NAACP convention 1980; Part 1

<v Narrator>Major funding for this program was provided by this station and other public <v Narrator>television stations. Additional funding was provided by the Quaker <v Narrator>Oats company. [Intro music] Now <v Narrator>here is host and commentator Carl Rowan. <v Carl Rowan>Good evening. Independent presidential candidate John Anderson came <v Carl Rowan>before the NAACP National Convention tonight with a confession <v Carl Rowan>that most white politicians could make. <v Carl Rowan>But few ever do. <v John Anderson>Let me be very direct.

<v John Anderson>I come from an essentially white community in Rockford, Illinois. <v John Anderson>I have grown up in white America. <v John Anderson>I have not had that many really close black <v John Anderson>friends and that has not been entirely my own choice. <v John Anderson>Indeed, I believe it has been my loss and it may well <v John Anderson>be a measure of our common situation. <v John Anderson>I cannot pretend to know how it feels. <v John Anderson>Day in and day out to be black in America. <v John Anderson>I do not know how it feels to be black and poor. <v John Anderson>And I do not even know how it means to be black and successful. <v Carl Rowan>But Anderson insisted that he knows enough to chart a national course to create <v Carl Rowan>jobs and justice, which he called a great and overriding needs <v Carl Rowan>of this country. He spoke of the recent riots in the Liberty City section <v Carl Rowan>of Miami as a lesson for America. <v John Anderson>It is appropriate that we meet here this evening just a

<v John Anderson>short distance, as we have heard over and over again during this convention, <v John Anderson>a short distance from Liberty City. <v John Anderson>It is a tragic but gripping reminder, as the governor has told <v John Anderson>us and others this evening of the unfinished work which the next <v John Anderson>president of the United States must carry on. <v John Anderson>And it is he the only one who is elected by all <v John Anderson>Americans who must seek to translate America's age <v John Anderson>old promise of equality for all of our citizens into a new <v John Anderson>and meaningful reality. <v John Anderson>[Clapping] And it ought to be clear for all of us to say that if we are going to deal <v John Anderson>with problems like Liberty City, if we are to prevent <v John Anderson>other cities like that from occurring, then we have <v John Anderson>to address ourselves to the basic issues of jobs and justice.

<v John Anderson>But, you know, it isn't enough simply to create jobs. <v John Anderson>We must also create opportunities for human fulfillment <v John Anderson>and career advancement. <v Carl Rowan>Still, there are some important questions about John Anderson's quest for the presidency <v Carl Rowan>that he did not address in his speech. <v Carl Rowan>So in a private interview this evening, I asked the Illinois congressman some <v Carl Rowan>of those questions. For example, does Anderson think that he can convince <v Carl Rowan>these delegates and other Americans that they are not wasting their votes? <v Carl Rowan>If they cast ballots for him? <v John Anderson>And uh I would answer, I think, this way that recent surveys indicate <v John Anderson>that I would take almost equally from President Carter and from Ronald <v John Anderson>Reagan. And I am firmly determined that during the 4 months that remain in <v John Anderson>this election campaign, that I will set forth the kind of positive program <v John Anderson>for this country that will convince people that uh I would be the best of the three

<v John Anderson>candidates. I think without my presence in the race, there's simply by November <v John Anderson>would not be any credible opposition standing in the way <v John Anderson>of the election of Ronald Reagan. <v John Anderson>Jimmy Carter today has an approval rating of 30 percent. <v John Anderson>He's down way back where he was in October before the taking of the hostages. <v John Anderson>He has continued to slide in the polls. <v John Anderson>Reagan has a 10 point lead over him at the present time. <v John Anderson>I repeat, unless John Anderson continues this race and I fully <v John Anderson>intend to do so, I don't think there's any question but what Ronald Reagan would be the <v John Anderson>president come January 1981. <v Carl Rowan>Well now, tell me this. What are you going to offer these <v Carl Rowan>delegates? What are you going to offer black America that the other candidates are not <v Carl Rowan>offering? <v John Anderson>Well, I think Senator Kennedy has offered some programs that would appeal <v John Anderson>to the black community. I haven't seen any evidence to date that either Ronald Reagan <v John Anderson>has done so or that President Carter, who's had three and a half years

<v John Anderson>to prove that he was going to do something. <v John Anderson>Uh he hasn't certainly accomplished the goal of reducing the rate of black unemployment <v John Anderson>from being double that of white unemployment in this country or of teenage jobless <v John Anderson>rates among minority youth ranging as high as 50 or 55 percent. <v John Anderson>I have specifically called for the kind of urban programs that would divert <v John Anderson>8 billion dollars in excise revenues to cities to set up <v John Anderson>first an urban reinvestment fund, a mass transit fund that would <v John Anderson>begin to deal with some of the basic problems of our cities, provide new tax <v John Anderson>incentives to industry to locate and relocate plants in those <v John Anderson>areas where the jobless are actually living. <v John Anderson>I've said over and over again they can't all move out to suburbia, to the nice, neat, <v John Anderson>green, manicured lawns of suburbia. <v John Anderson>Many people are in the city. They're going to stay there. <v John Anderson>And we ought to give the kind of tax incentives to industry to create jobs <v John Anderson>in those areas where the jobless live.

