A renewed emphasis on self-help is emerging as a theme voiced more frequently by leaders of the nation`s major civil rights organizations.
That shift in public posture was evident at the National Urban League`s just-ended annual convention, where a decision was announced to mount a national effort to chase drug pushers out of low-income neighborhoods. The community-based anticrime efforts would include closer cooperation with law-enforcement authorities and supporting the construction of more jails.
”They shouldn`t be selling drugs in our neighborhoods,” Urban League President John Jacob said at a news conference Wednesday. ”What I know is, they shouldn`t be using drugs in our neighborhood. What I know is, they know they shouldn`t be selling drugs or using drugs.
”Now, if they choose to use and sell drugs, what I`m saying is our community can afford to be unforgiving and insensitive” to their resulting legal plight, he said.
In the past, civil rights leaders have been reluctant to discuss crime without placing a heavy emphasis on what they said were its root causes, such as limited job opportunities. But civil rights leaders including Jacob and Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, are beginning to speak out clearly and forcefully against black-on-black crime.
”I am willing to discuss the philosophical issues (of drug addiction)
after we get them (drug pushers) out,” Jacob said. ”Then we can sit down and talk about what ought to be done and why`re we`re doing it.”
Lowery, leader of the civil rights group once headed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his address to the convention, also spoke out in favor of more African-American self-reliance.
Saying blacks must be the catalysts for change, Lowery said, ”We must hold fast to the dreams, we must deal with despair and desperation that fan the flames of irresponsible social behavior reflected in the drug crisis.”
Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has made similar statements about the need for self-help.
Jesse Jackson, founder of Operation PUSH, continues to visit schools in an effort to discourage students and teachers from using drugs.
The drug crisis seems to be the issue that has prompted some civil rights leaders to sound more like conservative Republicans than traditional advocates of the poor.
While some African-American leaders have shied away from any association with the black supremacist teachings of Louis Farrakhan`s Chicago-based Nation of Islam, they and mainstream black politicians are praising the Muslims`
”dopebuster” program to rid neighborhoods of drug pushers.
However, Abdul Wali Muhammad, editor of the Final Call, the Nation of Islam`s newspaper, said some black leaders are making a mistake by supporting more prisons without recognizing what goes into a successful antidrug program, such as the widely praised one the Muslims initiated in a District of Columbia neighborhood.
”The key to the success of the program is that it deals with the root problem, and the root problem is the black man and black woman have been destroyed internally,” Muhammad said. ”They`ve been stripped of the knowledge of themselves and have no reason to respect themselves or each other.”
Jacob said African-Americans must regain a self-respect and a sense of community if other efforts to improve the conditions of blacks are to stand any chance of becoming successful.
”We simply can`t educate drugged-out kids,” he explained. ”We can`t deal with economic development when they think that (selling drugs) is economic development.”
The Urban League`s antidrug crusade is part of larger program to reduce black-on-black crime.
About 85 percent of all assaults in the African-American community are initiated by blacks, according to statistics released by the civil rights group. Of the homicides committed by blacks, 95 percent are against other blacks.
In his news conference, Jacob said, ”I think we`ve got to get mad as hell and clean up our neighborhoods.”
