In Black America; Blacks in Government with Oscar Easton

It's too late and no proof of the mystery From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. We understand that the government is going to change. Whether we like it or not it's going to change. It's going to be reduced and so what we do is prepare our people for that and we're not opposing that. But we want it done in a way that we are not in orderly impacted. Blacks aren't the only people who are let go.

You'll have some by the time when you finish all of this you'll have some of the structure. Some of the affirmative action structure that we fought so hard in the 6 to 7 is 80 to gain. We want to leave some of that integrity in place and therefore we're going to ensure that we aren't the only people who are let go. And when it's reinventing of government is complete. Oscar Eden, National President of Blacks and government. Blacks and government was conceived by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Rockville, Maryland. The organization was viewed at essential to Black civil service employees based on a wider sort of racially motivated problems faced by the DHEW employees in Rockville. When coupled with the fact that no single civil rights organization has as its sole objective the preservation enhancement of Black civil servants, it became apparent that Black civil servants had to unite and protect themselves. To sum this meant jeopardizing their careers, to others it meant duplicating some of the efforts of other organizations.

Today the organization not only addressed problems at the federal level but also state, county and municipal levels. I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. and welcome to another edition of in Black America. On this week's program, Blacks and government with Oscar Easton in Black America. We have about 19 different chairmanship within the national organization. We have everything from voter registration. The sickle cell you find that the government has defunded a lot of the sickle cell programs. We're having to pick that up. The adopt the child, Black child program. Very few of us realize that in this adoption program that Black children are the last kids to be adopted. Blacks and government has taken on that program. We have an attorney referral program. Whereas if you have a discrimination complaint that you can contact, we will provide you with a list of attorneys within your region, within your area, within your local area,

who handle civil rights cases. We have complaint resolution. Whereas we assist people with complaints. We have an affirmative employment opportunity program. I think one of the finest in the country that we train people to represent people. We train people to represent people. Because you see an all of your equal employment opportunity programs. They said when you have been discriminated against, you are entitled to a representative. Blacks and government is a nonprofit, non-partisan national organization of Black federal, state, and local government employees. The organization was founded and organized in 1975 and incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1976. After two decades of existence, the purposes in which the organization organized in 1975 are no less critical and essential today. The barriers to equal employment opportunity remain a continuing threat and impediment to their progress and participation in the federal civil service system.

The organization functions as a knowledgeable problem in identifying and solving organization for Black civil servants. It is dedicated to establishing and operating social, economic, political, and cultural programs, which enhance the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for Blacks. You're advocating all vesteds as the unlawful treatment towards Blacks, and eliminating institutionalized racism which oppresses Blacks and creates barriers to formal and equal citizenship for Blacks. I recently spoke with the big national president, Oscar Easton, regarding Blacks and government. I know that you've been out here in Austin for a long time doing what you're doing now, and all across the country, this is what I think keeps us together at communication, and it's kept us together in the 60s, and well into the 90s, we need Black media. We need more now than we ever needed before because I don't think the White Media really is interested in our welfare or as they say now, the content of our character.

I don't think they're really interested in the content of our character. And so it's up to us to provide the kind of media exchange that I think Black radio and news paper do across the country. For those that aren't familiar with big, what does the acronym stands for, and how long has it been in existence? Okay, Blacks and government, big, stands for Blacks and government. And Blacks and government was founded back in the early 1970s when a group of federal employees over at the Department of Health and Health Education and Welfare got together, and at that time, if you remember back in 1972, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act was passed. And there were a lot of things going on in the inner cities with African Americans. And a government work is up to that point. We'll often hit with this, the charge that you can't participate in the civil rights movement because you're hatched. And we used to have to move back when they hit us with that.

And so a group of employees over down in Rockville, Maryland with the Health Education and Welfare Department got together. They identified some issues affecting African Americans in government, in the federal government at that time, that needed to be addressed and they formed this organization called Blacks and government. Well, the organization went forward in the 1972 when we held our first national conference of Black federal employees. We had anticipated over at the Sherholm Americana in Washington, DC. We had anticipated about having about 500 African American employees, federal employees show up. And we had to cut registration off at around 2,500. Among them were state and county and municipal employees who said, listen, you people don't have any monopoly on discrimination.

