[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 139 (Tuesday, October 1, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1883-E1884]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    REMARKS BY DAVID JONES, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF CARVER FEDERAL 
 SAVINGS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF 
         NEW YORK: ON THE COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 30, 1996

  Mr. RANGEL. During the Congressional Black Caucus weekend, we 
benefited from the presentations, advice and counsel of experts in the 
many issues of concern to the African-American community in the United 
States. We had a rich 2 days of discussion at the Washington Convention 
Center, exploring the problems which afflict our community and possible 
ways to effectively address and define solutions.
  My colleague from Queens, NY, Congressman Floyd Flake, held an 
economic development braintrust forum which reviewed current efforts of 
community groups in New York City and throughout the Nation to achieve 
sustainable economic development through the attraction of resources to 
enable the investment in infrastructure and human resources that will 
promise jobs, renewed economic activity, and the retention of funds in 
the African-American community. I want to share with you and my 
colleagues the contribution of David Jones, who was one of the 
presenters. David Jones, chairman of the board of Carver Federal 
Savings and chief executive officer of the Community Service Society of 
New York, also serves on the board of the Harlem community's 
empowerment zone.

                      Statement of David R. Jones

       The distinguished legal scholar Derrick Bell has described 
     the present period as the worst for African-Americans since 
     the 1890s, when the gains of the Civil War and reconstruction 
     were wiped away by the Klan and the black codes.
       Some might dismiss Bell's observation as over the top. How 
     bad can things be when an Oprah Winfrey takes in more than 
     $170 million in one year or when a hard-charging black middle 
     class is seeing unprecedented income growth and participation 
     in all aspects of American life?
       But everyone in this room knows what Professor Bell is 
     talking about. Consider the drum beat for attacks on 
     affirmative action, The Supreme Court's single-minded effort 
     to roll back electoral gains in Congress and in the State 
     houses, or the vicious mugging of the Nation's children and 
     poor under the guise of welfare reform.
       Add in the increasing abandonment of public education and 
     you know Bell is no alarmist. In urban schools like New 
     York's, with kindergarten classes exceeding 50 children 
     (often with only one teacher) and where inadequate materials 
     and poorly trained teachers are the norm, you have a crisis 
     brewing. At a time when real wages are plummeting for all but 
     the most educated or the well-born, and when everyone 
     including the President has said that only the best prepared 
     will have a chance to share in real wage growth, our kids' 
     blighted education opportunity almost certainly will 
     destroy large portions of our next generation.
       This is not a pretty picture. Still, my sainted grandmother 
     told me never to dwell on today's ills. The point for her and 
     for us is--what are you going to do about it?
       And that is why a discussion of economic development and 
     wealth creation is so vital now.
       Walking down the streets of my own Bedford-Stuyvesant 
     community provides a clear look at one reason for our 
     disarray. Brooklyn has nearly 1 million African-American 
     residents. So where are our businesses? Big or small, where 
     are the economic engines that could provide jobs and 
     experience for our young people?
       And some corollary questions: Where are the financial 
     contributions that could elect leaders responsive to our 
     needs as African-Americans? Where is the funding for 
     institutions that will protect our rights against those who 
     want to strip us of everything we fought for at such great 
     cost?
       The capital is there within our own communities. African 
     Americans, whose rate of increase in buying big-ticket items 
     outpaces that of white households, don't see much being 
     recirculated. In fact many communities are hemorrhaging cash.
       I want to emphasize that economic development and wealth 
     creation and all too often considered as separate and 
     distinct ways of obtaining equality in American society from 
     other forms of advancement. It's the old Booker T. 
     Washington/W.E.B Dubois split. But today fighting for 
     economic development is not different from political action 
     and voter registration, or removed from the need to improve 
     educational opportunity. These are all part of the same 
     objective. If we are to rebuild a movement for African-
     Americans, then political, social and economic empowerment 
     efforts must be melded into one fight.
       In this effort we must also recognize that we are in 
     trouble because of a significant class problem that divides 
     us, just as it divides other ethnic groups. Despite our 
     significant presence in American society--nearly 40 million 
     strong and with a collective wealth in the billions of 
     dollars, class and income divisions make it difficult to 
     develop a common agenda that would benefit all.
       At the height of the civil rights movement it was obvious 
     to African-Americans at every income level that joint action 
     for equal rights and opportunity was vital to improving 
     everyone's life chances. That movement cinched extraordinary 
     upward mobility for a generation of middle-class African-
     Americans already well positioned to make the most of its 
     hard-fought social, political and economic gains.
       It also opened the door for the tens of thousands of poor 
     and working people who through hard work, wit, and luck 
     managed to escape urban and rural poverty.
       But as Harvard's William Julius Wilson has shown so well, 
     many were left behind and their condition is rapidly 
     deteriorating. They have become, because of color and 
     condition, the perfect scapegoats for both major parties and 
     held responsible for everything wrong with America.
       Now the Nation has come full circle. Today's attacks on all 
     people of color don't make fine distinctions between some 
     ``threatening'' ghetto underclass and an alternatively benign 
     and assimilable middle class. The attacks are indiscriminate 
     and across the board.
       And precisely because the attacks are so broad-brush, they 
     allow for a renewal of understanding that we have a common 
     agenda. They allow for a unity of purpose we have

