The Columbia of 1968 strived for the same progress it does today

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN March 30, 2018

Last April 4, the 49th year since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, I became curious about Columbia’s reaction to the news of King’s murder on April 4, 1968. So, I spent the evening with Columbia Tribune microfilm at the Columbia Public Library. I was curious, hopeful and a little bit afraid of what I would find. When I came to Columbia in 1986, I was surprised to discover its segregated housing pattern, to learn that I walked the same ground where slaves once worked and to count more Confederate names than Union names on the courthouse war memorial.

I learned a great deal from the Tribune’s coverage of the week following April 4, 1968. Most important, Columbia remained calm and did not experience violent reactions as did Jefferson City, Kansas City and St. Louis.

The local context of public reaction to King’s murder included the defeat of a hotly debated open housing referendum just a few weeks before. Nationally, the politics of Vietnam War had caused President Lyndon Johnson to announce on March 31, 1968, that he would not run for re-election.

On Saturday, April 6 of that year, more than 500 “Negroes and non-Negroes” attended a two-hour memorial service at the Second Baptist Church where Mayor George Nicholaus called on “all Columbians to heal through mutual respect the deep disillusionment evoked by the sniper slaying” of King. He urged all people to “forget differences, look at similarities.”

The Sunday after the Thursday that King was killed was Palm Sunday. King was buried during the Christian Holy Week.
Nicholaus said, “I think the playing of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ makes us all realize that we have a common purpose of being here tonight.”

Nicholaus went on, “I could not help but draw an analogy to the week we are about to begin” and “the last words of our Lord as he hangs on the Roman cross, ‘It is finished.'”

The Tribune reported that the mood of the audience was one of reverent dedication to making King’s death an impetus for better race relations.
At 2 p.m. Tuesday, April 9, the day of King’s funeral in Atlanta, more than 1,000 marched “10-12 abreast, many arm-in-arm” from the Blind Boone Community Center to the Boone Country Courthouse.

The event was led by the Columbia Civil Rights Coalition and heard remarks from five speakers, including George Brooks of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Annie Gardner of the Congress for Racial Equality and two members of the Columbia Action Teen Council.
An April 10, 1968, Tribune editorial praised local citizens for staying true to King’s philosophy of nonviolence. It read:
“Anyone who has taken the trouble to observe our Columbia Negro people in recent months can have gained only one impression.
“Through the frustrating experience of the open housing election and the despair surrounding Dr. King’s murder, they have conducted themselves with dignity, intelligence, and restraint. They have clung tenaciously to their announced tactic of operating peacefully and within the law…
“During the open housing situation, the Negro voice was fair and untainted by malice. In defeat it remained admirably calm. At the Tuesday afternoon memorial service it said things that any resident of this city would hear with complete approval…
“The Negro leadership in Columbia today is exemplary. The Negro people respond to their suggestion of using traditional democratic means for achieving progress.”

As a believer in “traditional democratic means” for changing public policy, my research into Columbia’s reaction to King’s killing was a relief to my worries that Columbia might have been full of racial strife. The Columbia of 1968 sounds like it was the foundation of Columbia today that strives to make racial progress, even if painfully slow.

As for me, I was a junior in high school in a nearly all-white western Pennsylvania steel town. I heard the news with my father on the car radio when we stopped for gas on the way home that Thursday evening.
We were stunned. We sat in disbelief. Over the next few days my parents worried about the safety of my elder sister who attended a university not far from Pittsburgh’s Hill District that went up in flames like more than a 100 American cities.

Over the years since King’s murder, I have marveled at his personal characteristics of patience and persistent, but perhaps mostly at his leadership abilities.

At the time of his death, King was struggling with the Black Power movement, as well as the politics of the Vietnam War. As I learn more history and personal accounts of those 50 years, I learn the great struggles and sacrifices made by millions of my fellow citizens to move toward more racial equality.

The year 1968 was a traumatic year in American history; my impression is that Columbia came through in a lot better condition than most cities. Leadership of the black community must have been the difference.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/opinion/local_columnists/david-webber-the-columbia-of-strived-for-the-same-progress/article_28c3fc7e-338f-11e8-a1e0-2b89b4cbebf4.html

The misfortunes in ‘Fruitvale Station’ lie closer to home

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN March 27, 2018

“Fruitvale Station,” a film released in 2013, tells the story of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old African-American man killed by a white Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer early New Year’s Day 2009.