So why don't you broaden your constitution to include municipal and state and county government employees as well? And so we did that, at that point. And so now we went forward from there to where we are now, including, you know, all inclusive. We presently have over 300 chapters scattered throughout the continental United States and overseas as well. And we're recognized where our presence is felt in over 11 regions within the continuous United States and beyond. And we attempt to represent over 2.5 million African American employees in local municipal county and state and federal government. Are the concerns today similar to the same concerns that were surfacing when the organization was founded? The concerns are the same, the issues are the same, but what is different is process.

So we're called upon now to use an entirely different process and combating what we know as discrimination. Discrimination has taken on a different form where it was blatant and identifiable from almost any advantage or any viewpoint. Now it is more sophisticated and subtle. You don't even know when you've been discriminated against an American today. You don't know who has denied you the opportunity. You don't know who has turned you down for a position because it happens within steel, within that little board network. But it is not as blatant, it is not as visible. And so therefore we have to use different tactics. We're organizing around issues now and plot and strategies. I just left California where we have the African American diaspora where we brought together local leaders. And also we call less with African American leaders such that from all different African American countries such that we can participate in that economic, that economical forum.

We can get some of those dollars that we trade with our sister country, Africa. We're doing those kinds of things and we're talking about economic empowerment. In the old days we were talking about a seat on the front of the bus or being able to go to a theater. I was born and raised in the city of San Antonio. I can remember we used to have to sit up in the state theater top in the buzzard roost as we called it. Those are no longer issues anymore. What we're faced with now is trying to find a place within the economical spatter. We're trying to empower ourselves to be able to capture some of those that 200 billion dollars that we say pass through the African American community on an annual basis. And it goes into our community and it leads just as fast as it goes. We're trying to hold, capture some of those, hold them in the African American community where we can employ some of our own people.

We can do some of our own building. We don't have to have our employer hand us a paycheck and we turn right around and give it back. And consumer goods give it back to the white man as it were. We can, in fact, grab some of those dollars and control our own destiny. I believe now we have, you know, you really have to, the old, the old adage about, you know, hitting the meal and the head with a two by four to get attention. I think we've got the muse attention now. When we go into talk to a mayor, we go into talk to a governor, we go into talk to a department head, a branch chief or division chief. We normally carry with it the cloud of being a part of a national organization. You know, I mentioned the structure of the organization. And that gets the attention. That will get the attention of the powers to be quicker than anything else I can think of. And when you carry with it, you know, the force of 300 and some of our chapters all across the country with, and we range in terms of demographics.

We range from GS1's or first level or entry level employee all the way up to secretaries of different departments than Washington DC within our ranks. And so we do have influence and, you know, we are non-political. But somebody said, you know, non-profit and non-political. That's not only, it's not only dumb, that's dangerous. You have to be political. And we carry, we do, we are allowed under our 501C3 series status. We are allowed to do some lobbying and we do it. We have lobbied it. We do bring our members to the letter writing campaigns and we do make our influence felt in a number of ways. Yes, we are respected. My mind immediately turns to a case down in Muscogee, Oklahoma, where we had to have a center in a VA hospital, a VA center.

We had to have a person removed and at that time we were told, this man is wired, you know, right into Washington, he cannot remove. And he is going to be here. And so on and so on. We are able to do those kinds of things with the kind of cloud that we bring. And we also form coalitions with our groups. We form coalitions with Hispanic groups and with woman groups. With now, we got together with now on the welfare reform thing. Affirmative action has been out for a day. We brought together over 100 organizations into Washington, D.C., organizations and leaders and people like Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson, Art Fletcher, you know. People like that who are really experts in the area of affirmative action and what it has done for our people. And we enter all of their testimony into record. And from that, we published a book called Affirmative Action and Beyond. And that book is, somehow I think it's probably recognized as being one of the most sought after documents when it comes to affirmative action.

We sent a copy of that document to every member of Congress. We sent a copy to the president and we received a letter back from the president thanking us for the information they had in it. And from that, the president's speech on affirmative action, which he just, the latest one, which he coined the adage, don't end it. He used a lot of the context of our document to make, to come to that conclusion. Mind it, don't end it. You can't ask in Texas that I would assume the Southwest, one of the southern regionals within big. What are you expect to accomplish during this regional meeting? Well, of course we have 11 such meetings going on all the time. As a matter of fact, I just meant, left the region nine out in California where they were dealing with some important issues. During this time, we bring together all the chapter presidents within that region. This is region six. All the chapter presidents come together.

