Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 June 2000 — Page 9

FRIDAY, JUNE 16,2000

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

PAGE AS

LETTERS

Most duds pay child support IjD a speech to the National Fa* thetfiood Summit, presidential hopeful Al Gore proposed tougher child support enforcement measuras. ,when he claimed that only 25 portent of support owed was paid, one person in the audience interrupted and tried to point out the scientifically-determined fact (by th? works of Braver, and others) th?t more than 70 percent of fathers pay their child support in full and on time. further, these same studies reveal that when fathers are given access to their children as provided for in visitation orders, the percentage of those paying child support approaches 90 percent; and this is due to the fact that fathers in joint qustody situations feel an attachment to their children other than that of a “wallet.” • Mothers who refuse to cooperate with visitation orders are rarely sanctioned by our legal system. If mothers who violated orders designed to keep fathers in their children’s lives, were treated in the san^e way that so-called deadbeat dacjs were treated, there would at lea?t be some equity between the genders. Put at present, there is no such equity, and efforts such as recommejnded by Gore merely add to the hurflen faced by many non-custo-dia), fathers who are being broken both financially and emotionally by jhe current legal system. £or more information on how child support enforcement needs to be reformed, lurge your readers to investigate the information included at http://www.ancpr.org. ;Qf special note is the article by Attorney Ronald Henry in the ABA Journal, Family Law Quarterly, whdch can be found at http:// www.ancpr.org/ronhenry.htm.

Justice Department finding should close book on King murder, but probably won't

Reardon approached the Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition for assistance in mediating rising tensions between a few patrol officers and the mobile washers. His request was simple, could the Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition assist him in addressing the issue of managing smooth flow of traffic on East 38th Street without interfering with the mobile operators’ ability to make money? That same week we were approached by Mr. Wilson who asked if we could broker an arrangement so that he and others could engage in a legitimate trade without the unpredictable and sometimes abrupt disruption of business by patrol officers. As one mobile car washer lamented, “I’m not selling drugs. I’m not hanging out. I’m just trying to make an honest living so that I can pay rent and provide for my kids.” Through a series of meetings convened by the Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition, both parties were able to capture their concerns and protect their interests in the form of a three page Memorandum of Agreement. Some of the issues addressed within this agreement included the number of operators and customers per lot, cleanliness and obtaining permission from the property owners.

Tim Chapman •V , .. l/l .• ;.Ujli j

Mobile mr

washers and IPD move in the right

direction

On behalf of the community, the Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition would like to publicly commend the work of IPD Deputy Chief Bill Reardon and Jerry Wilson for a job well done in reaching an agreement between mobile car washers and law enforcement officials. These two men have created a true model of a successful community/police partnership. Several weeks ago Chief

“good faith” approach for law enforcement and our young business operators to coexist in our community. When the mobile operators asked the Coalition how much our mediation services would costthem our response was simple ... peace. We now call on the members of the City-County Council to seize this opportunity to work with the Ten Point Coalition, the mobile washers and law enforcement to draft a sensible ordinance so that the progress made today will not be lost in the political winds of tomorrow. Chief Reardon and Wilson have clearly shown that the first step to effectively commu-

nity/police partnerships is to understand the other person’s point of view. As for Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition, again all we want

is peace.

Isaac E. Randolph, Jr. Executive Director Indianapolis Ten Point

Coalition

Brown <olumn misled readers Amos Brown’s column of June 2 notec| Congressman Julia Carson’s vote for the China Trade Bill and the reaction by leaders of organized labor. Brown’s comments would lead his readers to believe he had spoken to the many leaders of the unions within the city and/or state. As a recognized leader of my union, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees International Union, Brown did not speak to me regarding our reaction nor did he talk to any of the other leaders of

AFSCME.

Our union has given its support to the congresswoman since her first bid to elective office, that of state representative as well as to each of her subsequent campaigns. Though AFSCME represents tant totny union ai itKvas tr unions, which it severely impacts. AFSCME’s position however, is that while we are disappointed by the vote, particularly that of several of our friends, we are not about to base our continued support of the congresswoman and other Democrats solely on this is-

sue.

AFSCME applauds Congresswoman Julia Carson for her 100 percent labor record. Cordelia Lewis Burks, Director Politics & Legislation AFSCME/Indiana

Yet another Justice Department probe into the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. again found that King wasn't killed by Mafia hit men, the FBI, Army intelligence, racist hate groups, or Black ministers. He was murdered by a two bit hood. James Earl Ray. For the third time since King was murdered in 1968, Justice Department investigators ripped apart the tissue of lies Ray grew fond of telling over the years, that a mysterious “Raoul” had framed him, that Memphis prosecutors pressured him to accept a deal to cover-up the conspiracy, and that legions of secret conspirators aided and abetted him. These are flat out fabrications that Ray conjured up to salve his conscience, grab media attention, and cash in on the notoriety of the case. Jerry Ray, Ray’s brother, Jesse Jackson, the King family, and of course, conspiracy buffs, swallowed them hook,' line and sinker. When a Memphis jury in a much publicized civil lawsuit brought by the King family ruled last December that King was the victim of a contracted hit, conspiracy theorists went into delirium. This gave new lease on life to their claim that Ray was a Lee Harvey Oswald type patsy of government agents or organized crime figures. The press and conspiracy theorists gleefully glossed over the fact that the court produced no smoking gun documents or credible eyewitness testimony to back Ray’s delusions that he was the fall guy in a vast plot to kill King. The big puzzle is why conspiracy buffs have been so willing to go to the barricades on the trumped up word of a loathsome, discredited con man? The King assassination had none of the dangling loose ends of the Kennedy assassination. From day one poliqe anttovestigators had the goods

