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Cov er Stor y

by Nick Patterson Photos of Ruth Barefield-Pendleton by David Garrett

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WELD Jan 31-Feb 7, 2013 / Page 12

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s Black History Month begins in a year with great civil rights importance in Birmingham, it is worthy of note that there are still exemplars of both black history and the Civil Rights Movement living among us.

Ruth Barefield-Pendleton, 86, is one such example. Fifty years ago, between April 9 and June 14, 1963, she was acting as secretary for the Central Committee, the group of civil rights activists who were involved in the Birmingham Campaign and in negotiating with the white community to end segregation in the city.

“I always tell my friends,” she said, “that when Dr. King and the SCLC came to Birmingham, Ruth was already out there working.”

She’s not bragging, just stating a fact — one which is documented in the new book under the Birmingham Historical Society imprint, Minutes, Central Committee 1963.

Mrs. Barefield-Pendleton will be signing her book at the Birmingham Public Library on Saturday, as noted in more detail on page 16 of this issue of Weld.

In 1960, before the official Birmingham Movement in 1963, Mrs. Barefield-Pendleton served as sort of a “den mother” to Miles College students who were engaged in protests to desegregate downtown stores. They had begun with sit-ins at several downtown department stores with segregated lunch counters, and in 1962 began a Selective Buying Campaign urging blacks not spend their money at establishments which were not integrated.

“On the weekends and on some evenings after school we would take these students to every community in Jefferson County and we would blanket the communities with leaflets urgings them not to shop downtown,” Mrs. Barefield-Pendleton said. “This was before the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement began.”

As noted in Minutes, she was there when Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Shuttleworth at the helm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights came together. “When SCLC and the Alabama Christian Movement (for Human Rights, or ACMHR) and the students joined in forces, then it really became effective,” Mrs. Barefield-Pendleton said.

The book, which presents her notes from the Central Committee period, chronicles a moment in Birmingham

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history when hard-fought change was imminent. It was during that spring and summer — to be further chronicled in Weld’s ongoing “No More Bull” series — that children and adults ( including King) would march and be jailed.; when Birmingham’s city government would change; when segregation would be repealed by law. Black history — and American history — were being made in these streets.

Mrs. Barefield-Pendleton, who still lives on Dynamite Hill, two blocks from where Arthur Shores did when his house was blown up by Klansmen, did not know she was in the middle of history at the time.

“I will tell you the same thing I told one of my young friends: ‘We did not have our eyes on history,’” she said. “I am just as surprised as you or anyone else that my minutes have become part of the written history of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement. I was just taking notes of what was being said and what was being done.”

“When they asked me to take the notes, I did not write any of my personal opinion in my notes,” she continued.

What she wrote instead was what Movement leaders would need later in a given evening’s mass meetings to give civil rights progress reports to demonstrators. “From the minutes, they would make their reports to the mass meetings,” she said.

Examples from Minutes show how much of historical importance was contained in her secretarial accounts. In the report of April 11, 1963, she recorded, “Dr. Martin King moved that we continue Movement of Direct Action that had been started over the weekend. He explained how the State Injunction differed from the Federal Injunction issued in Albany [Georgia]. He stated that if the Injunction had been issued on basis of equal Justice for All, we should abide by it. But our action is based on a Moral mandate, backed up by a Constitutional Mandate.”

From April 26, 1963: “Dr. M.L. King Jr. emphasized that we must act and move from a position of Power … Dr. M.L. King stressed the fact that we must re-structure our plans — our time-table of strategy. Much discussion followed. It

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was moved that on May 2 (next Thursday), we would have — a major demonstration — last march with real power.

That Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth would lead this march. The motion was carried.”

The report on the meeting May 20, 1963, shows the differences that sometimes arose among civil rights leaders over points of strategy, and sheds light on how those issues were addressed. “Dr. Martin L. King Jr. stated why the meeting had been called. 1,081 students had been expelled from the Birmingham City Schools today, and it is necessary for the Steering Committee to decide what will be the course of action. Dr. King said, that this was a very serious situation and we must move with wise restraint and with united calmness; that we must not respond to this without weighing all the consequences. Dr. King said that he knew nothing of the hand bills calling for a mass walk out of students until one was placed in his hand…

“The body agreed with our leader, Dr. King that in response to the Board of Education’s drastic action, we would move out on a responsible path and with reasonable and restrained unity.

That we would ask all students who have not received statements saying that they are expelled to return to school tomorrow. That we would ask our lawyers to look into the legality of the matter.”

The book also includes copies of significant documents which Mrs. Barefield-Pendleton collected during the Central Committee meetings, including, for example, statements by King and Shuttlesworth on May 10, 1963, noting the provisions of the agreements reached by black and white citizens to desegregate public facilities, the hiring and promotion of black workers, the release of demonstrators from jails and the re-establishment of communications between the white and black representatives of the divided community.

Mrs. Barefield-Pendleton saved her meeting notes. One day many years later, she was watching television with her husband (the late Dr. Tyree J. Barefield-Pendleton), and

“I always tell my friends that when Dr. King and the SCLC came to Birmingham, Ruth was already out there working.”

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saw historian Taylor Branch being interviewed by Julian Bond. “Taylor Branch was saying that it was too bad that there were no written words, no written history of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement. I turned to my husband and said, ‘I’ve got written words about it’,” she said.

She first provided a ledger of her notes to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute when it opened in 1992. And later, she provided them to Marjorie White at the Birmingham Historical Society, who was thrilled to gain access to this part of civil rights history which has been only partly understood.

“It’s a fascinating story from a local perspective,” White said, “a new perspective on what was going on. It’s a remarkable account… This is a primary source document. This is a new primary source document.”

The Birmingham Public Library, as part of its observance of Black History Month, is presenting Mrs. BarefieldPendleton in a book signing on Saturday from 2-4 at the downtown branch.

The important of the annual observance is not lost on the former Central Committee secretary.

“I just wish it was 12 months a year, not just the month of February,” Mrs. Barefield-Pendleton said. “Anything we can do to get the message over to our young people (about) what has happened in the past is well worth it.

I firmly believe if you don’t know your history you are subject to repeat it.”

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WELD Jan 31-Feb 7, 2013 / Page 14

Other Black History Month events As February continues, there are numerous related events worth noting.

Teenage members of the ArtPlay Make It Happen Performing Ensemble will portray legends of the Civil Rights Movement in their original play, Lessons Well Learned February 16 at UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center. (For tickets and more information, visit alysstephens.org).

There are educational tours and other programs at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. “The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute engages people year-round in exploring African American history by telling the story of Birmingham’s civil rights history and how it impacted and inspired social change nationally and internationally,” said Priscilla Hancock Cooper, BCRI’s vice president of Institutional Programs. “Because of the public interest in the 50th anniversary of civil rights events in our city, we are seeing record demand for tours and outreach programs for February.”

And, aside from the Minutes book signing, the Birmingham Public Library has numerous events planned. For more information, visit bplonline.org/1963.

For more information about other events for Black History Month, visit Birmingham365.org Photo courtesy of the Birmingham Public Library Archives.

Nick Patterson is the editor of Weld.

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WELD Apr 25-May 2, 2013 / Page 12

by Nick Patterson

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WELD Apr 25-May 2, 2013 / Page 13

Did you know that highway department officials plan to tear down Interstate 59 through downtown Birmingham, replace it with a taller, wider bridge constructed of concrete, permanently close some exits, and reroute traffic to 11th Avenue North and I-459 to the south?

Some residents of Norwood, one of the neighborhoods closest to I-59 downtown, not only know about the plan, but judging by their reactions at a community meeting last week, they don’t like it. They fear that the interstate changes will mean less access to downtown for residents of neighborhoods north of the highway, including Druid Hills and Fountain Heights.

Norwood residents also worry about how the Alabama Department of Transportation construction project will impact their neighborhood because of noise, aesthetics and the increased traffic that will be driven to 11th Avenue.

ALDOT officials, conversely, contend that they’re making the changes to I-59 to make the busiest stretch of interstate in the state safer, that their planning has already involved talks with the city and Jefferson County officials, and that they are willing to give fair consideration to the concerns of residents.