And they put on the table some of the most pressing issues in that region of that day. For instance, during the trial, is that the wood, the trial dealing with the University of Texas. That was being discussed down here in this particular region at that time. And that was shared with other regions throughout the country. And so this is what we do. It's a regional council. It's a council of chapter presidents and representatives coming together with these issues and discussing these issues and sharing information on these issues so they can take them back to their people. Besides having information that comes down on a weekly basis, I write a weekly update. During which time I share with all of the chapters, the 300th and my chapters across the country, the issues in our position, big position on any issue. So we won't have a chapter president or a chapter person of chapter member out saying one thing and the organization leading off it with its chin on another issue going in another direction.

We are together all the time through our communication. The bulletin, the weekly update as I mentioned, provides on a weekly basis those issues and some resolve for those issues. The bulletin on a quarterly basis and the reporter almost on a monthly basis. So this information flowing and besides, I want you to know that we are in fact on internet. We have our own home page. And if you want to know a little more about big, all you've got to do is punch in www.bignet. Bignet.org. And you can get the latest issues of the day, the kinds of issues that we are dealing with. And you get to know more about what's happening in different regions. You click on any region. I'll tell you the regional council president is and what that region is doing. And what we're doing in the way of affirmative action, what we're doing in the way of voter registration. What we're doing in by the way of attorney referrals. We do a lot of that and complaint resolution. We're into a lot of complaint resolutions today.

I think you'll find that there are more complaints out there now as a result of the attacks on affirmative action. It's resulted in a lot of complaints. You take all the out of third Congress and 104 Congress with its 10 contract with America items, you find that that has resulted in an enormous amount of repercussions from individual employees all across the country. So we're doing a lot of those kinds of things. Last year this time we were faced with a government shutdown. How did the shutdown and the possibility of that shutdown affect big members and how did you all react to that situation as an organization? Well, one of the features of that government shutdown that really I think impacted us. You see, African Americans are inordinately represented in government. You find that somewhere on the order of 38% of all African American professionals work in government as compared with only 14% of white professionals. And the reason for that is that government was the first employee to give us opportunities.

So we rushed the government in droves. The big battle cry now is government is too large, government is too wasteful, and government is not responsive and government must be reduced. That's because we have we feel. That's because we have so many African Americans in government. Every time we learned the game, they changed rules. The government wasn't wasteful, wasn't too big, and wasn't extraordinarily extreme in the days when we weren't represented in government. All of a sudden we learned the game, we entered into government, we got good jobs and so forth. Now government is too wasteful. Every time we learn the rules of the game, the man, they change the rules. If a company were to do that, they'd go broke. I don't think the government was responsive and sending a lot of people out and then having to pay them all at the very same time. And then on top of that, declaring a large segment of the workforce as being non-essential. Were there real hardships from those that were actually furloughed, and I was so, once one was furloughed, him or her did not receive a paycheck?

Of course that is, they did in fact, they did indeed receive a paycheck. And that is one of the, I think, the ironies of this whole phenomenon is that here they declared a large segment of the workforce as being non-essential. It's in a large segment of the workforce home and then had to pay them all at the same time, which in my estimation was counterproductive. It did absolutely nothing to increase the efficiency of the workforce. It did nothing to improve the self-evaluation of the individual worker. It did nothing to promote productivity. And it was just, I think, a case of Congress actually being out of control rather than the employees. And it really gets back to the root of this conservative Congress and some of the things that they've done over the last couple of years with this conservative majority. And some of the rulings and some of the decisions and positions they've taken on welfare reform, affirmative action, and just any number of things that affect black people in general.

Realistically, can one look to the government as an employer and retire from the government in 25 or 30 years? Well, it certainly, what has happened recently certainly decreases the confidence of people to be able to do that. I believe that what we have learned, we as African Americans have learned over the last several years, is that although government is the provider, it should be the last level of appeal in terms of an individual's welfare, health education welfare. At the very same time, we African Americans have learned that we must look in terms, look at entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is the civil rights of the 1960s. And although our parents tell us, go to work, get a job, go to school, get a job, and then they can't take that away from you. That no longer provides any degree of security for you. You must think in terms of going in business for yourself. That is where the game is being played.

