Pleading to be treated like "We The People" in 2016

One by one, parents and other members of the of the African American community, took the stand in District Court and pleaded for a seat at the table in the Huntsville desegregation case. 

More than a half century since her grandfather sued to end dual schooling in Huntsville, Catherine Hereford took the witness stand in an attempt to fill his shoes.
"I want to continue the work my grandfather did and see it through to completion," Hereford told U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala on Monday in a crowded federal courtroom in downtown Huntsville
At stake is who gets a seat in the negotiations to end the city's long-running desegregation case.

Everybody has a seat at the table except those who are impacted the most   

"Since the filing of the Consent Decree in this case, the DOJ has failed to adequately represent the interests of African-American students in the Huntsville City Schools," reads the motion filed Friday.

Not surprisingly Huntsville City Schools and the DOJ want to keep it that way

"Please don't put us in a position that it's so unwieldy we cannot deal with," said J.R. Brooks, the school board attorney, in his closing appeal to the judge. He said that four new plaintiffs could open the door to even more new plaintiffs.

And the Judge thinks it's "growing pains"? 

The SPLC repeatedly commended the proposed consent order's objectives and efforts but argued it "does not comprehensively address many of the issues with HCS discipline procedures and practices, nor has the court been fully apprised of the issues during this litigation."
The Montgomery-based organization concluded in its 10-page letter that the plan risks being a "temporary fix" or "exacerbating" the situation unless it adds four revisions:
Meaningful judicial oversight;
Robust accountability measures;
Significant due process protections;
An expeditious time frame.
The SPLC criticized the proposed consent order as being written in "vague and overbroad terms that create uncertainty" and make it hard for the court to enforce.
It also seeks language that requires the school district to provide attorneys to students/families brought to disciplinary hearings in they can't afford one; obligations to report ongoing data; and a time frame for implementing reforms.

So here Black Parents and Community leaders go again.  Pleading to be heard.  Pleading for a seat at the table.  Pleading to be treated like human beings.  My question is why do we have to beg? 

I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me. Langston Hughes

Huntsville City Schools Black/Brown/Poor Children are still "Waiting For Superman" Redux

Huntsville City Schools March 11, 1963 -March 11, 2016  (Huntsville Times file)

Hopefully Superman, in the form of  U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala, will put on her cape, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and allow new plaintiffs to join the long standing Huntsville City Schools desegregation case.

Black parents in north Huntsville are urging a federal judge to allow their four children to join the 53-year-old lawsuit to desegregate Huntsville City Schools.
The parents filed a motion in U.S. District Court late Friday that argues the U.S. Department of Justice does not represent the concerns of local families.
"The DOJ has failed to maintain regular communications with the African-American community in Huntsville," reads the motion. "It has not held a single meeting with the said community."
Birmingham attorney Mark Debro filed the motion, which also contends that the Justice Department has ignored complaints from those affected in Huntsville.
Debro seeks to have four children substituted for the original plaintiffs or otherwise added as intervenors alongside the Justice Department.

Why this action is even necessary.

So, the North Huntsville Collective says the plan is OK and they plan to monitor it persistently, after they said the plan failed north Huntsville Schools. Really? And how do they plan to monitor a plan that can't be monitored? And what makes them believe this administration and this school board are going to listen to them about anything? Heck, they won't even allow black elected officials and community leaders to hold a press conference on the steps of the Merts Center. They won't allow citizens to comment at public meetings without writing down their questions and having them read by a Mime. They no longer televise citizens comments because citizens might actually be informed instead of misinformed. They have teachers and parents afraid to speak out. So good luck with that persistent monitoring thingy.

Ironically the legendary Civil Rights Pioneer who iniated the desegregation law suit, Dr. Sonnie Wellington Hereford III was laid to rest last week. It's a shame he died with Huntsville City Schools looking the same way it did on March 11, 1963.  Hopefully, Judge Haikala will enable a new generation of plaintiffs to finally complete the work he started.

And the media enabled #hcsboe taxpayer funded #desegregation spin rolls on...

Is the Mainstream Media a Propaganda Machine?

