[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E815-E817]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            EXPOSING RACISM

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 29, 1999

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in my continuing efforts to 
document and expose racism in America, I submit the following articles 
into the Congressional Record.

             Truth Sought in 1910 Mob Killing of Black Man

                            By Todd Bensman

       The Dallas Morning News (KRT) Dallas--The only memorial to 
     Allen Brooks is a novelty picture postcard--made from a 
     photograph and, for many years in an earlier time popularly 
     mailed from Dallas.
       In the photograph, snapped 89 years ago, a vast Dallas mob 
     of 10,000, many of them children, stand shoulder to shoulder 
     around Brooks, a black man.
       He was lynched from a telephone pole in downtown Dallas. 
     The execution is ``one of the great tragedies ever to occur 
     in Dallas,'' said local journalist and historian Darwin 
     Payne. All that remains in the city's memory is an original 
     postcard at the Dallas Public Library and a few old newspaper 
     clippings.
       Until now, the event in March 1910 has not been publicly 
     viewed as worthy of investigation or academic reflection.
       But that would change if some scholars and city officials 
     have their way.
       They say the city of Dallas should commission a study to 
     investigate the incident if only because Brooks' guilt is 
     doubtful and no mob leaders were ever held responsible. The 
     68-year-old Dallas man was to have stood trial on never-
     proved charges of molesting a white 3-year-old girl.
       ``It's not in the nature of Dallas historians to do 
     research on that sort of topic,'' said Bill Farmer, a 
     historian and professor emeritus of theology at Southern 
     Methodist University. ``That's true of Southern regions in 
     general and the tendency to bemoan bad things that happened 
     but then to forget them. And Dallas has a particularly bad 
     case of this.
       ``But I think there is a readiness now. I think the time is 
     right.''
       Kenneth Hamilton, a professor of history at SMU, points to 
     recent efforts to unearth the truth about long-buried cases 
     of killings of blacks, such as massacres in Rosewood, Fla., 
     and Forsyth, Ga., and the Tulsa, Okla., race riots. In Tulsa, 
     a city commission is reconstructing the 1921 melee set off by 
     a rape charge against a black man. Local blacks want 
     reparations.
       ``We don't have an urban historian on campus who does 
     Dallas history. There's no conspiracy; we just have people 
     whose interests lay elsewhere, and that's not unusual,'' said 
     Dr. Hamilton of SMU, who is black. ``Blacks were not 
     important to Dallas until recently. So if it's important to 
     Dallas, then Dallas can commission someone to do it.''
       As the State and Nation cope with the modern-day trial in 
     Jasper, TX, of a white supremacist convicted of dragging a 
     black man to death, historians recall an earlier time of such 
     acts.
       Small-town Texas contributed to the annals of Southern mob 
     lynchings from post-slavery Reconstruction through the 1920's 
     and 1930's.
       But few such incidents anywhere were as urban, well-
     attended or festive as the mob killing of Brooks in downtown 
     Dallas, historians say.
       The only thing that anyone knows for certain is that Brooks 
     never got his day in a big-city court.
       According to newspaper accounts, Brooks was found in a barn 
     with Mary Ethel Huvens, a 3-year-old who had been missing. He 
     was accused of molesting her and arrested in late February 
     1910.
       Authorities, correctly reading public sentiment, 
     anticipated a lynch-minded mob. They hid Brooks for a week 
     before his scheduled trial. A mob that did form outside the 
     city jail disbanded only after a delegation toured the 
     facility and left satisfied that Brooks was not inside.
       But according to eyewitness accounts, the vigilantes knew 
     they would find Brooks a week later at his trial in the 
     Dallas County Courthouse.
       Overwhelming more than 70 peace officers, they broke into 
     Judge Robert Sealey's second-floor courtroom, nabbed Brooks 
     and tied a rope around his neck. The other end was thrown to 
     the crowd below. A struggling Brooks was pushed and pulled 
     through the window.
       It is thought that he died from the fall. But their fury 
     unassuaged, the crowd dragged his body and hung him up on a 
     telephone pole near an arch erected for an Elks convention. 
     Moments later, witnesses say, people tore his clothing and 
     the rope to shreds for souvenirs.
       Judge Sealey ordered a grand jury investigation that proved 
     inconclusive after police officers swore they recognized no 
     one in the crowd.
       The incident, one of the hundreds that occurred all over 
     the South during the period, made headlines and was quickly 
     forgotten.

