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Gov. Paterson Impresses Diverse Audience at Brooklyn Town Hall Meeting: Commands Moment, Impactful on State Budget Crisis

DBG MEDIA — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:29:37 +0000

A confident Governor Paterson was well-received at a Town Hall meeting about the New York State budget at Brooklyn’s Borough Hall on Monday and no one can accuse him of sugar-coating the economic message.   Paterson began with a brief historical analysis of how governments have changed the names of financial problems from Poland’s Crisis of 1899 to the Great Depression of the 1930s to what is today called a “recession.” The point of his lesson was that whatever it’s called, the pain is the same. “A recession is next door,” said the governor. “When you’re the one who’s lost a home or a job, that starts to feel like a depression.”
Paterson says New York State can be looking at a Depression if action is not taken now.   And the action he has taken, he frankly detailed. “In my administration we have cut $4.5 billion from health care, we’ve cut $1.1 billion from education, we’ve cut our administration, our agencies, by $1.5 billion and in this year’s budget we’re going to cut it some more. We’re going to have to cut health care another billion, education a 5% reduction of $1.1 billion and another billion from our agencies, including $250 million from workforce reduction.”
Governor Paterson was quite clear in his warning when he said, “I came here to tell you that today we’re Crossing the Rubicon in terms of moving from recession to something else far worse if my colleagues and I can’t close a $9.2 billion deficit.” They had successfully closed an $18 billion deficit last year, said the governor, “but we had more options. We’ve used them up. We’ve depleted our resources.”
The governor then asked for suggestions but reminded the assembled that wherever a program is to be saved, “we also have to know how we’re going to pay for it,” because the state may run out of money by May or June.
Suggestions ran from borrowing from other countries; “most are in the same boat we are,” said Governor Paterson, although he added he has suggested that the Treasury could lend to highly rated governments at a favorable rate of return. Queen Mother Blakely’s suggestion that it would be cheaper if state institutions purchased Queen Mother’s Organic Coffee from her women-owned enterprise and queried as to how she should proceed. The governor acknowledged that, “There is a lot of purchasing the state does and we’ll have someone speak to you about that.”
Dave Taylor said the governor may not remember him, but he was from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and came representing the Council of Senior Services to say that senior citizen centers throughout the five boroughs are currently under review by the NYC Department of the Aging to determine which should be closed. “Seniors are terrified. We are faced with the possibility of 75 centers being closed throughout the city. Will you take Title 20 off the table and stop the closing of senior centers?”   “Dave Taylor, I remember you well from the Upper West Side,” responded the governor. “And if I remember correctly, I think you ran for City Council in 1989.”
Mr. Taylor’s question was an opportunity for Governor Paterson to show the dilemmas his administration is faced with. “A kind of triage,” is how he puts it. Two of the deficit culprits are the surge in Medicaid costs – “about $400 million” – and the Wall Street bonuses that were paid in stock, not in cash and therefore couldn’t be taxed.
“When the bonuses are not paid, they don’t go back to the public, they go to the firms,” explained the governor. “And the firms have very favorable tax benefits and ways in which when the money goes back to the firms, we can’t tax it at the same rate as if it was paid in bonuses. This cost us another half a billion dollars.” As the governor put it, “This was the public relations way that Wall Street is adjusting to the attacks on the high bonuses.”
Describing the economic environment he is in, Paterson said, “It is hard to take things off the table when actually we still have to come up with another billion dollars.”
He insisted that his administration is “particularly careful and scrupulous of those who live on the edge: Seniors. Homeless people with disabilities and people who don’t have many options.” And yet while still being mindful of the very real pain these cuts cause, New York State has to move forward and “the only reason it’s on the table is because of the dire state that we’re in.”
Councilman Charles Barron spoke in favor of looking for money where money is: wealthy folk. He called for a Stock Transfer Tax as a way to recapture some of that Wall Street money and congratulated the governor for blazing the path of taxing the wealthy. “I think you were bold. You were one of the few governors who had the heart and the spine to raise the PIT, Personal Income Tax surcharge, on those earning $250,000 or more and we got about $4 billion out of that. Let’s go up further, those making $500,000, charge 2.5% Those making a million, 7.5%.    You cannot have a budget process and say that raising taxes on the rich is off the table. If you want to be fiscally prudent, then everything stays on the table: cutting us, taxing the rich and selling state assets. Tax the rich and put some of our stuff back in the budget.”
Describing an imposition of a Stock Transfer Tax as “tantalizing” Paterson said, “The Stock Transfer Tax began in 1905, and in 1966 it was shifted and the Transfer Tax benefited New York City. It was reduced between 1978 and 1981 and here’s why. We’re not living in the kind of world as in 1905. We’re living in an electronic environment. If you want to move Wall Street to Downtown Newark or Greenwich, Connecticut, impose a Stock Transfer Tax. They don’t need the geographic location of
Wall Street to operate any more.”
The governor then offered a suggestion of his own on retrieving some of the Wall Street bonus money.   “What I think we should do is talk to Wall Street, which is the engine of our economy, about the way they are shifting resources that just denied New York State half a billion dollars this year and half a billion next year. I do think there is a discussion that we have to have with the major firms on Wall Street about how to support New York State, which is supporting them.”
On the issue of taxes the governor agreed that he had enacted one of the most stringent taxes on the wealthy, over 9%, “for which we got a lot of criticism,” but his administration has found that this approach has diminishing returns. As proof, he offered that they had projected over $4 billion in revenue but actually got in only $3.6 billion. Apparently, people’s loyalty to New York does not extend to paying more in taxes. “The problem is people will say they moved to Florida, and stay there one more day a year than they do here in New York, and for that, they don’t pay any taxes at all.”
To a question regarding the Atlantic Yards project, Paterson said he had waited for the Court of Appeals to make a decision regarding the use of Eminent Domain in the taking of private property for private use and was surprised that it allowed the taking to move forward. “And now the Supreme Court has made a decision. There was a process, I did not want to impose my own judgment where there has already been a court decision in the matter.”
Councilwoman Letitia James said there could be savings in closing empty upstate prisons and merging redundant agencies. Paterson responded that they have already begun the merging of agencies, but said the savings are “only in the tens of millions of dollars,” and they’re looking at a multibillion-dollar hole to fill.
Councilwoman James had also brought up the subject of the proposed Sugar Tax, which she said was a regressive tax. Perhaps because the governor’s schedule showed his next stop was a Sugared Beverage Tax Symposiumÿ in the Blue Room of the Capitol he took to the question like a bear to honey.
“In the end it may be regressive, but it’s a different kind of tax,” the governor insisted, “because all of the tax collected is designated for health care services.   We are losing $8 billion a year from people smoking and almost as much, $7.5 billion a year, treating diabetes, heart disease and other ailments coming from obesity, largely caused by sugar. Companies have freely sold these products in our communities and put them in serious, serious physical condition and we’ve never taken a look at that.” Paterson spoke of the proliferation of hospital units around the country treating childhood stroke and heart attack victims.
“We assessed how much money we would get from a Sugar Tax but we also assessed that there would be a 15% drop-off in the market. This will drop the amount of money the taxpayer is paying for health care. 60% of adults in the state are obese, 25% of children and 33% of minority children are obese. 80% of African-American women are obese. Well, okay, 79%. I’m speaking for a class of people who don’t have a vote. And that’s the children of this state. And when their parents come down here and shaking the wall about their children having heart attacks, it’s not going to be on my conscience.”
Also speaking for the children was Ms. Jackson of AARP Chapter 2197 who asked, “Why are we cutting Kin Care when it saves the state money.   We have over 400,000 children in Kin Care. Keeping those children out of the foster care actually saves money. We need that $2 million for those children, keeping them with their families, the Kin Care program builds family bonds as well as saves the state money.”   Paterson said he would go back and take a look at the Kin Care program.   “But,” he said, “If the premise of your question is that we have made cuts that otherwise brought revenues into the state, what I want to tell you is that’s how dire our situation is.” He gave the example of the Parks System where he said every dollar the state spends generates $5 in revenue. “The problem is we don’t have the dollar to open the parks.”
The governor describes a scene much like a family at the kitchen table holding back on paying the cable bill in order to pay the rent. “We have to make payments to local governments at the end of March and payments on Medicaid. We are $2 billion short on those payments and nobody knows where we’re going to come up with the money. That’s why we discussed holding back the tax returns for two weeks. That would bring about $500 million into the $2 billion we have to pay. These are not choices. These are necessities.”