“We’re looking at [those concerns] now,” said ALDOT Division Engineer Brian Davis. “We had a public involvement meeting [March 28, at Boutwell Auditorium], so those comments are coming in, people’s concerns are coming in, and we’re looking at them and evaluating them now. … They are always considered. Can you modify your design to accommodate every one of those comments? I don’t know that. But every one of them will be reviewed.

Every one of them will be considered, and we’ll look at our design relative to those comments and determine if we need to change anything.

“I’m not in a position today to say we’re going to modify our plan because of them. We’re going to reevaluate our plan because of them and determine, have we done the right thing?”

Still, some city residents see deeper issues — issues related to disconnecting neighborhoods from access and opportunity, and the continuation of the harm caused by the historical use of infrastructure to enforce segregation.

“The original layout of the major highways in Birmingham was informed by a policy of ‘blight prevention’ that deliberately resulted in the segregation of races,” wrote Ben Gallagher, a Norwood resident who created a petition opposing the freeway changes. “The net effect of these proposed modifications is that a number of existing street grid connections will be lost or impaired. … These lost connections will further divide the communities living and working near the interstate rather than right the wrongs of the past.”

Gallagher said he is not accusing the highway department of deliberately perpetuating the racially motivated decisions of years gone by. “I do not believe any one at ALDOT is trying to hurt minority communities,” he said. “However, the fact that minority neighborhoods will be further cut off from the downtown street grid as part of this plan is a consequence of the original alignment choices made decades ago.”

Davis said the plan, which would begin as early as next year with modifications to 11th Avenue North, is designed to correct safety issues designed into the original construction. For instance, a number of exits and on-ramps for I-59 downtown force drivers to crisscross each other’s lanes in what engineers call a “weave” pattern.

That design leads to more accidents, for example, at the 17th Street North exit just outside of Malfunction Junction. As a result, that exit and the exits at 22nd Street north and south, and the on-ramps at 23rd Street northbound and 18th Street southbound, are slated to be removed in the new plan.

The notion of removing exits did not sit well with residents at the meeting at the Norwood Community Center last week, which was led by Gallagher. Norwood residents vowed to fight the current plan. They pledged to write letters to the editor and to engage other Birmingham residents through social media, talked of erecting billboards to inform motorists of changes they may be unaware of, and of voicing their displeasure to ALDOT, politicians and even business owners at the Sheraton and Birmingham Barons, among other things.

Their sense of urgency was enhanced by a looming deadline: ALDOT has given anyone who has comments on the plan until this Friday to speak their piece, although Davis indicated to Weld that even comments coming in after the deadline will be considered. Norwood residents, though, think ALDOT is already moving toward making this plan reality, even as citizens try to stop it.

Several expressed concern that the highway department is more concerned with moving traffic quickly through the city than about the plan’s impact on Birmingham

“I’m afraid that ALDOT is taking the path of least resistance, through poor neighborhoods because they will not be able to put up a credible fight.”

residents. “If you live here, this ain’t for you,” said Peter Maynard, a Norwood resident and investor who is rehabilitating homes in Norwood. “This is for people to blow through Birmingham.”

Even before the meeting last week, Norwood’s defenders were up in arms about the highway plan. Attorney Chervis Isom, a Norwood native, wrote to Davis, on April 11, that “I am gravely concerned about the long-term effects of the plan. … The corridor through the City of Birmingham itself is a major barrier between the downtown and that part of the City lying north of the interstate… Much of the neighborhood to the north, particularly Norwood, no longer has accessibility as it previously had, which adversely affects healthcare, fire safety and access to downtown. It is clear from your plan that you have no interest in City planning or what might best serve our City. Your only interest appears to be the movement of traffic as rapidly as it will go through the City.”

Davis disputed the idea that ALDOT has given no consideration to residents’ concerns.

“If ALDOT took the position that all I’m interested in is speeding traffic through and I don’t care about anybody, we would not be coordinating this with the city of Birmingham. We would not be coordinating this with the civic center and the business community. We would not be holding these public involvement meetings and getting comments from people. We would not be entertaining these comments,” Davis said. “So, I’d like to think that we’re doing what we should do, and that is as engineers designing what we think to be the best roadway, but then being honest that we need to go back and look at it from other perspectives and take these public comments and analyze our designs based on that, and see if we’re really doing the

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right thing in the big picture of things.”

It is clear that the plan, as currently outlined, will not only affect residents of the northern neighborhoods, but also anyone using the interstate to access downtown buildings including Boutwell, the Jefferson County Courthouse, Birmingham City Hall, the federal courthouse, the main branch of the United States Postal Service, the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center Convention Complex, the new entertainment district, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the main branch of the Birmingham Public Library, the entire Civil Rights District, the Alabama School of Fine Arts and more.

Here’s the plan, as described on the ALDOT website: “The project as proposed will be constructed in two phases. The first phase will construct the 11th Avenue North corridor improvements and ramp connections to I-59/20 and to I-65. The 11th Avenue North corridor will be used by local traffic accessing the CBD [Central Business District] during the second construction phase and on into the future.

“The second phase will be to replace the bridges on I-59/20 through the CBD. The bridge decks will be modified to incorporate auxiliary lanes and the existing steel girders that will be replaced with segmental concrete construction. This work will also include replacing the existing signing, Intelligent Transportation System and lighting elements

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WELD Apr 25-May 2, 2013 / Page 14

along I-59/20. Vehicles traveling through Birmingham along I-59/20 will be detoured on I-459 during construction. Local traffic will be able to use the improved 11th Avenue North corridor to access the CBD.” The entire project began with an ALDOT proposal to replace the aging bridge deck on the section of 59 in front of the civic center, Davis said. “The city of Birmingham and Jefferson County came to the department and said, ‘We’d like you guys to consider not just replacing the deck, we’d like you to consider replacing the entire bridge, provided we could get more capacity, provided we could do some things to mitigate noise…under the bridge, around the entertainment district and around the civic center.’ There were some aesthetics issues — we wanted to try to make that bridge look better. So we agreed to go back and look at that proposal. Whenever we did that we came up with not just replacing the bridge deck, but replacing the entire structure. We knew we had operational problems with the ramps that exist out there today.”

As it stands now, the proposal will take up to two-and-a-half years, with the bridge replacement beginning in 2015. Construction crews will remove ramps between the I-65 junction and 31st Street, replace the bridge with a taller, wider span built of segmental concrete and change the way traffic crosses the path of the interstate.

One feature would have the bridge from 12th Avenue North, a major entrance into the Norwood neighborhood, removed. There would be a new access flyover from 11th Avenue east bound to 31st Street, but the eastbound exit from I-59 North to 31st Street would be gone. That exit currently allows traffic to turn left into Norwood or right toward First Avenue or Sloss Furnaces.

Certain roads which Norwood residents consider essential would not pass completely through to downtown, including 24th, 25th, and 28th Streets — although ALDOT says that even that is not set in stone. Residents of Fountain Heights could also find their access to the interstate, currently possible via 11th Avenue, rerouted because of the plan.

During the reconstruction of the I-59 bridge through downtown, drivers who want to stay on the interstate would be detoured around the city to the south along I-459, according to the ALDOT plan. Because preliminary bridge work could be done before closing and shutting down the current bridge, the freeway would likely only be closed for a year for replacement, ALDOT officials said.

Meanwhile, there is a chance that the plan can be modified. And Councillor Maxine Parker said the city would hold a meeting with ALDOT for citizens to “do exactly what you are doing tonight.” Engaging in dialogue with the highway department is key to having their voices heard, she said. “You’ve got to stay connected.”

Staying connected — to downtown — is at the center of what Norwood residents want.

ALDOT contends it is listening. How it all will develop remains to be seen.

For Weld Publisher Mark Kelly’s take on the I-59 controversy, see this week’s Red Dirt.

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WELD May 30-June 6, 2013 / Page 12

Cover Stor y

fighting

Bullying The old problem now faces an array of opposition

by Nick Patterson

opular culture, mythology and history abound with scenes of the strong preying on those weaker than themselves. An account in the book of Genesis points to the Nephilim, offspring of angels and humans, violent giants wreaking havoc in the days before The Flood. The classic Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai, depicts a ragtag team of warriors hired to fend off bandits who have been raiding an poor village of farmers for their hard-earned provisions.

