50 Years Later: Where Do We Go From Here? Part Two by Ira Grupper

Sisters & Brothers:

       Justice delayed is justice denied.  I was part of a group that looked over cases and then encouraged filing complaints with metro, state and federal agencies. We were dissatisfied with the long time between intake of a complaint and resolution, and with the eventual outcomes as well.  

       The problem is not individual, but structural, and political.  The tasks of outreach, alternative dispute resolution and targeted case management are not accomplished when budget is limited and the big dogs, running in the tall grass, seem less than enamored of prosecuting potential political party donors?

       Mediation and conciliation agreements, prized by federal, state and municipal enforcement bodies, objectively favor corporations and government agencies at the expense of complainants.  The company or government agency just says: we ain’t done nothin' wrong, but we promise never to do it again.  Further, we'll agree to make the aggrieved party, the complainant, whole, and we'll give back pay and promotion.

The Kafka-esque irony is that conciliation agreements are a joyous outcome for enforcement agencies, since there is not enough money and staff to litigate the complaint avalanch.  Irony number two - the discriminated-against also view agreements as victories, having neither the money nor the years to wait while the processes lumber on.

       I was at the 50th anniversary of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh NC this past April.  As a SNCC veteran, I thought Attorney General Eric Holder, spoke eloquently about the Justice Department’s newfound energy in enforcing anti-discrimination laws.

       Ironic isn’t it that on September 24 of this year the Department of Justice’s FBI component broke into seven homes and an office belonging to activists in the peace and justice community in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan?  The eleven subpoenaed activists will have to testify before a federal grand jury — where they are not permitted to have a lawyer with them.

       In the 1970’s and 1980’s I was involved, here in the U.S., in support of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.  Using the logic of the recent raids, I could have been imprisoned way back then, under the support for terrorism laws.  After all, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were put on the terrorist list by then-President Ronald Reagan.  Did that make me a terrorist? 

Let’s return, specifically, to the KY Commission on Human Rights. Months ago at a conference on disability, organized by the Kentucky commission we tonight honor.  I asked how many commissioners ever filed “commissioner’s complaints.”  The commissioner with the longest tenure, I think it was eleven years, responded:  “What is a commissioner’s complaint?”

 I was shocked.  Commissioners have the right, no, the duty, to file complaints, in their names, against offending companies and agencies.  This disgusting dereliction of duty, from my experience, is no better or worse than at all the other agencies.

       Some commissioners aren’t cognizant of the two roles commissions must play - enforcing the law, AND using their good offices to bring about an egalitarian climate.  Commissioners and citizens must understand this. I teach at Bellarmine University, and students in one of my classes are here, in the audience.  Why isn’t this audience packed with hundreds of students?  Is it lack of funding that prevents federal, state and local agencies from going into the high schools and colleges to explain why we need enforcement agencies?  What would Rev. Martin Luther King say about this?

       To conclude: The historic work of the KY Commission on Human Rights needs to be better funded, and expanded…You now know that I am an unrepentant hellraiser.  My motto is, and I have cleaned it up and made it gender-neutral:  If you grab them around the neck, their hearts and minds will follow.

Four little girls were murdered in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 by racists who bombed the church where they were attending Sunday school.  We must never forget their sacrifice, their martyrdom, and the supreme price paid by James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, Herbert Lee, Vernon Dahmer-and so many more.

       They, and hundreds of thousands of freedom fighters, over many years, are to be thanked for the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights.  We can pay homage to the precious collective memory of the fallen in battle by creating a climate where companies and agencies that discriminate don't just get slapped on the wrist, but get the living defecation knocked out of them.

Then, and only then, will fifty years of the KY Commission on Human Rights be the landmark we all shall cherish. 

Thank you.  

Ira Grupper

50 Years Later: Where Do We Go From Here?

Part one of a two part guest blog from, Ira Grupper, my hell raising friend and comrade in the movement for forty years.

Sisters & Brothers:

Where the KY Commission on Human Rights needs to go depends on its past history, and how its work comports with the work of city and federal agencies. 

The 1960s saw masses of African American people, with participation and solidarity of other minorities and decent white people, rise up and bring down enforced racial segregation, Jim Crow--apartheid made-in-the-USA.  De jure discrimination and segregation, at long last, were outlawed.

This struggle was a war, producing casualties, with participants jailed, beaten, fired from jobs, and even murdered, forcing authorities to make certain concessions.  Among these were a series of laws giving everyone, regardless of color, the right to vote, the use of public accommodations, and access to fair housing and employment.

