Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 September 2000 — Page 2

PAGE A2

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15,2000

*

*04021 Inc. All Rebate

SIZZUN

2000 Mereary Grand Mara* “A True Taste of Luxury! "Why Wait • Reward Younejf’

01317 Inc. Rebate

2001 Chrysler Voyager Wagon 4 Door, Air Cond, Auto Tlans,

0.99% Interest Available

2000 Plynoatb Neoe

Auto Trans, Air Cond, AM/PMCaas< i . unu

*’l.. 1 h'

U M > II / J. '

■%

Smooth Operator.

!.•' V.

NAACP, Youth Council ‘Grooming for Greatness’

By BARATO BRITT Recorder Correspondent Approximately 7S youth are expected to attend the second “Grooming for Greatness,” an initiative conducted and developed by the Greater Indianapolis NAACP and its youth council. The activity seeks to prepare African-American students for college, as well as help families understand the procedures and steps needed to ensure their child’s post secondary success. To meet this goal, the council will bring experts in higher education to talk to parents and students about the requirements for admission to the nation’s top colleges. Of those requirements. Grooming for Greatness will address grade point averages, test scores, teacher recommendations, personal essays, extracurricular activities and sport programs. The event is part of the council ’ s six-fold strategy to cultivate its students to become decision makers in society. The academic component is but one portion of an empowerment strategy that includes leadership development, political and cultural awareness and economic empowerment. According to Youth Advisor Janice Fletcher, the idea came to fruition after finding that, even among the highly motivated council, college preparedness continues to be an issue affecting minority students. “I found that, whenever we started to talk about college, a lot of (the council) didn’t know what they wanted to do,” Fletcher said

of the group, which consists primarily of high school students. ‘The general consensus was that most kids are waiting until the last minute and go where they feel they can.” “Most of these kids really felt like they didn’t have a choice, and these kids come from professional families. This is not just a lowincome, ghetto mentality,” Fletcher added. Upon conducting research after continued dialogue with the 51member council, Fletcher found that, among African-American students, the goal in most cases is to just get into college. Additionally, many parents maintain that money is still a great obstruction from handling the costs of college tuition; however, upon talking to parents, many have failed to do the research to see what monies are available for prospective college students. Only its second college prep event, the youth council is hoping to reach parents of students particularly in middle school. The council is hoping to help middle school attendees understand the importance of testing as well as taking college prep courses, rather than stirring clear of those courses that might prove challenging. But Grooming for Greatness is a program not only designed to help minority students understand the rigors of college preparation, the program is designed to help students set their sights on the best colleges, according to US News’ 2000 Best Colleges report. Too often, Fletcher said, the

community fails to teach its students they not only have to get into college, but with work, one can attend the college of his or hoc * dreams. “College is no longer an option* -I it’s a necessity,” she added. “You have to go to the right one that best suited for what you want to do: il in life. We have to start thinking outside the box. We’re trying t» L £ get these kids groomed for the top ’ colleges, we’re grooming for that* *’ experience. We can get into the best colleges." Thinking outside the box id -l’ growing more common for the prd-J " active council, which regularly engages the community with fo-' rums designed to empower young' people. In addition to the Groom-' ing for Greatness event, the coun- 11 cil will engage in its economic strat- v egy with Club Ujamaa, a new stock > market club under the direction d/S the Charles Schwab Brokerage ^ Team. The council named the club ' aptly, in that Ujamaa, one of the* * seven principles of Kwanzaa, means cooperative economics. * The stock market club will als6 meet this Saturday at 10 a.m. in the‘ *• Charles Schwab Corporate Office, 137 N. Meridian St. Admission to each event is free, however, the council is asking anyone interested in the Stock Chub to call 925-8143 prior to the meeting. “We understand that the next, step is to get these young people , career minded,” Fletcher con- . eluded. “Information is power, we can no longer fear doing these, things for ourselves.” t

ACTIVIST Continued from A1 form proposals, without any real effort to understand the particular problems that the existing campaign finance systems creates in Black communities,” Overton said. Yet, campaign finance refomf should be something that Blacks

