Greene County Democrat

Tag: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

  • Daisy Bates, Arkansas civil rights icon honored with Capitol Statue

    Members of Daisy Bates family at unveiling of her statue

    Daisy Lee Gatson Bates, an Arkansaw civil rights icon was honored last week, in a bi-partisan ceremony, by placing her statue in the Nation Statutory Hall in the Rotunda of the U. S. Capitol in Washington D. C. Each of the 50 states has two statutes of people representing their state in this prestigious location.

    Her statute and a statue of country music singer, Johnny Cash, to be added in the Fall, replace two statutes of Arkansas 19th century leaders, with a segregationist past, who are not well known today.

    Daisy Bates was an influential civil rights activist, journalist, and educator who played a pivotal role in the fight against racial segregation in Arkansas.

    In 1954, the Supreme Court, in Brown vs The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, ruled segregated schools unconstitutional. According to her bio, Bates began gathering African American students to enroll at all-white schools after the ruling. Often, the white schools refused to let black students attend. Bates used her newspaper to publicize the schools that did follow the federal mandate. Despite the continuous rejection from many Arkansas public schools, she pushed forward.
    When the National NAACP office started to focus on Arkansas’ schools, they looked to Bates to plan the strategy, her bio noted. She took the reins and organized the Little Rock Nine. She selected nine students to integrate Central High School in Little Rock in 1957, whom she regularly drove to school and worked tirelessly to protect them from violent crowds. Bates also advised the group and even joined the school’s parent organization. She was also instrumental in convincing President Dwight Eisenhower, to send Federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision.
    Daisy Bates’ unwavering commitment to equality and justice led her to work closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a prominent leader in the civil rights movement, in advocating for desegregation and equal rights for all. She worked closely with DR. King and the NAACP to non-violently integrate the schools in the face of white sometimes violent resistance.
    Ben Victor, the statue’s sculptor, also shared his perspective on Bates. “Her courage really stands out to me,” Victor said. “I’ve depicted her in motion because she was a woman with a cause. She is smiling, showing her optimism in the face of great adversity.”
    Bates, who died in 1999 at age 84, played a crucial role in desegregating Arkansas public schools in the 1950s. Along with her husband, she published an Arkansas newspaper dedicated to the civil rights cause and served as the president of the state’s NAACP chapter. “Every high school, every middle school, every elementary school, every college in this country is the pattern of America today because of Daisy Gaston Bates,” remarked Charles King, President of the Daisy Bates House Museum Foundation, during the unveiling ceremony.
    Some of Daisy Bates, close relatives have worked with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in Arkansas on the Black Farmer lawsuits and recent Discrimination Farmers Assistance Program to get justice for Black farmers in Arkansas and across the South.

  • Newswire: Six decades after King’s historic speech,report shows Black Economic Equality is ‘Still a Dream’

    Dr. King speaking at the 1963 March on Washington

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    Sixty years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a groundbreaking new report has laid bare the stark truth of ongoing black economic inequality in the United States.
Titled “STILL A DREAM: Over 500 Years to Black Economic Equality,” the report, co-authored by prominent experts Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Chuck Collins, Omar Ocampo, and Sally Sim, and published by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), underscores the enduring disparities faced by Black Americans and highlights the pressing need for concerted action to address these disparities.
“Sixty years ago, Dr. King observed that America has defaulted on this promissory note to Black citizens,” stated Chuck Collins, an IPS senior scholar who directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good in Washington, DC.
“Six decades later, despite incremental progress on some fronts, the check of opportunity has still come back with insufficient funds.”
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Chief of Race, Wealth, and Community for NCRC, lamented, “It is deeply troubling that, sixty years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Black economic equality remains nothing more than a dream for most Black Americans.”
“The revelation that it would take more than 500 additional years to close the economic gap for black Americans is a stark reminder of the systemic inequities that persist,” Asante-Muhammad asserted.
Sally Sim, a senior organizer, and project specialist at NCRC, emphasized the urgency of the situation.
“The sobering projection and findings of our report sixty years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom reinforce that the dream for economic equality for Black Americans remains unfulfilled,” Sim stated.
“On this historic anniversary, let us turn this report into a catalyst for meaningful action towards comprehensive solutions and public support for policies and initiatives that promote black economic equality.”
Some key findings from the comprehensive report were that, despite modest advancements made by African Americans since the 1960s, including reduced poverty rates, increased high school attainment, and lower unemployment rates, income disparities between Black and white Americans have only slightly improved.
The report exposes that in 2021, African Americans earn 62 cents to every dollar earned by white families.
The report’s authors said, at this rate, achieving income parity would take an astonishing 513 years.
Further, the wealth gap between Black and non-Black Americans has experienced only marginal growth, with African Americans possessing 18 cents for every dollar of non-Black wealth in 2019.
If this pace continues, it will take approximately 780 years for Black wealth to match non-Black wealth.
Median household income for African Americans has shown minimal growth, growing just 0.36% since the turn of the century.
Strikingly, it remained lower than white median family income in 1963.
Even after over six decades, the Black-white homeownership divide persists.
Black homeownership has grown from 38% in 1960 to 44% in 2021, while white homeownership surged from 64% in 1960 to 74% in 2021.
The report outlined a series of recommendations to combat black economic inequality:
1. Advocate for full employment and guaranteed jobs to ensure equal economic opportunities for all.
2. Enact a substantial land and homeownership program to address the enduring homeownership gap between Black and white Americans.
3. Commit to individual asset building, including financial education, asset matching programs, and supportive policies, to facilitate access to wealth-building opportunities for Black Americans.
4. Implement policies to reduce dynastic concentrations of wealth and power, tackling the structural barriers that impede economic progress for Black Americans.
5. Explore targeted reparations to address historical injustices and provide meaningful redress for the economic disparities Black Americans face.
The authors noted that, as the nation reflects on King’s enduring vision for equality and justice, the report serves as a sobering reminder that pursuing Black economic equality remains an unmet challenge in America.