THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994 TAG: 9406080131
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
DATELINE: 940610 LENGTH: Medium
The group, which includes both city employees and citizen volunteers, is launching a project known as ``Face to Face with Race.''
{REST} Four pilot study groups will be started this summer with about 12 people in each group. The groups will meet four to five times to talk frankly and freely with each other about racial understanding - and misunderstanding.
``We hope to engender 400 more groups out of this,'' said Zelma Rivin, the team co-chair. ``We hope it is so successful that everybody in town joins in.''
We all hope so.
Racial lines in this city seem so indelibly drawn that only by a concerted effort will we be able to move across them to an open city under open discussion.
This is an old theme.
The first time I saw Martin Luther King Jr. was in the 1950s, back when he was a young man just beginning to make a difference.
One of the more interesting churches in Raleigh was into race relations; that is, more and better race relations.
But, most of all, they were into discussions of important community topics and sponsored an annual forum that stretched over a period of time during which an assortment of speakers came to the city to participate.
King was one of the visiting speakers. He was impressive. Most of those in the audience nodded approval of his non-violent theories. It seemed the logical way to proceed - not only to equality but on to integration.
And, back in those days, there were many people - blacks and whites - who were beginning to believe that the only way to achieve real equality was to work toward true integration.
That probably is true today, despite the theories of separatism that are rampant.
The last time I saw King was about 10 years later, not too long before he was assassinated. Ironically, he was speaking on the mostly white North Carolina State University campus to a coliseum full of people of all colors, while downtown on Fayetteville Street (and all around the all-black Shaw University) members of the Ku Klux Klan were holding an annual gathering.
Inside Reynolds Coliseum, we were convinced life was changing.
But downtown, it was a different story.
On that hot summer day, I had my first and only encounter with an open KKK meeting. I remember thinking sadly that we had not come very far in the decade since I first encountered King.
There is no doubt in my mind today that we definitely have regressed in recent years.
Progress in race relations still is limited to a small segment of the population. Many blacks, as well as whites, still don't get it.
Thirty or so years ago, we were more honest in personal relations among races than we are today. Those of us who talked to each other talked straight. Blacks and whites who cared about the future had the same goals.
But that was before the ``me generation'' and self-centered psychology began to rule the country.
Sure, there have been legal gains for blacks. But neither blacks nor whites have made much effort to get beyond that.
Both blacks and whites have forgotten about the final goal of civil rights and other legislative action: Make this country a better place for all of us.
Our community can be a better place. But it will take more than political posturing, legislative action or increased funding.
It will take honesty on the part of everybody.
It will take action, not mere words; consistent behavior, no matter what the situation.
It will take true understanding. It will take common goals.
It may take awhile, but you have to start somewhere and maybe ``Face to Face with Race'' will be a beginning in Portsmouth.
Years ago, when a young Martin Luther King Jr. first came to Raleigh, it was a rare occasion to see blacks and whites in the same meeting.
Now look around. We have made progress of a sort.
Now if we just start talking.
by CNB