<v Carl Rowan>Now, I'm sure you've heard that Ronald Reagan, who's going to get that <v Carl Rowan>Republican nomination that you wanted, is the only contender who will not speak to this <v Carl Rowan>NAACP convention. <v Carl Rowan>Are you surprised that he's not coming here? <v John Anderson>No, because I don't think he has a program in the first place to appeal to the people <v John Anderson>who are attending this convention. He's called for a tax cut that would give the family <v John Anderson>with an income of 12,500 dollars a 102 dollar <v John Anderson>tax cut a year or 20,000 dollars a year. <v John Anderson>We have some two families with two wage earners where maybe they make $20,000 <v John Anderson>a year. They would get $224, about four bucks a week. <v John Anderson>What is that going to do? <v John Anderson>Really address the problems of the American economy that have led to an unemployment <v John Anderson>rate today of almost 8 percent that have led to the decline of the automobile industry uh <v John Anderson>to the point where one third of the auto workers of this country are out of jobs. <v John Anderson>How many people with two bucks or four bucks in their pockets are going to be able to <v John Anderson>bail Detroit out of the kind of problems that they have today in selling their products?

<v John Anderson>I think his program is simplistic. <v John Anderson>I don't think it really addresses some of the basic underlying needs of the country. <v John Anderson>And frankly, I'm not surprised that he's not here to talk to these delegates. <v Carl Rowan>Congressman Anderson, I thank you very much. <v John Anderson>Thank you. <v Carl Rowan>In the convention hall, Anderson got a firsthand view of the fervor of <v Carl Rowan>black America's demand for jobs. <v Carl Rowan>But he and other Americans surely now know that the anger and the anguish <v Carl Rowan>are much greater in America's ghettos as Rodney Ward of Miami's WPBT <v Carl Rowan>indicates in this report on black despair. <v Carl Rowan>[Song: Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around] <v Carl Rowan>[Song: Lift Every Voice and Sing]

<v Speaker 1>I'd like to see America go a long ways with black folks, but now we are <v Speaker 1>seeing they're going to be very hard, very difficult. <v Speaker 2>I feel like the problem is, you know, that <v Speaker 2>they just don't understand us, you know. Like we all created equal and like, <v Speaker 2>hey, if we can get some justice, man, you know, some equal rights then we can get <v Speaker 2>it. <v Speaker 3>You're white, you're right. You're black, you're out, you know? <v Speaker 3>That's how it go down here in Miami now in the justice system. <v Marzell Smith>The masses of black people who have not been cut in to <v Marzell Smith>the system of rewards have suggested very strongly to our leadership in <v Marzell Smith>this county and in the city and in this nation. <v Marzell Smith>But they are not satisfied. <v Marzell Smith>And they will not just sit back and rest at ease <v Marzell Smith>when they have nothing to rest at ease on and rest at ease about [Song: Lift Every Voice <v Marzell Smith>and Sing] <v Protestor 1>We are going to demand equal

<v Protestor 1>justice under the law. [Cheers] <v Protestor 1>We are going to declare poor people's independence in this country. Thank you, Jesus. <v Protestor 1>[Song: Lift Every Voice and Sing] <v Eula Bell McDuffie>That's alright, let them walk free. But they'll be sorry. <v Rodney Ward>Do you find that you're taking advantage of this situation? <v Rodney Ward>Just why are you selling this T-shirt? <v Speaker 4>I think that this is why we why we're doing this is because we want to make <v Speaker 4>sure that this stays in the people's face. <v Speaker 4>Not all people who already know what I'm talking about, the people that did it. <v Speaker 4>We want them to know. We want to keep seeing it. <v Speaker 4>If we keep seeing that, they might do some about it so it don't happen again. <v Rodney Ward>You're putting a five dollar price tag on an incident that happened... <v Speaker 4>No, we're not putting a $5 price tag, All we're doing is selling a piece of black <v Speaker 4>history. [Song: Lift Every Voice and Sing] <v Rodney Ward>What do you think about your future?