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Who can forget Ralphie Parker in the seasonal favorite A Christmas Story, forced into conflict with everyone’s schoolyard nemesis Scut Farkus and his sidekick Grover Dill. Or the 97-pound weakling with sand being kicked in his face in the now venerable Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads?

The bully has become an archetype for the ages. Yet, however quaint and humorous it is often portrayed, the harsh, devastating reality of bullying still plays out every day in the waking nightmares of thousands of kids in Birmingham and beyond.

“Bullying is not the same as childhood teasing,” said Josh Klapow, Ph.D, a psychologist in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“Bullying occurs when an individual is singled out and targeted and repeatedly harassed and that harassment can be verbal, it can be physical, in this day and age it can be cyber. ... It’s a repeated pattern of harassment that occurs over time.”

A flyer by the Montevallo-based David Mathews Center for Civic Life, posted on bulletin boards throughout the Birmingham Public Library System, offers visitors the following grim statistics: • Nineteen thousand children who are bullied commit suicide yearly nationwide, although five times that many — at least 100,000 — say they carry guns to school to protect themselves against aggressors, or bullies.

• Every seven minutes a child is bullied on the playground at a school somewhere in the country and the majority of those incidents, some 85 percent, happen without intervention.

• More than 85 percent of teens say that revenge after being bullied is the leading cause of school shootings and homicide, and the U.S. Secret Service reports that of 37 school shootings, two-thirds of the attackers claimed they “felt persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked, or injured by others prior to the incident.”

The flyer lists nine types of bullying behaviors: verbal; intentional social exclusion or isolation; physical violence; telling lies and spreading false rumors; stealing valuables or damaging personal property; making threats or coercing others to do things they don’t want to; racially based; targeting because of the victim’s sex or sexual orientation; cyber bullying.

To draw attention to the prevalence of the problem, and to discuss community based approaches to combat bullying, the BPL and the Mathews Center have sponsored a series of forums in 2012 and earlier this month about bullying, and screened a documentary called Bully, which followed students from public schools in several other states and focused on two kids who took their own lives after being bullied.

Clearly, bullying is a problem that hits close to home, even as it demands national attention. “Most of us can remember being bullied, harassed, or teased during our childhood,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, during a speech at the Bay Area Bullying Prevention Summit in San Francisco last year. “Those experiences from an early age stay with us.”

“Bullying is not simply a part of growing up; not a rite of passage that we each must go through,” Perez said. “In recent years, bullying incidents, many with devastatingly tragic consequences, have increasingly weighed on the conscience of our nation. Nearly one in three middle and high school students report being bullied, and over half of our children report that they witness bullying in school.”

In 2010, the U.S. Justice Department launched the Defending Childhood Initiative, aimed at curbing the exposure of children to violence, including bullying. On the federal government’s website, StopBullying.gov, members of the public, including parents, teachers and others can learn everything from what bullying is, to how to spot the signs that someone is being bullied, to what to do about it.

“Bullying,” according to the federal website, “is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.”

Groups at increased risk for being bullied include youth who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual, those with disabilities or other special health needs, those whose race, ethnicity or national origin make them different from their peers, and those who have a different religion or faith than those around them.

Cyber bullying, when bullies use the Internet, text messaging, and especially social media as a tool to ha-

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WELD May 30-June 6, 2013 / Page 13

Know the signs Parents, Klapow said, should be alert to indicators that their child is being picked on or harassed at school or elsewhere. “A child who expresses a fear or lack of desire to go to school, relatively suddenly,” or a child who usually likes school but who begins to feign sickness to avoid going, are signs that something may be seriously amiss, Klapow said.

“A child who begins to withdraw, who doesn’t talk about what’s going on at school, who withdraws from the family,” may also be hiding the fact that he’s being targeted by a bully.

“A child who says he’s being teased,” who may not even differentiate between that and a more serious, systematic harassment, should not be dismissed, Klapow said. “If a child is telling you he’s being teased, you, as an adult, absolutely need to gather more information. You need to understand who is teasing them, how long it’s been going on, what’s the nature of the teasing.

“So I guess my point is that if a child is coming to you and talking about something that could be bullying, as an adult you have to take it seriously. You cannot brush it off as, ‘Well, that’s just a part of normal childhood experience’ — until you have all the facts.”

What can you do about it? rass, cuts across demographic lines, and can make more traditional bullying worse, Klapow said.

“Think about how times have changed,” he said.

“Before the Internet, texting, etc., bullying was more circumscribed. It was circumscribed to a certain place and time and now, part of the problem is bullying can occur in one location, like a school, and now it can perpetuate. A child can be bullied ‘round the clock.

“That’s very problematic, because it just expands the negative effects,” he said, noting that cyber bullying has characteristics which make it unique. “Now you have [a situation] where a child is being cyber bullied only — so negative statements about them, passing rumors — but you also can have a child being verbally abused at school and then it continues at home via cyber bullying,” Klapow said. “It’s a category in and of itself and it’s a way to make the traditional forms of bullying more potent.”

The impact That said, there are certain elements common to most cases of bullying, regardless of the profile of the victim. Children who are bullied often reveal it to observant parents, even if they themselves are not fully aware that what they’re experiencing is defined as bullying, Klapow said.

“In general we know that children who are bullied — there’s a whole list of things,” he said. “They’re more likely to miss school; they’re more likely to have physical illnesses, to become sick; they’re more likely to develop depression and anxiety disorders; they’re more likely to commit suicide; they’re more likely to do poorly in school, academically.”

Those who commit suicide because of bullying make headlines, and for good reason, but in fact are merely a fraction of those who are bullied. Rarer still are those victims who plot revenge and carry out deadly plots against their perceived enemies as in mass school shootings, as suggested in several high profile cases. Bullying does sometimes play it part in such horrific events, Klapow said. “It is a contributing factor but not necessarily the cause. ... The vast majority of children who are bullied will not turn around and create mass murder.

“The more prevalent correlates of bullying are psychological, emotional problems that tend to be depression and anxiety, poor school performance, those kinds of things. On rare occasions, children who are bullied and who have other problems can turn into killers. That being said, we have seen in a number of cases where kids who turn around and kill, were in fact, bullied. We just have to careful about the causal nature of it,” Klapow said. He added, though, “It clearly speaks to the psychological impact” that bullying can have.

What is more, Perez noted in his San Francisco speech, “The research suggests that those who bully are more likely to grow up and abuse their partners, spouses or children. So when we talk about effectively protecting our children from violence in the home, at school or on the streets, we must talk about strategies to prevent and eradicate bullying.”

Not having all the facts could lead a well-meaning parent to handle a bullying situation inappropriately.

One common instinctive reaction, when a child reports being picked on, is for a parent to tell the child to fight back. Another is for the parent to contact the parent of the bully in an attempt to end the harassment.

Either reaction might be the wrong thing to do, Klapow said, because a parent who doesn’t ask the right questions may advise his child based on a faulty assumption, particularly about the child committing the aggressive behavior.

“Until you have the facts…you don’t know anything about that child. If that child is, in fact, bullying, then they may have the ability to do things that are worse,” Klapow said. “So as a parent, your natural instinct to tell your child to go fight back should not occur, really at all, but particularly until you’ve gathered enough information to understand what’s going on. And then, really, the job is to go to the school and to the authority — not to the parents of the child who’s been teasing or bullying — but to the school or wherever the bullying is taking place.”

Schools – Ground Zero The reason for that tactic is simple. Schools need to know that bullying is going on, and teachers, counselors, and others there have been given resources to combat the problem. Despite the continued prevalence of the problem, there is evidence that school officials who intervene properly can make a difference, Klapow said.

“Things have gotten, on average, tremendously better. Most schools, particularly here locally, have a zero tolerance [policy] for bullying. It is not allowed to occur. Most schools will investigate,” he said, noting that schools have literature, access to federal government resources, provide counselors and take bullying much more seriously than they have in the past. “Schools have bullying policies and bullying intervention,” he said. “It is not sort of brushed off [as it was] when I was young.”

The Justice Department has made schools a major focus of anti-bullying efforts, Perez said. “Our common mission to stop bullying must start in our schools,” he said. “It is in our schools that our children learn to live, play and work together. It is in our schools that fear and intolerance can take root; and it is in our schools that respect and compassion can be nurtured.”

