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After a year of reading USD 259 School Board records and conducting focus groups, the collaborative partnership of Research on Black Wichita, McCormick School Museum, and the Wichita Branch of the NAACP is telling the story of the Black experience in the Wichita Public School system. Research on Black Wichita will host an exhibit opening reception of Wichita Public Schools: Separate is Not Equal. Free and open to the Public!

Wichita Public Schools: Separate is Not Equal exhibit – Opening Reception

Date: Saturday, February 6, 2010

Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Location: TKAAM – 601 N. Water

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(Washington, DC) The NAACP issued the following statement today, in response to the Kansas Health Care Freedom Amendment that was proposed today in the Kansas State Legislature.

This afternoon, members of the Kansas House and Senate will introduce a proposed Amendment to the Kansas State Constitution, called the “Kansas Health Care Freedom Act”. This proposed Amendment seeks to prevent the implementation of any national Health Care reform measures within the state of Kansas.

“This amendment is outrageous and does nothing to address the current health care crisis. The tactics being used by Representatives Landwehr and Mast and Senator Cook are the very same tactics perfected by segregationist Dixiecrats of the 1960’s,” stated NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. “In the last century the Dixiecrats tried to obstruct the rights of Black Americans, and now in this century they are trying to obstruct the rights of everyday working Americans. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. All who believe every Americans right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness must stand up and fight egregious pieces of legislation like this, we cannot let the greedy insurance company CEO’s trump the needs of patients and physicians.”

The legislation would add a new article to the State Constitution, which would read, “A law or rule shall not compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system or purchase health insurance”.

“The way to achieve real health care reform is not to preempt federal law, nor use political gamesmanship; this legislation will have an adverse effect on everyday working people and will put us further away from achieving comprehensive health care reform. Over 880,000 African Americans have died in the past decade due to the disparities in our health care system and having access to quality affordable health care is not something that should be reserved for the wealthy, or the few. It should be for everyone, and that’s not the case today, and will not be the case if this amendment is passed,” concluded Jealous.

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Reposted from KTKA.com

“I’m sorry that I offended you, I wish that I had made some choices of different things,” says State Representative Bill Otto of LeRoy.

The NAACP has a little piece of mind after confronting Rep. Otto.

Glenda Overstreet; Vice President of the NAACP Kansas State Conference says Kansans aren’t the only people who were offend by his You Tube post. She says, “people outside of the state saying you know, you have a state representative that would voice these opinions. So people clearly were offended, not only in the state of Kansas, but around the state of Kansas in the regional area.”

Otto used the term redneck in his rap and wore a hat that said “Opossum the other dark meat.” Choices that he would later regret. ” I wish I had chosen a different hat, I wish I had called it hillbilly instead of redneck,” Otto says.

Retired member of the U.S. Army Lt. Colonel William Richards felt it was important to attend the forum. He says after fighting and giving up so much for his country he wants his son and grand kids to have the same freedoms he served for.

Richards says, “the nation is going back to the fundamental principals provided by our founding fathers and this is basically what I’m concerned about. Equal opportunity, equal respect.”

Otto says he’s thankful for the opportunity to meet with the NAACP. “There’s many issues that I have cared about and worked for that I would like this organization to continue to be with me and to continue to be supportive and try to get some common goals accomplished,” he said.

Otto feels both parties have finally reached an understanding. He says he intends to leave up his You Tube post. He also feels that if he had chosen to use the word Hillbilly instead of Redneck there would have been no controversy.

This effort was led by the Topeka Branch Branch NAACP. On behalf of the Kansas State Conference of NAACP Branches, we would like to acknowledge and applaud President Ben Scott and the members of the Topeka Branch NAACP for their leadership and vigilance on this effort…

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The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is the oldest – and has been described as the finest – human rights law firm in American history. We have been involved in virtually all of the modern efforts to effectuate effective political participation by African Americans.

For most of U.S. history Black Americans were excluded from political participation. I will describe the means by which that exclusion was achieved and the continuing efforts to counteract those measures.

But, first, I will describe the election process in the U.S. There is no national election authority or commission in the U.S. Instead, elections are run by our separate states, and, in those states the elections are run by smaller local entities, usually counties. So, there were thousands of different ballots for last November’s election, all processed in different ways.

Additionally, in the United States individual candidates run for individual offices. There are political parties, but there are no party lists or proportional representation. Instead, there is a geographically defined district. Some are fixed, as are state wide offices or the President. But most are drawn on a map from time to time.

Each of these points – who runs the election, who draws the district — can be affected by discrimination.

