News Addition; News Addition Segments, updub edit master 13

As I leave channel 13 after six years, I think of all the stories I've done and of all the people I've met, I'd like to believe that through my work, I might have done something to make this community better. But I don't know that I can say that because if I had helped Dallas know itself better, and if I had helped Dallas face some of its problems, then maybe I'd see some solutions. It just hasn't happened. The same problems I wrote about six years ago I write about today. Does that mean I've failed? Maybe so. But what about the so-called leaders who are supposed to help us find our way? I look around and I see a city being choked to death by traffic congestion and a transportation authority that can't agree on anything except for the fact that they've lost the public trust. I see a school board still voting along racial lines, still dealing with desegregation. This is 1989 and our children are still paying the price of boardroom bickering.

I see a mayor trying to bring a racially divided Dallas together by appointing task force after task force. Is that how you bring a city together? I've seen task forces and committees study the southern part of Dallas and try to find ways to bring economic development there. I never believe that the people in the southern sector actually live in Dallas if you could see how rundown it is. I've tried to show that and to explain why we all should care what happens to quote those people in quote that part of town. Whatever happened to all those studies anyway. I've worked closely with the Dallas Police Department. I've met good officers and bad ones. Many of the same problems of years gone by still exist. But if there's anywhere that I see hope, it is in the Dallas Police Department. Chief Matt Vines knows what he has to do to restore public confidence in our police department and slowly but surely he is doing it. Career wise, I now move on to a private voice school in North Dallas and at St. Mark's, I see hope.

Hope in the young minds of Dallas and our country's future leaders that they can help make the changes that our current leaders are unable to make. I have a two-year-old daughter and now more than ever I can see that the hope for a better Dallas lies in our children. I have become a whole person over the six years I've worked in public television and no one has contributed to that more than Bob Ray Sanders. I have believed in him in spite of the letters we received telling us to get the nigger off the air. Those letters have driven me to go on and to know that we in Dallas really do have a problem. I thank Channel 13 for the privilege it has given me and although I no longer will have the airwaves as a way to communicate, I will continue to care about this city and its problems and to do my part to find the solutions. Hello and welcome to news edition, I'm Mia Squilla sitting in for Bob Ray Sanders.

Hello and welcome to news edition, I'm Bob Ray Sanders. And I'm Mia Squilla. I'm Bob Ray Sanders. I'm Mia Squilla and I'm Rosalind Suleik. I'm a reporter, Mia Squilla is here with us and she has more on the story, Mia. Thank you, Bob Ray. And I never thought I'd feel this way and as far as I'm concerned, I'm glad I got the chance to say that I do believe I love you and I should ever go away, wasn't close your eyes and try the other way we do today and then if you can remember. What about the ticket that you write very often, desperate in a roadway?

Is that just a way for you to say, look, I'm watching you and I don't like you hanging around here so get on your way? Yeah. Sure. The family, yes, this is Jack Vell, my husband Jack Vell and our lovely daughter, Julianne. Look back to that controversy that happened when you had sent bail from Mr. Adams at $50,000 for the time when you came in open me and not so much more I see and so by the way, I thank you. Oh, and then, for the times when we're up high, well, I close your eyes and know that words are coming from my heart and then if you can remember.

Oh, keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me, for sure, that's what friends are for, in good times, in bad times, I'll be on your side forever more. Oh, that's what friends are for, well, that's our program for this week, thanks for watching, keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me, for sure, that's what friends are for, in good times, in bad times, in bad times, I'll be on your side

forever more. Oh, that's what friends are for, in good times, in bad times, in bad times, in bad times, in bad times, in bad times, in bad times. At the park, Alejandro and Aurea Puga and their daughters could pass for a typical

American family. They're not. Sylvia, who's four, was born here. She's a U.S. citizen. Her sister, Elizabeth, who's five, was also born here. But Aurea and her husband have been living here illegally. They came to Dallas 10 years ago to escape the poverty of rural Mexico. Now Aurea and Alejandro, who goes by Alex, want to become U.S. citizens, like their daughters. You have more rights, more jobs. Hear people who work have money, and those who don't work don't have it. In Mexico, Aurea had very little as a child, even now the family she left behind suffers. Another reason I want to be a citizen, I want to bring my mother here. My father, it's been almost five years since he died.