Giving Incarcerated Parents A Fighting Chance To Reunite With Their Children

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:18:31 +0000

Sen.Montgomery,Assemblyman Aubry & Children and Families Commissioner join together to protect families from being separated.
Lawmakers and criminal justice reform advocates joined together at the State Capitol last week to garner support for legislation (S.2233/A.5462-A) that will allow foster care agencies the discretion to delay filing papers to terminate the parental rights of parents who are incarcerated or enrolled in a substance abuse treatment program.

Making the Right Connections: Brandon, 13, (center), at State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery’s right, stated at a recent press conference: ‘I’m glad my mom is by my side right now helping other children get their moms back and passing this bill. I just want to say that I’m glad that I have her and I love her.”

The bill’s sponsors, Senator Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry (D-Queens), were joined in discussing their legislation by New York State Children and Families Commissioner Cladys Carrion, Correctional Association representatives, and formerly incarcerated women and their children.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) Expanded Discretion bill gives incarcerated parents and their children a greater opportunity to work towards reunification and safe permanency options that do not involve severing family bonds.
“The time is now to pass my bill, which will go a long way toward helping families develop and maintain healthy, lasting connections,” said Senator Montgomery, who is the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Children and Families. “For too long, we’ve failed to protect the best interests of children in foster care with parents in prison and treatment programs. I sponsored this bill to give families separated by the criminal justice and child welfare systems the fighting chance they deserve to rebuild and stay whole.”
Almost always, ASFA requires a foster care agency to file a termination of parental rights petition if a child has been in foster care for 15 of the last 22 months. However, the median sentence length for women in New York’s prison system is 36 months and most incarcerated parents are limited to family visiting opportunities, telephone and mail service and unable to participate in foster care planning meetings, making it difficult to fulfill child welfare responsibilities.
More than 100,000 children have parents in a New York State prison or jail, including nearly 10,000 children with an incarcerated mother.
Terminating their parental rights will not necessarily find equal permanency for a child and many continue to stay in foster care. “This legislation will allow parents in prison and residential treatment, who are working towards rehabilitation, an opportunity to maintain and develop loving, supportive relationships with their children and to find permanent placements that do not involve severing important family bonds forever,” said Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, Chair of the Committee on Correction. “Giving these families the chance to stay connected is the right thing to do – it is also a crucial component of curbing recidivism and enhancing public safety.”
“For over a decade, New York’s ASFA laws have devastated parents caught up in the criminal justice system and their children,” said Tamar Kraft-Stolar, Director of the Women in Prison Project at the Correctional Association of New York. “This bill takes critical steps toward balancing the playing field for families separated by prison and treatment programs struggling to stay connected. Its provisions will help ensure that ASFA’s timeline does not trump permanency decisions that are best for the child and the family.”
Susan Jacobs, Executive Director, Center for Family Representation, stated: “Our organization represents hundreds of parents, including parents in prison, in child protective and termination of parental rights proceedings. We know from years of experience that having the time to facilitate meaningful visits and communication can mean the difference between a family staying together and losing ties forever.
In addition, termination hearings are among the most time-intensive and expensive proceedings in Family Court. When additional time is provided to work on solutions, it is possible to create workable and safe placements for children, and savings for state and local governments.”
The ASFA bill passed the Assembly on January 26, 2010 and now awaits consideration by the full Senate.

Coalition Campaigns to End Prison-Based Gerrymandering

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:06:55 +0000

Senator Eric T. Schneiderman and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries joined forces with a statewide coalition today to announce a new organizing campaign plan to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York State before the 2010 Census.
The coalition’s goal is to organize across the state to pass Senator Schneiderman’s bill that would require New York State to count incarcerated persons in their home communities-rather than in the districts where they are incarcerated-for purposes of drawing legislative district lines. If passed, it would be the first law in the nation to count prisoners in their home communities for districting purposes.
“It’s an absolute injustice that New York currently counts people in the districts where they are incarcerated, rather than in their home communities. I am proud to be here to join forces with Sen. Schneiderman, Assm. Jeffries and this coalition to end this unconstitutional practice. If we do not act soon, it will be 10 long years for another opportunity to right this wrong. We cannot afford to wait,” said Rev. Al Sharpton.
“Equal representation under the law benefits everyone,” said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, the lead sponsor of the bill to end prison-based gerrymandering. “The practice of counting people where they are incarcerated undermines the fundamental principle of ‘one person, one vote’ – it’s undemocratic and reflects a broken system. This legislation is as simple as it is fair: it requires that legislative districts at every level of government contain an equal numbers of residents. The time to act is now.”
Assemblyman Jeffries is the bill’s lead sponsor in the Assembly.
“This bill is necessary to break the back of the prison industrial complex where certain communities benefit from the criminalization of young people who disproportionately come from low-income neighborhoods across the state. Prison-based gerrymandering is unfair, unethical and unconstitutional, and we will not rest until the process is changed,” said Assemblyman. Jeffries.
”Prison-based gerrymandering continues to cheat needy communities of fair and equitable representation across the state of New York. This archaic formula perpetuates traditional electoral disparities by insuring that many men and women of color be counted by the U.S. Census in counties where they are incarcerated as opposed to where they resided at the time of their arrest. This practice cheats neighborhoods of much needed resources as well as a fair share of political representation,” said Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, a co-sponsor of the bill.
The new coalition was represented by Citizen Action of New York, The Public Policy and Education Fund, The Prison Policy Initiative, New York Civil Liberties Union, Demos, Common Cause, the Brennan Center for Justice, Fortune Society, Bronx Defenders, Praxis Project, Correctional Association of New York, Community Service Society, New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Center for Law & Social Justice, Nu Leadership Policy Group, Prison Families of New York and Exponents. The announcement was followed by a statewide organizing meeting that included more than 50 community-based organizations focused on passing this legislation.
Eddie Ellis, executive director, Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, Medgar Evers College, CUNY, said, “This critical piece of legislation speaks to the fundamental principle of a participatory democracy, namely: ‘one man/woman, one vote.’ In additional to violating the constitution of the state of New York regarding residency, the current census counting process for incarcerated people also violates the ‘one man/woman, one vote’ principle in as much as it assigns disproportionate representation to certain counties to the detriment of others. As such, this process must be changed.”
“When the Census tallies incarcerated people at prison locations far from home, the picture of the American civic community is distorted, with profound ramifications for our democracy,” says Erika Wood of the Brennan Center for Justice. “The policy gives public officials in prison districts an incentive to build their districts on the backs of ‘ghost voters,’ packing in prisoners who count toward the district size but who are not permitted to vote.”
“New York State is undermining the core American principles of fairness and equal representation by pretending that inmates are legitimate constituents of the districts where they are incarcerated,” said New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “Our state must end this corruption of the political process and count all New Yorkers as members of their home communities.”
“Common Cause/NY applauds Senator Schneiderman and Assembly Member Jeffries for their leadership in righting an obvious wrong,” said Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY. She added, “In order to achieve fairly drawn legislative and congressional districts and insure the efficient use of scarce government resources, it is essential that the census miscount of incarcerated New Yorkers not be the basis for redistricting and distribution of resources. Article II, Sec. 4 of our state constitution demands no less.”

