“Before The Tipping Point”
Study delivers grim news about African Americans in Madison
(l-r) Ken Black, Dr. Richard Harris, Scott Gray, Ray Allen and Dr. John Odom deliver the news from “The State of Black Madison 2008: Before the Tipping Point” April 22 at the Genesis Enterprise Center.
by A. David Dahmer
“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.”
Urban League of Greater Madison President and CEO Scott Gray used Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous quote to emphasize the importance of creating a comprehensive and collaborative strategy that will help African Americans achieve economic success here in Madison at a press conference held at the Genesis Enterprise Center April 22 that released the findings of the State of Black Madison study.
”As the Black population in Madison continues to grow, the issues have become more exacerbated and the problem becomes much more severe the longer we ignore it,” said Dr. Richard Harris, president of the Genesis Community Development Corporation. “I’ve been in Madison for over 60 years, and I’ve never seen a group put together like this — rarely have you seen a coalition like this that generally reflects the concerns of the Black community as it relates to justice.”
Other members of the coalition who spoke at the press conference, along with Harris and Gray, were Dr. John Odom, of the Charles Hilton Houston Institute; Ray Allen, publisher of The Madison Times; and Kenneth Black, the president of 100 Black Men.
“We’re not going to sit back and wait for the problem to be solved,” said Black. “We’re going to reach out to the community and try to encourage everybody to get involved to solve the problems. There are a number of strong African Americans here today and there are a number of strong organizations in the community that are doing things [now] and have been doing things for many years. I’m confident we will get it done.”
Over the past few months, a number of African American leaders from various local companies and agencies — Asset Builders of America, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute, the Genesis Community Development Corporation, The Madison Times, the Urban League of Greater Madison, and 100 Black Men — have come together to discuss some of the challenges that African Americans face in Madison. These discussions revealed a great need to create a comprehensive and collaborative strategy to help African Americans achieve economic success.
“One of the unique things about Madison is that the poverty is not visible here,” Ray Allen said. “You can drive through Madison and not see the challenges that other parts of the community face. I think the key is that we begin a serious and realistic dialog about how we address the issue because I think that there’s been a lack of recognition that we really have problems.”
“The State of Black Madison 2008: Before the Tipping Point” presents an accurate picture of some of the significant challenges that African Americans face in the areas of employment, income, entrepreneurship, health, education, housing, criminal justice, and political influence in Madison and Dane County.
“We’ve read all of our press clippings claiming that Madison is such a great place and we haven’t peeled back a little bit to see that everybody isn’t having the same experience in Madison that we’re saying they are having,” Gray said.
”I think that clearly articulates that Madison is on the edge of both good and bad — although you wouldn’t find much bad if you read the press clippings,” he added.
Subject matter experts in the six areas that are vital to African Americans overcoming the issues in this community weighed in with their expertise on the project including Ray Allen, Dr. Gloria L. Johnson-Powell, Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, Dr. Pamela E. Oliver, Antonio Riley, and Dr. Charles Taylor.
The report also detailed stories of the challenges faced by African Americans in Madison today. While based in real-life experiences, the stories have been altered to protect the privacy of the individuals and families facing these hardships. While there are many success stories in our community, stories of challenge and inequality, such as those shared here, are far more numerous.
“It’s no coincidence that we are bringing forth this report during the same month that we commemorate the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King,” Gray said. “We could have not picked a better time to launch this report. Dr. King was all about civil rights that most of us have benefited from his fight for our freedom.”
Gray added that “Dr. King’s full dream of economic parity has not been realized in America or Madison and we stand before you today ready to address those challenges and work towards solutions and change the plight of African Americans in our community.”
A central contention of the report is that Madison’s Black community was far more effective in addressing social justice and social ills from the 1940s through the 1970s than it is today — with far fewer Black people in the population.
“[Philosopher and poet Georges] Santayana said ‘Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it,’” Dr. John Odom said. “Part of our problem is that we have a short memory in Madison. Madison — 30 or 40 years ago — people were flying in from all over the world to look at our civil rights programs. Somehow we have lost our own sense of history and we have stopped moving forward on some of those issues.”
During that period, the NAACP and the Madison Urban League were founded. Social and governmental initiatives established affirmative action departments, equal opportunity commissions and departments, human relations departments, and equal rights programs. Activism was central. Injustice in any sector of life in Madison was likely to attract dozens of opponents.
“I think times have changed, we’ve lost focus, and people have developed ‘empathy fatigue,’” Odom said. “We had world-class programs that we developed when the percentage of people of color was much smaller. We had stronger programs in every public sector than we do now.”
The report forecasts that if trends from 1990-2005 continue, it will take 265 years for the income gap between blacks and the rest of the Dane County community to disappear.
“A city should be measured by how close the weakest link is to the strongest link. My friends, in Madison we are football fields apart,” Gray said.
But the report also recommended some solutions including:
• Each community organization allocates more in-kind resources (volunteers and technical support) to assist with the NAACP’s efforts and/or collaborate on a voter participation strategy.
• An active partnership with the League of Women Voters is established to bring candidate forums to minority neighborhoods and events.
• Candidates be encouraged, and specifically invited, to appear in minority neighborhoods and at minority events.
• Government at all levels increases its use of minority media for voter registration drives and election information.
“How we do on this issue will determine what kind city we have five years from now,” Allen warned, “and I know some people don’t want to admit it, but the difference between us and Beloit or Milwaukee is not that great …. if we continue down this path.”
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.