The United States is a democracy with a written constitution, but that original Constitution condoned and accommodated racism and slavery, and, even after our civil war ended slavery and resulted in amendments to our constitution that provided for equal justice, those very same local entities – states and their subdivisions, effectively thwarted change.

There were two types of exclusionary measures. Voter registration was the first and was implemented in the South for the purpose of creating a mechanism of exclusion. Here is how it would work: in order to be registered a potential voter would have to demonstrate that he or she was literate. That requirement would be waived by the registration official for white potential voters and used to deny Black potential voters. There were innumerable variations on the ways in which this device was used to exclude Blacks.

And second, the operation of the election itself could be infused with discrimination. Where were the polling places located? Were they moved the evening before the election? Were there enough ballots? Did they open on time? There are endless variations on this as well.

These measures were used effectively and excluded Black and other minorities from participation.

The Legal Defense Fund was founded in part to attack this racist reality. We challenged each of the practices I have described – registration requirements, poll taxes, literacy tests, how elections were operated. Eventually we were joined by the Federal Justice Department in challenging these discriminatory measures. But even when we were successful, the local jurisdiction would simply move to another variation of the same scheme and achieve the same result — via a new literacy test, or moving a polling place in the Black community just before the election. Legal remedies were not effective because a new device could be put in place as soon as an earlier one was invalidated.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is the principal measure in combating this racial discrimination. It is the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation in the U.S. The Voting Rights Act bans discrimination in voting on the basis of race or national origin and gives the federal government wide authority to ensure non-discrimination in voting. In addition, and crucially, Section Five of the Act serves as a checkpoint by requiring jurisdictions within the U.S. that have a history of discrimination in voting to obtain approval from the federal government before enacting any changes to their voting practices or procedures, a process known as “preclearance.” Thus, Section Five acts like a national election commission in some ways. Preclearance has been an extremely effective tool in rooting out and deterring acts of discrimination in voting. Since 1982 it has prevented the enactment of over 600 documented discriminatory changes to voting laws. This critical law, the Voting Rights Act, was challenged in our Supreme Court this year, and we, the Legal Defense Fund, argued in the Supreme Court and succeeded in preventing it being declared unconstitutional.

The Census: Accurately Counting Minorities

Census data are used to determine the number of seats that each state will have in the House of Representatives, and the number of votes that each state has in the Electoral College, which is how the President of the United States is selected. Census data are also used in the drawing of election districts, and in making sure that election districts are roughly equal in size. The enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which I described previously, also depends heavily on accurate Census data.

Redistricting

After the Census results are finalized, the various States throughout the country engage in the process of redistricting, or redrawing electoral districts for political offices, from school boards to city councils, state legislatures to the U.S. Congress. How and where those lines are drawn often determines whether or not members of minority groups will have the ability to participate meaningfully in the political process and elect candidates of their choice. Historically, however, the redistricting process has frequently excluded members of minority groups. Until the 1990’s, the redistricting process remained largely under the control of voting blocs and power structures that did not consider – or even purposefully undermined – the interests of racial and ethnic minorities. During redistricting, racial minorities were often spread out amongst many districts so as to dilute their voting strength, or, in other cases, packed as a supermajority into a single district so as to limit their ability to participate in and win elections in other districts.

However, thanks to vigorous enforcement of the Voting Rights Act in the redistricting process, the number of minority representatives in the U.S. Congress has increased from 40 in 1990 to 70 today. In other words, it is no exaggeration to say that the redistricting process may be the single most important factor in determining whether racial and ethnic minorities have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the political process and elect their candidates of choice.

In sum, the right to vote is at the core of our representative democracy. It is not only a human and civil right in itself; it is the bedrock on which all other rights rest. The ability of members of racial and ethnic minority groups to meaningfully participate in the political process is a crucial measure of our nation’s commitment to democracy and equality under the law.

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Civil ‘Rights’ are the rights and privileges guaranteed by law to all citizens of the United States. The Civil Rights movement was an organized and protracted effort to ensure that the rights guaranteed by law were equally extended to all Americans. Civil Rights Organizations were those groups who worked to ensure the fair and equal application of the laws, foremost among them being the 14th amendment to the Constitution which reads in part,

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

In its truest sense, the struggle over civil rights has never really abated. Because Civil ‘Rights’ are, in essence, matters of law; and the laws from which they derive are dynamic.  Their meanings and applications are subject to change with each interpretation. By Stare Decisis - as courts render new decisions, their precedent becomes the new practice, so a law that you wrote or read yesterday, could be interpreted to mean something completely different next year. When you factor in the role of politics and how federal appointments to District Courts are often made along political and ideological lines, you come to realize that our Civil ‘Rights’ are extremely fragile. We as activists must not only concern ourselves with securing Civil Rights for all Americans, but we must be equally focused upon protecting those Civil Rights that now exist. Because on any given Monday a court decision, a ballot initiative, or a legal appeal could change the law or its application and strip away a right you had previously taken for granted.

