ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 9, 1996 TAG: 9608090068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
MANY BLACK YOUTHS see so little to look forward to that they give up, and Roanokers must find a better way for them and others, the city Community Relations Task Force was told Thursday night.
Black Roanokers poured out their hearts, some praying, all pleading, about a lot of things Thursday night:
About a city consultant's disturbing notion of closing the Gainsboro library, about the sad state of parks in black neighborhoods, and most of all about kids in this city so depressed and violent that they've given up on life by the time they hit middle school.
Cephonia Williams said a prayer before she came to the meeting, she told members of the Community Relations Task Force. She didn't know exactly what she would say at their hearing on race relations in Roanoke, but she was deeply troubled.
When she got home from work Wednesday, she read a newspaper story about Davon Antonio Anderson. Just 15 years old, he faces that many years in prison for beating two men almost to death. She read how Anderson's drug-addicted mother sold the shoes off his feet to buy drugs when he was a little boy and left him so hungry he ate watermelon seeds off the sidewalk of his public housing complex.
``Why did he have to end up like he did?'' Williams asked plaintively. She was at the hearing searching for hope and a few answers.
``You look good," she told the Episcopal bishop, the lawyer, the newspaper circulation manager and other task force members seated above her on the stage at William Fleming High School. ``You go home to your nice homes, your nice cars. Can't you help these young people? I hope God directs you.''
Donald Johnson was nearly as despondent as Williams. He does volunteer work with young people and told the task force that he and others have worked with one youngster a full two years now and only recently got the kid to smile.
Johnson said he knows children who have given up on their futures by the sixth or seventh grade. ``They don't want to live,'' he said.
With all the courses in schools, he implored: ``Why can't we teach peace? How can they learn peace in our society?''
Three longtime volunteers who work with young people - Paul Moyer, Robert Bennett and George Franklin - said sports facilities in Roanoke's black neighborhoods are shamefully poor.
Moyer has struggled seven years to get a track. He doesn't understand why there's money for soccer fields and a downtown walkway from the Hotel Roanoke, but none for a track. If the city doesn't reach out to children, he warned, ``all our young people are going down, and not just black kids.''
Robert Bennett said Perry Park in the Hurt Park neighborhood has no shelter and only one bench. Its one picnic table is often hauled into the middle of the street by beer-drinking ``hooligans.'' He asked for police protection so law-abiding youngsters and adults can enjoy the park again.
George Franklin said Washington Park, his playground as a child, is poorly equipped, too. ``The same toilet facilities are there, and I'm 63 years old.''
Mary Simpson, a black social worker, told the task force that the depiction of black people in the news media ``causes more damage than any possible church bombings.''
Non-blacks without black acquaintances, she said, ``look at what the media portray and believe that's the way we are. We don't manufacture the guns that come into our community. We don't manufacture the drugs that come into our community, and yet they are there.''
The first thing city officials ought to do to improve race relations, said former Republican politician Jeff Artis, is ``get on the phone and apologize to the people of Gainsboro'' for destroying most of the neighborhood through urban renewal.
``How can the citizens of Roanoke have respect for race and racial diversity,'' he said, ``when we have a city government which has demonstrated through the years a disregard for people of color?''
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB