Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993 TAG: 9303080244
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
THE ROANOKE NAACP HAS A NEW PRESIDENT . . . WITH EXPERIENCE
To many black Americans, a local president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a treasured friend, someone they can count on for empathy and advice in a white-dominated culture.As the Roanoke NAACP's new president, the Rev. Charles Green also becomes a sought-after commentator on local politics. Traditionally, a NAACP president tries to remind white leaders how their public policies might be seen from a minority point of view.
Green held the NAACP presidency here 20 years ago.
This time around, he may be more outspoken than ever. The Church of God minister retired a year ago as staff chaplain at Roanoke Memorial Hospitals.
Editors and reporters at the Roanoke Times & World-News recently asked him to talk about a variety of local and national issues. Here's an edited transcript of what he had to say:
Q: How racist is Roanoke?
A: It's better than it was when I came here 30 years ago, but we're getting back to where we were. We're on the way back, and that's what we want to prevent. This is why it is necessary to have coalitions among other groups, civic groups, civil rights groups, whatever they may be. That's what we're planning to do, work with other groups in the city so we don't get back to the way we were in the '60s and before.
Q: Roanokers in general seem reluctant to speak out on public issues in the city. What is it about the cultural history of Roanoke that makes it this way?
A: It is different than any other place I have lived. I've lived in quite a few place across the country. The people here are just quiet. They're very passive. As long as things are going fine for them, they don't go out to help others. It's kind of a selfish-type thing. [They think] as long as I'm doing OK, I'm not concerned with anybody else.
Q: Did the Rev. Noel Taylor's 16 years as mayor advance the well-being of black Roanokers, or is it true, as some have said, that many black Roanokers were reluctant to question the city's actions during his tenure for fear they would be seen as attacking him?
A: I think Dr. Taylor has a way of keeping things going smoothly. I think he did a good job as the mayor, and I think his respectability as a minister might have caused some people to be a little reluctant to speak out because of his position as a pastor.
Helping young people
Q: Has the church failed in its role to inspire young people?
A: The child is in the home for four to five years before he's in contact with any other institution. I don't think it's the church that has failed, it's the home that's failed.
Q: What specifically will you do to help young people who are frustrated in this city today?
A: There are programs that many young people don't know about. I was dealing with some programs last summer, working with the 5th Planning District Commission, and we generated several jobs to people who may have been in trouble. By working through those sources, we can generate interest. Regardless of the age, the main thing [on young people's minds] is, "Where can I get a job, where can I get money?" This is one of the things that we'll be dealing with, creating opportunities for jobs as well as continue to go to school. You have a lot of young people that's in school that, when they finish high school, that's as far as they can go because they do not have the resources to go any further. We do have a scholarship fund and have had for a long time.
Q: How are we going to create jobs for kids when there are adults with families who need jobs, too?
A: It takes less for one kid to live than it does a family. A kid will work cheaper than what an adult would work for. They would do jobs that an adult wouldn't do. For instance, a kid will go out and cut grass, and many adults will not do that.
Q: What about during the winter when there isn't grass to cut?
A: You have a lot of small places like the food places where you can work, and hot dog and hamburger places and the other fast-food places like that where kids can work part time. These places are hiring young people and the older citizens because they don't have to worry about paying insurance or any kind of benefits at all. But the kid growing up is not too concerned at that time about any sort of commitment of that type. But as they grow older and when they reach maturity age, when they finish high school, or if they choose not to go to high school, there are trades. The economy will be better anyway under the new administration. We're in a transition from wartime to peacetime.
Q: How do you make those job opportunities attractive to kids who might prefer to go out and sell drugs?
A: It's a matter of education. It's a matter of value and teaching kids where to put the right value. It's far better to make less and you don't have to worry about policemen knocking on your door than to make a lot and can't sleep because you don't know if someone's coming in to shoot you. One of the mistakes that I think the Reagan and Bush administrations made is that they spent a lot of money on drug [enforcement] but there was not a whole lot spent on [drug] education.
NAACP intends to stay
Q: People say the NAACP is an old-fashioned organization that served the country nobly during the civil rights era but has lost its zip. What do you think?
A: I don't think it's lost its zip. I think it's the society that we live in. Many years ago, we had a lot of tough decisions to make because of school problems, job problems, social problems, and we addressed all those issues. Regardless of what they say about the NAACP, it is the oldest ongoing organization as far as civil rights is concerned. Many organizations have arisen, but they are gone. We are still here and we intend to be here.
Q: How is your agenda going to differ from past presidents of the NAACP?
A: I don't think we're going to differ too much. We're interested in jobs for black youth. We're interested in education. We're interested in doing away with the drug problem. We have health problems we want to work with. We want to work with the young people and old people as well. We want to work with all departments of the city. What we would like to do is see a united people in the Roanoke Valley, black and white, Chinese, Japanese, whatever.
Q: What do you say to people who would say that crime, welfare and unemployment statistics justify their position that black Americans are inferior, that they do not have a will to achieve compared with others, both Native Americans and immigrants?
A: I'll say that their view is completely wrong. You've got the same learning problems among non-blacks that you have among blacks. It's a matter of having opportunity. When I came to Roanoke, you had a segregated school system. The black school system was definitely inferior to the white school system. There's no such thing as separate but equal. This is why we insisted on integrated schools because of the fact that our form of education, what we received, is quite different from whites'. We didn't learn anything about Afro-Americans in white history books. You might read about George Washington Carver or Booker T. Washington and maybe Marian Anderson and maybe Joe Louis and people like that, but the real black history you never got in our schools, neither in the white schools. Schools always advocate European descendants and not African. Whenever we got it, it was a negative-type thing. We talked about slavery.
Q: People call the NAACP to report racial discrimination. What do you hear the most about?
A: Mostly job discrimination. We get a lot of those calls. In fact, I've got one to answer when I get back home now.
Q: Discrimination in terms of hiring or what?
A: Firings. If you're five minutes late, they fire you, even if you've never been late before.
Race and the news media
Q: Have the news media been helpful or to blame for problems with race relations, and what could they do or not do that would be progressive?
A: The news media have certainly improved on that issue. Anything that was positive [about blacks], that was usually in the back of the paper, if it got in there at all. But certainly a crime in the black community always made headlines in previous years in any newspaper, not only in Roanoke but in any part of the country. It seemed that they just played upon the fact that these are black people, they are different, they are mean, they are bad, they steal, they kill, but that isn't the fact.
Q: What was your reaction to the LA riots and the news reports that came out from that?
A: I think the televisions and the newspapers probably overreacted. You see the same scene over and over again, the same pictures, and it's a lot of propaganda. I can remember during wartime - I fought in the war, I was in combat - we'd hear about all the bombings in Tokyo and Yokahama and other places. When I got there, it seemed like it never had been hit.
Q: Surely you're not saying news people in LA or here were saying "Let's keep this up?"
A: I think to a certain extent, you've got to sell the newspaper. If there's nothing happening, you don't sell it. People do not buy a newspaper just to hear people are getting married or being married for 50 years. They'll buy it quicker if there's a riot.
Q: We don't make that happen.
A: I know, but you do blow it up.
Q: When you say "blow it up," you mean by repeating the story?
A: Yes, and adding information that may not be accurate.
The issue of leadership
Q: How is Mayor Bowers doing?
A: Well, he was going to have an open-door policy. That's one of his promises, but recently we tried to get ahold of him and talk to him during this Gainsboro struggle. We were talking to each council person separately. We got to Bowers and he said, "You have to get permission from the city manager before you can talk to me." So, his open door policy isn't as open as he said it was going to be.
Q: Are you disappointed in him?
A: Not yet. If he keeps the way he's going, I will be. I'm going to give him a chance. I'm disgusted with the majority of the council. I just didn't realize that these people were that way.
Q: Who are you not disgusted with on City Council?
A: I'm disappointed in all the council members, really. The vice mayor [Bev Fitzpatrick] is one person who is a little different than the average one that's on there. He's one of the ones who had given back his "two-for-one" [pension deal].
Q: Is there a national leader, white or black, other than Jesse Jackson, to whom black Americans, young people in particular, should be looking to for inspiration?
A: Right now, I don't think we have any particular person outside of Jesse Jackson. Used to be Julian Bond and people like that, but they're fading out.
Q: But do you need a black leader?
A: I don't know. When you talk about black leadership, I like to think in terms of leadership period, not just black leadership. i think we ought to get away from that.
Q: Is Bill Clinton one of those people you look to for inspiration?
A: Sure, I like Clinton. I like what he's doing do far.
Q: What should white Roanokers know about black Roanokers that they probably don't know?
A: They don't know we have a culture. They just have a certain amount of fear because of a certain lack of education. We need to know each other's culture. Usually in any Southern city, and Roanoke is no exception, the railroad tracks are the [racial] dividing line, and the only thing that [whites] know about us is when we go across the tracks and work for them in their houses or factories. As far as knowing about our social lives, our background, what we like and don't like, our culture, they don't know anything about that at all. All they know is that we're black and they don't particularly like us but they don't particularly know why, except that we're black, and no person is responsible for their color. I think the greatest mistake we've made is that we have not fully integrated - socially, economically and educationally. We still have a lot of prejudice in this city.
Police and minorities
Q: How well or how poorly are Roanoke law enforcement officers doing in dealing with the minority community?
A: They're trying, but that's been one of the hardest groups to crack because of the top personnel. If you've got prejudiced people in the top, then you're going to have them all throughout the system.
Q: Who's prejudiced at the top?
A: The chief [M. David Hooper]. He says he isn't but he is, and we tell him that.
Q: What has happened lately to make you think that police officials haven't changed?
A: Because of the [recent resignations of black] recruits. I didn't get a chance to interview those guys. The reason they left was because of prejudice during their time of training, the racial slurs by the white officers. I wish I could have interviewed them before they left. Things like that give indications. The fact that we have a low ratio of blacks on the police force. This has always been the case in Roanoke. You go in almost any other city and you find more than you have [here] according to the population.
Q: Is there anything specific that the upper levels of the Police Department has said to make you feel they are racist, or is it more subtle indifference, a lack of sensitivity on their part?
A: It's subtle, a lack of sensitivity. I attended one of their training sessions. They had someone come in from the National Council of Christians and Jews once a year to talk to the top people, who do not come in contact with the public. That's one of the criticisms I have with this type of training - that this man comes down and talks to the lieutenants. Why not talk to the people in the lower echelon, because these are the people that come into contact with the public?
Q: Do you remember Chief Hooper saying something to you that stands out in your mind?
A: He would say that he's not prejudiced, but on the other hand, he goes the opposite direction. He acts differently when it comes down to dealing with black people. Now, we all are prejudiced as far as things that we don't like about people, but we should not be prejudiced against a person. I'm prejudiced against cigarettes - not the person. I don't hate the person because he smokes cigarettes. Just like with drug users - I'm prejudiced against the drugs, not the user.
Q: Are you saying then that you think Chief Hooper is prejudiced against blacks, not for what some people do but because he doesn't understand the culture?
A: He doesn't understand the culture.
Q: Does the NAACP hope to play a role in finding Hooper's replacement when he retires?
A: We certainly hope so.