: We’ve heard from some people that back in the ‘60s, everybody was into demonstrating,
and there had to be
more "putting out fires” because there were more fires burning. Now, minority groups have
gotten more sophisticated;
they tend to do it more in court, so that the nature of the work that CRS does is changing......
Answer: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know what else to say about that. I think that’s true.
Question: Okay. Does that mean that there’s not so much of a role for the agency anymore?
Answer: Well again, it goes to....what kind of identity does CRS want to have? I mean, CRS was, I
thought, incredibly wedded, or was certainly split between competing identities. One identity I
would call the "Wounded Knee” identity, flying into a situation, bullets whizzing over your head.
What did you really do? Well, that was secondary. The main thing was the excitement. You were
in the thick of things, and it was tangible, the fear was tangible, it was exhilarating. Not the kind
of ambiguity from doing some of the more long-term kinds of processes where you can’t see the
outcome. Our field [of Conflict Resolution] is a field where you have to live with ambiguity. If
you can’t live with ambiguity, you have no business being in the CR field. But in that way,
CRS, at the end of the day, could say, "Well, I stopped these two guys from burning down a store
in this community. These other two guys were about to pull out a rifle and shoot across a ridge
and I stopped that....” You could count that; you could measure that. It doesn’t matter whether
or not you could actually see what you did.
The other part of the agency -- and I would think that I was one of the people that made the
transition -- I was never really wedded to the fire-fighting notion to begin with, you know -- and
so many of us, who saw the handwriting on the wall, said, "Those of you who think about CRS in
the Wounded Knee fashion are perpetuating a myth of communities that no longer exist. The
minorities in the communities are becoming more sophisticated than we are. Why do they need
us? They don’t really need us -- you’ve got other groups and other organizations.” By that
time, the field of dispute resolution was becoming more professionalized, as there were
community-based DR centers, the justice centers were coming online, and people were just sort
of nibbling away at the flanks of CRS, I’d say from the mid-’70s on. And, you know, much of
the agency had sort of surrounded itself in this reactive approach, and many of us were saying,
"Listen, things are changing and we’d better change.” But there were people who came out of
that Civil Rights era, who knew protests, in fact were comfortable with that because that’s who
they were. The old militant leadership, who knew nothing but protests in communities, began to
lose out to more sophisticated people who had more skills like the Atlanta-based NAACP, and to
negotiating. Not that the protests still weren’t useful from time to time, but the landscape of
disputing was changing, and the agency had a very difficult time making the transition. From
what I understand, from the few people I stay in touch with, there still is some of that difficulty
there.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Have there been changes in civil rights conflicts or the civil
rights movement that have affected your work, or the way you do things?
Answer: The civil rights movement is very dynamic and it's very political. It changes all the time
with every administration in terms of how we get impacted. It means different things because if
I'm working a school case and I'm talking to the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of
Education, and they'll say, "You ought to get a mediation agreement because we're not going to
be able to make a finding." There are a lot of dynamics where politically officers are constrained
for what they can do. It affects all the leverage that we have in our mediation cases.
If you think about it, I've been very frustrated lately with our civil
rights leverage and our due process in the sense that when you look at the state and you look at
the federal government and you are hard pressed to find sanctions for schools that may be
discriminating. There is very little muscle in these agencies to really say to a school district that
you are not protecting the civil rights of your students. That all affects what we can do. We're
trying to get mediation agreement, but some school districts have this attitude that "there is
nobody to make me do that." That has a direct impact. I'm trying to work with the Office of
Civil Rights, the State Department of School Safety with the State Attorney General's office to
look at where we draw the line? Is there any muscle? The state can take over a school. It can
take a school in trust over academic failure or mismanagement. But, can it take a school over for
civil rights violations? I think that's a form of mismanagement. I think we need to broaden that
term and send a message to the school systems that there is a level that is not permitted. The
only muscle that is out there in civil rights now is a court suits. They file for millions of dollars,
and yet, I'm told, the attitude of some school leaders is that it's not my money. We'll just pay
them. They are only conveyers of public money. That all reflects on the civil rights attitudes and
enforcement mechanisms that impinge upon the leverage that mediation can get parties to
seriously take the mediation process and discrimination and civil rights issues.