My mother is alone. There's only my brother, who's 11. I want to bring my mother here, but I can't right now. Aurea's dream of reuniting her family must wait until she and her husband finish taking special citizenship courses. These English and civics classes are required of illegal workers who qualified for amnesty under the 1986 Immigration Reform Law. Congratulations, everybody. Tonight is your last night of beginning English. Are you excited? Yes? Are you happy? Yes. Yes? Are you nervous? No. No, yes. Yes. Tonight is an important night because we'll be secure and we'll be safe. I went to the first class with little enthusiasm. I studied.

I liked it a lot. I would learn a word and understand it. It was a pleasure, very important. The classes are free. School districts, community colleges and social service agencies offer them with the approval of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. In Dallas, more than 14,000 people attended spring classes. This week, Immigrants desperate to register for the summer semester lined up in the rain. Higher than expected enrollments have created some problems. Teacher Lori Megasin was hired four hours before her first class began at Centro de Ami Stade, an Immigrant Assistance Center. And everything started, a lot of people had to punt. A lot of people had to, oh my gosh, suddenly we need all of these teachers. So there's a mad rush out there to get teachers recruited into the program and that sort of thing. Celeste Guerrero supervises Amnesty programs run by the Dallas County Community College District. It's mandated by law that our teachers have 12 hours of inservice, which deals with pre-assessment,

the curriculum, masteries and competencies and post-assessment. So our teachers have that. What kind of preparation were you able to get? None. They offered a workshop of sorts and I couldn't make it or I got, I think I called it the last minute. Teaching is not what Barbara Gonzalez does for a living. So I relied on what I've seen and heard before and from what my friends have told me and that's, and what I've always fantasized a teacher ought to do. When I see the movie, you know it's like an uncranked tool because it's the movie. And you cried? I was. Most of them want to become citizens. I pulled a class and I think one student still has hopes of going back to Mexico at some point in the future, but they all have their families here or in the process of getting

their families here. So this is their life being in America or in the United States rather. I want to know everything. I can have a more business in my app. I think the frustrated at the idea of being immersed in English, they want it, but it's very frightening and disconcerting to step into a culture or a language that's totally new. Practice. That's the only way because it's not as simple as Spanish. After a while, you will understand. Some classes are progressing slower than expected. A number of students are illiterate in English and Spanish. It's hard to learn because I don't know how to read, I don't know how to speak, I don't know how to write, which is writing, right? I understand in Mexico, if you wrote in the very rural areas 10, 20 years ago, there weren't

schools. So many of these people have been robbed of a chance to be literate in Spanish. For amnesty teachers, that's made a tough job tougher. I think they knew at the outset that that was going to happen. I'm not sure that they knew the magnitude to which they were going to encounter that. And that may have been one of the problems at the beginning with getting things off to a good start. As a district director for the Immigration Service, Ron Chandler must make sure the classes run as intended. I've been to some classes run across some situations where the teachers perhaps didn't have any training or they weren't even teaching English or in some cases they weren't teaching civics. And when that happens, ultimately, who's responsible, who's to be held accountable? Well, they are held accountable and it's up to us to see that that's being done. And of course, if it comes to our attention that they're not providing the training needed then we'll go out and visit and try to work with them to make sure that they're providing

the training that's needed. Besides the INS, the Dallas School District and the Texas Education Agency are supposed to monitor these classes. So far they haven't because of staff shortages. So those who offer classes may have little more than INS regulations to go by. Well the guidelines are dictated by them, but how one implements those we developed on our own. Aurea Puga has a full-time job, yet she's in school four nights a week because she enrolled in a second citizenship class. She wants to learn all she can as quickly as possible. Alex works at a sign company for now. I want to take this course in computers. I don't know if it would lead to a good job, but I would like that. I'm trying to improve my life as well as I can. I realize that hey I can't do this, I can learn English, I can't learn something about

the history and government of the U.S. This is neat, you know I want to keep going. Alejandro Puga, Aurea Puga, before they didn't know what to expect, now I see a lot of them setting goals for themselves. Really getting excited about participating, they've been on the periphery of American society for so long now they can actually be part of it. The diplomas don't mean the Pugas are ready to take their citizenship test, but it does mean they have passed another hurdle. These pine and hardwood trees stretch across some 16 million acres of East Texas, 12