Along with the U.S. Department of Education, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department has “actively enforced this nation’s civil rights laws to prevent and address harassment in schools,” Perez said. “We are working to amend school policies and provide training to teachers and administrators on how to rid schools of harassment and promote positive school climates in school districts across the country.”

An introduction to the “Anti-Bullying/Anti-Harassment/Anti-Violence Policy” on the Alabama Department of Education website states that “Bullying, harassment, violence and threats of violence by any student or employee against any other student or others shall not be tolerated. This policy strictly prohibits employees

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employees and/or other students from discriminating against any student on the basis of a disability or any other characteristic.”

Jefferson County Schools also prohibit bullying behavior in its policy manual, which is available online.

Parents, Klapow said, need to trust their school system to deal with bullies. “Circumventing that process is dangerous,” he said, “ because unless you know that child who’s doing the bullying very well, unless you know those parents very well, then what you’re doing is potentially adding fuel to the fire. The impact that you want to have may in fact be exactly the opposite.”

Adults can be victims too Conversations about bullying almost always tend to focus on kids. But unfortunately, children are hardly the only victims, said Sunnetta Slaughter, a long-time victims’ rights advocate with a background that includes working with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Navy. As part of her work as a consultant, Slaughter trains law enforcement, victims and victim service providers to recognize bullying as a problem beyond childhood.

“I know sometimes people [have] applied it mostly to young children, who engage in acts of bullying inschool, but bullying can be applied to adults as well,” she said. “It can be applied to adults in the workplace, if you have an employer that’s constantly giving you some sort of verbal threats. They may be actual or perceived.

That’s a sort of bullying as well.”

Domestic violence and other forms of adult aggression also take the form of bullying, she noted. For example, “You can have a domestic violence incident where one party is bullying the other party, either physically or verbally,” she said. “If it’s verbal it could be harassing them, it could be threatening to do things to them. It depends on what type of relationship that they have.

“If they’re in a dating relationship it could be trying to manipulate them by saying things like, ‘If you leave me, I’ll hurt myself, or I’ll hurt somebody else, or I’ll hurt that other person.’ Bullying comes in all forms.”

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Get Help Now The U.S. government has taken a hand to combat bullying. On the website, StopBullying.Gov, members of the public, including parents, teachers and others can learn everything from what bullying is, to how to spot the signs that someone is being bullied, and what to do about it. The chart below can be found at http://www.stopbullying.gov/get-help-now/index.html

The psychological effects of bullying are similar for adults and for children, she said. But adults have different options than children generally, including, often, a greater ability to leave a situation where harassment occurs. Slaughter, however, cautions that the best approach for an adult to deal with bullying will depend on that adult.

“I always ask the person, ‘Tell me what you want to do.’ A person will never leave a situation, be it bullying, be it domestic violence or any other situation, until they’ve had enough. ... So I always ask, ‘Have you had enough? And tell me what it is that you want to do.’ When people tell me what they want to do, the first thing I do is give people options and freedom. When you tell someone what to do, you’re actually doing the same thing sometimes that a bullying person is doing: not allowing people to make their own choices.”

Once a victim makes up her mind to deal with a bullying situation, Slaughter said she is in a position to offer options that fits her needs. “Every situation will be different based on the relationship between the people, based on their economic status, whether they have someone or somewhere else they can go to. All of those things play a factor.”

Workplace bullying may be dealt with either by a human resources department, or through the federal

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Domestic violence victims can reach out to social service providers, law enforcement, and the judicial system, Slaughter said.

The fight continues Bullying remains an issue even as resources at many levels strive to meet the challenge. “We must continue our work,” Perez said, “because today, somewhere, there’s a child who will feel the sting of a punch because the clothes he’s wearing aren’t cool; who will believe her difference is a detriment as she eats alone in a crowded school cafeteria; who will skip school to avoid a terrifying confrontation; or will contemplate suicide because nothing seems like it can hurt more than the humiliation she feels right now.

“And for each one of those kids — children we know, children we love, children who more than a few of us here were at one time — for each of them we can’t afford to be bystanders.”

For many children being harassed, the first and most important refuge is an understanding parent.

“Particularly from the parental perspective, when our children are being threatened, it’s very instinctual to fight back, to want to protect them, to have them fight back or to really go into sort of a sense of denial and say, ‘Well, that’s just a part of childhood,’” Klapow said.

“As a parent, if your child comes to you and is even mentioning that they’re being teased...recognize how much courage that takes. Don’t discount it. ... Do not react to your more instinctual urges, but try to be as analytic and rational as you can, which means gather information, work with the authorities in the school, because in the long run that will protect your child better in most cases.”

Nick Patterson is the editor of Weld. For a full version of this story, visit weldbham.com.

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by Nick Patterson The man on the phone was desperate. He was intense in his desire to make me understand the importance of what he was saying. He felt that someone needed to hear — someone in the media.

So for more than 15 minutes, he talked, rambling at times, as people under stress will do, about the dissolution of Cooper Green Hospital and the worsening plight of the poor and sick in Jefferson County. He spoke with increasing passion about how politicians and service providers in this community have, in his estimation, failed to do what they should for the homeless — the segment of the population he himself currently occupies.

It was not the first time I had talked to this man and probably won’t be the last, because he truly is desperate. Like many who fear that elected officials and other authorities don’t care or won’t listen, he turned to a member of the press to plead his case, to air his grievances.

Such calls are a reminder of why we need a free and responsible press in Birmingham and everywhere else. It’s why freedom of the press has to be guarded so zealously in the face of those who don’t appreciate it. It’s why, for example, a few months ago, when Weld got a letter from a saber-rattling attorney representing the Girl Scout council, we decided to hold up his veiled threat for everyone to see: because trying to stifle the press — no matter how small the press — has serious implications.

When the voices of the news media are stilled, who will tell the stories that desperate people need others to hear? Who will take the time to sift through the records and differing accounts, to document the variances between what the authorities say they will do and what they actually do?

Even before this cynical age, people had a love-hate relationship with reporters. It shows in our fiction: Clark Kent and Lois Lane are journalists, but so are Citizen Charles Foster Kane and the Rupert Murdoch-like Bond villain of Tomorrow Never Dies.

In real life that dichotomy exists, too. Society needs people bound to tell the truth, and yet in our efforts to do so, journalists sometimes become pushy, jaded and less than scrupulous in pursuit of facts and stories.

Reporters can seem, and sometimes be, arrogant. Sometimes, reporters can let their biases overrule their prime directive to present facts objectively or let personal convictions blind them to the complicated truth that there may be another side worth considering.

There have been times when journalists have merely been dishonest, pursuing individual agendas for fame or prominence at the cost of the truth, making a name for themselves by any means necessary.

Sometimes, too, well-meaning journalists have just gotten the story wrong.

Unfortunately, there is plenty with which to find fault. Journalists, as a species, hardly have a spotless record. And yet, when people want someone to overturn the rocks that the powerful wish to keep in place, who do they turn to? The press. Who else will tell the stories that make it possible for ordinary citizens to do their jobs or watch their backs, or question what they are being told, or to know when they and their posterity are being sold down the river?

That’s why, when folks become suspicious of the highway department’s intentions, or convinced of corruption at high levels of city government, or develop fears political authorities are mismanaging their responsibilities toward the disenfranchised, or mishandling the tax money entrusted to them, or see evidence that powerful corpo-

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TO THOSE WHO QUESTION THE NEED FOR THE PRESS, THE ANSWER SHOULD BE OBVIOUS rate interests are bending the law to suit their aims, they call the press.

People — instinctively, and by the proof of history — know that the power of even the imperfect press exists for the protection and well-being of the public. And that is why they cry out when distant corporate interests take their daily newspaper away, and why they shake their heads whenever broadcasters pander to drive ratings rather than devoting their valuable resources to more important topics.

It’s why people have reached out to Weld (a very small newspaper) on every single one of those topics in the past few weeks. It’s because, for all the sins that can be laid at the feet of the news media, the press is needed. And that’s also why we defend the rights of a small weekly newspaper, in a town unfortunately without the scrutiny a daily paper, and where most of the weeklies have fallen by the wayside.

People know that when the press does its job, it can be a force for good, in ways as small as explaining what’s happening in the entertainment district, and as large as exposing to observers inside and outside the community when something is going horribly wrong. I was recently reminded of that when reading historical accounts of the civil rights protests in Birmingham during May 1963.