Housing is a whole other area. At times we had strong support in the area of
discrimination in housing. Now we have the problem where we have the Department of Housing
and Urban Development putting people into situations in housing areas where they're not safe.
We're mixing people into dangerous communities because of their race or ethnicity. We're not
doing any preparation to recognize that we're creating very violent situations. Again, I think
those are some of the civil rights issues that aren't even being understood or looked at and we are
involved in.
| Angel
Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
But at the same time, there doesn't seem to be any positive growth in the minority
communities, except in the natural kinds of things.
For example, in the Hispanic community, it just is so by-your-bootstraps, you pick yourself up.
The
young people are getting better educated, the same as in the African-American community.
What things were going on in the seventies and eighties sure as heck are not the same as what is
going on today. Now you have a heck of a lot more professionals. You have a heck of a lot
more
people who know what they're doing, especially in terms of the kinds of assistance we provide
to them.
Leo Cardenas
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Sort of going back to the initial
question
about how the Civil Rights Movement has changed over the years, and you've expressed that
now there's sort of a monetary component to that. Does that change the role of CRS once they
get involved?
Answer: It raises it to a different level. Using the NCAA case as an example, once we were able to
find
someone in authority that had an impact on the dispute and we were able to express the type of
services that we were able to offer, the acceptance was there. And because there are
more resources, they're able to investigate us rather quickly and either accept us or not accept us.
In this particular case, we were able to say, "We'll offer you a three-member team and it
will be one Hispanic, one black, and one white, and at least one female and one male." It's those
types of things which, in the final analysis, don't make any difference at all. But in terms of
gaining an entry and getting everybody to the table, they become very important.
Bob Hughes
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I've got a totally different question for you.
How did the changing nature of the Civil Rights Movement and the protest activity over the
years shape the challenges that you faced as a mediator, or shape the work that you do?
Wording it differently, was there any difference from the early days to the later days in terms of
what you could or couldn't do?
Answer: Hmm...the only thing that I can think of along this general line are the changes of mediation
itself as they evolved. In Georgia I was involved in a mediation in which we didn't have any
ground rules at that stage. That was before CRS became involved in formal mediation. For
example, staying out on like the picket line, not a labor management, but a civil rights picket
line, and the leader of the protest group and the official from the institution were out there and
we were talking. Another conciliator and I said, "Well let's jot that down." So on the roof of
this car we jotted these things down. Okay, now you initial it, you initial it, and they did and that
was an agreement and at that moment that kind of confirmed what we had been saying verbally.
Question: So things got more formal over time I guess?
Answer: Right, if there was going to be mediation now you go through these steps.
Question: If I can just ask one question to build on that, how did that affect your job?
Answer: Well I think formal mediation was a very useful tool for CRS to get at complex issues and to
get a handle on things. Especially when a conciliated verbal agreement on the street or in a
meeting room lasts as long as the memory of the people who are sitting there. But in Fairbanks
some of the school cases we had mediation between the Fairbanks Native Association and
Fairbanks North Star School District. For two years we met every six months or so to review the
progress on the mediation agreement. For two years not a single person was involved in those
sessions that were in the mediation. The Fairbanks FNA leadership had changed and others had
been elected. The school superintendent left there and went away.
Werner Petterson
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: Did you claim that the two time periods that you worked on
CRS were, I can imagine there
was a big jump, a big change from '75 to '97 involving the changing roles of society and civil
rights in the
agency?
Answer: Oh yeah I started out during the days of demonstrations in the streets and so that's what we
did. We would respond and go to some sort of conflict that was happening in the streets. That's
what we did. We would go into situations and be a presence and reduce the tensions and get
people talking. Then of course, in the process we would also help the local communities build
their own resources. What happened is we would see communities forming human relation
commissions because we had been a part of helping them set that up, and of course they were
better able to handle situations so they didn't escalate up to conflicts on the street. I think the
community shifted away from demonstrating on the street to taking issues into court. I started
spending a lot of time being a mediator in the Federal courts, not so much in the streets anymore,
but in the courts. I started '60/'69, the Federal Government was the way to get things answered
on
civil rights and solutions around those issues really needed to happen at the local level. Then I
started getting involved with trying to set up these review boards so that the local communities
could form solutions. Taking issues to the federal courts might not have yielded much of a
solution. So in this way people themselves saw that they could get things done.
Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: How did the changing nature of the Civil
Rights Movement affect your work?