Everything But the Moan

David Mark Greaves — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:02:57 +0000

We once visited a stockyard in Sioux City Iowa and spoke to some of the cattlemen there. They said that when it came to making money from a cow, they use “Everything but the moo.” That this is pretty much the attitude of upstate politicians towards the prisoners held in their districts, becomes apparent in an interview with State Senator Velmanette Montgomery.
Not only do the prisons provide jobs for the area and increase the local voting power, Senator Montgomery pointed out that for decades “The Republicans were able to rule the senate based on the prisoners,” counted as part of their districts. Another plus for the upstate districts from having prisoners on the count is that they take not only the body, but find profit in the prisoner’s station in life as well. “After all, that is what the Census is for,” she continued. “It determines how many people live in each city who are of different income, age, ethnic, and occupation categories. All of these factors help generate public dollars based on the needs of people in the various categories.
   So in the upstate counties, prisoners are counted as low income and have all of the needs associated with that. Funding goes to those districts,” rather than the home districts where most come from, districts in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.
The Senator points out that what this means for districts such as hers is that “With the Rockefeller Drug Law repeal, many more people will be returning home in the next few years. Based on that we have a constant influx of people who need support services.   And if they’ve not been counted as part of our district, We’ve lost funding based on that.”
So for years after the prisoners are counted, they will be released back to the areas they came from, areas that have been deprived of the dollars to service them. “We’ll need to provide housing, all health services, substance abuse treatments, counseling, as well as, hopefully, job training and job placement.”
“The Census counts population, period. Based on population, a senate district is drawn, council districts are drawn, congressional districts are drawn, and city council districts are drawn.” Speaking of how this relates to the State Senate, Montgomery said “If it were not for the prisoners, there would not be enough people in some upstate areas to form a Senate District..”
Senator Eric Schneiderman’s has introduced an act “to amend the correction law, the legislative law, and the municipal home rule law, in relation to the collection of census data,” that seeks to correct this situation.
” There is definitely pushback on this legislation” from upstate legislators says Montgomery. “It does not benefit them. In those rural areas, they had more power than urban centers where the prisoners come from.”
As a former slave, valued at 3/5th of a man, Frederick Douglass would be familiar with the situation highlighted by the report of the prison initiative (www. prisonpolicy.org ) where we see that in state Senator Dale Volker’s 59th District, when you deduct the 8,951 prisoners (4,447 of which are black), the district has 285,306 residents. Senator Montgomery’s 18th District has 311,260 residents- not even adding in the count from the prisons.   Meaning that the people in her district are worth almost 10% less than those in the rural areas upstate.

Call Them Phenomenal, THESE DAUGHTERS of TUBMAN

Bernice Elizabeth Green — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:47:37 +0000

“Freedom or die a slave!,” declared Harriet Tubman (1819/20-1913) who freed herself and 300 others from enslavement in the mid-19th century. Tubman’s legacy resounds today in the lives of heirs who move unrestricted and make choices with few constraints.
Call them daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, aunts, educators, nurses, doctors, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, bakers, filmmakers, artists, chefs, librarians, homemakers, landowners, students, realtors, musicians, even First Ladies – in roles nonexistent for women of color in America at the time of Harriet Tubman’s birth.
Call them liberators, revolutionaries, strategists, rainmakers and deep thinkers (as Tubman was), qualities considered “uncharacteristic” for Black women even a little more than a century ago at the time of her death in Auburn, NY in 1913.

The bronze Harriet Tubman sculpture by Alison Saar stands 10-feet-tall in Harlem on 122nd St and St. Nicholas as a symbol for freedom-taking.

Mrs. Tubman was this nation’s first nationally known woman leader, soldier, strategist, counselor, social worker. And beginning March 10, the 97th anniversary of her death, New Yorkers will join other groups throughout the nation in celebrating Tubman by honoring women of conviction.
Dr. Olivia Cousins, the artist/photographer/educator, comments: “In celebrating Harriet, we carry forth her legacy in the day-to-day work that we do to protect, nurture, advocate and uplift our people.” Following are March events that honor our journey and the Tubman legacy. See page 6.
Tuesday, March 9 at 7pm: The Spelman College Glee Club performs at Emmanuel Baptist Church, 279 Lafayette Ave. (corner of St. James Place). Concert is free and open to the public!!! Note to parents and guardians of young women: The Spelman College Glee Club has maintained a formal reputation of choral excellence since its inception in 1925. Its repertoire consists of secular choral literature for women’s voices with special emphasis on traditional spirituals, music by African-American composers, music from different cultures and other commissioned works. The Spelman legacy of song is inextricably entwined in the institution’s history. The founders of Spelman College, Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles, sought to establish and teach a curriculum that ensured a well-rounded educational experience. The beginnings of the Spelman College Glee Club can be traced back to 1882, just one year after the college opened.

Wednesday, March 10, 9:00am – 11:30am: The 7th Annual Harriet Tubman Day Celebration, In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, hosted by Councilman Al Vann at Boys & Girls H.S., presents comments from Pauline Copes-Johnson of Auburn, NY and her sister, Geraldine Daniels of Rochester, NY, the great-great-grandnieces of “Aunt Harriet.” Brooklyn Public Library chief Dionne Mack-Harvin will keynote.
Wednesday, March 10, 10:00am: Wreath Laying in the Harriet Tubman Memorial Park at the base of the only statue in New York City of Harriet Tubman, a two-ton 10-foot-tall bronze sculpture designed by Alison Saar, at the intersection of Frederick Douglass Boulevard (formerly Eighth Avenue), St. Nicholas Avenue and 122nd Street. The event will include the participation of schoolchildren, City Government officials and the New York City Parks Department. Adrianne Riddick of Harlem, Ms. Tubman’s great-great-great-grandniece, will speak at the wreath-laying event. The statue is the brainchild of former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields. Omoye Cooper of Albany, NY and Elizabeth Fulcher-Rankin of Brooklyn are co-chairs of the Black Women’s Leadership Caucus, Inc. (BWLC) host organization which was formed in 1999 during a meeting at the Tubman Homestead in Auburn, NY of women and men involved in the history of the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman. Currently, the group is producing a short documentary about Harriet Tubman, featuring interviews with descendants, historians and and distinguished educators, including Adelaide Sanfor, former Vice Chancellor, NYS Board of Regents. Open to the public.
Thursday, March 11, 11a-2p: Network Journal’s “Influential Women in Business Awards” Publisher/CEO Aziz Adetimirin and editor Rosalind McLymont will honor business leaders at the “Twelfth Annual 25 Influential Black Women in Business Awards” luncheon at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel, 1535 Broadway (between 45th & 46th streets). Among the honorees: Jackie Carter, Vice President & Publisher, Nonfiction Books, Scholastic, Inc.; Susan E. Chapman, Global Head of Operations, Citi, Realty Service, Citi Inc.; Chrysa Chin, Vice President, Player Development, National Basketball Association (NBA); Denise Coley, Director, Global Supplier Diversity Business Development, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Michelle Drayton, President & Publisher, Today’s Child Communications; Angela E. Guy, Senior Vice President, General Manager, SoftSheen-Carson; Gale Stevens-Haynes, Esq., Provost, Long Island University, Bklyn Campus; Vy Higginsen, Executive Director, Mama Foundation for the Arts; Hilda Hutcherson, M.D., Associate Dean, Clinical Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons; and Mavis T. Thompson, Esq., President, National Bar Association; and others.
Saturday, March 20, 1p-4p: 2nd Women of Distinction Scholarship Luncheon at Boys & Girls H.S. The luncheon salutes distinguished women for their unwavering support of and service to the community and Boys & Girls High School and supports a great scholarship- creation opportunity for some of New York’s best and brightest graduating students. Money raised through ticket sales, a Silent Auction adn donations at the event go to the scholarships. As we see it, The Women of Distnction Awards refers to both the students and the distinguished honorees, who include Pamela Green, Weeksville Heritage Center; Crystal Bobb-Semple, founder and owner, Brownstone Books; educator Dr. Renee Young; guidance counselor Dorothy Harper, (celebrating 43 years in the education field); Miss Kelly Roberts, school safety agent; Dr. Sheila Evans-Tranumn, retired associate commissioner for the NYS Education Department; and Ms. Nebert Jackson, retired educator who taught for some 30 years at Boys & Girls H.S. The Boys & Girls H.S. graduating seniors who worked hard throughout the school year to raise funds for college needs, include: Alicia Rogers, Areya Cortes, Shatiqua Watson, Brittany George, Adana David, Melissa DeVore, Amandla McMillan, Shardei Lewis and Deborah Akinbowale. The event is the culminating activity of the year-long campaign, and anyone wanting to support the effort can donate items or services for the silent auction; food for the March 20 luncheon;and/or contributions to the students’ scholarship fund. Contact: Miss Andrea Toussaint of The Sisterhood.Tickets: $25. 718-467-1700.