It was not the reporters who were marching in the streets to secure their own rights — indeed, people understood that the press had rights even in that dark time. But if the national and international media had not been present here in 1963 how would Bull Connor’s rank villainy have been exposed to people outside of Birmingham? How would people in Washington and beyond actually see the shocking spectacle of firemen blasting children down the sidewalk with powerful water hoses — or witness those who protect and serve unleashing their hounds on peacefully singing teenagers?

It is ever the role of the press to tell such stories, to make people aware of that which they would sometimes turn their eyes away from. If not for the legitimate press, who would know about Watergate, or Tiananmen Square, or American drone strikes killing civilians, or the National Security Agency monitoring phone data, or the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history? How many abuses of power would you know about if not for the work of dedicated, determined reporters? How many more important events might be lost to history but for someone being there to make a record?

Further underscoring the need for the scrutiny of an engaged news media is the fact that when the press fails, or seems to, untrained civilians take on the role journalists should play, recording and documenting and publicizing what those in power might wish would never come to light. Read Courtney Haden’s column in this issue if you doubt that.

Make no mistake: as long as men rule, the press will be needed. A responsible, independent, objective news media are a bulwark against those who would trample the rights of regular folks, those who would abuse their power or neglect their responsibility. And it’s a mirror to show society what it is made of, for good or bad — an imperfect mirror, yes, but nonetheless important. For all its faults, the press serves a purpose. Who else will tell the stories of the desperate?

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April in Alabama inevitably brings on thoughts of tornado season, and with very good reason.

Few Birmingham area residents can quickly forget the devastating April 27, 2011, tornadoes, which killed 238 people in the state. And the National Weather Service in Birmingham is reminding people about another catastrophic storm period 40 years ago, April 3 and 4, 1974 — what is now known as a “super outbreak.”

LOCAL EXPERTS ADVISE STAYING READY TO DEAL WITH ANY DISASTER

by Nick Patterson

/ Apr 3-10, 2014 / Page 17

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“During the late afternoon and evening hours of April 3, 1974, at least eight tornadoes, including four extremely intense and long-lived storms, brought death and extreme storm destruction to Alabama,” as reported on the NWS Birmingham website. “Eighty-six persons were killed; 949 were injured, and damages exceeded $50 million. Sixteen counties in the northern part of the state were hit the hardest.”

April, according to John De Block, the warning coordination meteorologist for the NWS, is the worst month for twisters in a state where tornadoes can happen 12 months out of the year. “April is the peak month for severe weather season for us,” he said. “There are a number of historic events that have occurred in the month of April and affected Alabama.”

But De Block noted that while March-May is the longest peak severe weather period, because Alabama weather goes back and forth between cooler and warmer temperatures both in spring and fall, there is a secondary peak for tornado season here. “We are subject to tornadoes every month of the year,” De Block said. “People don’t need to focus just on March, April and May, NovemberDecember, but be prepared at all times for potentially severe weather in Alabama.”

As noted on the NWS website, “Alabamians are reminded over and over again of the power and fury that nature can unleash. It’s important that people continue to improve their severe weather awareness and preparedness in order to reduce the toll exacted by these devastating storms.”

There are things the experts recommend that you do to get ready for tornado season, but an official with the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency recommends that you don’t think small — that is, just in terms of windstorms.

“Are you prepared for a disaster — whatever it may be?” asked Michael Harter, the training and exercise officer for the Jeffco EMA.

Let’s start with tornadoes “The first thing to be prepared is to know about your threat,” De Block said. “To understand what the threat is, to realize that April is the time, the peak of severe weather season, that means you’re going to need to be paying attention to what the weather forecast has in store. If you hear of thunderstorms in the forecast in April, you should really peak your ear up...

“Once you’re paying close attention, it’s important to have multiple ways of getting weather information,” he said. De Block recommended having a NOAA weather radio designed to come on and alert you even in the middle of the night in case of severe weather. “It’s the equivalent of a smoke alarm for weather. It’s a relatively inexpensive item, around $30,” he said.

“There are plenty of other ways to get weather information. There are apps; there are texting services, [with] most of the media outlets, you can subscribe to a notification service. We encourage people to have as many layers of weather information as possible.”

For many people, apps and weather radios are not as prominent or as popular a choice as relying on outdoor weather sirens, which some communities are phasing out, or not using. But it would not be a good idea to rely on those sirens in any case, De Block said. “Outdoor sirens are just that: they’re designed for people outdoors. They are not designed to wake you up in the middle of the night. So I really don’t encourage anyone to rely solely on an outdoor siren to notify them of impending severe weather. It’s important to have those other methods of getting notification...

“If you’re at the park, you’re in the middle of a ball game and for whatever reason, a warning is issued and...those sirens go off, that’s going to be your last line of defense really for your outdoor areas.”

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Outdoor sirens are dependent on several factors that impact their effectiveness, De Block said: being in good repair, relying on someone to manual set the siren off and wind direction. “If the wind is blowing the wrong direction, you might not be able to hear the outdoor siren as well,” he said. On the other hand, the weather radio signal is reliable for 95 percent of Alabamians.

“That said, it [the weather radio] is technology that is subject to phone outages, power outages, just like any other form of technology. That’s why we recommend having multiple sources of information — to not just rely on one.”

What next?

After being aware of what the threat is, De Block said, “you have to know what to do once the threat manifests itself. ... If you don’t have a designated FEMA-approved storm shelter, then you’re going to go to the lowest level of your building, center of the building, away from windows, with the most walls possible around you like a closet or a hallway, even bathrooms. ... Some place where there’s more structure that will help protect you.”

De Block also pointed out that there are awareness campaigns underway about the advantages of wearing helmets to enhance safety during outbreaks of dangerous weather.

“Strongly encourage anybody who might have a bike helmet to keep that bike helmet nearby, and football helmet for the kids or baseball helmet. Anything you can do to protect yourself, and especially your head, will be a great added measure of safety.”

Underscoring the importance of that advice, De Block noted that in the April 27 tornadoes, based on data from Jefferson County, “roughly 50 percent of the fatalities were related to head injuries.”

Every tornado season needs to be considered potentially the worst ever, De Block said.

“Last year, we only had 23 tornadoes across the state of Alabama for the entire year,” as opposed, say, to 2011, when there were 145 tornadoes throughout the state. The average is about 40 per year.

The numbers of violent storms in the state since 2011 have been lower, but that doesn’t actually predict a trend, De Block noted. “You should not let your guard down. You need to be prepared, because it only takes one storm that hits your house to make it the worst severe weather season that you’ve experienced.”

Taking common sense precautions can present a disastrous situation from being the worst, he said. “Always be aware; be prepared. There’s no reason to be afraid. If you’re aware, and you’ve got the knowledge, then you act on the information and you take your steps, you should be as safe as you can be.”

The ways that people prepare for tornadoes has changed over the years in the wake of events with substantial loss of life, injuries and property damage, De Block noted. “There were a number of people who rode out those 2011 storms in those storm pits that probably Mama or Daddy, or Grandpa or Grandma, built back after the 1974 tornadoes. There have been a number of people who have installed storm shelters in their homes now since 2011, that one of these years down the road, they’re going to wind up saving somebody’s life.”

Preparing for disasters — the EMA focus The National Weather Service is connected by radio and other means to the Jefferson County EMA — the agencies work together to helping local officials get prepared to deal with severe weather, said Harter.

“If they suspect an event to happen they would brief us, saying, ‘This is what we know so far as to the event that is going to take place.’ Then we would go in and send out a message ...to different players — police chiefs, fire chiefs, mayors, commissioners — that we have a potential for severe weather,” Harter said.

The EMA uses WARN — the Wide Area Rapid Notification system. “It allows us to send text messages, TTYs, just emails, to either home or work or phone, or whatever we wanted to. It’s a very quick way of getting information out to those that need to be aware.”

Those first contacts allow leadership to make sure their first responders and staff members are prepared for whatever is coming, Harter said. “They should also be taking a look at: [Are] my employees ready? Can they stay away from work or from home, x number of days if a disaster strikes? They’ve got to make sure that the employees basically have a preparedness plan also in case they’re away from work.”