Answer: When I joined the agency in 1968 there weren't many people talking. They were protesting,
they were breaking windows. We were going back and forth between parties in volatile
situations, such as a protest where the law was being violated because somebody didn't have a
permit and yet they were going to march down the street and what not. We were helping mitigate
tensions and do things that would help minimize the likelihood of violence. Explaining to people
what was happening to one party, why the other was this way. It was important to meet together,
and getting them to meet was a big thing - just opening communications.
After a while, the dynamic changed and people started talking. There was greater verbal
communication across tables rather than through protests, marches, and violence. That was the
time when we learned the skills of mediation. CRS learned to mediate and started blazing trails
in this field and developing a body of knowledge through our experiences. We did more of this
type of mediation than any other entity, and we were the first major body of mediation after
labor.
Next, the protest broadened, so instead of black/white it was Hispanic/black/white and
American Indian and Asian, and women and disabled. In the black communities, this was often
perceived as diluting the resources available for African American. Similarly with Hispanics.
The broadening of the federal government’s response to civil rights abuses was rejected by
many civil rights groups focusing on race related issues. They felt it was an intentional dilution
of resources intended to deal with race-related discrimination.
| Bob Ensley
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
How did the changing nature of the civil rights movement shape
challenges that you faced as a mediator?
Answer: I can honestly say that the civil rights movement has provided me an opportunity to realize
how much more work needs to be done. We are just beginning. You've been able to look inside
to get to see the bigger picture. And, quite often, you're able to discern what actually needs to be
done and how difficult it's going to be to get there if certain things aren't addressed. Once
certain policies and procedures and methods actually become legality and it's not challenged or
anybody's going to contest it. With all these things in place, I realize that we are just in the
beginning stages to address all the inequities in this world. It results because of people having a
feeling that they are superior, or certain people are not deserving, or they don't have the need
for it, they don't appreciate this. Well, you can't appreciate that which you've never had. So this,
perhaps more than anything else, the civil rights movement has provided me with this. It also
has allowed me to meet and work with a lot of people who's efforts will never be recognized.
People who have been involved in the "struggle", as they refer to it, without a lot of fanfare and
a lot of notoriety. There are people who could make a lot more money doing other things, but
no, they are still involved in the struggle. I tried to keep some of them from becoming
disillusioned, saying that they've been there long enough and certain other people have
benefited from it and are still benefiting from it. I try not to let that detour them at this late
stage, because they've been there all these years and they don't know another way of life. They
have made a difference.
That's another thing, I've been able to stay in contact with a lot of people who have made the
difference. It's very rewarding for me as an individual to say I work with John Lewis, that I
know Jesse Jackson, Coretta King and knew Ralph David Abernathe. I know Jimmy Carter, Bill
Clinton and these people. It's made a difference in my life. It's also had me realize that, as I said
earlier, we have this struggle. It goes beyond black and white. You have the people who are
very, very wealthy. The only thing they're trying to do is maintain their margin of credit and
level amount of money they have on deposit, and certain stock. They watch the stock market
fluctuate everyday. But people out here now down in South Georgia are watching the water
table because they are without water. The wells are not pumping. The rich farmers who have
the irrigation systems wells are deep and are still enjoying all the water. So therefore, you have
to realize that the people will care less about the people without. There has to be a balance
where certain people, not all people, are giving to the less fortunate who have been in a terrible
state. So there has to be some more parity and more equity, and it's only going to come about
when we can get more people to realize that this world was made for all. We should share as
much as we can together.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
How did the changing nature of the
civil rights movement and protest activity affect what you do at
CRS, or did? We've heard from some people that the work of CRS
has really changed from the 70's to the 90's because the civil
rights movement has changed from the 70's to the 90's.
Answer: I think that at some point a significant part of the country
felt that minorities already had what was coming to them or even
more. They went into the mode of they've got too much
already, we have to knock down affirmative action. But if you look at all the data, the
facts, and the statistics, you see where minorities are and where
minorities think they should be. Even as far as reaching parity
with almost anything. Still, I go back to
letting the community describe their situation, what they think
they need to do, and how they can do it together. All situations
are politically local, so what good does it do me here in my
block that something is happening? It might have some effect but
I still have to earn a living, I still have to go to work, I
still have to be in the environment where I work.
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