and a half million of those acres are commercially valuable. What happens all this is at least their pet. They would saw down the big trees, they would bow down, doze down the little trees and every stitch of vegetation above the ground would be cleared out. Are you going to arrest that so? I'm going to ask you to remove the cameras from the courtroom. Well Judge, I don't look them down, I just like to ask you why you are doing this, if this is a public meeting, the open meeting exact says that we have a law in our court. For the second time in two weeks, Titus County deputies have been ordered to remove television

cameras from a meeting of the Titus County commissioners court. Two weeks ago the commissioners voted to bar TV coverage of their meetings. We call on Dr. Patkins to repent, to change his evil ways, to quit slaughtering innocent children and to ruin their profit. We call on him to stop his evil practices. We're mad about him and we're not going to take it anymore and whatever it takes to stop it, we're going to do it. So you don't deny belligerence and intimidation and harassment at all? Absolutely not. And those are the tools of trade that we use. We are mad. I think that there's a line between the expression of your opinion and the intimidation and harassment and threatening someone else. And I think that the people in this particular movement have long ago crossed that line. It is mid-morning and in this on air condition room, a 19 year old Mexican woman is about

to give birth. It will be her first child. The mother-to-be stuffs her mouth with a cloth so she won't scream. The heat in the room is oppressive. Seven hours without drugs, without any medical help, and we all push. No matter how hard we work, the baby doesn't seem to want to come out. The partner reassures the mother and the rest of us. This is Hillvale, an alcohol and drug treatment center in the heart of South Dallas. The cops call this part of town the war zone. Lots of drugs, lots of crime, lots of wasted people. That war is being fought hard at Hillvale, and one by one, addicts and alcoholics who really want to are winning. And so we can get people when they come to continue to let them know that we love you.

And if you do have to fall short of your stumble, just don't lay down. Just get on up and brush yourself off and come on in. And all the dirt they don't get off of, we're going to help them. It's going to be alright if you just don't give up on yourself. I stopped the car because these guys are in the back towards car. One with a gun in his hand, another one with a flashlight, a black flashlight. And the black flashlight guy, he grabs me and the other guy, he was a gun, grabs me by the hand. He jumped out, grabbed me and slammed his ear down on the car, kicking him, kicked him in the stomach. Until uniformed officers arrived, Johnson, Goodwin, nor the witnesses had any idea that the two white men were off duty Dallas police officers. There's Carlton Williams and George Pharmacus were on their way to work that night. At that moment I felt all alone. I felt like it was nowhere to turn. I called the police and here they were, they were the one that was doing it.

We convened the chain command of these two officers and it was unanimous opinion by them that these officers be terminated from implements. She has been here since the beginning before news edition ever signed on the air. She was here helping to shape it. There was an innocence about her, no not childlike, but a real innocent adult who still had faith in humanity, who believed that right should win over wrong, that lies should fall in the face of truth, and that our profession of journalism could and should make a difference in people's lives. She brought to us a rare form of energy and an inquisitive mind. She came with both vision and passion, ingredients so often missing in our profession these days.

She brought with her a bag full of smiles, indeed a bundle of laughs, again ingredients so often missing in our profession. And most of all she gave to us a strange belief that professional colleagues could also be true friends. She gave us her friendship and that is for sure a rarity in a field that is full of competition, full of selfishness and full of overblown egos. She gave us love. Unless I become overly sentimental, let me say quickly and simply that channel 13 will miss her, news edition will miss her, and of course I personally will miss her. By the way she will not be replaced on our staff, or we will hire another employee who will work long and hard, but you don't because you can't replace a friend. In reality true friends never really leave you anyway. I am proud she will be teaching at Saint Mark's School of Texas. If she has had the impact on those young future leaders as she has had on us, then there

is a bright future ahead for Dallas and the country. Now she takes her leave, but I can't say goodbye. You see I never say goodbye to friends, to people you can count on and who in turn can always count on you. So to my colleague in the field of journalism, to my comrade in this continuing struggle for truth, to my friend Mia Squilla, I refuse to say goodbye or farewell. I shall simply say see you later and you know you can always count on me. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Ten plus ten, the modern art museum of Fort Worth's current exhibition of paintings by ten American and ten Soviet artists under the age of 40, invites us to explore unfamiliar

territory, challenging our assumptions about politics and art. Face to face with the works here, we ask questions, who are the Soviets? What kind of people are they? We search these paintings for human connections and try to understand the differences between us. And for once the dialogue here is not between superpowers. This time at least, each voice has an individual presence. Sweeping generalizations about us and them are made difficult and the contours of the world as we think we know it seem less defined. Gordon D. Smith, the Fort Worth based interculture, an organizer of international art exhibitions initiated the talks which resulted in ten plus ten. We were given complete freedom by the authorities in the Soviet Union to select the artists and the paintings in the exhibition and we had two American curators who spent five weeks in the Soviet Union looking at the work of over 200 artists.