Depending on when and where the disaster strikes and what it does, employees may be stranded either at work or at home, he said. Harter was stranded at his home in Clay for a period during the snowstorms in January, for example.

Another aspect of the county getting ready involves making certain that the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) (which, like Harter’s office, is in the basement of a building next door to Birmingham City Hall) is prepared for the influx of representatives of various agencies which work together to mitigating a disaster.

The main room in the EOC is laid out like a command center, with long desks equipped with computers, phones and radios, as well as projectors for presenting situation-based graphics for the response team to see and flat screen monitors for public information officers to keep up with news coverage of events as they unfold, among other things. An adjacent room houses a communications hub for quickly routing telephone calls to the appropriate member of the team, and even a setup for ham radio operators who might come into play in given circumstances.

When a disaster strikes, representatives of agencies from the Birmingham Police and Fire Departments, to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, the EMA, public works from the county and the city, and suburban police and fire units, come together as a team to deal with the event. Once they enter the EOC, they play different roles, but the teamwork required to deal with a catastrophe demands that everyone check their jurisdictional affiliations at the door, Harter said. “When they come in, they are not known as Jefferson County or Birming-

ham. They are the EOC law enforcement branch.”

The folks in the EOC make sure that all of the departments across the county are prepared to support the joint effort, Harter said. For instance, during the snowstorms in January, units from Hoover and Bessemer went to the far eastern end of the county to help rescue people as needed.

Preparing the officials is just part of the task, however. In most disasters, the first responder on the scene is you.

For any disaster that might happen, “citizens need to be prepared,” Harter said, including personal disasters. “If I had a fire in my home, it would be disastrous to me but maybe not to the community. Now, what do I do? How do I pick up the pieces from this?”

Taking the all hazard approach All disasters break down into four basic phases, Harter said: impact, inventory, response and recovery, and his job is to teach people how to deal with all four.

“Part of our stuff is to make people aware of preparedness in all disasters, not just tornadoes,” he said. “FEMA went to an all-hazard approach several years ago. ... That’s what we try to do, make people aware of potential hazards and having a plan for that.”

Harter visits groups of people regularly to talk about preparing for possible disasters; at the time of this interview, he was planning for a visit and presentation at Center Point City Hall to the Neighborhood Watch program. The following day, he would be talking at St. Vincent’s East to “people who are disabled with vision issues.” In all cases, Harter is “trying to get the information out about being prepared and how [to] get information in a disaster.”

He quickly rattles off a list of the kinds of considerations people need to make in case of a disaster. “Having a plan, having a kit. If you were told to evacuate, what would you take? Do you need any medications? Are you on a special diet? Do you have kids? What are the ages of the kids? ... Do you have enough diapers? Do you have enough baby food, formula? Do you have whatever the essential is? If you’re disabled, do you have a friend next door who can help you in a disaster to move from Point A to Point B? There are just so many different things that come into play.”

He offers tips to schools, businesses — 40 percent of small businesses don’t recover from catastrophic events — and even to volunteer disaster workers. In every case, though, Harter or other EMA speakers visit only by invitation. “We don’t go out there and volunteer. They call us and say, ‘We need to have an assessment,’” he said.

Because of that, not every school has had a visit. Harter clearly believes that having an assessment of various disaster scenarios would be a good thing for any school to do, because most school plans he has seen only take limited possibilities into consideration when preparing for potential disasters.

The EMA provides access to a wide range of printed materials to help prepare: brochures from FEMA, generally free of charge, dealing with everything from an emergency supply list to what steps to take to gear up for any disaster; pamphlets from Homeland Security designed to help businesses get ready for anything from terrorist attack to tornado, fire, or flood, and to get citizens involved in Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT); and an emergency preparedness guide for the government’s Citizen Corps, of which CERT is a part.

And the Jefferson County EMA website (jeffcoema.org) contains additional information tailored for the local area. Harter and the other seven people at the agency are happy to offer training and advice to anyone in the county to deal with any possible disaster.

“The service is available to everybody,” Harter said. “All they’ve got to do is call.”

The Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency is located at 709 North 19th Street, in Birmingham. You can reach them by phone at (205) 254-2039.

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AS EARTH WEEK CONTINUES, ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS DON’T GO AWAY

by Nick Patterson

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Photo of Birmingham by Nick Patterson.

As the 40th Earth Day passed this week, it might be reasonable for Alabamians to ponder the question: Exactly what is the actual state of the environment — close to home, that is?

Local activists cheer what they see as positive developments, but seem to find much more work that needs to be done in “Alabama the Beautiful.”

Last week, for instance, two organizations concerned about the environment, the Alabama Rivers Alliance and the Southern Environmental Law Center, applauded Gov. Robert Bentley’s decision to move forward with a statewide water management plan in conjunction with state agencies and nonprofit interest groups.

“After years of advocating for a comprehensive water plan to strengthen Alabama’s position for negotiating the water needs of local communities, businesses, and ecosystems, we support the Governor’s decision to move ahead with the report,” said Mitch Reid of Alabama Rivers Alliance. “This is a crucial step toward protecting the streams, rivers, and lakes that provide for this great state.”

The report, which outlines progress so far toward

the comprehensive water plan, relates to decades of conflict between Alabama, Georgia and Florida over usage of water that benefits all three states. Until now, Alabama was the only state among the contesting parties without a comprehensive water plan. The recommendations for the Alabama plan “include implementing a robust stakeholder process that brings all water users to the table, decreasing reliance on expensive, large-scale projects like reservoirs and dams that severely disrupt the ecological balance of rivers and streams in favor of improved conservation and efficiency efforts, and implementing flow standards to better protect the rivers and streams as well as all water users throughout the watersheds,” the SELC and ARA said in a joint statement.

So as far as that plan goes, environmentalists think

the state is moving in the right direction.

But on Monday, as Earth Day approached, the same SELC joined with the Black Warrior Riverkeeper to issue a very different joint statement, one taking a dim view of the state highway department’s moving forward with an undertaking they expect to have detrimental effects on the local environment: the Northern Beltline. The occasion was a groundbreaking for the first phase of the highway, projected to be the most expensive highway ever built in Alabama - 52 miles long, six-lanes, nearly $105 million per mile.

“To continue investing in an unnecessary road that will cross and permanently alter streams and wetlands in 125 places, impacting two major sources of local drinking water, is nothing to celebrate,” said Nelson Brooke, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper. “Today’s event is merely a distraction from the fact that the Northern Beltline remains a wasteful and destructive diversion from the Birmingham area’s pressing transportation needs, such as the I-59/20 upgrade and major traffic issues on I-65 and Highway 280.”

The statement goes on to say that ALDOT has not stated exactly how the beltline will be paid for -- beyond the initial, less than two mile stretch of the road .

“This is particularly problematic in the wake of an announcement this week that the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which Alabama relies on to fund transportation projects all over the state, is projected to run out

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of money in four months,” the joint statement said.

“The lack of funding to get this project from start to finish – much less fund Birmingham’s other transportation needs – further illustrates that the Beltline is a bad idea for the region and a poor investment for the taxpayers,” said Gil Rogers, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Not only is this project needlessly damaging the Black Warrior and Cahaba River watersheds, but its $5.4-billion price tag would use all of Alabama’s federal funding for much needed road improvements and maintenance projects around the state. Other states are sensibly shelving large projects that are far less costly than the Beltline in the face of economic realities.”

SELC has filed federal court lawsuits on behalf of the Black Warrior Riverkeeper in opposition to the Northern Beltline. One suit, filed in 2011 contends that the agencies behind the beltline have “failed to provide a necessary analysis of alternative transportation investments as required by law, and to justify the environmental impacts and tremendous economic cost of the Beltline.”

The other suit, filed in 2013, also took aim at potential harm to the environment. That suit challenges a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to allow the first phase of the beltline’s construction, alleging, among other things, that authorities have failed to follow the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Both lawsuits remain open cases.

Off road But the Northern Beltline is not the only environmental concern on the minds of local activists. Alan Gurganus, executive director of the Alabama Environmental Council says that Alabamians need to take the next step before recycling begins to really pay off.

After touting the AEC’s consumer-searchable database of recycling locations around the state (www.