Sunday, March 28: “Harriet’s Place: Underground Railroad and Beyond” at Magnolia – New exhibition of photographs capturing the essence of Harriet Tubman, the woman, by educator/artist/historian/preservationist Dr. Olivia Cousins, opens today at Magnolia Tree Earth Center of Bedford Stuyvesant. Details to be announced. Contact: Andrea Brathwaite at 718-387-2116 or Bernice Elizabeth Green at 718-599-6828. (See Cover)
Monday, March 29: Herbert Von King Park’s Third Phenomenal Women Awards Brunch: Culinary and Drama Teens at the Park, and Parks Administrator Lemuel Mial with volunteer instructor-wife Charlotte Mial, with community friends DBG Media and Legacy Ventures, at a closed, invitation-only event, will honor media women, the communicators, whose on-going good works keep positive stories and information about our communities at the forefront. Among the honorees: Mrs. Esther Jackson, Founder and Publisher, Freedomways; Nayaba Arinde, Editor, NY Amsterdam News; Freelance Journalist and Media Consultants Victoria Horsford and Fern Gillespie; Dr. Brenda Greene, Founder, National Black Writers Conference; Medgar Evers College, CUNY; Aminisha Black, columnist, Our Time Press; author-entrepreneur Monique Greenwood, now celebrating her popular Akwaaba Inns’ 15th year; writer Susan McHenry; Janel Gross, The Challenge Group; Jeanne Parnell, anchor, WHCR; Dr. Teresa Taylor-Williams, publisher, Trend Newspaper; and Gayle DeWees of the NY Daily News, also the former employer of the late Joyce Shelby, the adored journalist to whom this event is dedicated.
Mrs. Jackson and Tupper Thomas, head of the Prospect Park Alliance, will receive the Hattie Carthan Awards.
-Bernice Elizabeth Green

View From Here: Governor Paterson on the Edge

David Mark Greaves — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:40:48 +0000

Governor David Paterson’s problems are entirely of his own making. Interfering with a woman protecting herself from a physical abuser? It was both an arrogance of power and a devaluing of women. It was also thoughtless, because his actions were just the open opportunity for any number of forces in the state to pounce on and that’s before you factor in the ever-present racism, which is always intertwined in there somewhere.
The upcoming redistricting, the allocation of the state budget, the private money that is made or lost based on relationships with who occupies the governor’s mansion, all involved are working their contacts and rumor makers to fill the atmosphere with their chatter in order to force the governor to resign before the investigation by the office of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo can run its course.
How long he and his family can withstand the strain of the constant questions is uncertain, but Paterson appears for now to feel he will be exonerated and is trying to hold on until the investgation completes but he may not have that long. As we go to press we see that the New York Times is reporting that “Gov. David A. Paterson falsely testified under oath during an ethics investigation into his acceptance of free World Series tickets last fall, according to the State Commission on Public Integrity, which announced on Wednesday that it had asked prosecutors to determine if criminal charges should be brought against the governor.” Things don’t look good at all for the governor.
They are looking good for probable candidate for governor Andrew Cuomo who must also see the downside of being under two microscopes: one looking at how his office handles the investigation of Governor Paterson and the other on where he stands on state issues such as state Senator Schneiderman’s legislation on where prisoners reside for redistricting purposes. And if he’s going to be the candidate for governor, he has to tell us his thoughts now, and not in May after he saw which way the wind blew.
The Democratic leadership may hate it but they’d better have a primary because there’s nothing like a good fight to see what arguments are out there and if your candidate can take the hit. And after Spitzer, Hevesi and Paterson, they may need to find a plan B, just in case plan A for Andy blows up in their face as all the others have.
Paterson’s holding on but Congressman Charlie Rangel has had to let go of the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee in the wake of a report from the House Ethics committee that admonished him for ethics violation in accepting corporate-sponsored trips.

Will this health care horror never end? The problem is that the simplicity of single-payer has not broken through the wall of health industry noise and their political contributions. It helps to remember that every time you see a health plan truck on the street with their insurance vendors stopping passers by, those are health care premiums at work. We’ve said it before and will again that it is the health premiums that pay for the district managers, the area managers the regional managers the vice-presidents, the presidents, and the stockholders. And this is for each insurance company. And at these insurance companies they use premiums to pay people to find reasons to override doctors, deny care and pay the doctors, technicians, nurses and hospitals from what’s left.
In a single-payer system, with no insurance company involvement, a patient goes to the health provider, receives treatment and uses a health card to confirm the visit and services. The provider informs the Medicare-like system, and is paid. By cutting out the health industry jobs program for managers and executives, there is finally money to pay decent fees for services because the entire population is in the insurance pool.
With a full-blown single-payer program, the insurance companies, except for high-end boutique providers, will go the way of the tuberculosis wards and the polio-equipment supply houses. This is an end they will rail against to the very end, but when it comes, the nation will be healthier and wealthier for it.

Where to Count Prisoners Leads Concerns at Congressional Hearing on Census

David Mark Greaves — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:02:16 +0000

Issue Impact Redistricting and Federal Funds

Where prisoners are counted as living determines both electoral districts as well as how many federal dollars are available for everything from job creation to food stamps and other human needs. With 75% of prisoners in upstate New York coming from seven zip codes in New York City, it was an area of special concern at the congressional hearing of The Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee held at Brooklyn’s Borough Hall this past Monday.