<v Speaker 5>Well, if I stay around here, it won't be too much <v Speaker 5>of it. Because, you know, <v Speaker 5>ain't too much out here, you know, to have a good future about it, so that's what I think. You know, I might have a better chance, you know, if the community lived more decently <v Speaker 5>and everything [Song: Lift Every Voice and Sing] <v Marvin Dunn>America has always been a very racist country and it still is.

<v Marvin Dunn>But I also suggest uh that um <v Marvin Dunn>black people have to confront that reality, have also <v Marvin Dunn>the responsibility for owning some charge to <v Marvin Dunn>ourselves to move ahead in spite of that racism and not to have all of our <v Marvin Dunn>defeats attributed to the fact that the white race is out there who give a darn about <v Marvin Dunn>black people. <v Carl Rowan>One issue that everyone here is discussing is hostility between the police <v Carl Rowan>and black communities. One of the problems is that police forces no longer <v Carl Rowan>reflect the growing minority populations of urban areas. <v Carl Rowan>For example, in Tampa, Florida, there are only 19 black officers on a force of over <v Carl Rowan>500. A few cities have tried to do something about this problem, <v Carl Rowan>and Detroit is a premier example. <v Carl Rowan>For decades, the Detroit Police Department practiced racial discrimination. <v Carl Rowan>In 1974, when Coleman Young became mayor, Detroit's police

<v Carl Rowan>force as a whole was 15 percent black. <v Carl Rowan>And the lieutenant corps? Only 2 percent black. <v Carl Rowan>Detroit's population at that time was 50 percent black. <v Carl Rowan>This disparity and the hostility it created between police and <v Carl Rowan>the black community was a major factor in the Detroit riots <v Carl Rowan>of 1943 and 1967. <v Carl Rowan>Mayor Young and a white police chief started an affirmative action program. <v Carl Rowan>Today, blacks make up more than half the Detroit force and more than 20 <v Carl Rowan>percent of its lieutenants. <v Carl Rowan>A federal judge who upheld the minority hiring program said <v Carl Rowan>that in that program's wake, and I quote, police community <v Carl Rowan>relations improved substantially. <v Carl Rowan>Crime went down. Complaints against the department went down <v Carl Rowan>and no police officers were killed in the line of duty, <v Carl Rowan>unquote. Well, you should know that the Law Enforcement Assistance

<v Carl Rowan>Administration today announced that the NAACP will get a grant <v Carl Rowan>of 381 thousand dollars. <v Carl Rowan>The organization will use the money to conduct an intensive 15 month <v Carl Rowan>survey of police brutality. <v Carl Rowan>The police foundation will assist the NAACP in its analysis. <v Carl Rowan>Earlier today, reporter Rodney Ward talked to Police Foundation <v Carl Rowan>President Patrick Murphy about the purpose of the police brutality <v Carl Rowan>study. <v Patrick Murphy>The National Office and the Police Foundation uh will be <v Patrick Murphy>uh providing materials for NAACP members in cities <v Patrick Murphy>across the country, especially on the West Coast and in the southeastern <v Patrick Murphy>region of the country. Uh and that will um <v Patrick Murphy>enumerate the questions they should take to their police departments and their police <v Patrick Murphy>chiefs about the use of deadly force by the police in order <v Patrick Murphy>to get the information that will then permit them to compare

<v Patrick Murphy>how good or bad their department is with other departments. <v Patrick Murphy>There are some police parts of the country that have done a great deal of work on the <v Patrick Murphy>problem of deadly force and have a very low rate of shootings <v Patrick Murphy>by police officers. There are other cities and have much, much higher rates <v Patrick Murphy>of shooting by police officers. We hope this project will bring bring the departments <v Patrick Murphy>with the bad records closer to the level and the standards of <v Patrick Murphy>the departments with the good records. <v Interviewer>So in other words, you're going to be devolving questions so that local groups can go to <v Interviewer>their police officers, to their police department and ask them questions that <v Interviewer>would elicit the kind of response that would let them know just how responsive these <v Interviewer>departments are in terms of the use of deadly force. <v Patrick Murphy>That's uh precisely what this project will do. <v Patrick Murphy>And uh there is a great deal of mystery about this <v Patrick Murphy>subject of useful force by the police as well as deadly <v Patrick Murphy>force as well as there is a great deal of mystery about too much