Which brings me to Gross vs FBL Financial Services Inc

Jack Gross went to work at FBL Financial Services back in 1987. He worked his way through the ranks, and by 1999 he had been named the Claims Administration Vice President. A couple years later, Jack’s job title and duties began to change. He noticed that the duties and responsibilities that he once had, were being shifted to a younger employee. In 2003 Jack noted that his position as “Claims Project Coordinator” lacked a real job description or clearly defined duties, but his younger co-worker had all but assumed the functional equivalent of his old position.

In 2004 Jack Gross sued FBL Financial Services for Age Discrimination. The trial lasted a mere 5 days and Jack Gross prevailed. The jury found that Jack Gross proved, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he was demoted and his age was a motivating factor in the demotion decision. They awarded him $46,945.00 for lost compensation.

Not surprisingly, FBL appealed… They filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari, informally referred to as a “Cert Petition” with the Supreme Court. A Cert Petition is a formal request for the Supreme Court to review the decision of a lower court. The Supreme Court granted the Writ of Certiorari and on June 18th, Justice Thomas rendered the 5-4 decision of the court which held that: A plaintiff bringing an Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) disparate-treatment claim must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that age was the “but-for” cause of the challenged adverse employment action. The burden of persuasion does not shift to the employer to show that it would have taken the action regardless of age, even when a plaintiff has produced some evidence that age was one motivating factor in that decision.

In a nutshell, the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts decision in favor of Jack Gross, and also put forward a new legal standard for ruling in Age Discrimination cases. The conservative majority on the court (Thomas, Scalia, Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy) ruled that a plaintiff in an age discrimination case must not only prove that age was “A“ motivating factor in an adverse employment action or decision; they must prove that age was “THE“ motivating factor. And unless or until the plaintiff can present direct evidence of the employer’s primary personal motivations, the employer should not be required to prove anything.

The case was remanded back to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals for retrial. And earlier today, the 8th Circuit Court issued a new ruling in favor of FBL Financial Services… The preponderance of the evidence still shows that FBL Services was considering Jack Gross’ age when deciding to demote him, but as of this morning, that no longer meets the legal standard of an Age Discrimination Claim. You see, protection from discrimination or adverse employment actions on the basis of ones age is still a ‘Civil Right’, but is is now a right guaranteed in a law that is virtually impossible to assert.

I said all of that to say this… Civil Rights are fragile. Like the picture above, these Rights are like a candle in the wind. If we are not vigilant, if we do not safeguard and protect them, they will be lost…The courts have been busy chipping away at them, bit by bit, for a number of years. We must remember that the protections and safeguards that we fought so hard to secure in the 50’s and 60’s are not promised to our children. Whether or not they are passed on to the next generation will depend on what we do today. Because on any given Monday, things can change… just like this morning.

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The NAACP, the country’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, announced yesterday that acclaimed film director Tyler Perry has donated one million dollars, marking the largest gift ever given by an individual entertainer. In addition, Perry purchased several NAACP commissioned Jacob Lawrence lithographs and additional lithographs by celebrated artists Jonathan Green, Elizabeth Catlett and Sam Gilliam. The gift, which will be distributed over the next four years, was made to commemorate the organization’s Centennial anniversary.

“We are honored that Tyler Perry chose to support the NAACP,” said Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP. “Tyler is a courageous pioneer in bringing positive images of African American culture and struggles to the screen. His remarkable journey from poverty and childhood abuse to become one of the world’s most successful filmmakers and entrepreneurs is an inspiration to us all,” Bond said.

“Tyler Perry exemplifies an unyielding commitment to uplifting and bringing hope to the disenfranchised and those less fortunate,” stated Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, “Both in his films and in his life, he reflects an impressive ethos of caring and conscientiousness. We are deeply grateful for his support.”

“I feel so honored and blessed to be in a position where I can give to the NAACP.” Perry said. “Had it not been for the perseverance and vision of the thousands who came before me in the 100 years of this legendary organization, I would not be in the position I am in today. I continue to be thankful for the tireless work of the NAACP, and I am proud to be able to help in their mission to fight for the equality of all people, and to work towards the elimination of discrimination against race.”

“This is a paradigm shifting moment in black philanthropy. Here is a civil rights organization that is receiving a donation that is usually targeted only at education or cultural institutions. Tyler Perry is setting a high standard for others to follow,” said Maxim Thorne, Senior Vice President of the NAACP.

