Martin Luther King, III
Notes from the Road- San Antonio
Reverend Claude Black's house is a reflection of the man: a humble and dignified home chock full of the living history of his life as a civil rights leader in San Antonio. Conversing with him on a hot Texas day, I cast my eyes over pictures of the Reverend with famous faces, crafts, and souvenirs collected during a life of goodwill, all assembled with a welcoming tidiness. If we, as a nation, listened more carefully to the voices of leaders like Claude Black, we'd quickly find wisdom enough to help with many of our gravest problems.
Reverend Black is a community leader, former President of the Baptist Ministers Union, former Mayor pro tempore of San Antonio itself, and was the first black City Council member in San Antonio since Reconstruction. He is a dapper and courtly gentleman- everything you'd hope for in a Texan preacher-man. Having the opportunity to sit down with him was one of many highlights of my recent trip to that city. His main theme was that- in his graceful, tireless way- he is deeply frustrated. He is frustrated that America and Americans have accepted systemic poverty and inequality as status quo. He is frustrated that those with more seem to have lost any connection to the fact that their own fates- their prosperity and that of their children- are linked to the fortunes of those with less than themselves. He is frustrated, after having lived and worked through the civil rights movement, that there isn't the same strong effort today to bring the church outdoors; instead, we get prosperity preachers teaching us to celebrate our own material gain.
Reverend Black wasn't the only person who expressed frustration in the first leg of our trip. Anyone who suspects that America- all of America, even a wonderful and elegant city like San Antonio- is cracked through with poverty is absolutely correct. Of course, no clear "answer" emerged in our conversations with San Antonians. But many of them voiced ideas that have made sense to me for a long time. Working locally. Rebuilding small areas. Getting businesses in, creating jobs. Starting businesses within the community. Old-fashioned community development and empowerment.
I had the chance to meet up with an old friend doing just that kind of work in my time in the city: Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of HUD and San Antonio Mayor. Henry has set up an extraordinary organization, American Sunrise, which is tackling neighborhood blight from the ground up. Sunrise uses a powerful mix of two forces practically guaranteed to empower individuals- education and home-ownership- to revitalize one square-mile at a time in Prospect Hill. By rehabilitating dilapidated homes and selling them at affordable rates, teaching home-ownership and personal finance skills, and providing an Afterschool/summer learning center for the area's children, Henry and everyone at Sunrise are helping families that are working hard live with the dignity they deserve.
Organizations like American Sunrise are invaluable in helping the working poor create stable neighborhoods and get on the property ladder because they recognize the holistic nature of poverty. The challenges facing those living in poverty create a mutually reinforcing cycle. Poor education leads to low-grade or nonexistent employment opportunities. An area with low employment rates and little economic vitality is capital starved- one outcome of which is low property values and a weak tax base. Without a strong tax-base, there's little hope of capital improvements for a community, and little hope in particular for its schools- bringing us back to education. It's difficult to talk realistically about revitalizing education if kids are going home to impossibly distracting or unsafe environments. At the same time, neighborhoods cannot rejuvenate without an economic motor. By tackling these issues on parallel tracks, Sunrise is- on a small scale- presenting a model of what life for working Americans could look like.
As we travel through America on this tour, the RtD team and I are eager to look not only for problems, but also for successful solutions that provide an informed background for own programs and action. Realizing the Dream's goal is two-fold: to make poverty in America the central public policy issue I believe it needs to be, and to serve as a resource for addressing the problems we uncover. In American Sunrise, and leaders like Reverend Claude Black and Henry Cisneros, I see inspiration and partnership in both of these missions.
Martin Luther King, III: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 6:01 AM, Jun 28, 2006 in
Civil Rights
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