<v Patrick Murphy>of police work, as some of this mystery is quite unnecessary <v Patrick Murphy>and we'll be reducing that level of a mystery. <v Patrick Murphy>We hope so that people will have a better understanding of the problem and <v Patrick Murphy>be able to propose solutions that will reduce the problem. <v Interviewer>Once we've learned out where a police department stands where and then comes the <v Interviewer>accountability as to make changes? <v Patrick Murphy>And there's no simple answer to that because <v Patrick Murphy>there are police departments in the country, I'm sorry to say, that are not very <v Patrick Murphy>accountable either to the citizens or the elected officials <v Patrick Murphy>or the elected council or to the news media. <v Patrick Murphy>But there will be a new opportunity now for the news media, for citizens, <v Patrick Murphy>for elected officials. <v Patrick Murphy>To evaluate their departments on the basis of <v Patrick Murphy>this information, which has not been available up until now. <v Carl Rowan>In workshops today, delegates grappled with some other important issues <v Carl Rowan>like affirmative action. These delegates, stunned by yesterday's abortion

<v Carl Rowan>ruling by the Supreme Court, are wondering if another bad shoe is about <v Carl Rowan>to be dropped in the wake of the Barki case, dealing with affirmative action <v Carl Rowan>in education and the Webber case dealing with job training and promotion <v Carl Rowan>programs. Delegates wait for the court to rule in the full alert case. <v Carl Rowan>The simple issue is whether Congress may decree that 10 percent <v Carl Rowan>of funds appropriated for public works programs be set aside <v Carl Rowan>for minority contractors. <v Carl Rowan>Here are Rodney Ward and Sharon Stevens with summaries of today's workshop <v Carl Rowan>activities. <v Rodney Ward>America has moved toward two societies one white, one black, separate <v Rodney Ward>and unequal. That, according to NAACP, director of research policy <v Rodney Ward>and plans, Michael Meyers. <v Rodney Ward>Meyers told delegates gathered to discuss crises in urban America that there exists <v Rodney Ward>two separate classes, particularly in America's large cities. <v Dr. Michael Meyers>As a result of years and years of racial discrimination and economic exploitation,

<v Dr. Michael Meyers>we have an underdeveloped black community and an overdeveloped <v Dr. Michael Meyers>white community, an underclass and <v Dr. Michael Meyers>an upper class. This is a fact. <v Dr. Michael Meyers>And despite all the talk about a new south and rhetoric <v Dr. Michael Meyers>about human rights and more rhetoric about the progress made for blacks <v Dr. Michael Meyers>as a result of 40 years of civil rights activism on the part of the courts <v Dr. Michael Meyers>and the Congress, it seems clear that America, <v Dr. Michael Meyers>as a Kerner Report warned, has moved toward two separate societies <v Dr. Michael Meyers>one black, one white, separate and unequal. <v Dr. Michael Meyers>Life in the Harlem's to the South Bronxs <v Dr. Michael Meyers>in the Newarks in the Watts in the Liberty Cities <v Dr. Michael Meyers>remain for the masses of blacks just as drab <v Dr. Michael Meyers>as 12 years ago, if not more so.

<v Rodney Ward>Florida International University sociologist Marvin Dunn, speaking about the recent <v Rodney Ward>racial violence in Miami, said that what happened here was not unique, but a part of <v Rodney Ward>America's tragic treatment of blacks. <v Marvin Dunn>Miami's tragedy is America's tragedy. <v Marvin Dunn>What happened here could have happened any place in this country in 1980, given the <v Marvin Dunn>existence of perhaps even a more serious degree <v Marvin Dunn>in other places, the same problems that were outlined in the so-called kind <v Marvin Dunn>of report. It was not the refugee problem. <v Marvin Dunn>It was not the failure of the local black leadership, was not competition between <v Marvin Dunn>blacks and Hispanics as you've read in the press. <v Marvin Dunn>It was not the press coverage of the case. <v Marvin Dunn>It was not the weather. It was not the tooth fairy. <v Marvin Dunn>It was the utter collapse of our system of justice <v Marvin Dunn>and the widespread belief in the black community that

<v Marvin Dunn>a vicious crime against an innocent black person had gone unpunished. <v Marvin Dunn>And that is why people went to the streets. <v Marvin Dunn>McDuffy killer, you must understand it, was a thing <v Marvin Dunn>taken quite personally by a great many black people in this town, including myself, <v Marvin Dunn>because the killing of McDuffy merely reaffirmed our individual and <v Marvin Dunn>collective vulnerability. It said to us, this could have happened to you. <v Marvin Dunn>And I think that that in part explains the particular viciousness <v Marvin Dunn>of this riot. It was an act of revenge. <v Rodney Ward>Dunn, who delivered much the same message to a congressional subcommittee last week said <v Rodney Ward>the message fell on deaf ears. <v Marvin Dunn>When I made the statement before the Congress made it without any illusions <v Marvin Dunn>about what they would do. That Congress will not hear these <v Marvin Dunn>screams from Miami. Why should they when they did not hear the screams