“The generous gift by Tyler Perry will be used to support our Second Century Society advocacy programs on economic equality, education, health care and criminal justice” stated Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP.

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With unemployment among blacks at more than 15 percent, and in light of new unemployment data released for October 2009, the NAACP joined with several other groups this week to call on President Obama to do more to create jobs.

The organizations, including the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, the AFL-CIO, the Center for Community Change, the National Council of La Raza, and the Economic Policy Institute, stated that they believe the president’s $787 billion stimulus program has not gone far enough to fight unemployment. In response to the crisis, the groups held a panel discussion this week to raise awareness and suggest potential solutions for policymakers. They also issued a joint statement advocating for strong congressional action to address the crisis, starting with extending unemployment benefits, food stamps, and COBRA to meet the needs of the significant number of unemployed people facing a long road to recovery.

“It’s time for us to really stoke this issue up,” said Hilary O. Shelton; NAACP Senior VP for Advocacy and Policy. “We’re not so much trying to convince him to do something he doesn’t want to do, but urging him to move forward on an issue we have agreement on.”

Currently, nearly 16 million Americans are unable to find employment and another nine million are only able to find part-time employment, according to the EPI. And finding jobs is increasingly difficult – there are over six job seekers for each available job opening. The situation is even more difficult for workers of color. The unemployment rate for blacks has jumped to 15.7 percent, from 8.9 percent when the recession started 23 months ago. That compares with 13.1 percent for Hispanics and 9.5 percent for whites. The black unemployment rate has climbed above 20 percent in several states, reaching 23.9 percent in Michigan and 20.4 percent in South Carolina.

“Make no mistake – this is the civil rights issue of the moment,” said LCCR President and CEO Wade Henderson. “Unless we resolve our national job crisis, all of our other priorities – from reforming health care and fixing our broken immigration system, to stemming home foreclosures and expanding economic opportunity for all Americans – are in real jeopardy.”

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Several members of the Kansas State Conference of the NAACP and regional activists attended a meeting with Tom Perez; Assistant Attorney General of the United States and head of DOJ Civil Rights Division, to discuss the strengthening of the agency’s Civil Rights enforcement efforts. In attendance were Kevin Myles; President of the Kansas State Conference, Henry Lyons; President of the Olathe Branch, Katrina Robertson; President of the Johnson County Branch, Loris Jones; State Conference Education Committee Chair, Former State Conference President Charles Jean-Baptiste, and Mary Ann Flounder. Also in attendance Nimrod Chapel; Political Affairs Chairman for the Missouri State Conference, Marvin Szneler of  the Jewish Community Relations Bureau, Gwen Grant of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, Mona Lee Perry of the American Indian Council, Alvin Sykes of the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, Jessica Piedra of the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations,  and several representatives of the US Attorney’s Office and the Kansas City Human Relations Department.

The Kansas Delegation called for the agency to focus additional attention on:

• Child Welfare disparities in removal and reunification rates
• Non-Compliance of States with the National Voter Registration Act of 94
• Unitary Status/Re-segregation and the inequitable distribution of talent and teaching experience in recently desegregated districts
• Ricci Vs DeStephano and its impact on Title VII enforcement
• Wren Vs the United States and why we believe statistical Racial Profiling data rises to the level of a 14th amendment claim
• The underfunding of Public Defender’s offices and the resulting effect on poor and low income peoples ability to obtain adequate representation
• And Employment Discrimination; namely how shifting interpretations of the term “similarly situated” creates a practically insurmountable standard that makes racial discrimination cases almost impossible to win.

We were also given direct contact numbers for the registering of complaints and in the coming days, we will be re-filing complaints that were overlooked or dismissed by the previous administration; foremost among these – the case of Rowana Riggs…

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Think Congress has heard enough about health care reform? Probably not, considering dozens of representatives and senators are still sitting on the fence.

They need to hear from you today!

Join the NAACP’s “Can You Hear Us Now” Congressional call-in days. Our goal is to make 88,000 calls to Congress by Thursday, October 29.

Do not leave the future of your health care to chance — call your representatives today to make sure they are working to champion quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

It is easy to call. Just call the number below and you will be connected to your representative’s office. We have provided a sample call script for you to follow, and once you are done, let us know what happened on the 880 site.

HOW TO CALL:
Call 1-800-577-1635 to be connected to your Members of Congress.

SCRIPT:
Hello, my name is ________. I live in [city or town] and I am a voter in your district. I am calling you today in conjunction with the NAACP to urge you to enact real health care reform that includes a public option.

We believe that a public option is the only way to keep insurance companies honest, ensure competition and provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Thank you.

Please, join the NAACP and call your representatives this week during our “Can You Hear Us Now” Congressional call-in days.

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