And that's what we have to encourage our youngsters to go in the future. Do you find young African Americans still willing and wanting to be public servants to work for state, local, and our national government? It is more difficult. It is more difficult to get a youngster interested in a career in government now than it was, say, 10, 20 years ago. The concept of security in government has decreased and diminished, I think, in the eyes of a lot of people. And with younger people, when we start recruiting younger people and talking younger people about going into government, what they see is what they hear on radio, television, and then the other media that there is less and less security in a government job than there was, say, 20, 30 years ago. How large is big national staff? Or is there a national staff?

Yeah, we have a national staff of about 8 people in Washington, DC, and our headquarters in Washington, DC. And one of the things that we all we often brag about is the rest of the organization that is a volunteer organization, including my position that is a volunteer. We get absolutely not one penny in terms of a salary for working for big. And we have, I have the fortune of working for an agency that sees my position as an asset to the agency itself, and therefore, it allows me to do a lot of things, to speak out on a lot of things, almost unrestricted in a lot of ways on some of the things I say in criticism of my employer, which is, you know, the federal government. And that's a good thing, but big is in a process now of assessing. We've grown so, and we continue to grow, such that we are looking at creating a position, the position of the executive director, such that we can be immune from some of the perils of whatever is incumbent when you are a president of the organization and employed by one of the agencies. Members pay dues. Members pay dues. Membership dues to the national is $25 plus whatever a small fee that the local chapter will attach to it generally, it's anywhere from $2 to $5.

And it brings the membership fee up to somewhere around $30, almost anywhere you go across the country. We hold conferences throughout, you know, the continental United States on an annual basis and on a quarterly basis. And our source of revenue generally is derived primarily from conferences, from training. We do a lot of training, we have some of the best training, we're notable for some of the best training. For instance, in our last conference in Atlanta, Georgia, we had over 5,000 people, anywhere from 5 to 6,000 people coming from. This has passed August 26th through 20th. And next year, 1997, we're going to be in Washington, D.C. for our conference. The following year, we'll be in New Orleans. So our conference has moved around. We're offered, as I said, some of the best training, not only training in EEO or cultural diversity in that capacity. But we also offer courses in how to get through the system, courses on how to work with individuals, courses on reinventing government, you know, the L-Goers.

So we don't, we don't, we understand that government is going to change. Whether we like it or not, it's going to change. It's going to be reduced. And so what we do is prepare our people for that. And we're not opposing that, but we want to done in a way that we are not in orderly impacted. That blacks aren't the only people who are, let go. That you'll have some, by the time when you finish all of this, you'll have some of the structure, EEO structure, some of the affirmative action structure that we fought so hard in the 60s, 70s, 80s to, to gain. We want to leave some of that, that integrity in place. And therefore, we make, we're going to ensure that we aren't the only people who let, let, let, let go. And, and when this reinventing of, of government is complete. So, U.S. Representative Lloyd doggard spoke to you all this morning. What are some of the things he had to, to say?

Well, you know, as I said, we are non-partisan and, and we are, uh, non-profit. Um, but the point being is that, uh, whatever else he, uh, Congressman doggard is, he is a Democratic congressman. And, the way we feel, our, our basic feelings on what is happening in America today is, number one, we find it difficult to even connect with the Republican, uh, party. Black, uh, folks throughout the community, anywhere in the community, uh, it would appear as though Republicans don't want you. And, it appeared as though, the, um, the Democrats have taken you for granted. And, it appeared as though, uh, Ross Perot, you're going around calling, referring to us as, you people. And so, this is a very interesting time in politics for, for African Americans. And so, we cannot embrace entirely any one political party. I think, uh, the Congressman had a lot of good things to say.

Uh, he spoke primarily along the, the, the, the, the Bill Clinton line. And, uh, of course, if you look in terms of, uh, a selection, you're having to make a selection in a political party, you have to look at the party that, that offers the, the less, the least amount of opposition to, to your principles and to your causes. Oscar Eastern National President blacks in government. If you have a question or comment or suggestions asked your future in black America programs, write us. Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for IVA technical producer David Alvarez. I'm John L Hansen, Jr. Thank you for joining us today. And please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America cassettes, communication building B, U.T. Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in black America cassettes, communication building B, U.T. Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712.

From the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John L Hansen, Jr. Join me this week on in black America. I don't think there's any other group in the United States that has it on its place, you know, the kind of agenda that we have for assisting our people. The Blacks and government with Oscar Easton this week on in black America.