[[Page E816]]

       ``There wasn't any public outcry,'' Payne said. ``Man, 
     you're talking about the bloody teens and the bloody `20s. 
     This was home to Klan Chapter Number 66, the largest in the 
     country. Lawyers, judges, fire chiefs, police chiefs, they 
     were all members.''
       Historians familiar with the period suggest there are 
     reasons to doubt Brooks' guilt, primarily because many mob 
     hangings of blacks were set off by flimsy, deliberately 
     inflammatory rape allegations. In 1921 in Tulsa, the rape 
     charges that set off the riots were later dropped, the black 
     suspect acquitted.
       Brooks' case, based on the testimony of a 3-year-old, would 
     hardly have withstood a routine defense in a truly impartial 
     court, experts say.
       Some odd tidbits have surfaced that cast doubt on the case 
     against Brooks.
       Payne, the author of ``Big D,'' said he learned during his 
     research for the book a quarter-century ago that Brooks had 
     been among several black men working for a wealthy white 
     family. After an argument, another black man employed as a 
     cook smeared chicken blood on the child's legs and said 
     Brooks raped her.
       But even a determined effort to get at the truth may prove 
     difficult. County grand jury records dating back to the time 
     were mostly destroyed in a 1950's flood of the basement where 
     they were stored. Neither Dallas police nor the county 
     district attorney's office have records dated to those days.
       Census, birth and marriage records searches yielded nothing 
     on Huvens, the alleged victim who would be 92 now. It is 
     unknown whether she lived out her life in the area or whether 
     descendants still do. What became of the Brooks family also 
     is uncertain.
       No student dissertations or theses about the Brooks case 
     have been done.
       City Council member Al Lipscomb, a student of black 
     history, said he supports a commission that would investigate 
     the Brooks case.
       ``I think it would be healthy for Dallas. Dallas is big 
     enough to weather that, to face that, to clear the conscience 
     of this city and move on,'' Lipscomb said. ``At least we 
     would say we didn't know about and forgot about it. We can't 
     have anything like that in our past without any hint of an 
     investigation.''