RecycleAL.com),Gurganus said, “An important aspect of recycling that often gets overlooked is the idea of buying recycled and recyclable consumer goods. If you think about it, it’s a bit pointless to recycle unless we make an effort to close the loop by purchasing goods made from post-consumer recycled materials. Fortunately, in Alabama, we have at least 26 manufacturers that rely on recycled-content feedstock to make their consumer goods.”

Citing the “negative environmental and climate impacts of electrical production,”Gurganus said, “We all should pay attention to how we use energy ... [W] e should make sure that we are conservation minded and use it as efficiently as possible. An energy audit can show us ways to save energy and money in our homes and businesses, as well as help us to live more comfortably in our space. Many times, we can save as much as 25 percent with a few simple changes.”

Recycling and what to do with so much discarded material remains a hot topic for Pat Matthews, the original Auntie Litter.

“As we celebrate Earth Day 2014, Alabamians need to consider the importance of living in a clean and healthy environment by protecting our land, water, and air,” said Mitchell, executive director of Auntie Litter, Inc. “Each person can make a difference by taking pride in Alabama, practicing the environmental 3 Rs (reuse, reduce waste, and recycle), conserving our natural resources, reducing car emissions, and preventing litter! The end result will have a positive long term effect on the health of our citizens and our natural resources for generations to come.”

Generations of poor residents in north Birmingham have been exposed to toxins in their environment -the air and the soil in places like Collegeville, Harriman Park and Fairmont contaminated by nearby heavy industries. The result has been higher rates of cancer and respiratory ailments. That’s been a focus for GASP, the Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Air Pollution, which produced a recent documentary on contamination in north Birmingham, called Toxic City: Birmingham’s Dirty Secret.

Michael Hansen, communications specialist for

GASP said that Earth Day should be a time for remembering that the most impoverished citizens are often those most exposed to unhealthy elements in the environment.

“As our society becomes more and more dependent on smart phones, social media, and other modern technologies, it’s important not to become apathetic to and disengaged in the very real environmental concerns facing Alabamians today,” Hansen wrote. “As anthropologist Margaret Mead said, ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’

“A study recently found a significant disparity between the quality of air that poor people and communities of color breathe compared to white people. In 2014, it’s unacceptable for economic status and skin color to be an indicator of your quality of life. Air pollution has significant health consequences — heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, COPD, childhood development, premature births, etc. People should be outraged that air pollution isn’t front and center in the conversation about economic development and public health, particularly in the Birmingham area, which has some of the dirtiest air in the nation.

“That’s something Alabamians should think hard about this Earth Day,” Hansen said, “and consider getting involved, just as Mead suggested. We all have the power to make a difference if we choose to do so.”

GASP, just last month, launched, a pollution hotline, “for Alabamians who live and/or work near toxic pollution sources such as power plants and industrial facilities to report complaints, especially as related to health issues,” as described on the GASPgroup.org website. To access the hotline, call 1-866-581-GASP (4277). GASP pledges to forward all complaints to the Jefferson County Department of Health.

Celebrate?

State agencies tend to paint a pretty picture -- or at least a more positive one -- of the state of Alabama’s environment. For instance, back in March the Alabama Department of Environmental Management noted that every county in the state now complies with strict Environmental Protection Agency standards for air quality.

“Several areas of the State, particularly the Birmingham area, have historically not met the standards which limit fine particle concentrations,” ADEM notes on its website. “The areas having met today’s stringent standards is a result of local, State, and federal emis-

sions-limiting laws and regulations covering industry, vehicles, and other sources of air pollutants.

“Nationally, air quality standards have become more and more stringent over the years, and even though overall air quality in Alabama has constantly improved, the Department has been pursuing an ever-changing standard. Due to a lot of hard work by ADEM and other stakeholders, the State of Alabama has attained this current, more stringent air quality standard for all 67 counties.”

With so much unfinished business as far as activists - and others are concerned, what is there to celebrate in this little section of Earth?

Earth Week events Earth Day and Earth Week were celebrated by events throughout the community, including the indie rock band Earthbound’s outdoor concert called Earthbound’s Earthfest, held April 19 at Avondale Brewery and benefiting the Black Warrior Riverkeeper.

The event gave BWRK a forum for promoting its causes, including prevention of the proposed coal mine at Shepherd’s Bend, which is opposed by BWRK, Avondale Brewery, the city of Birmingham, and more than 100 other businesses and organizations. The coalition against the mine has sought to persuade the University of Alabama not to lease, or sell land or mineral rights for the proposed mine.

On Earth Day proper, the Alabama Environmental Council’s 18th annual Green Tie Affair at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, featured music, food and drinks, and a sponsorship credit shared between the AEC, Star Recycling, Advanced Technology Recycling, and a number of corporations. That event raised money for AEC programs statewide.

The AEC, along with authorities representing Jefferson County, Birmingham, Bessemer and the state agency which is the Jefferson County Health Department, will host a Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day on Saturday, April 26, from 8am-11am, at Legion Field’s McLendon Park, 400 Graymont Ave W. “This is a zero landfill event for Jefferson County residents to safely recycle and dispose of paint, electronics, batteries, motor oil, ammunition, drugs, appliances and small engines,” Gurganus said. “A free paper shredding service will also be onsite.” More information can be found at www.AEConline.org/HHW

What do you think?

What do you think of the environmental condition of the state of Alabama, and Birmingham in particular? Let us know. Write to us at editor@weldbham.com or comment on our website, weldbham.com

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After Half A Century, LBJ’s Grand Vision For America Remains A Work In Progress

by Nick Patterson

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When you think about Head Start programs for kids, or about protecting the environment, or whether Medicaid should be expanded in Alabama, or whether the Affordable Care Act is a good thing or a bad one, you’re thinking about some aspect of LBJ’s Great Society.

Fifty years ago, on May 22, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced a bold and far-reaching effort to elevate American society — then mired already in the Vietnam War and still reeling from historic demonstrations for civil rights and the recent assassination of a young president — to a better place. He unveiled his Great Society vision for what the nation could be in his commencement address at the University of Michigan, a little less than a month-and-a-half before signing the Civil Rights Act into law.

Shortly thereafter, Johnson would also sign the Voting Rights Act, the Medicare Act and laws designed to protect the environment. Over the years, subsequent administrations expanded on those Johnson-era initiatives.

Today, what began with the Great Society remains undeniably interwoven into the fabric of American culture. Which is not something everybody knows, said Dr. William P. Hustwit, an assistant professor of history at BirminghamSouthern College.

“My sense of it is that most people, in Alabama and elsewhere, do not understand how much their lives have been directly or indirectly shaped by LBJ’s Great Society programs. When Johnson became president in late 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. The Great Society introduced Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, anti-poverty measures and a whole raft of social and environmental legislation to create a non-zero-sum game society.”

With the Great Society so much a part of American life, whether that’s good or bad depends on your perspective. “The Great Recession, counter-intuitively, has allowed the conservative opponents of Great Society programming to mount an attack questioning its cost, effectiveness and ongoing viability,” said Joshua Sandman, a political science professor at the University of New Haven.

Hustwit echoed that point.

“Some of these programs have become politically charged and continue to serve as whipping boys for the Republicans,” the Birmingham-Southern history professor said. “Others, like wearing your seatbelt or enjoying cleaned up, beautiful highways (both were the result of Great Society laws) go unrecognized and unmaligned. When Lyndon Johnson began the War on Poverty, its most popular (perhaps because least controversial) program was Head Start, which provided the children of the poor with pre-schooling, so that they would catch up with the children of the middle class by the time all began kindergarten at age 5.

Since then, the middle class soon set in motion a Head Start program of its own, sending its children to nursery and preschools as early as physically possible.

“Today, where one’s child goes to school, how well he or she does in schools, which schools give him or her the best shot at even better schools later on — these are all matters of intense concern. That’s an unintended consequence, but it’s another offshoot of the Great Society. There are many more.”

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Sandman noted that “The Great Society programs — in the form of civil rights, education, Medicare, food and nutrition, services for the elderly and more — continue to play an important role in protecting the most vulnerable and bettering the lives of many citizens. These continuing programs cushioned the impact Great Recession for many. However, it was never meant to and could not offset the impact of the housing bubble, deregulation, de-industrialization and the excesses of the financial sector.”