His fingerprints were on the murder weapon. He was at the crime scene. He fled the country. And he quickly and voluntarily confessed to the murder. The key to the puzzle can be summed up in these words, the FBI. Despite. the Justice Department’s convincing report that Ray murdered King, the FBI still has not answered many questions about the secret war it waged against King from the late 1950s to the day of his murder. According to voluminous public documents released to researchers and government investigators, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Justice Department relentlessly tried to tie King to the Communist Party. The assault on King was more than Hoover acting out his paranoid obsessions against a man whom he considered a dangerous subversive, it was a war against the Black movement. And Hoover decided that the cheap and dirty way to win that war was by discrediting the most respected and admired symbol of that movement. Many of those dirty tactics employed by FBI agents against King are now well known. They deluged him with wiretaps, physical surveillance, poison-pen letters, threats, harassment, intimidation, and smear sexual leaks to the me-

dia.

sassination. Ray was the man and the FBI slammed the book on the case. It was the “lone nut” assassin theory repeated again. There is, of course, no proof that the FBI or other government agents killed King. But the ferocity of the FBI’s secret war against him and the many questions the FBI probe did not publicly answer about Ray’s travels,: his possible links to white suprema- j cist groups, and conservative busi-; ness groups in the South, and the. role of government agents that were | at or near the Lorraine Motel the day King was killed have created j deep public suspicions that Rayj didn’t act alone and that the FBI didn’t tell the complete truth about King’s murder. Those same unanswered questions left enough wiggle room for conspiracy theorists to have a field day trying to unravel secret plots, cover-ups and finally blame the government for killing King. The Justice Department probe proved for the umpteenth time that the government, racist groups, and organized crime figures did not issue orders to kill King. And to make sure that there were nocharges of cover it smartly kept the! FBI out of the investigation. Yet its • finding can’t and shouldn’t absolve j the FBI of its disgraceful, destruc-! live and illegal campaign against • King. The climate of suspicion and! hostility it created toward the civil; rights movement made it possible j for Ray to murder King. And ulti- j mately the FBI still must share ! some of the blame for that. Sadly, J this will be more than enough to fuel the conspiracy theorist’s cherished fantasy that anybody and everybody but Ray killed King.

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The long trail of justice in the murder of 4 girls in Birmingham

It was the summer of 1963, only three weeks after the March on Washington. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the civil rights movement were still elated from that great day when 250,000 people came to Washington in support of equal rights for Black Americans. On the morning of Sept. 15, a Sunday morning, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins and Carole Robertson went to Sunday school and never came home again. They were the four who were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birminghant, Ala. That horrible action tunfed the joy of the March into untald sadness for Dr. King and the leaders of the movement. jow. nearly 40 years later, two of those long-suspected in jmbing and murder have been bted for the murder of the four Bobby Frank Cherry and las Blanton Jr. now join the ranis of Robert Chambliss, who finely was convicted in the bombtin 1977. Both Cherry and )ton were suspected of aiding ibliss from the beginning, but rities claimed that did not have jgh evidence. lut originally the case, which (ified millions of Americans, not investigated because of 1 pressure from both George Wallace and J. Edgar Hoover, both

Gvil

Rights

Journal

By Bento Powell Jaduoa

of whom detested the civil rights movement. Blanton and Cherry' s indictment comes after a four-year re-investi-gation conducted by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’soffice. According to newspaper accounts. Cherry’s former wife and a granddaughter have come forward to say they heard him admit to helping in the bombing. Testimony at the Chambliss trial 20 years ago placed Blanton’s car at the scene of the crime, but now it seems authorities are ready to press forward. Stories of Blanton's life in the 37 years since the bombing paint a picture of an angry man who has held a series of security guard jobs and lived in a tiny trailer. He blamed his job loss on the publicity of the case and blamed civil rights leaders for keeping him from passing the Alabama bar exam after he graduated from an unaccredited law school. The son of one of Alabama's most notorious racists, Blanton was a member of the Eastview Klavem No. 13 of the Ku Klux Klan, along

with Cherry and Chambliss. His car. Confederate flag flying on the antenna, was probably used to carry the bombers to the church. Cherry, who moved to Texas in the 1970s, when the bombing case was first reopened, is reported to have been married five times and to have 15 children. He has seemed unrepentant through the years. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church may seem like ancient history to some, but it is very real to the parents of the four little girls. It is very real to all who were in the church that Sunday morning. It is very real to those African Americans who lived in the city called “Bombingham” throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It is one of the most horrible cases in the horrid annals of racism in which hundreds of civil rights workers and Southern Blacks who dared to try to vote or to stand up for their rights were killed; thousands of Black men, women and children were lynched; tens of thousands died in slavery and millions of Africans and African Americans suffered untold hardships. No matter how old, no matter how ill, these two men, if found guilty, should spend the rest of their days in prison. And they should have to look at pictures of those four innocent little girls every one of those days. Only then can we close the chapter of that terrible book.

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