Witnesses on Census couting of group quarters and readiness: Census Director Dr. Robert Groves; Robert Goldenkoff, Director of Strategic Issues for the Government Accountability Office; Peter Wagner, Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative; Mr. Thomas Ellet, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs at New York University. Photo: Mark Stewart

The hearing on Group Quarters such as prisons, schools and nursing homes, chaired by Congressman William Lacy Clay, Jr. and held jointly with the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Congressman Ed Towns, took testimony from Census Director Dr. Robert Groves that since 1790, the United States Census Bureau has counted people using the usual Residency Rule, i.e., where they eat, sleep and live most of the time.
Peter Wagner, Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative, had a startling statistic: the 2.3 million people incarcerated is larger than the population of 15 states. “Some districts are 80-90% prisoners” he told the committee. The Web site for the Initiative says that “In New York State, for example, one out of every three people who moved to upstate New York in the 1990s actually ‘moved’ into a newly constructed prison. The state bars people in prison from voting, but their presence in the Census boosts the population of the upstate districts whose legislators favor prison expansion. Without this phantom population, seven upstate New York Senate districts would not meet minimum population requirements and would have to be redrawn.”
Currently, with prisoners included as residents of the county where they are incarcerated, rather than where they came from, the federal dollars for social services based on population are sent to counties where the prisons are located, even though the prisoners don’t use any local services and the counties where the prisoners come from, usually high-need areas, lose the dollars earmarked to provide them with services.
They can’t do an individual count/interview because of the security. The bureau depends on administrative records to count the prisoners. In later testimony, Mr. Thomas Ellet, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs at New York University, said that in terms of the accuracy of administrative records, the quality varies across systems, “particularly in prisons.”
Wagner later reminded the congressmen that legally speaking the prisoners have not left their homes. Here he was referring to the NY Constitution which says that “no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of his presence or absence … while confined in any public prison.” And he said that the legislature can do something this year to include the prisoners in the count of their home addresses.
The bureau is taking the position that the Census is not proposing to change where people are counted, and are leaving it up to the states to determine how that count will be used in the reapportionment process, where political districts are drawn to contain the same number of people in order to adhere to a federally-mandated “one man, one vote” standard. Dr. Groves agreed with Chairman Clay that he was glad not to be a part of the redistricting process. According to Senator Velmanette Montgomery’s office, a Bill in the NYS Senate is due to be proposed momentarily.
Chairman Towns asked Robert Goldenkoff, Director of Strategic Issues for the Government Accountability Office, about the technological readiness of the Census Bureau for the April 1st start date. Goldenkoff divided the problems into categories. First: People, the technicians are falling behind schedule and can’t take away the time from doing the work to train new people. Second was Hardware: the Census computers are simply outdated. Third was Software, where defects are continuing to mount and of course four, the Schedule. The operation has a fixed date (April 1st.) when the system must be ready. He acknowledged that the Bureau has gained some time by scaling back from the full-blown version as originally envisioned, but said that even at the reduced level, the bureau remains challenged to hit the April 1st mark.
Looking to improve the job the Census does in traditionally undercounted areas such as Bedford-Stuyvesant, Chairman Towns asked Dr. Groves if the discretionary funds the Bureau has could be used to target areas such as Kings County that have been traditionally undercounted in the past. “We need to get the information out to the people, using local news and local press.” Dr. Groves responded that they were advertising to the grassroots level, using community newspapers. [ Publisher's Note: we haven't gotten any.] As for the discretionary funds, Dr. Groves said that response rates to the mailing were being analyzed and areas that appeared to be undercounted will be the target for the discretionary funds.

Africans in the Americas-Parts 1 & 2

David Mark Greaves — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:15:44 +0000

Historian John Henrik Clarke was fond of saying, “History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day.” As history is now striking the millennium, it is as good a time as ever to take a brief look at Africans in the Americas during the past three millennia.

The first explorers from Africa arrive on the north and south equatorial currents spanning the Atlantic Ocean between the African and American continents. Historian Ivan Van Sertima points to these forces as a natural conveyor belt between West Africa and the Americas.

Front view: Tres Zapotes stone head

The most striking physical evidence of Africans is the distinctively Negroid stone heads of the Olmec civilization. Dr. Van Sertima reports that the archaeological context in which they were found has been radio carbon dated to 800 B.C. To judge the impact of that African presence, Van Sertima tells us this: “At the sacred center of the Olmec culture-La Venta about eighteen miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico which flows into the Atlantic, there stood four colossal Negroid heads, six to nine feet high, weighing up to forty tons each. They stood in large squares or plazas in front of the most colorful temple platforms, the sides and floors of which were of red, yellow and purple. They stood twelve to twenty times larger than the faces of living men. They were like gods among the Olmecs.

“In this center of La Venta there were great altars. One of these (known as the third altar) was made out of one of the Negroid heads, flattened on top for that purpose. A speaking tube was found to go in at the ear and out at the mouth so that the figure could function as a talking oracle…” What kind of respect for a human spirit does that suggest? Science fiction writer Issac Asimov has said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The Africans of 800 B.C. would indeed have seemed as magicians to a culture that was not familiar with knowledge coming from Nubian-Egyptian civilizations that were ancient, even at that time.
Other Africans came later. There is the African gravesite dated 1250 A.D., found in Reef Bay Valley on the island of St. John’s in the Virgin Islands.

Mandingo head in fourteenth-century Mexico. Made by the Mixtecs, from Oaxaca. Josue Saenz collection, Mexico

There is a Mandingo head of fourteenth century Mexico, which may be all that is left of the vision of Abubakari, the Second Emperor of Mali. His was a land where “thousands of Arab and Egyptian caravans passed every year through Timbuktu and Niani. He stood on the western shore of his empire and sent forth two expeditions totaling 2,400 ships, to discover the limits of the sea, circa 1310 a.d. For Abubakari, his empire ended at the sea that had stopped Alexander the Great but it would not stop this emperor of the largest empire on earth. He was so passionate in his belief in a world beyond the sea that he lead the second expedition himself. Van Sertima, reporting from oral histories that have been passed down to this day, writes: “…One day, dressed in a flowing white robe and a jeweled turban, he took leave of Mali and set out with his fleet down to Senegal, heading west across the Atlantic, never to return. He took his griot and half his history with him.” What a tale that griot could tell if we could hear him now. Because Abubakari never returned to Africa, this gravesite may be evidence that he stretched his empire farther than was known at that time.
Christopher Columbus heard the stories, now common along the African coast, of a New World across the sea. Arriving in the Americas in the 1490’s, he was in time to see African settlements, speak of African artifacts in letters and hear stories from native villagers of the Africans who had preceded him.
By the 1700’s, African civilizations had fallen and Europeans began using Africans as work animals to be captured in Africa, packed and shipped for a month’s-long Middle Passage across the Atlantic and sold in the Americas to work the wealth from the land the Europeans were taking from the native people. During this period, Africans came not as adventuring seamen, but were brought as chattel.
”The period of the 1500’s and 1600’s came after a thousand years of great independent states in West Africa,” says Professor Clarke. “After the Moslem Africans lost control over Spain, they began to prey on the Africans further to the south. They destroyed the great independent states in West Africa, and subsequently set Africa up for the Western slave trade.”
As any other nationalities, when Africans were brought to this hemisphere, they came carrying their many languages and their learning. But unlike any other nationality, everything else was taken from them, and they were delivered physically and psychologically decimated and naked on these shores.
Those that survived the 240 years of the Middle Passage (1619-1859), found themselves now Africans-in-America, held captive by a people who viewed them as property enough to be bought and sold, but human enough to be raped. Forbidden their own languages, the Africans began to use local words to identify objects and their environment. They standardized on the local language, whether it was French, Portuguese or English. For the Africans, this learning process had to be done in an atmosphere of terror where killings and beatings were only a glance away. As the centuries passed, and as American slavery centered more in the southern United States, many Africans escaped into the North or joined others in the tribes of the indigenous people. Communities were formed from the Seminoles of Florida to the Brooklyn, NY districts of Weeksville and Vinegar Hill.
Escapees to the North found each other through each other and worked together to build their communities. By the 1800’s, the Africans had positioned themselves to build schools and large churches. In the pamphlet Weeksville Then and Now, authors Joan Maynard and Gwen Cottman show the importance of learning and self-help to the Africans. They have a replica of The Freedmen’s Torchlight, a community newspaper published by the African Civilization Society which was housed in its own building on the corner of Dean Street and Troy Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. Dated December1866, a year after the Civil War ended, “it included stirring statements of its philosophy of Black self-help, information on the Freedman’s Schools, featured moral anecdotes and listings of their contributors. The front page was devoted to the Alphabet, Basic English, Arithmetic, Geography and view of the nature of God and Man. In this way, the newspaper also served as a textbook for the newly freed slaves to learn reading and writing.” “Some organizations prior to and during the development of Weeksville were the New York Society for Mutual Relief, founded in 1808; the African Woolmen Society, founded in 1810; the Brooklyn African Tompkins Society, founded circa 1827 and the Weeksville Assistance Society, circa 1854. A chapter of the Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons started in Brooklyn with the formation of Widows Sons Lodge No. II in 1849.” And then there were the churches. “Brooklyn’s first Black church, the Bridge Street African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church, was incorporated in 1818. Along with Siloam Presbyterian, (founded ). This church had the reputation of being a terminal on the Underground Railroad. “Education for Black children in Brooklyn grew from the independent efforts of Black religious leaders such as Peter Croger, who had a school in his home in 1815. In 1819, William M. Read, a graduate of the New York African Free School, was teaching Black children in segregated settings. However by 1827, even these quarters were denied. By 1840, some Manhattan Black folks who had settled in Carsville, just south of Weeksville, had established another African school.”