The Movement inspired other so-called "protected classes," to demand justice.  Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, women, the disabled, older people, lesbians and gays--were on the move. They had fought for dignity and rights all along, but the Movement provided inspiration and demonstrated what a cohesive militant people's force can accomplish.  Federal, state and municipal enforcement agencies, like the KY Commission on Human Rights, were created as a response.

These agencies had to contend, in the 1960s, with a society wherein the rich profited by exploiting the poor — a society that kept Black and white people apart.  White workers accepted their own exploitation by internalizing that, as badly off as they were, at least they weren't Black.  Inheriting the detritus of the war on the poor and the non-white back then, the agencies had to develop rules and regulations to try to root out unfairness at the workplace, and otherwise. 

       Today, approaching 2011, have these government agencies succeeding in creating a climate where discriminators fear paying a high price for their actions?  Sometimes, yes.  Usually, no.

During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan dismantled protections won during the Civil Rights Movement.  He appointed Clarence Thomas to head the EEOC and do the dirty work of gutting enforcement, of destroying equal opportunity.  Mr. Thomas was rewarded for his nefarious deeds by being appointed to the US Supreme Court.

       How are things today?  Marcelles Mayes, president of the Metro Disability Coalition here in Louisville, recently told me:  “Even with passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, so many disabled are unemployed or under-employed.  For the severely disabled generally it’s 75%, and for the blind and visually disabled it is 91%”.  As recession wreaks havoc on poor and working people, millions of Americans are further prevented by racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and anti-disabled bias from access to the workplace. 

Where do unemployed teens wind up, to an alarming degree?  They wind up in prison resulting in drastically rising incarceration rates with a devastating racial breakdown. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the KY Commission pushed for restoration of voting rights for ex-inmates as proof that the penal system has faith in its rehabilitation program?  

TO BE CONTINUED: Read part two next week on Zellner Blog.

Thank you.  
Ira Grupper:  irag@iglou.com

The Calling

       As a veteran of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s I was honored and privileged to work, walk and go to jail with the bravest and most inspiring people our generation produced.   It was a pivotal chapter in American history; whatever we thought we were doing and achieving, we did made a difference. We were front line troops, (mostly) young women and men putting our own bodies on the line to break the back of deep discrimination and injustice. Some made the ultimate sacrifice, their blood watering roots of freedom’s tree marking the beginning of a new kind of life for all Americans.

       Young people ask if the Freedom Movement really changed things in a basic way because schools teach only the most rudimentary information.  It’s hard to remember or learn how bad things were.  Without our struggle, the reinvigorated women’s’ movement, gay rights, laws against age and disability discrimination would not have arrived when they did.

       This important history is passed along through stories of that wonderful era. But the stories are supposed to inspire, not put us to sleep fifty years later. Rocking chair congratulations can come later.  Alone among the major civil rights organization of the sixties, the NAACP continues to flourish and function.  SNCC, CORE, SCLC and the Urban League are extinct or quiet. Every activist in every field should be a paid up member of the NAACP. There’s still work to be done!

       Help me deliver this blog to Americans of good sense and heart, especially young Americans. Please know that just as I and my sisters and brothers in struggle felt called to ACT, that calling is sounding for you today.  Rosa Parks once challenged me, “Bob when you see something wrong, you have to dosomething.  You must take action.”

       For young Americans, new chapters of these stories continue to play out: poor people are excluded, as are gays, the disabled, young people and people of color.  As Dr. Maya Angelou, supporting the Spike Lee, Barry Brown movie, Son of the South, from my book, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, said, “This film should be made because hate is once again becoming an acceptable form of public discourse.”

       Decisions affecting humans and our planet are made for the profit of a few while harming the many. Education policy and practice, meant to lift us up, funnels people into becoming sleepy consumers of culture and products, leaving us stripped and empty.  Seventy percent of our economy depends on rampant consumerism funded mostly by credit.  We don’t make things anymore, shipping jobs to poor non-unionized workers around the world.

       It’s time. It’s more than time. In fact, it’s getting very late. Join me in exploring not just the great stories of the past, but finding the opportunities to write some new stories that are desperately needed today. Stories of hope, courage, imagination and struggle. That same call that moved us back in the day still resounds today. Can you hear it?  Will you heed it? 

Bob Zellner

November 1, 2010