In another glaring example of the media we have using the public airways to spin the false narrative the desegregation consent order is the best thing since white, I mean, sliced bread, WAFF Channel 48 did their part erroneously claiming the "man who started it all was pleased with the consent order." proceeding to interview the son of the man who started it all 52 years ago.  The son of the man who actually started it all who was 5 years old at the time.  The son of the man who was "troubled" by Huntsville City Schools motion before he was "pleased" with Huntsville City Schools motion. The son of the man whose children and grand children aren't enrolled in Huntsville City Schools.  The son of the man who lives in the town of Madison, AL, which is not under a desegregation order because the schools are well.....integrated.

EYE guess it would have been too much like right to interview the man who actually started it all 52 years ago since he is very much alive and as far as EYE know he's a great story teller. But according to WHNT  Dr. Sonnie Wellington Hereford III doesn’t have any children or even grandchildren in the system any more so he’s not as close to the details of what’s going on now.   EYE wonder why?  EYE submit it's because the media doesn't want him involved, they would prefer he be seen and not heard.

Let's talk about the man who actually started it all.  Dr. Sonnie Wellington Hereford III
is a retired physician and civil rights leader who has taught at Alabama A&M University and Calhoun Community College, and has served as campus physician for those schools, as well as Oakwood College.

Two photographs tell much of this story.

One is an iconic image of the civil rights struggles in Huntsville's past: Dr. Sonnie Hereford III, dressed in suit, tie, hat, every inch the serious physician, holds the hand of his young son, Sonnie Hereford IV, as they walk away from Fifth Avenue Elementary School on Sept. 6, 1963. They'd been turned away by state troopers dispatched by Gov. George Wallace to enforce segregation.
That was on a Friday. The next Monday morning, 6-year-old Sonnie IV would become the first black child to enroll in a previously all-white school in the state of Alabama.
The photograph would become a public symbol of temporary defeat but ultimate triumph, published countless times, including in The Huntsville Times.

From his 2011 Memoir, Beside the Troubled Waters:  A Black Doctor remembers life, medicine, and Civil Rights in an Alabama Town.

Beside the Troubled Waters is a memoir by an African American physician in Alabama whose story in many ways typifies the lives and careers of black doctors in the south during the segregationist era while also illustrating the diversity of the black experience in the medical profession. Based on interviews conducted with Hereford over ten years, the account includes his childhood and youth as the son of a black sharecropper and Primitive Baptist minister in Madison County, Alabama, during the Depression; his education at Huntsville’s all-black Council School and medical training at Meharry Medical College in Nashville; his medical practice in Huntsville’s black community beginning in 1956; his efforts to overcome the racism he met in the white medical community; his participation in the civil rights movement in Huntsville; and his later problems with the Medicaid program and state medical authorities, which eventually led to the loss of his license.

Hereford’s memoir stands out because of its medical and civil rights themes, and also because of its compelling account of the professional ruin Hereford encountered after 37 years of practice, as the end of segregation and the federal role in medical care placed black doctors in competition with white ones for the first time.

Why is the man who actually started it all being marginalized, minimized, and excluded from the discussion?   Could it be because Dr. Sonnie Wellington Hereford is from the era of authentic Civil Rights leaders like Dr. John Cashin and Reverend Ezekiel Bell?

Huntsville, Alabama, grew quickly during the United States’ Space Race with the Soviet Union. From 1950 to 1960, the population tripled from 16,000 to 72,000, with 30% black citizens. With Redstone Arsenal and the National Aeronautics (NASA) bringing scientists and middle class citizens to Huntsville, the city administration tried to present the city with a progressive image. However, instead of improving conditions for black citizens, the administration claimed that a racial inequality did not exist.

On 3 January 1962, the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) field secretary and former Freedom Rider Hank Thomas came to Huntsville. He quickly gathered a group of students from Alabama Agriculture and Mechanical College, a historically black college founded in 1875. He also recruited Council High School students to join in launching a sit-in campaign to desegregate lunch counters around Huntsville.
On 5 January 1962, police arrested two demonstrators for trespassing on public property, Frances Sims and Dwight Thomas. In a few days, police arrested 14 more students.
In response, members of the black community in Huntsville sent a delegation to speak with Mayor Searcy about working with store owners to integrate lunch counters. After Searcy refused, members of the community formed the Community Service Committee (CSC).

EYE sure do miss the good old days when we had real Civil Rights Leaders and Community Organizers instead of mascots, preachers and elected officials, who pose as leaders.  EYE also miss the good old days when the media used the public airways to inform the public instead of using them to distort what we decide with all spin all the time, unfair and unbalanced.

RedEye