While this was going on in Brooklyn, legal slavery was the reality for the vast majority of Africans in the United States. Because it was against the law to teach Africans to read and write (and the penalty for doing so could be death), this learning had to be done in secret places, by an exhausted people who had been worked hard in the fields from sun-up to sun down. And it was by candlelight that the English language was learned. More generations of social isolation passed, and some of those Africans who remained captured in the South were being called upon to perform more and more complex tasks on the plantations and in the manufacturing areas. They were used as expert farmers, builders and craftspeople. Brooklyn Professor William Mackey notes that the furnishings of Thomas Jefferson’ s mansion were made by slaves.   The house itself was built by them. Many masters were breeding their personal slaves themselves. Fathering mulatto children who were raised with their white children and often educated with them as well.
Frederick Douglas was such a man, and his command of the English language, in speech and by pen, took him to world recognition as the publisher of The North Star newspaper, and as a leading abolitionist.
The buying and selling of human beings during the American slave trade was the biggest business the world has ever known. In a text on the period, H. A. Texler writes in Slavery in Missouri, 1805-1865, “The slave trade was partly systematic, partly casual. For local sales, every public auctioneer handled slaves along with other property, and in each city there were brokers buying them to sell again, or handling them on commission. One of these at New Orleans in 1854 was Thomas Foster, who advertised that he would pay the highest prices for sound Negroes as well as sell those whom merchants or private citizens might consign him. Expecting to receive Negroes throughout the season, he said he would have a constant stock of mechanics, domestics and field hands; and in addition he would house as many as three hundred slaves at a time, importing them from other states.    Similarly, Clark and Grubb of Whitehall Street in Atlanta, when advertising their business as wholesale grocers, commission merchants and Negro brokers, announced that they kept slaves of all classes constantly on hand and were paying the highest market prices for all that might be offered. In St. Louis in 1859, Corbin Thompson and Bernard M. Lynch were the principal slave dealers. The rates of the latter, according to his placard, were 37 1/2 cents per day for board and 2 1/2 percent, commission on sales; and all slaves entrusted to his care were to be held at their owners’ risk.”
More money was invested in slaves than all stock-in-trade, including bank stock, incorporated funds and more. This is indicative of the value placed on an unpaid labor pool, and with good reason. The land was virgin territory which had to be converted into cash. It was the slaves who made it income-producing.
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the first estimate of national wealth of the United States is found in Economics: A Statistical Manual for the United States of America, 1806 edition by Samuel Blodget, Jr. (See Table 1). Of the $2,505 million dollars (2.5 billion) of national wealth, $1,661 million was in land stolen from the indigenous people and $200 million was the value assigned to the slaves.
Ulrich Phillips, writing in American Negro Slavery, notes, “The accompanying chart will show the fluctuations of the average prices of prime field hands (unskilled young men) in Virginia, at Charleston, in middle Georgia and at New Orleans, as well as the contemporary range of average prices for cotton of middling grade in the chief American market, that of New York. The range for prime slaves, it will be seen, raised from about $300 and $400 a head in the upper and lower South, respectively in 1795 to a range of from $400 to $600 in 1803…”   By using these figures we find that the minimum amount of money invested in slaves was $521,366,000 in 1805.   Therefore, the total national wealth could be more accurately calculated as 2.8 billion dollars ($2,826,366,000), adding an additional 300 million to Blodget’s figure.   This means that 77% of the total national wealth of the United States in 1805 ($2,182,366,000) was based on holding African-Americans as property to work the stolen land.
By 1856, there were 3,580,023 slaves according to an average of the 1850 and 1860 Census counts.   Bear in mind here that in 1813, Congress laid a direct tax on property, including “houses, lands and slaves.” This meant that there was now an economic motivation to under count this part of the owners’ property – the fewer slaves reported, the less taxes paid; slaves were easier to hide than houses or land. This is coupled with the natural inclination of the census to under count the Black population.   The evidence is clear in the General Population Statistics, 1790-1990. By 1860, the “percentage increase in Black population over preceding census” averaged 28.8% since 1790. In the 1870 census, the percentage growth was only 9.9%.   So what happened to the other 18.9% of the expected population? They disappeared in 1865 with the Emancipation Proclamation. No longer having a value attached to them, these 859,000 African-Americans were lost. It’s been 120 years, and judging from the low-count controversy of the 1990 Census, the Bureau hasn’t found them yet, although they are reported to be looking for next year’s 2000 Census. We can safely regard these counts as the way-down-low end of an actual population estimate.
By 1856, the advertised prices for African-Americans on one document of that time ranged from a high of $2,700 for Anderson, a “No.1 bricklayer and mason,” and $1,900 for George, a “No. 1 blacksmith,” to $750 for Reuben, even though he was labeled “unsound.” (See Railroad Contractor’s Credit Sale document of a choice gang of 41 slaves.)   The average cost for this lot of people was $1,488.   As a second reference for this number, we can look at the chart for the cost of Prime Field Hands, and find that it is pretty accurate.   By multiplying the census count of slaves by the average advertised price, we arrive at a value of $5.3 billion ($5,327,079,968).    This may not look like a lot of money now, but compare it to other figures of the day. The National Wealth Estimate for the entire nation in 1856 was $12.3 billion ($12,396,000,000). [Note: All figures come from Tables in the cited U.S. Bureau of the Census publication.] Total Bank Savings Deposits in 1856 was $95.6 million. Manhattan Island, Land and Buildings were worth only $900 million dollars, less than one-fifth of the value invested in African-Americans. The 1855 total capital and property investment in railroads was only $763.6 million dollars.   Why the $5 billion dollar investment in slaves?   In 1859, the total private production income was $4 billion dollars. Of this total, labor-intensive industries like “agriculture” and “transportation and communication” accounted for $1.9 billion dollars, almost one-half of all total private income. This explains why “a good field hand and laborer” would run you $1,550 for Big Fred aged 24 and $1,900 for George, a “No. 1 blacksmith”. Men like these gave such a good return on the dollar that their owners would, and did, kill freely to keep the system in place.
Africans in the Americas Part 2
Part 1 of this series covered the earliest Africans to the Americas, both those caught in ocean currents flowing naturally to the Western Hemisphere, as well as the later African explorers who deliberately sought the new land. The later importation of African as slaves to build the founding infrastructure of the United States and ended noting that slavery was the largest industry in the United States, with over 5 billion dollars invested.
The money earned from this investment found its way into a variety of banking institutions, which increased from 506 in 1834 to 1,643 in 1865. Many of the names remain familiar to this day: The Bank of New York Company, Inc. – founded in 1784, Fleet National Bank – 1791, Chase Manhattan Corporation – 1799, Citicorp/Citibank N.A. -1812 , The Dime Savings Bank – 1859.    As banks in King Cottons’ “chief American market, that of New York,” it is inconceivable that these institutions, and through them the nation, did not benefit from the profits made on a slave’s wages.   Their business then, as it is now, was to be a source of funds to build empires in a variety of industries across the continent to make land purchases, upgrade equipment, save to send children to college, etc.   Railroads could be built using a combination of slave labor and loans taken at banks that held money on deposit from the cotton/slave industry.   Money was also paid to a variety of people who, while not slave owners themselves, were “in the loop” of payments for goods and services. Thus were assets being used to develop the country for the benefit of Europeans and their heirs.
Slavery is often looked at as a blot upon humanity rather than the business decision it is. Africans have been presented as lazy, shiftless, good-for-nothing, when the exact opposite was true. We were a vital necessity to this nation. Africans were the most valuable resource, our value on the open market dwarfed all other industries and values except for the land itself.   Historians talk about the Industrial Revolution starting in 18th century England, and the computer/information age of today. Left out is the Slave Age, that period of the dark days of the golden age of white supremacy. This was the time when the United States, an emerging nation at the time, dealt most efficiently with a formidable problem: the supply and cost of manual labor.
At $865 billion a year, information technology represents about 12% of the 1997 Gross Domestic Product of $7,214 billion. In 1805, slave labor represented as much as 20% of the national wealth. By the 1850’s- ’60’s, that figure rose to as high as 40%. If a 12% industry like information technology can affect the entire nation, how much impact does a 20-40% industry have? Let’s take a look at the 1850’s and the effects of slave labor on the economy.
In his work, History of American Business & Industry, Alex Groner observes, “In the sense that they were large and complex-producing units, the big plantations were the South’s factories. The hundreds of slaves included large numbers of production workers -the field hands- as well as such specialists and skilled artisans as carpenters, drovers, watchmen, coopers, tailors, millers, butchers, shipwrights, engineers, dentists and nurses.
Because virtually entire families could be put to work in the fields for most of the year, the slave economy proved ideal for cotton culture. It was not only the plantations of the South but also the factories, shipping merchants and banks of the North whose economies became tied more and more closely to cotton.   What North and South had in common was the prosperity resulting from the growth of cotton production. The size of the crop climbed steadily from 80 million pounds in 1815 to 460 million, or more than half the world’s output by 1834, and to more than a billion pounds by 1850…..From 1830 until the Civil War, cotton provided approximately half of the nation’s total exports. At an average of 400 man hours per 400 pound ginned bale of cotton (based on census averages), these billion pounds required a billion hours of unpaid man-hours.   These were supplied by African-American men, women and children working as slave labor under threat of torture and death.
Thus produced, the cotton crop traded hands on exchanges like the largest one in New York. Banks and other businesses participated in cotton transactions that were all handled as they usually are, for a fee.   And so the brokers, traders, lenders, etc., all profited first. Then came the employees of the firms, the landlords, the washerwomen, the street vendors, messengers, haberdashers, milliners and all of their families, plus mortgage holders and service-providers in an ever-widening circle.