Oscar was unarmed, lying facedown and handcuffed. The film captures his last 24 hours of life, interacting with his daughter, his mother, his girlfriend. I saw it twice last week on Netflix. It left me overwhelmed and angry but admiring the director, Ryan Coogler, who is now, and will likely forever be, better known for directing the blockbuster “Black Panther.” Michael B. Jordan is the main character in both films.

I do not know anyone like the mythical heroes in “Black Panther,” but I have come to know several guys like Oscar Grant. I drove one of them, I will call him Oscar II, to court last week so he could make payment on his restitution obligation for a crime he plead guilty to a couple years ago.

Oscar II is a big guy with a full bucket of everyday concerns—his health, keeping his job, keeping his housing. I met him a couple years ago and learned a lot about him, his daily challenges, and the confusing complexities of the so-called criminal justice system.

Oscar II is older than Oscar Grant, and he has a son who is now about Oscar’s age. He attended Columbia Public Schools, but I’m pretty sure he never graduated from high school. Oscar II has pointed out the many streets in Columbia, and several houses in surrounding counties, where he has lived.
He is a gregarious guy who knows lots of people. Oscar II is now middle-aged and may have been in a good deal of trouble in his youth. I have learned about his children, for whom he is still paying child support, and about the three low-wage part-time jobs he is now juggling. I know of several previous brushes with the law, including a DWI, that have left him rather isolated because he “wants to avoid trouble.”

Spending a few hours with Oscar II gives an opportunity to talk about basketball, why weather forecast doesn’t seem to be right very often, and the aches and pains that come with age. Oscar II says he is lucky because he has a reliable place to stay. He doesn’t plan very well. Many of his challenges are due to decisions he made, or didn’t make, in previous months and years.

Oscar II is a resilient, pleasant guy, with a sense of humor. He gets stressed out worrying he will be late for his hearing and never complains when he must wait an hour while the judge allows the defendants with lawyers who, he knows, will go before him.

“Fruitvale Station” is gripping because it is so realistic. Oscar Grant is not an angry black man, nor is he a thug. He is imperfect in many ways, yet he seemed to be trying to straighten himself out. He remembered his mother’s birthday, was figuring out how to get out of the drug trade and wanting to get his job back.

The criminal justice system has not served either man well. Oscar Grant at Fruitvale Station was pulled off the Bay Area transit station because of a ruckus where he was defending himself. Neither he nor his buddies were armed. The police were not in jeopardy until they placed themselves in jeopardy. The officer who shot and killed Oscar was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and spent time in prison.

Oscar II has been caught in a criminal justice maze that may make sense to lawyers and judges but not to the uninitiated. Oscar II was in danger of having his probation revoked because he erroneously thought court costs had been part of the restitution payment schedule. Either his public defender had not noticed, or the judge talked too fast for Oscar II, or me, to fully understand.
“Fruitvale Station” illustrates Oscar’s mother’s love and concern for him, her guilt over encouraging him to take the Bart train on New Year’s Eve so he would not be tempted to drink and drive. Fruitvale Station shows Oscar’s striving to do better with his baby’s mama and his daughter.

“Fruitvale Station” is an engaging film, even if Oscar had not been just another of the police shootings of unarmed black men across our country. “Black Panther” is a huge success, but “Fruitvale Station” shows the humanity, the normality, of a young black man.

There are lots of Oscars in Columbia and America. We need to see more films like “Fruitvale Station,” despite how unpleasant stories they tell.

Original link
https://www.columbiamissourian.com/opinion/local_columnists/david-webber-the-misfortunes-in-fruitvale-station-lie-closer-to/article_dadc03cc-312b-11e8-a1cd-fb71ae861600.html

Can Trump’s bombastic style shake things up on two crucial issues?

David Webber Columbia MISSOURIAN March 15, 2018

President Donald Trump is rolling the dice on two issues near-and-dear to me — the future, perhaps a last gasp, of America’s steel industry and the fate, at least in the short-term, of the Korean Peninsula. Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum and his decision to accept an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before May are in the face of about 50 years of prevailing economic doctrine and diplomatic history.