And this is unimaginable before the national reforms of Gorbachev. There's a great deal of Russian history in these paintings. The idea that imaginary worlds are created as critiques of the present society. The idea that art can operate as such a central device in communicating political and social goals and aims of these artists. Those are very Russian ideas. A lot of the painters are specifically concerned with issues of information and the unavailability or the hidden nature of information in the Soviet system up until recent times. A lot of these artists were not allowed to show their works publicly until three or four years ago. This is the first time that they've been shown in a major museum format and sort of face-to-face with their American contemporaries. When it goes back to Moscow very significantly. This will be the first time that these artists who formerly were unofficial or dissonant

artists, many of them, the first time that they will be shown in major museums in the Soviet Union. Co-curator Marla Price was impressed by the variety of unofficial works she saw in the Soviet Union. The unofficial artists were somewhat restricted to the types of themes they painted, primarily themes that glorified the aims of the state, the government, and the leaders. Whereas these younger unofficial artists have taken on just a complete range of themes, including some that are quite satirical, some quite erotic, some political, they really do believe that artists are something that can transform the world, art as an instrument for social change, and they feel very strongly about that, and it's part of the fabric of their art history going back into the 19th century. I think this is an important thing for American audiences to understand, and it's a difference between the young Soviet artists and American artists.

Have we given up hope in America that art can change our life? Well, I don't know if we've given up hope, but perhaps we've just been a little sidetracked from that idea for a while. You still have very visionary young artists who believe that, and who work towards that goal. But I don't think it's as dominant an attitude in the states as it is in the Soviet Union. Yuri Petruk was one of three Soviet artists who came to Fort Worth for the opening of the exhibition. Through translator Marcus Sloan, I asked him about freedom in the Soviet Union. The freedom to exist and create exists within the person, and not necessarily a societal. He's also free from the weight of worrying about his career, and he's a very good person. He's worrying about his career as an artist, because he doesn't feel like he's career-oriented.

He doesn't care whether his paintings hang in museums or the leading private collections because that is not why he's creating. He's creating because he feels the need for it inside, which is free. They have not grown up in a situation where they were painting for an art market where they thought of works of art as commodities that could be sold. One indication, I think, that's very interesting in that sense is that many of them work in extended series or multi-panel canvases, things that would be very hard to sell and install in an average Moscow home or apartment, for example. They don't think of it that way at all. They're making an artistic statement and not thinking about selling painting. It's a peculiar form of idealism, isn't it? Not so peculiar.

The expressive freedom achieved by the artist of 10 plus 10 represents a liberating vision, an attempt to reflect a world unbound by conventional notions of what is possible. American painter Peter Halle's catalog statement speaks of the prisons we inhabit unconsciously. The worker, he says, need no longer be coerced into the factory. We sign up for bodybuilding at the health club. The prisoner need no longer be confined in the jail. We invest in condominiums. Soviet painter Vladimir Mirenenko says that his work seeks the redemption of a Soviet society traumatized by what he says is an altered language that has distorted history and a falling out of time. The two Soviet unions reflecting each other in this work by Mirenenko announced the birth of what he calls a new Soviet civilization. 10 plus 10 invites us to encounter this new civilization. And in the process, learn something about ourselves. Every spring, the Dallas International Bizarre gives local residents a taste of foreign culture.

Dallas calls itself an international city, and the stagnant local economy has given Dallas an economic reason to become more of one. In April, ambassadors representing over 30 countries attended groundbreaking ceremonies for a new international trade resource center designed to serve as a link to international markets. Increasingly, this kind of marketing effort is reaching beyond what used to be called the Iron Curtain. This year, the mayor's international ball entertained ambassadors from communist and socialist countries, which are as eager to do business with Dallas, has dallocies to do business with them. More and more people are recognizing the crucial changes going on on our small globe. More and more people are recognizing that we are facing global problems. We have to solve.