     
                                  ____
                  Minorities Are Pawns in Voucher Game

                            By Starita Smith

       The battle over school vouchers is heating up again all 
     over the country.
       In New York City, Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew threatened 
     to resign over Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's voucher proposal. 
     Giuliani is trying to persuade the school board to establish 
     an experimental program giving vouchers to students in one of 
     the 32 community school districts that make up the New York 
     system.
       In Florida and Texas, legislators ponder bills that would 
     give scholarships--read vouchers--to children to attend 
     private schools.
       In Florida, these children would normally attend what the 
     state would deem to be failing public schools. In Texas, they 
     would be from large urban areas, with a limit of 5,000 pupils 
     per district eligible for the vouchers. The districts 
     affected would be Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.
       While all these proposals sound altruistic, there is a 
     hidden agenda.
       Many vouchers proponents are motivated not by the plight of 
     minority children but by the opportunity to score political 
     points. These vouchers are intended to build support among 
     desperate minority parents, who would then ally with 
     conservatives who want to defund public schools and promote 
     private schools.
       The strategy seems to be working. Already in Wisconsin and 
     Texas, a few minority Democratic leaders have joined with 
     Republicans to support voucher programs because they think 
     minority children would benefit.
       In the past, the momentum has been against vouchers, as 
     Democrats and others have defeated voucher initiatives 
     usually proposed by Republicans without any mention of 
     improving things for poor kids. Now that vouchers are being 
     proposed for the children who attend the worst schools, 
     struggling families and others who opposed vouchers are 
     rethinking their positions.
       A primary argument for vouchers is that public education 
     needs competition just like corporations. The worst schools 
     won't get better until they face a challenge for their 
     clientele, who for the first time will have a choice, 
     vouchers proponents argue.
       If the logic sounds as if it sprang from corporate culture, 
     that's because it did. Here in Texas, some of the main 
     proponents of the competition idea are wealthy white 
     businessmen. Some have even given tiny chunks of their 
     multimillion dollar fortunes to start scholarship funds for 
     poor kids to further the idea.
       When you sit in a well-furnished office at the top of a 
     tall office building, as some of these men do, I can see how 
     the reasoning might sound good.
       However, at ground zero, in the shabby classrooms of our 
     public schools, it doesn't ring true.
       Public schools are not corporations. When a corporation 
     faces an aggressive competitor, it can raise more capital; 
     merge with other corporations to become stronger; diversify, 
     or if worst comes to worst, shut down. Public schools, by 
     law, can hardly do any of these things.
       Any state funding plan that provides for vouchers will hurt 
     public schools. The voucher proposals would lure thousands of 
     kids away from public schools, and with them, tens of 
     millions of dollars, since public-school funding formulas are 
     based on attendance.
       Then there is the long-term consequence of distancing more 
     voters from public schools. If children don't attend public 
     schools, then there is no truly compelling reason for their 
     parents and relatives to vote for local school-tax measures.
       Already, public schools face strong competition from 
     private ones in several communities in the South and the 
     North. This competition dates back to the days of fierce 
     resistance to school desegregation, when private schools 
     cropped up as an alternative for white parents who didn't 
     want their children to attend public schools.
       Montgomery, Ala, is one of these places. As I toured the 
     city, I rode past imposing campus after imposing campus, 
     expecting to see that at least one or two of them was a 
     public school. None were. A public magnet school I visited 
     looked as if it could use a few hundred thousand dollars 
     worth of work. Friends who volunteer in Montgomery's public 
     schools said the schools are so strapped for cash that 
     teachers have to provide the toilet paper.
       The private schools are nearly all white. The public ones 
     are mostly black.
       Vouchers would not yield universally integrated private 
     schools. Too few minority children would be able to get 
     vouchers and many of the best private schools would still be 
     too expensive.
       The latest proposals simply make minority children pawns in 
     a political game aimed at improving the lot of those who 
     already have all the advantages.
                                  ____


  Rights Leaders Say Laws Nationwide Targeting Hate Crimes Have Been 
                               Effective