''"■Tr

Enjoy our quality responsibly. ON99 CHW« B0VAl«i»>0HTED N THE B0TTli«aflOED OHWWN WH80r*401MlCOHa « WIUME (M PBOOfhJOSOH E. SWMM4S0NS, NB» Y0W. W

should worry about and be a part of, he added. The lack of attention to gun control, health care, and other issues impacting the Black community can be directly attributed to the lack of reform in the campaign finance system, Overton said. In July, to remedy die small number of African. Americans involved in the campaign reform movement, activists formed the Fannie Lou Hamer Project. Based in Atlanta, the project is a coalition of civil rights and communitybased organizations whose mission is to educate African Americans about the role of big money in politics and how it impacts communities of color. “Lots of people out there talk about voter education, but who are we voting for and how does it help or hurt our communities,” said Stephanie Wilson, executive director of the project. Gwen Patton, one of the founders of the project, said the fight against record amounts of money in the political process is an extension of the battle for voting rights Blacks fought for in the early 1950s and ‘60s. “The voting rights struggle was not one simply of passive participation by voting it — included in its intent, for those who were locked out, to have an opportunity for active participation,” Patton said. “One of the foremost tenets in the 1965 Voting Rights Act was to remove all barriers so that grassroots people themselves could run for office.” The Fannie Lou Hamer Project has partnered with campaign finance reform groups such as Public Campaign and the Center for Responsive Politics. The group has also set up booths and workshops on campaign finance reform at both the Republican and the Democratic national conventions, Wilson said. The project helped the NAACP draft a resolution supporting public financing of elections, instead of continuing to let candidates be financed by private interests. Perhaps the most promising tools the group sees in its fight against the campaign finance system are lawsuits challenging the system as discriminatory. The lawsuits, said John Bonifaz, executive director of the National Voting Rights Institute in Boston and a founder of the Fannie Lou Hamer Project, said the campaign finance system of today has replaced the poll tax of the past as the newest barrier to political inclusion. “It’s an issue not just faced by

minority candidates,” Bonifaz saiijL. t “But race certainly compounds the- „ problem. There is no question that people of color are significantly . handicapped by this system moce- - than their white counterparts. Law-, r suits challenging the so-called wealth barrier have been filed in- - Georgia, New York and Nortji;, Carolina. Most of the lawsuitshftp a been thrown out by judges who.say' * the campaign finance system doeq, ? not preclude people of color from voting.” But Bonifaz said the judges have,« misread case law on the subjects i For example, he said, in a 1953 case before the U.S. Supreme! ! Court, the justices ruled that an allr:-? white political organization in , Texas which was only open to white; ■. voters and had nominated candi- < dates to run for the Democratic;' Party primary, limited Black participation even though it did not keep them from voting. The high court ruled that the group had become “part of the machinery for choosing officials; and required constitutional sent- J tiny.” The court then struck down j the group’s nominating process, | finding that it barred Blacks from j an “elective process that determines * who shall rule and govern.” J Bonifaz said groups involved in, the Fannie Lou Hamer Project wiH | continue to pursue the lawsuits, noting that many of the lawsuits' filed by civil rights activist in the « ‘50s and ‘60s were originally dis- J missed. A lawsuit filed in North < Carolina may hold more promise, Bonifaz said, since the state consti- < tution specifically prohibits wealth barriers to electoral involvement. « “It’s similar to the fight over 3 equal funding in education,” 3 Bonifaz said. “Although the Su- 3 preme Court said that education is j not a constitutional right, many j states’ constitutions do guarantee^; equal education. The same thing applies to wealth as a barrier to elective office.” -, Jennifer Wilson, director of the I Fannie Lou Hamer Project, said | the movement to reform the cam- ’ paign finance systems is picking ; up steam in communities of color. ; “People are starting to see thai ; it’s not about skill or qualification! | but money,” she said. “Any time i you have a situation like that thd • community is disadvantaged and ; people begin to see that when you ; start to show how this ties into : other issues in the community.”' * ••i j The series was made possible by > funding from the J. Roderick ' MacArthur Foundation. i a 1 a

j! ! I