We can only solve if we improve our cooperation. I have in mind new energy resources. I have in mind pollution, for instance. I have in mind such very common problems like AIDS. These are problems which don't ask whether you are communist or socialist or third world country, or I don't know whatsoever. We have certainly to face the realities, and the realities are such that we have to cooperate to survive. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. However, some Dallas area citizens interested in establishing friendly relations with the Soviet Union have run into opposition. This March, a sister-city proposal linking Plano with Orgenikitsa, a Soviet city between the Black and Caspian seas, sparked a bitter debate before the Plano City Council. Over a city whose name many had trouble pronouncing. I took two years of Russian, but no, I probably couldn't.

No, I can't pronounce it. Sir, do you know? I ask you. I can't. Ordzana Kitsy. Orgenikitsa. Orgenikitsa. Orgenikitsa. I do not believe we need to have cultural exchanges with a country in which world domination is their sole purpose. A country whose citizens are literally dying to get out. The average Soviet citizen wants exactly what the average American citizen wants, and that's basic human needs, a healthy environment, peace in our world, and a better world for our children. Communist Russia loves to adopt children, cities, and countries. Witness Afghanistan recovering from the most recent embrace of a sister country by the Soviet Union. It's a little boy that was running along the old city wall in the old city. In Dallas, an organization called the World Cultural Alliance hasn't found the going any

easier. They've been having trouble persuading the city of Dallas to establish an official relationship with the Soviet city of Riga, a city of nearly a million people located in Latvia, a former Democratic Republic occupied by the Soviet Union since the end of World War II. I saw this as an opportunity to have citizens of Dallas participate in creating better relationships with the people of the Soviet Union. I believe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union is the most important strategic relationship in the world. Without that relationship being effective and peaceful and secure and cooperative, the world is intimidated, is controlled and dominated by our two great superpowers. But strong opposition to the Dallas Riga proposal surfaced last year from the depths of a painful historical memory. Some members of the Dallas Jewish community cannot forget that over 35,000 Jewish residents

of Riga were murdered by occupying Nazi troops aided by Latvian collaborators. It has been 40 some years, I still have wounds which have not healed. And I don't think to open up new wounds for me and for many other. We have citizens here in Dallas, who are citizens of Dallas now, who have lived in Riga, who were born in Riga, and they tell the most horrible stories about a city that they have been born and lived. The stories of they being annihilated in their own city, living in ghettos like I lived in my city in a ghetto, taken to a concentration camp in their city, being guarded by their own citizen. This is a tragedy and it's hard to forget. And again I want to emphasize that it was not all of them, but some of them did. And I think we should look for a better city than that.

Former Dallas City Councilman Jerry Rucker was an early supporter of the Dallas Riga initiative. I believe that the council generally is favorable toward the proposition, that jobs here and the future here and the entry in international trade should not be deflected or blunted by a lot of less important transitory issues, such as we don't like Russian, so we ain't going to trade with them, or they remain to us in World War II, and so we don't like them and so we're not going to trade with them. Because it repels the very kind of people that are going to have to be here if we are going to have an economy in the 20th century, which will permit our children to stay here and to permit them to work in the global economy, that is coming, that is here, in which we will either be participants or spectators, while somebody else is participants. Ray Wade of Plano, and a member of the John Birch Society, doesn't see it that way.

The whole question does not revolve around profitability. It revolves around what is right, and you simply don't do business with murders, thugs, liars, and thieves. Yeah, Dallas is seeking expanded trade relations with communists and socialist countries. That's very unfortunate, and it may say something about those who are endeavoring to promote those kind of trade agreements. Those people are Mayor City Council Chamber of Commerce, I mean, they're well-intentioned people. I don't know that they're well-intentioned or not, and they may say that they are, and they may be. I'm simply saying that they're either very idealistic, uninformed on some of these points that we've made very clear here in Plano, or that they're very socialistic, that they are very well-informed, but that they're intellectually dishonest. And they are not doing what they pledged to do when they took office, when they swore a solemn oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign

and domestic. They need to go back and reread that oath that they took and take it seriously. One of the things that I just have to recognize is political reality. A classroom full of students is there, whether by compulsion or desire, with a requirement to master the material. And a good argument is a useful thing to have, and they understand it a lot of give and take. That's not what political campaigns are, and that's not what people, as a rule, want from their politicians. They don't want somebody to educate them. They don't want somebody to do what they tell them. And that doesn't leave a lot of room for growth. And I think it probably rewards mediocrity, which then produces mediocre government. In Plano last March, the elected representatives of the people listened to the impassioned arguments of a divided community. So what are you going to say when your grandchildren crawl up in your lab and say, grandpa? What were you doing when Russia took over America?