                          By Sabrina L. Miller

       Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT) Miami--Prosecuting hate 
     isn't easy. Although Florida's hate crimes law is one of the 
     toughest in the nation, the number of defendants actually 
     prosecuted under the 10-year-old statute remains relatively 
     low, prosecutors say, because the standard is often difficult 
     to prove.
       ``What you have to prove is that but for the fact that the 
     victim was not a member of a certain group, the crime would 
     not have happened,'' said prosecutor Charles Morton, a 
     homicide supervisor in Broward, where a murder last week may 
     have been a case of racial hatred run amok.
       Still, civil rights leaders said, laws nationwide targeting 
     hate crimes have been effective.
       ``We can't prove the negative, meaning we can't prove what 
     hate crimes did not occur because of the law,'' said Arthur 
     Teitelbaum, Southern Area director for the Anti-Defamation 
     League of B'nai B'rith. ``But we know that the Florida law is 
     well known to the haters and the bigots, and they fear its 
     consequences.''
       For Robert Boltuch, the man accused this week of the Feb. 
     24 killing of Jody-Gaye Bailey, being charged with a hate 
     crime won't help or hinder his case because he already faces 
     the most severe penalty for his alleged actions: If he is 
     formally charged with first-degree murder and convicted, 
     Boltuch faces either life in prison without parole or the 
     death penalty. Boltuch has yet to be charged by the Broward 
     state attorney's office.
       ``When you're dealing with Murder One, hate doesn't elevate 
     it any further,'' Morton said. ``The defendant is facing 
     either life or death.''
       Florida's hate crimes law is used to elevate the 
     seriousness and penalty associated with a crime. That is, a 
     defendant cannot be charged independently with a hate crime; 
     rather, the charge is added to an existing crime, such as 
     aggravated assault or battery.
       Being charged with a hate crime can bump a misdemeanor up 
     to a felony and, if a defendant is convicted, can mean the 
     difference between probation and prison.
       The law cannot be used to enhance a noncapital crime to one 
     where the defendant would face the death penalty. The hate 
     element also cannot be used as an ``aggravator,'' or a factor 
     that jurors could consider in a death penalty case.
       Although statistics show hate crimes nationwide have 
     declined, glaring incidents like Bailey's death have made 
     headlines. The names and the incidents are chilling and have 
     gripped the public's worst fears about violence against 
     minorities: James Byrd, a black man tied to a truck and 
     dragged to his death by a white supremacist in Jasper, Texas; 
     Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student beaten to 
     death because he was gay; and the Feb. 19 beating death of 
     Billy Jack Gaither, a gay man in Alabama.
       Teitelbaum's group drafted the hate crimes law and was 
     instrumental in getting it passed by the Legislature in 1989. 
     The law was challenged as unconstitutional, with critics 
     saying it targeted attitudes and speech rather than behavior. 
     But a Broward case became the model in a state Supreme Court 
     ruling that the hate crimes law is constitutional.
       Fort Lauderdale defense attorney Herb Cohen was physically 
     and verbally attacked by Richard Stalder in 1991 after going 
     to Stalder's home to retrieve earrings for a female friend. 
     Stalder answered the door, stating: ``Hey Jew boy, what do 
     you want?'' and repeatedly made derogatory comments about 
     Cohen's ancestry.

[[Page E817]]

       Stalder was charged with battery against Cohen, and when 
     the two appeared in court, Stalder continued to assault Cohen 
     with antisemitic slurs. Circuit Judge J. Leonard Fleet 
     dismissed the charges against Stalder, saying the hate crimes 
     law was unconstitutional. But the state Supreme Court 
     reversed Fleet in 1994.
       Former Chief Justice Gerald Kogan in the opinion wrote: ``I 
     do not dispute that people have a right to hold intolerant 
     and bigoted opinions. But that is a far different matter than 
     saying they have a right to act upon those opinions. . . . 
     Criminal motive is not and never has been a protected form of 
     expression.''
       Stalder later accepted a plea deal and received probation. 
     Cohen said Friday that the standard of proof is fair and 
     appropriate.
       ``These cases can be difficult to prosecute, and, in a 
     sense, I guess they should be,'' Cohen said. ``It shouldn't 
     be easy to prosecute someone for what they say. But if the 
     criminal act was motivated by race or religion, then it 
     should be prosecuted as a hate crime.''
       Defendants charged with hate crimes in South Florida can be 
     hit with a double-whammy in state and federal court. Local 
     state law-enforcement agencies have worked closely with the 
     United States Attorney's Office and the FBI to impose the 
     harshest penalties on both levels. Defendants face criminal 
     charges in state court and prosecution for civil rights 
     violations in federal court.
       Eighteen-year-old Raymond Leone, for example, faces up to 
     30 years in prison on state and federal charges after 
     pleading guilty to two separate incidents in which he 
     targeted the victims because of their race and religious 
     backgrounds.
       He and several others affiliated with the white-separatist 
     group World Church of the Creator beat a Hispanic father and 
     son for refusing to accept racist literature outside a rock 
     concert in Sunrise in 1997. Leone also robbed and beat the 
     owner of an adult video store in Hollywood because the man is 
     Jewish.
       Teitelbaum said the laws continue to punish ugly incidents 
     of hatred.
       ``We saw the need to have an effective legislative 
     response, a tool for law enforcement to prosecute these 
     crimes because of their specific nature and impact,'' he 
     said. ``The victim is impacted, and every person in the 
     victim's group is threatened and traumatized.
       ``American history, unfortunately, has been stained by 
     these hate crimes,'' he said.

     

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