<v Marvin Dunn>from Watts and from Detroit and from Newark? <v Marvin Dunn>Congress doesn't care because really, when you look at it, the American people don't care <v Marvin Dunn>what people will tell you when you talk to them about the plight of black people, what <v Marvin Dunn>plight of black people, Indians are the only ones supposed to have a plight. <v Marvin Dunn>We solve the people's problems back in the 60s. <v Marvin Dunn>Don't y'all remember? <v Marvin Dunn>The War on Poverty? <v Marvin Dunn>Civil rights bill? Don't y'all remember that? We took care of you. <v Marvin Dunn>Black people ought to be doing pretty well, they say. <v Rodney Ward>Dunn says that white Americans belief that black America is doing fine is totally <v Rodney Ward>incorrect. He said he has faced the reality that throughout the remainder of <v Rodney Ward>his lifetime, life in this country will continue to be contaminated by <v Rodney Ward>racism. But Michael Meyers of the NAACP held out hope for black America, <v Rodney Ward>saying a deepening racial split in this country can be avoided if we as a nation

<v Rodney Ward>pursue a course of full equality of races. <v Rodney Ward>I'm Rodney Ward. <v Sharon Stevens>More than 100 people, many lining the walls, attended the workshop on affirmative action. <v Sharon Stevens>And what they heard is that the fast train to equality in the marketplace is in the <v Sharon Stevens>process of derailing. Affirmative action is America's way of redressing <v Sharon Stevens>historic inequities in the hiring and promotion of non-whites. <v Sharon Stevens>It provides preferential treatment for blacks and other minorities. <v Sharon Stevens>But that process is increasingly threatened by whites who claim affirmative action is <v Sharon Stevens>reverse discrimination. The Adam Barky decision is a major case in point. <v Sharon Stevens>Dr. Bernard Anderson, a vice president with the Rockefeller Foundation and a workshop <v Sharon Stevens>panelist, outlined the progress of affirmative action programs in the preceding decade, <v Sharon Stevens>charging that the occupational upgrading of blacks came to a screeching halt <v Sharon Stevens>despite a variety of new programs aimed at equalizing minority employment. <v Bernard Anderson>We are spending now somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 billion dollars a year

<v Bernard Anderson>on manpower and related programs. <v Bernard Anderson>And yet there has been no significant change in the occupational position <v Bernard Anderson>of blacks with respect to the occupational status or the unemployment rate. <v Bernard Anderson>And so there is something wrong in the way our public policies are operating. <v Bernard Anderson>That uh demonstrates that no matter how much money seems to be spent in these <v Bernard Anderson>areas, there is no improvement in the relative position. <v Bernard Anderson>I don't have the answer to that. But it seems to me that that's one thing that we can <v Bernard Anderson>point to very clearly. That did not happen during the 1970s <v Bernard Anderson>that we are going to have to look at very carefully to be sure that that does not happen <v Bernard Anderson>during the 1980s. <v Sharon Stevens>Anderson added other factors worked against blacks, primarily <v Sharon Stevens>the increased hiring of white women who often view themselves as a minority. <v Sharon Stevens>Anderson added other factors worked against blacks, primarily the increased hiring of <v Sharon Stevens>white women who often view themselves as a minority. <v Sharon Stevens>The other panelists expressed similar views, as did audience participants.

<v Sharon Stevens>Much of corporate America and many government agencies are participating in the <v Sharon Stevens>convention's commercial exhibition and they are highlighting their equal opportunity <v Sharon Stevens>programs. It's a visible step in the affirmative action process. <v Sharon Stevens>The next step, accountability, is more difficult, though, because it requires <v Sharon Stevens>more commitment. And judging by the continuing complaints of job discrimination <v Sharon Stevens>and the high black unemployment rate of corporate America and the government still <v Sharon Stevens>have a long way to go from the convention center this is Sharon Stevens reporting. <v Carl Rowan>Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who's still fighting for the Democratic nomination, <v Carl Rowan>will plead his case to this convention tomorrow. <v Carl Rowan>We'll be here tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening to report on his speech <v Carl Rowan>and his reception. We hope you will be watching. <v Carl Rowan>Good evening. [Song] <v Narrator>Major funding for this program was provided by this station and other public

<v Narrator>television stations. Additional funding was provided by the Quaker <v Narrator>Oats company. <v Narrator>This program is made possible by grants from the Bureau of Education

<v Narrator>for the Handicapped and from International Business Machines <v Narrator>Corp. [Intro music]