No people should be speaking here, but I like to answer the young lady because I have five grandchildren. And I am very concerned about universal peace, and we have tried other methods that we haven't tried so much of this. And I think it's time to try it, because I'm concerned about the planet being blown from beneath the feet of my grandchildren. And then I won't be able to answer that question at all, because we won't be here. The communists who rule the Russian citizens are criminals, they are murderers, recognize that that's exactly what they are, and get on your side. The reason is supporting the enemy, and if you vote for this, you are guilty of treason, friend. Thank you. The great difficulty I'm having is how can we communicate with Russians when we really aren't communicating with each other at all?

I see a lot of anxiety in this room tonight. I don't think this issue created it. I think it's been there, and I think the issue has exposed it. In the end, the Plano City Council voted unanimously to accept and offer to withdraw the sister city proposal for the time being. Both sides claim victory, even though nothing was decided. It was an unsatisfactory compromise, a classic case study in the virtues and limitations of the democratic process. Meanwhile, supporters and opponents of the Dallas-Riga initiative are preparing to take the same issue before Dallas's city council, later this year. If the city leadership would encourage it, this would be a heck of an opportunity for people like you and me to participate in the international arena and support Dallas as an international city. While all of a sudden is it so imperative that we become an international city, and especially

at the expense of our national sovereignty, which a lot of these people who are pushing internationalism are very ready to compromise. I want them to answer that question. . . . .

. . . . . . . . .

. Sunday morning and Diane Ragsdale checks add she bought for her church program. You're splendid supporter of the church. That's two of men here. I appreciate it. Ragsdale is a lifelong member of the Kirkwood Methodist Church. I consider myself a father of Christ and Christian. I just think that it's a moral responsibility to challenge injustice. It's a moral responsibility to promote such a change. It's a moral responsibility to be an advocate for the least of my brother. Those who are perceived to be powerless, those who exploit it the most, because they might not be as educated, because they might not have as much money, et cetera. And so I think it's a moral responsibility that tends to drive me more than anything else.

. Driven by moral convictions, Dallas City Council member Diane Ragsdale makes waves at City Hall. Like the time she sided with people protesting a plan to change the makeup of the City Council. Since Madam Mayor has stated, I am now moving. Madam Mayor has stated that the citizens of this city should have the right to vote on this issue. We have to foresharing because greed and selfishness tends to prevail when people are already involved. Jerry Rucker served with Ragsdale during the last session of the Dallas City Council. I think Diane Ragsdale, in her own mind, sees herself as some kind of chivalrous Saint George out to slay the racist dragon. And the dragon is somehow embodied in the white leadership of Dallas or just white folks generally. In a city obsessed with its can-do image, Ragsdale points out what it hasn't done.

She represents people who live around the state fairgrounds and South Dallas. District 6 is one of the poorest in the city. Jobs are few, crime is high. She give a mail down town. What the hell? I think if she had a lead back attitude, then she would be looked over. Like, my majority of other people here are looked over or pushed to the side for a period of time. Look at the neighborhood. It's changed. So I think she's going to go down. At an anti-drug rally in South Dallas, Ragsdale talks to people who have lost faith in the city. Her message is self-sufficiency. We need action. Action to save our community. We just don't want to talk here. We want for people to get involved. Raise all your hands up to make sure that Gayton Khalif gets your name and number and address. Let's get these sisters and brothers ahead.

People are standing forward. Let's get them ahead. Come on in. Sister by hand. We're ready now. Clap. This sister and brothers, concerned about our community, concerned about your life and the lives of your children. Our children. Come on in. All right. I'm glad to see you all out this afternoon. How you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing, my sister? Right on. Right on. Ragsdale grew up among the people who have elected her to office three times. The war zone, a haven for drug dealers, is three blocks from the high school she attended. She was voted most studious. And all that has to be contributed to my family and the school right here. At one point in time, I want to be a lawyer. And that was primarily motivated by my interest in politics. And then on the other hand, I want to be in health care. Ragsdale's widowed mother is a nurse. Ragsdale became one too, but nursing couldn't compete with her interest in politics. I was appointed to the City Plan Commission by Councilwoman Hagen's. As time went on, I think that I was afraid began to cry respect for me and my abilities and more importantly, my commitment.