SLAVE CROPS TOTAL MORE THAN 60% OF NATION’S EXPORTS
Now traded, cotton found its way to 25 of the 35 states and territories for manufacturing. We don’t have to assume how the product was distributed, we can look at the 1850 list of cotton manufacturers. (See U.S. Census Table CXCVL) Here, we see there were 1,064 businesses directly employing over 92,000 people across the country. Leading the way is Massachusetts, using 223,607 bales of cotton while employing over 29,000 people. It is also interesting to note that the export of slave crops cotton, tobacco and rice totaled over 60% of all the nation’s exports. This meant that the shipping industry, the dockworkers and the factories on both sides of the Atlantic all made a living from the peculiar institution of African-Americans working as slaves. It was possible for people throughout Europe to work in cotton factories or peripheral industries in their home countries, save their money and book passage to America. Here, the newly arrived immigrant could get off the boat, and work selling apples on Wall Street to the employees of the Cotton Exchange. A seamstress from English mills could come and find work making dresses for the wives and mending the coats of the men who worked in the financial district. Maybe you’ve heard stories like these before. When an industry produces over 60% of the national exports, it reaches farther than can be seen from the docks or from the fields. And there were other crops as well. There were 2,681 sugar plantations and 8,327 hemp planters. In 1850, there were over 20 million bushels of sweet potatoes, 3 million bushels of Irish potatoes, 7 million bushels of peas and beans, and 8 million pounds of wool, all produced in slave-holding states. The African-Americans that Europeans called mere-do-well, helped clothe and feed this nation when it needed it most.