But some would argue that the success or failure of the Great Society programs depends entirely on which end of the political bench you’re sitting on.

“The first thing you’ve got to look at in the modern context is nothing but controversy,” said Christopher Kline, an adjunct instructor of history at Westmoreland County Community College and Southern New Hampshire University.

“The reason I say that is it depends on whether you fit the conservative mindset or the liberal mindset. Because if you’re of a liberal mindset, you’re going to say the Great Society worked and set us on a path towards eradicating poverty. They will also point to Johnson’s own words, in which he said it is basically something that never ends. It’s ongoing, it’s something we’re always striving for, it’s something we’re always working towards,” Kline said.

“If you look at the conservative view of that, they’ll say under the Great Society poverty expanded [to a] modern day welfare state. ... The legacy itself of the entire program I would contend is tied up within our modern-day political context.”

Defining a Great Society Johnson framed what he called “The Great Society” as a call to action to that class of 1964 Michigan graduates, after pointing out how American ingenuity and hard work had brought the country to where it was.

“The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization,” Johnson said. “Your imagination, your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

“The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.

“The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.

“It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.

“But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”

Johnson spoke about the need to rebuild America’s urban environment toward the Aristotelian goal of people living “the good life” together.

“It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today,” the president noted. “The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated.

“Worst of all, expansion is eroding the precious and time-honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference. … Our society will never be great until our cities are great.”

Johnson also spoke of the need to protect America’s natural beauty.

“Today that beauty is in danger. The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are disappearing...

“Once the battle is lost, once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.”

LBJ argued that a Great Society would have to address the needs of a growing population for a quality education for all of America’s children.

“Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan

the farthest reaches of thought and imagination,” he said. “We are still far from that goal.”

Among other challenges to the educational equity he envisioned, Johnson noted that “In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

“But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation.”

The president promised to marshal the resources of “the best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America,” attacking the problems besetting the country through conferences and meetings to begin to “set our course toward the Great Society.”

He ended the speech with a call for the graduating class to act.

“So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin?

“Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?

“Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace — as neighbors and not as mortal enemies?

“Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?”

Early steps On July 2 of that year, Johnson would sign the Civil Rights Act into law.

The following year, he would sign first the Medicare bill in July 1965, then, a week later, the Voting Rights Act. In October 1965, LBJ signed the Highway Beautification Act. When he enacted the Medicare Act, continuing the work begun by Harry S. Truman — who watched as Johnson signed the law — LBJ spoke to Truman of the grand promise of this new element in the social safety net. “There are more than 18 million Americans over the age of 65. Most of them have low incomes. Most of them are threatened by illness and medical expenses that they cannot afford.

“And through this new law, Mr. President, every citizen will be able, in his productive years when he is earning, to insure himself against the ravages of illness in his old age.

“This insurance will help pay for care in hospitals, in skilled nursing homes, or in the home. And under a separate plan it will help meet the fees of the doctors. ...

“No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity

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in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts.

“And no longer will this nation refuse the hand of justice to those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and labor to the progress of this progressive country.

“And this bill, Mr. President, is even broader than that. It will increase Social Security benefits for all of our older Americans. It will improve a wide range of health and medical services for Americans of all ages.”

Medicare, education, the War on Poverty, commitment to civil rights, beautifying and preserving the country — all characterized LBJ’s substantial efforts in domestic issues. But those weren’t the only things on his plate.

Vietnam There are those who contend that much of the Great Society’s promise and momentum were swallowed up by the Johnson administration’s involvement in the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. But Barrett disputes the idea that the Great Society programs were ultimately derailed by the war in Southeast Asia.

“That is so not true,” Barrett said. “All you have to do is look at the list of the laws that were passed, the agencies that were created and the functions that the federal government took on in terms of what we might call social welfare kinds of programs.”

Still, the war that dragged on until the Nixon administration did leave footprints on Johnson’s domestic agenda, Barrett acknowledges. “I think there are probably other programs and laws that might have been passed, and there are programs that probably would have been more highly funded were it not for the Vietnam War. I think it is true that the war soured the American public and the Congress to some degree on LBJ, and whatever he wanted to do became suspect in the last couple of years of his presidency, because the war became such a divisive topic and he became so unpopular as a war leader. ...

“So I think the war had a negative impact on the Great Society in some respects. But it didn’t kill it, and the Great Society has had a lasting impact, I think, to this day in a multitude of ways.”

Lasting impact As noted above, in time, the initiatives related to the Great Society would come to include many programs reflecting governmental involvement in the lives of U.S. citizens. But as Johnson envisioned it, the Great Society would require not just government but a cooperative spirit throughout the country if it was to ultimately succeed.

“There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth,” LBJ told the Michigan graduates in 1964. “I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.”

That kind of cooperation — or even a shared vision of what the country is now, or should become — remains elusive. “The two linchpins of the Great Society, of course, were commitments to ending poverty and racial

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injustice,” Hustwin said.

“Statistically, the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged in the years following the Great Society. Today, however, we live with a different kind of poverty, one that sees the poor with some material possessions and the ability to participate in consumer culture, but living without good schools and a bright future. They also suffer from family breakdown and a lack of access to medical and counseling providers to deal with a range of public and private healthcare issues.”

In Alabama, some see aspects of the Great Society as very much under attack. Consider the refusal of Governor Robert Bentley, for instance, to expand Medicaid in the state to accommodate the Affordable Care Act. Or consider that most sensitive of topics in Alabama: race.

“There is no denying that we live in a changed racial landscape as a result of the Great Society’s civil rights legislation,” Hustwin continued. “The Birmingham of today is nothing like the walls of segregation in 1963. The ‘63 demonstrations, which fueled the 1964 Civil Rights Act, began the process of opening up the city to the outside world and tearing down racial barriers.

“Conversely, civil rights gains can also be repealed, which we have seen in recent years. Alabama led the way in gutting a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and elements of the 1964 Civil Rights Act could be next on the chopping block. There is also no denying that poverty, urban decay and homelessness remain problems in Birmingham, and those problems can often be linked to race as well as class.”

What would LBJ think today?

There is no question that elements of the Great Society remain. Sandman noted that “The Great Society programs, after these many years, continue to both provide a safety net and continue to allow citizens to uplift themselves.”

But some scholars believe Johnson, were he alive today, would lament how little he’s remembered for the vast — if unfinished — social changes he brought into being, in comparison to how many link him inextricably to the war that was brought into American homes on the evening news during his administration.

“He wanted to be the greatest president of the 20th century,” Barrett said. “He wanted to outdo [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt, who was a mentor of his. But this ambition to be a great president, it was all about domestic reform. That was his passion. Civil rights, poverty, education, the environment — all that stuff — that was his great passion.”

And yet because the country was drawn more and more into Vietnam, LBJ’s presidential legacy is more often attached to that, Barrett said. “He did not love that war. He conducted and presided and he led us into a bigger war than we’d been in under Kennedy. But it’s a bit ironic that the war was not his love. His love was the Great Society.”

Few would argue that the principles of the Great Society can or should be completely disentangled from the operation of the federal government.

“I think it’s deeply embedded in our society, our culture, our government, in terms of public perceptions that the government will be involved in these things,” Barrett said, offering an example. “Many of the Republican leaders who oppose Obamacare, what they come up with is sort of an alternate approach to how the government can assure that citizens get some level of healthcare.”

Most people, Barrett said, accept the notion that the government “should be involved in things like education of children and supporting that, or healthcare, or protecting the environment, supporting the arts. I think these are here to stay. Tea Party Conservatives and some Libertarians want to get rid of that role of the government, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think that specific programs and bureaucracies — they may come and go. But the concept and the fact that the government will be involved in these things, I think is here to stay. ... That’s a very important legacy of the Johnson administration whether we like it or not.”

The issue, then, might be, not what the Great Society has already wrought, but what, based on the will of the American people, it will become in the next 50 years.

“I think,” Hustwit said, “that the crucial question raised by the legacy of the Great Society for Alabamians and all Americans is: What kind of government do we want? Are we able to recognize problems and issues that affect the entire national community and to seek solutions that sometimes require the presence of an active, responsive federal government?

Or does government have no or minimal role in correcting problems that face the nation? That is the bifurcated legacy of LBJ’s Great Society, and it’s one we have not resolved — nor do I think we should.”