And thus, she assisted me to become City Councilwoman. When Hagen's resigned, the City held a special election. Ragsdale won that race five years ago, becoming a City Council member when she was 31 years old. At public events, Ragsdale's older sister Charlotte is like a shadow, always close. She's Ragsdale's campaign manager and an extra pair of eyes and ears in the community. You find that your family makes a tremendous sacrifice for you. And so you just don't do this independent and nothing that you do, in my opinion, only affects yourself. And so they don't ever make me feel guilty. And my point is, you know, what we have to understand is that my mother, when I was 11 years old, so my mother plays Charlotte and I in the NAACP Youth Council.

NAACP is where we begin our understanding of injustice and our responsibility also to watch social change. So my point is, is that, you know, Mama contributed to this as well. Mama is Mrs. Lula Ragsdale. She hasn't slowed down to Spider-H, she's 75, or about with throat cancer that forces her to talk with a microphone-like device. What was Diane like as a child? When she's at home, she's an entirely different person. It's like a tale of two cities. We're talking about different personalities at home. Diane is basically an humble person, basically low-keyed and extremely humorous. So, I mean, this is the side that the public has not had an opportunity to see, but that is a real Diane.

That's right, a lot of people don't realize that she's got a really good sense of humor. Yeah, she does, I mean, sometimes, you know, we have to tell the stand-up comic to sit down. Ragsdale still lives with her mother in the house where she grew up. James Shockley, with a neighbor, the Ragsdale's treated like a brother. They learned about racism while still too young to understand it. Sam and David Jr. came to town. He couldn't stay in the hotel's downtown because of racism. He stayed two doors down from us. He played with us in the streets. He bought my brother a bicycle. I think he bought Diane and Michelle some skates. He bought me some skates. And so, I think when we all realized with what Miss Ragsdale has told us, I realized that this famous actor that's well-renowned could not stay in the Hilton downtown with Jack Benny, but had to stay down the street with his brother because of his color,

then we realized that something had to be done and something had to take place. In high school, Ragsdale exhibited the drive that has made her popular with her constituents. I was a student in athletic. The sport that I played was tennis. I was captain of the tennis team and I enjoyed it. The tennis required a lot of discipline and it also required a lot of, should I say, the ability to maneuver. And so, I enjoyed that. What you got to know when you hit the ball, how I wanted to hit a song. It's also a handy skill in politics. We're going to take a 10 minute recess at this point. No, I'm not going to buy into that. This isn't a question just for the open public. Everything cannot be discussed in executive session. Sometimes you have to use confrontation to pin it upon the issue. Sometimes negotiation works.

And sometimes confrontation promotes negotiation. And so it depends upon the issue at hand and the type of strategy that is appropriate for that time. Ragsdale says she can play the game of politics, but critics say her confrontational style makes her moves predictable. The tennis player who hits the ball in the same spot, she gets out maneuvered and her constituents lose. The test of effectiveness in political office should be what good have you done. Have you left things better than they were when you got there? Are things better or more likely to be better for those who follow you, not in political office, but for the people who have to live and work and pay for this society? I don't think that test is one that's as favorable to her, because I don't think that the answers are at all positive. No one really works with her. And in order to get people to listen, in many instances, she's turned people off.

Lawyer T.A.S. need lives and works in South Dallas. Last year, he almost ran against Ragsdale. People like her and people like Al are absolutely necessary evils to get the problem brought to the, you know, to the fore. Argonizing, community organization, Naples of organizations such as Nixon. It's an employer. That's a graduate. Ragsdale has worked hard to help the people of South Dallas help themselves. And there's over 500 businesses in the area. We want to target a good percentage of those, because we want a seminar to send it around the needs of the people. These volunteers run the inner city community development corporation that Ragsdale helped organize with city money. The last week I was given four businesses to visit. And two of them are no longer in business. It's also an example of the area's fragile economic base. Stability will take time and money.