GOVERNMENT PROFITS MOST
The government profited most of all. The export of slave-produced crops allowed this emerging nation to import from the more industrialized countries (with tariffs applied) without incurring a trade deficit.    Also, slave-intensive industries such as agriculture, manufacturing and transportation comprised over 60% of the total private production income at the time. In one way or another, this money was taxed. The slaves themselves were taxable as property beginning in 1815.   The Federal Government profited by first placing a tax on the slave as a unit of property, and again when taxes were paid on the land the slaves improved.    Taxing authorities, whether federal or local, made their money at some point in the trading of cotton and again when salaries found their way into taxable areas.   The government uses a myriad of ways to raise the money it needs to do what it has to do – to build the infrastructure of the nation.   To build the roads, forts and pay the federal marshals. This was done, in large parts, with slave dollars flowing like an irrigating stream, watering national, state and local governments at various stops along the way.   And now today, the United States stands as a money pump with $7 trillion worth of pressure, creating jobs for Joe Blow in Idaho, and millionaires and billionaires with fortunes that span the globe. But it is a pump that was primed with the blood of African and indigenous people. [1. The American Heritage History of American Business & Industry by Alex Groner and the Editors of American Heritage and Business Week. 1972]
Throughout all of the slave history of the United States, there were hundreds of known uprisings and rebellions. A few of the best-known were the Gabriel Prosser and Jack Bowler Revolt of 1800 in Richmond, Virginia, the revolt led by Denmark Vesey in South Carolina in 1822 and the rebellion led by Nat Turner in 1831. Africans continued to escape individually and in groups throughout the slave era.   Many went to Native American villages, others to Mexico, but most traveled the “Underground Railroad” to the Northern Free states, hiding in “stations” in cellars and barns of good people along the way.   Heroes abound during this period, but one who stands out is Harriet Tubman.   Ms. Tubman made nineteen trips leading over 300 people to freedom.   For stealing the property of the slave owners, a reward of $40,000 was placed on her capture, and that was when $40,000 was real money.
There were many abolitionists working against slavery, but certainly the most courageous was John Brown.   So passionate was he that he led a force of nineteen men, including his five sons, and captured the government arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. His goal was to arm the slaves and begin a slave revolt that would spread through the South.   He was hanged for his efforts.   When it comes to passion about ending slavery, Abraham Lincoln was no John Brown. At the height of the Civil War, and against his better judgment, President Lincoln was inexorably led to signing the Emancipation Proclamation. As W. E. B. DuBois writes in Black Reconstruction, “It made no difference how much Abraham Lincoln might protest that this was not a war against slavery or ask General McDowell ‘if it would not be well to allow the armies to bring back those fugitive slaves which have crossed the Potomac with our troops (a communication which was marked ’secret’).’ It was in vain that Lincoln rushed entreaties and then commands to Fremont in Missouri, not to emancipate the slaves of rebels, and then had to hasten similar orders to Hunter in South Carolina. The slave, despite every effort, was becoming the center of war….In August, Lincoln faced the truth, front forward; and that truth was not simply that Negroes ought to be free, it was that thousands of them were already free, and that either the power which slaves put into the hands of the South was to be taken from it, or the North could not win the war. Either the Negro was to be allowed to fight or the draft itself would not bring enough white men into the Army to keep up the war.” With thousands of Africans joining the battles, the Civil War was won by the Northern states.   As Abolitionist Wendell Phillips put it at a meeting in Faneuil Hall in Boston, “Gentlemen, you know very well that this nation called 4,000,000 of Negroes into citizenship to save itself. (Applause). It never called them for their own sakes. It called them to save itself.” (Cries of “Hear, Hear.”)
So now, grudgingly let free, the Africans entered a twenty-year period called Reconstruction. This was a time when Africans, after having been freed, “turned out like cattle” is the phrase Professor Mackey uses, the Africans again displayed the same self-help ethic that had empowered those Northern Africans who had formed associations, built businesses and churches.   Africans began to form towns, till land and raise families for the first time. They did this while contending with things like the Black Codes which were as DuBois says, “representing the logical result of attitudes of mind existing when Lincoln still lived…In all cases, there was a plain and indisputable attempt on the part of the Southern states to make Negroes slaves in everything but name.”    In addition to the laws, Africans had to contend with bands of murdering white terrorists who killed Black people at will.   Gradually, over the decades, as the killings subsided and Africans continued to come together, there was born a civil rights movement and the right to vote. Professor John Henrik Clarke says, “One of the distinguishing features of the civil rights movement was continuation of the sense of racial unity and impatience in African-Americans.”    The anger began to erupt in the street rebellions of the 60’s. These were first met with troops and tanks and then with a Counterintelligence Program. Known as COINTELPRO, this operation combined city, state and federal law enforcement agencies in a joint effort to destroy the increasingly militant activism of the African-American community. Groups like the Black Panther Party were infiltrated and destroyed. Misinformation was sown and African-American dissenters treated by law enforcement agencies in the same way as dissenters are in any country with very strict rules for minority peoples and dissenting opinions. They were murdered in their beds as in the case of Fred Hampton in Chicago, shot down in the street, cornered in houses and jailed on false charges.   This history continues to live in prisons where many of those politically active Africans are still held today.
One of the things that may have been learned by COINTELPRO operatives was that African-Americans are an unusually resilient and community-centered people. That they have a legacy of spirituality and self-help.   It was during this time that drug use began to grow in the African-American community. If you want to know where in the world the drugs at the corner were coming from, look to where in the world the CIA was active. In the Sixties, the heroin epidemic came in from CIA cohorts in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. This is extensively documented in Al McCoy’s book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia.
Going into minute detail, McCoy shows how the CIA’s connection with its covert allies led directly to the heroin epidemic of the 1960’s. The crack explosion coincided with the CIA’s work on behalf of the Reagan Administration in support of the Nicaraguan Contras in the mid-eighties. In Dark Alliance, investigative reporter Gary Webb reveals the connections between the Contras, the CIA and the crack epidemic of the 1980’s.   In one instance, one man, Danilo Blandon, a CIA “asset”, was reported to have brought in (“easily”) 55 tons of cocaine between 1980 and 1991.   This is only one man making deliveries destined for African-American communities. This is not seepage through the borders.   These are packing crates and duffel bags targeted at selected communities.   There is the old saw in the major media that whatever CIA involvement there was, was by “rogue officers.” But that’s not the case at all.   Recently, convicted traitors Aldrich Aimes and Harold Nicholson were rogue officers. We know this because they were put under surveillance, captured and imprisoned. The “rogue” officers and “assets” who conducted, condoned, protected or supplied the drug-running into the African-American communities of the United States were either paid government salaries for their work, or were allowed to profit from their drug-dealing in return for doing national security favors for the CIA.   It is not difficult to believe that one of those favors was to keep the African-American communities disrupted and demoralized.
Next Week:
Dr. Amos Wilson on Conscousness
Dr Joy DeGruy Leary on Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder.

Providence House Proposed 60% Transitional Complex on Kosciuszko Raises Question of “Social” Service Saturation

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 21:54:22 +0000

Are service providers overdosing Bedford-Stuyvesant with affordable housing we can’t afford to have anymore? A nonprofit organization founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph has provided transitional and permanent housing for 30 years, twenty-seven of them in Community Board 3. Now they want to create affordable/supportive apartments at 273-277 Kosciusko, including 26 apartments for formerly homeless women with a history of incarceration, graduating from Providence House’s other transitional housing programs. They say 40% of the housing will be available to neighborhood residents who meet low income criteria, but its the 60% we’re concerned about. We believe everyone should have a place to go. But how many more transitional places can Bedford Stuyvesant hold. Not to mention, the personal demons that transitional residents face – echoed all around them in the many transitional, supportive and social services facilities in the area. By bringing in even more, there is the creation of an enabling community. And if each housing area has only a 20% recidivism rate, then with the concentration of facilities creates a critical mass of negativity, posing a threat to the family-centered strivings of the hosting community. That the provider wants to bring former Bedford-Stuyvesant residents back to where they’ll find former acquaintances, seems to suggest Providence is tone deaf to the nature of toxic relationships. We know there’s no use in recommending Providence build academies and learning centers. But this is exactly what we need – institutions that encourage healthy life choices and real independent living. Now that’s something we can afford to have in this community.

MacDonough Street Update,Department of Buildings: “Stay Granted Through March 3″

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 21:35:01 +0000

Markowitz: Lauds Partnerships that Preserve Neighborhoods

Late yesterday afternoon, the Department of Buildings officially reported that “The stay on demolition has been extended to Wednesday, March 3. DOB has reviewed and approved plans to shore 329 and 331 McDonough Street to further stabilize them. Work to carry out these plans has commenced. The buildings are being closely monitored, and there are no signs of movement at this time.”
Meanwhile, the community and Borough President Marty Markowitz are buoyed by ongoing community-agency partnerships to preserve the historic buildings that three weeks ago were slated for demolition.
Early yesterday, Markowitz told us he saw this new development as “a great example of how communities and government can work together for the benefit of all.”
He continued, “The residents, including 327 MacDonough Street, showed New York City how Brooklyn reacts when a crisis hits and I’m thrilled that the City’s Department of Buildings has approved plans to repair the buildings at 329 and 331. Through good old-fashioned neighborhood solidarity and assistance from the Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council, the residents saved these buildings from being demolished. The neighbors of the Macon/MacDonough/Stuyvesant/Lewis Block Association and the Bedford-Stuyvesant community held their ground and would not budge from their mission to save these beautiful brownstones. Bravo!”
(To Be Continued)