Facing South

[Michael Hoover <hooverm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

F A C I N G   S O U T H

A progressive Southern news report

June 27, 2003 * Issue 53

Published by the Institute for Southern Studies and Southern Exposure magazine. 
Visit www.southernstudies.org/support.asp to join today!
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IN THIS ISSUE OF FACING SOUTH:
> INSTITUTE INDEX * Some got it, some don't
> DATELINE: THE SOUTH * News Around the Region
> PERSPECTIVE: JOSEPH "JAZZ" HAYDEN - End Juneteenth's Legacy of Bias
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INSTITUTE INDEX * Some got it, some don't

Amount that states have cut programs this year to cover budget shortfalls, in billions: $14.5
Income of 400 wealthiest taxpayers in the United States, in billions: $70
Percent that tax rate has decreased for these 400 taxpayers since 1995: 27%
Percent of U.S. workers who make $8.70 an hour or less: 25%
Amount President Bush aims to raise by next year's presidential primaries, in millions: $170
Amount South Carolina Democratic Party needs to hold its 2004 presidential primary: $450,000
Amount presently "on hand" in the Party's bank account: $288.93

Sources on file at the Institute for Southern Studies.
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DATELINE: THE SOUTH * News Around the Region

SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN TEXAS ANTI-SODOMY LAW
In a sweeping victory for gay rights advocates, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday overturned sodomy laws in 13 states, many in the South, declaring that gay couples, as well as heterosexuals, have a constitutional right to privacy in the area of "private sexual conduct." (Southern Voice, 6/26/03) 
http://www.southernvoice.com/2003/6-20/news/breaking/supcourt.cfm

FRAMED DEFENDANTS SEE FREEDOM
In Tulia, Texas, thirteen African-American men and women walked out of jail and into freedom this week. Some have been in prison for more than three years. All had their liberty taken for drug crimes even prosecutors now agree they did not commit. (Austin American-Statesman, 6/16)
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/editorial/tulia/0616tulia.html

YOUNG AFRICAN-AMERICANS SEE MORE ALCOHOL ADS
Young blacks see far more than their share of the $333 million worth of advertising placed in major magazines by the nation's alcohol industry, a university study says. A report by Georgetown University says blacks from 12 to 20 years old saw 77 percent more of these ads in 2002 than their non-black peers did. (Associated Press, 6/19)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&ncid=541&e=8&u=/ap/20030619/ap_on_he_me/alcohol_ads_2 

ALABAMA GOV. REJECTS MOVE TO RESTORE EX-FELON VOTING RIGHTS
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley announced this week that he will kill a historic bill to make it easier for many felons to regain the right to vote after serving their sentences. Black lawmakers, who said Riley had previously agreed to sign the measure, now threaten to not pass Riley's budget.
http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1056533209227230.xml

FREE SPEECH CASE RAISES INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY
Last October, Brett Bursey was arrested for trespassing at the Columbia (S.C.) Metro Airport and holding a sign saying "No War for Oil" while waiting for President Bush to arrive. Bush supporters were also holding signs, but Federal prosecutors have singled out Bursey to get the maximum sentence of six months in jail and $5000 in fines. Activists and a handful of members of Congress have taken up his case as a vital free speech battle. (The Economist, 6/19)
http://www.economist.com/World/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1863097

SPRAWL IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH
The Centers for Disease Control is studying the health impact of cities that discourage "active living" by becoming dependent on long car commutes rather than walking and biking. (Knight-Ridder, 6/06) 
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/5960236.htm

SOUTH CAROLINA STRUGGLES TO FUND PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY
Seven months before the presidential primary in South Carolina, the state Democratic Party doesn't have the money to pay for it, raising doubts about whether the first-in-the-South primary will take place. (Associated Press, 6/25)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=4&u=/ap/20030625/ap_on_el_ge/south_carolina_primary
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PERSPECTIVE: JOSEPH "JAZZ" HAYDEN - End Juneteenth's Legacy of Bias

By Joseph Hayden
San Francisco Chronicle
June 19, 2003

Today, many African Americans are celebrating Juneteenth, the bittersweet anniversary of June 19, 1865, when the last remaining slaves were freed. Some people assume that slavery in America died when President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

But Lincoln lacked the power to enforce his edict in the Confederate-controlled South, and slave owners in remote states like Texas continued to exploit their human chattel. For two and a half years, no one told the slaves that they were no longer a white man's property. Only when a regiment of Union soldiers arrived in Texas with news of slavery's demise -- and the power to back it up -- did Lincoln's promise to African Americans come true.

While this 138-year-old tale might at first seem like ancient history, echoes of the Juneteenth story resonate in the struggles people of color face today. Getting rights on paper, Juneteenth reminds us, is a far cry from getting them in practice.

That's what makes Juneteenth such a bittersweet holiday. It honors a great advance for African Americans -- gaining the rights of citizenship, especially the right to vote. Yet it also marks the beginning of an era in which whites imposed countless discriminatory laws -- like poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses -- meant to keep blacks powerless.

Many of these overtly discriminatory state laws have been called out as racist and unconstitutional and have been wiped from the books. However, there is at least one notable exception: felony-disenfranchisement laws.

Felony-disenfranchisement laws are state rules that strip voting rights from citizens convicted of certain crimes. If you commit a crime, these laws say, you lose the vote. Without federal guidelines for them, their harshness varies by state. The most extreme states -- such as Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia -- bar ex-felons from voting for life.

Is it coincidence that the harshest disenfranchisement laws are mostly in former slave states? Not in the slightest. Like poll taxes and literacy tests, the ostensibly race-neutral disenfranchisement laws were created to keep blacks from voting.

In 1896, for example, Mississippi lawmakers set only a narrow range of offenses -- bribery, burglary, theft, arson, perjury, forgery, embezzlement, bigamy and ''obtaining money or goods under false pretenses'' -- made you lose the vote. Why not murder or rape? Because ex-slaves were far more likely to commit petty property crimes than serious offenses.

Southern lawmakers were not shy about their intentions. ''This plan,'' said one delegate to the Virginia convention of 1906 ``will eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this State in less than five years.''

The laws worked. One Alabama historian found that by 1903, the laws had excluded nearly 10 times as many blacks as whites from voting.

Sound familiar? Today, ''tough on crime'' policies, especially Draconian drug laws, disproportionately target people of color. Only 14 percent of illegal-drug users are black, but 74 percent of those sentenced for drug possession are black. One in three black men will be jailed at some point.

This translates directly into loss of political power. Blacks are denied the vote because of criminal records five times more often than whites. Fully 13 percent of African-American men are permanently disenfranchised, and many more have lost rights temporarily. Latinos also are affected, given that 16 percent of Latino men enter prison in their lifetime. This leaves communities of color vastly under-represented in the political process.

Many states do restore voting rights to ex-felons after they leave prison. But once you make it out, it's Juneteenth all over again. Technically you may have regained voting rights, but no one tells you. This lack of notification puts thousands of Americans in the same position as the slaves of Texas: On paper they have rights, but if no one tells them they can exercise those rights, they remain second-class citizens.

On this Juneteenth, 4.65 millions Americans can't vote because of laws that have explicitly racist history. It's time that felony disenfranchisement laws go the way of poll taxes and literacy tests, so that next Juneteenth we can celebrate another victory on the road to democracy, racial equality and true emancipation.

Joseph ''Jazz'' Hayden is lead plaintiff in Hayden v. Pataki, a lawsuit challenging felon-disenfranchisement statutes in New York. He works for Demos, a nonpartisan policy organization.