These people have little of either. So like David, they tackled a financial goliath. With Ragsdale's help, they challenged discriminatory lending practices at a Dallas bank. Now there's $25 million or more for low-to-mortem income families in the community. For not only just home improvement loans and home loans, but also for business loans. Redevelopment is coming this way. The arrangement looks good on paper, but it hasn't brought new business homes or jobs yet. The bank has granted few loans, and the agreement runs out in two years. Concerts at Fair Park generate money for South Dallas through a trust fund, financed by $0.15 from every concert ticket sold. Ragsdale helped cut that deal. She says it's fair that people who come to South Dallas for profit or pleasure invest in the community, but others see that as economic blackmail that will alienate the rest of the city. You have decided to divide the city into a Beirut neighborhood, against neighborhoods.

And I think the city doesn't need to exist under those circumstances. If that's the case, you've really lost the basis for the consensus that forms a city. City leaders fear creating a divided city. Ragsdale has fed those fears with her public criticism of police brutality. Ragsdale and council member Al Lipscomb, outraged police three years ago, when they raised money to defend a man involved in the death of a police officer. Therefore, we feel that the city council should, at the very least, censure these two council members in order that both Mr. Lipscomb and Ms. Ragsdale, publicly apologize to the citizens of Dallas and to the officers of the Dallas Police Department, they're in proper actions. The most proper action for Mr. Lipscomb and Ms. Ragsdale to take after their apology would be for both the resign from the city council of Dallas. About two years later, Ragsdale got into a now infamous shouting match with white supporters of the Dallas Police Department.

Ragsdale said they had overlooked the death of a black police officer. Racist that you have! You are in racist mature and after då. Where are you from men? Where are you from? How come you're done? I used to turn you into Nung Yung. Because it was an act dou Blut, you are in racist, You practiced innocent. You was in after då! Yeah, I was sitting there, and it's the most embarrassing, really regrettable few minutes that I've ever spent in that chamber. That's not responsible leadership, that's actually political terrorism, and I think it is absolutely wrong, and it's a new thing in Dallas, Texas, and it's a very destructive thing. The truth in the matter is that you cannot expect peaks in this city as long as injustice is run rampant, and so the goal of people to expect peaks, when we continue to have

such gross inequity and such blatant violations of one's civil and human rights, and so to that end, the answer is no, I have no regrets. Ragsdale's battles with the police department get more attention than what she lists as her priority, housing. Ragsdale changed zoning in her area to restrict commercial development, but that creates a conflict with her other priority, jobs. We don't have any movie theaters, we don't have any skating rinks, we don't have anything for kids to actually do other than hang around on the corner and get themselves in trouble. If you provide an economic base, if you provide jobs for people, and the mechanism for jobs and the development of the area, we won't have to have low income housing, we can have moderate and high income housing like they have everywhere else in the city. But Ragsdale worries that development will disrupt neighborhoods like the one where she grew up.

On her street, everyone treated everyone else like family. I think it's so extremely important that we preserve neighborhoods. One of the major problems that neighborhoods, not like neighborhoods once were, is that you knew your neighbor, and you were also responsible and accountable for your neighbor. It was not like that's her child, that's his child. And she never neighbor found it as their responsibility to help take care of the family. I and Ragsdale, who have the curfews in the temple family, we say happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, and the church said, hey man! Ragsdale's 37th birthday was the day after the church service, but there was no cake, no party, there was no time. She was in meetings most of the week. Their schedule is so grueling, last year she was almost hospitalized for fatigue. She learned a lesson. I do have a limited social life, I do like to look at movies, attend movies, and I do like to go and look at nice jazz, so here are nice jazz, and I make myself do that.

Ragsdale is disciplined, but often the media show her seemingly out of control. Racist that you have, this whole process insults my intelligence. This is ridiculous, this is nothing but a pause. You always know what she's thinking. She often twitches and paces, it's nervous energy, some mistake for bad manners. Her city council job pays $50 a meeting, part time pay for full time work. I would have already had a family if I was not so, if this council did not make me unstable financially, you know, I exhausted my savings, I exhausted my retirement, and so it made me financially unstable, and I would have already adopted the child. And Jesus used that story to help us to understand that we're supposed to love and take care of one another.

Ragsdale's mother, her sister Charlotte and generous friends give her moral and financial support. As Reverend Coleman indicated, you know, while I have made tremendous sacrifices, the bottom line is, people lost lives, primarily talking about people fighting for civil rights and social change, improving the quality of life, etc. So who am I to say that I don't want to give back? I have a responsibility to, at the very least, show my appreciation.