Little of Trump’s personal and governing style appeals to me. Apparently, he listens to few people, hardly reads policy briefings, and is largely uninformed about American political traditions and practices. Is it possible that his bombastic, often erratic, operating style just may shake up the foreign affairs establishment and the free trade club and set new us on a new course in Asia and renewed hopes in Ohio and Pennsylvania steel towns?

There are sharp contrasts in these two issues, and Trump’s involvement in them. Protective tariffs are an old issue that largely has been turned over to trade agreements and international organizations. Despite my fond memories of Pennsylvania steel towns, the parade has left town with few people, except Trump and his steel-town voters staying behind.

North Korea is also an old issue, at least 50 years, but one that national policy makers have not solved. Perhaps it is Trump’s political naiveté and international affairs inexperience that causes him to take on a challenge that his three immediate predecessors avoided. Trump showed some courage, and performed rather well, in speaking to the South Korea National Assembly last November. Perhaps he now thinks of himself as an international diplomat.

Both these policy issues that have pervaded recent American history but never really became the issue of the day. International trade policy largely has been bipartisan in supporting “free trade” and now consists of many international agreements and organizations. American interest in the Korean Peninsula also has been bipartisan — but largely one of inattention and inaction.

Academics and think-tank observers have tended to sing the same song to themselves without clearly connecting with American citizens about the real-life impacts of each issue. The decline of American manufacturing and the rise of the North Korea Kim dynasty have gone practically unchecked because no one knows the perfect solution. Enter Trump and his impulsive decision style to shake up conventional thinking and overcome inaction.

The American steel industry that once prospered in Pennsylvania and Ohio has been in free fall since the early 1980s. Despite talks of industrial policy to rejuvenate economically depressed communities, unemployed workers could listen to Washington leaders and experts talk about the benefits of free trade. Free trade appears to have benefited the information technology industry and American higher education and lowered some consumer price. It did little, however, for Western Pennsylvania and Ohio — three areas where voters somewhat inexplicably supported Trump in 2016. It was as if voters threw up their hands and collectively said “what the heck, at least he sounds like he feels our pain.” While these voters may feel good about Trump throwing some attention their way, trade tariffs will not restore their jobs and communities. The impacts are likely to be a symbolic victory appreciated only by Trump’s political base.

The United States are now almost powerless to affect the world steel industry. International trade globalization is too far along for one nation to garner economic gain through protectionism. The World Trade Organization will not permit Trump’s tariffs to stand. The time to effectively resist free trade agreements was a generation ago.

Alternatively, Trump’s announced willingness to meet with North Korea’s Kim has the potential to reduce the North Korea nuclear threat and promote stability in Asia. While both announcements were surprises, his decision on North Korea can be directly linked to his visit to South Korea last November. In this space, I wrote on Nov. 13, that time is running out, that conventional diplomatic relations have not been successful and that Trump meeting directly with Kim could work. Circumventing the “Six Party Talks” that have become another diplomatic obstacle in achieving peace in the region. Just as Trump has little patience with Congressional negotiations and compromise, he is unlikely to be patient with one-level-at-a-time diplomacy. This may be Trump’s most risky adventure. There needs to be a second, a third, and many future meetings, to chart a path toward a lasting Korean peace. Most important, Trump cannot lose interest and back off from meeting with Kim.

How will all this turn out? As Trump often says, “We’ll have to wait and see.”

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/opinion/local_columnists/david-webber-can-trump-s-bombastic-style-shake-things-up/article_f6e1ceee-260e-11e8-a51c-fbda1280f9d2.html

Homelessness: a common theme to at least One Type

The New York TIMES has an article “A Bright Light, Dimmed by Homelessness”

that reminded me of an ESPN E-60 story about Schyler LaRue, AAC player of the year who tuned homeless.

https://davidwebbercitizen.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/espn-had-excellent-story-about-homeless-star/

I do know a few people like the women they describe–but maybe not as talented. I have had a lot of interaction with a guy this winter who just doesn’t make the decisions concerning his own shelter that most of us would make. It is frustrating that I do not succeed in getting him out of the cold–but at some level he is making his own decisions.