[[Page E1884]]

     not seen since the civil rights era. Economic development is 
     the arena where that response can be framed.
       Let's talk specifics.
       I am board chairman of the Carver Federal Savings Bank, in 
     New York City. With some $370 million in deposits and assets, 
     Carver is the largest African-American managed bank in the 
     Nation. Founded in 1948, it now has eight branches throughout 
     the city, and is one of only a handful of African-American 
     institutions that is publicly traded.
       Carver was always there for the community, providing the 
     black churches with loans when others wouldn't. Now the bank 
     is beginning to take its place as a vital part of what has to 
     be done.
       It was recently approved to grant SBA loans and has just 
     launched a credit-card service. Our main office on 125th 
     Street, destroyed in a fire three years ago, has been rebuilt 
     as a $5 million four-story state-of-the-art banking 
     facility that is one of the key elements in the revival of 
     125th Street.
       A scholarship fund established in 1986 has already given 
     out some $320 million to college-bound kids in our 
     communities.
       Carver--and the creation and support of similar 
     institutions across the Nation--are just the most obvious 
     vehicles for stopping the cash hemorrhaging from our 
     communities and providing the capital to create and support a 
     vital small-business community. Such work should be a mandate 
     if we want to create a foundation for the next round of 
     struggles around politics, jobs, and education.
       Another area that needs serious consideration is the 
     fledgling development of enterprise zones. I serve on the 
     board of the upper Manhattan empowerment zone and chair its 
     economic and physical development committee.
       As you know, the empowerment zone initiative is proceeding 
     in eight cities. While not without its critics and with only 
     limited dollars, there can be no doubt that the zone has 
     already generated a substantial amount of investment interest 
     in central Harlem.
       A one-stop capital shop for small businesses, offering both 
     loans and technical assistance, has just opened its doors. 
     The first round of proposals, numbering in the hundreds, have 
     been reviewed. They range from expanding funeral homes to 
     creating a Harlem health club, night clubs, credit unions, 
     and a new cable distributor.
       So while it is too soon to declare victory, the concept--
     driven by many members of this caucus--plainly can provide a 
     significant push to economic activity in our communities.
       And for it to work, government has to play a role, too. The 
     government at every level has to fulfill its commitment to be 
     a partner in areas the private economy cannot provide. The 
     Community Redevelopment Act forced banks to do community 
     development, but there are no comparable requirements for 
     check cashers, for instance. No community people own them. 
     Making them reinvest in the community is something we can do 
     easily.
       And where jobs develop outside the community there has to 
     be a decent transportation system to get people to those 
     jobs. Even the latest projection by the Regional Plan 
     Association, covering education and transportation needs, 
     doesn't deal with how poor urban residents can realistically 
     access jobs in suburban industrial parks.
       Here's where government needs to play a role today. It lies 
     in such areas as subsidizing work on a high-speed rail system 
     so inner-city youths can access suburban jobs. It means a WPA 
     for national infrastructure projects, putting needed services 
     in place while training young people as a new class of 
     artisans. It means getting away from the childishness of left 
     and right that says government and business have to fight 
     each other. They have always collaborated; the question is--
     in whose interest?
       We can make them work together for our community, and that 
     is what self-reliance means. Community leaders must demand 
     government programs--in education and skills development, in 
     transportation, and in the transition from welfare to work--
     that ensure self-reliant traits can flourish.
       But government won't provide unless it is pressured. That 
     pressure has to come from organizations in our community, and 
     particularly from members of this caucus. So what shape are 
     the institutions in that protect African-American 
     empowerment? Why haven't we been able to fund our own groups?
       And what of the institutions that are supposed to be on the 
     front lines? Even Kweisi M'Fume has said how difficult it is 
     to raise money for the NAACP from inside our community. 
     Plainly, we have work to do.
       In closing: as the struggle for resources in America 
     becomes more brutal, we had better have a serious discussion 
     about how we can fund our own defenders. I mean the members 
     of this caucus along with our civil rights, political, and 
     social institutions. Keeping them alive and fighting is a 
     major part of what makes economic development so critical 
     today.

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