by Tanuja Surpuriya
Last
week the nation remembered its past, as the Little Rock Nine commemorated
the 40th anniversary of the desegregation of Little Rock's public schools.
On Saturday Memphis looked to the future, as educators, community leaders,
diversity workers, and students took part in a national discussion to find
ways of getting rid of racism by teaching the importance of diversity in
public schools.
Memphis was one of 25 sites across the nation to participate in a video conference of the two-day National Leadership Summit presented by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The Memphis chapter of the NCCJ presented the conference at the University of Memphis, where the audience watched a live satellite feed from Little Rock and then discussed current educational methods and future plans for getting America's youth to participate in building more inclusive communities.
"We're hoping we can take the strategies and ideas that emerged from the talks and use them to come up with an action plan," says Jim Foreman, executive director of the local chapter of the NCCJ. He says the ideas and suggestions from the discussions will be compiled by the national organization and made available to teachers and community leaders across the country.
On Friday, members of the Little Rock Nine, the first African-American students to desegregate Arkansas' Central High School in 1957, addressed the role of public schools in eradicating racism. Saturday's discussion took a look at specific teaching techniques, management of school systems, and the availability of technology.
Foreman says the suggestions from the summit will also be presented to President Clinton, who called for a national dialogue on race in America earlier this year.
by John Branston
While the University of Memphis Tigers and Tennessee Oilers football teams are starving for fans, Mississippi casinos are drawing huge crowds.
Mississippi Tax Commission reports released this week show that casinos in Mississippi River counties racked up a record month in August, taking in $112.5 million in gross revenue. That eclipsed the previous record of $110 million set in March.
Overall, Mississippi casinos along the river and on the Gulf Coast took in $183 million in August, another record. Statewide casino revenues are up 8 percent in 1997 compared to the first eight months of 1996. The river counties, thanks to Tunica, are up 12 percent.
It isn't clear that there is a correlation between the casino boom and poor attendance at college and pro football games in Memphis, which attracted a total of only 40,945 fans for the Memphis-Minnesota and Tennessee-Baltimore games on September 20th and 21st. The University of Memphis has struggled for fan support for years, and the Oilers also drew poorly in Houston once the team announced its intention to leave.
But the Oilers are, by far, the poorest-drawing team in the National Football League when they play in Memphis. Whatever the reasons, a lack of disposable income in the metropolitan area does not appear to be one of them. Tunica County casinos are heavily dependent on the same market. Their record revenues indicate that residents have both leisure time and extra cash, and they are choosing to spend them on gambling.
by Phil Campbell
Think you've got a long commute to work? Try working in Midtown while you keep a home in another state.
No, not Arkansas or Mississippi.
Iowa.
That's what BettyAnne Wilson, marketing and development director for the Memphis-Shelby County Public Library, may be trying to do.
Wilson's husband Richard was recently transferred by International Paper to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The couple is currently staying at a hotel there while they look for a new home. The library's chief fund-raiser says she has yet to sell her Central Gardens home, but says she is keeping an apartment in the area.
Like the rest of county government, the library system requires that employees maintain residence in Shelby County.
Wilson's job at the public library is to raise private money for major capital campaigns, especially for the new central library that is going to be built at 3030 Poplar Avenue. That particular goal is $20 million. Wilson won't say how much has been raised since the Friends of the Library kicked off the campaign in July with a $1 million donation.
Wilson says she keeps in long-distance touch with the staff members she supervises through fax, phone, and e-mail while she's in Iowa.
She won't say how she plans to split her time between Cedar Rapids and Memphis, stressing that she devotes "100 percent" of her time to her job.
"If there is a change in my quality of work, then, yes, this might be an issue," she says. "I am in Memphis at any time that I am needed. If I choose to go to Cedar Rapids on Friday and I am needed on Monday, I will be in the office in Monday.
"I would think there are a number of commuter marriages," she adds. "This is not unusual, two people who have a job they enjoy and love. I don't know if there's a requirement to live together every night."
Wilson's annual salary at the library is $51,495, according to the library system's personnel office.
by Phil Campbell
The National Civil Rights Museum is continuing its search for an executive director, after being rejected by a mid-level administrator from the Smithsonian Institution who wanted to make the museum seem less "frozen in time."
Museum board president Rev. Benjamin Hooks half-jokingly says the board is "still desperately looking" for someone to replace Juanita Moore, who resigned in late 1996 after clashing with the board over the direction of the museum.
Last month the board offered the position to Jacqueline Hicks Grazette, whose last position was in Washington, D.C., as the educational director of the Smithsonian's popular Air and Space Museum, a position she held for four years. For seven years before that, Grazette directed the Smithsonian's African-American Studies Center, which primarily sponsored speakers and educational programs but did not organize exhibits.
Grazette, a native Memphian, said in a telephone interview from Maryland that although she and the museum board agreed on the majority of issues, including the need for a major capital campaign, she ultimately decided to decline.
"I do feel the board wants change for the museum," she says. "We just disagreed on the resources I felt I would need to run a museum." Grazette says she would have restructured the staff, adding a financial director, an operations director, and a director of development. Board members, she says, weren't ready to commit to that.
The civil rights museum has to become more competitive in the-marketplace, Grazette says. "There are a lot of things competing for the tourist dollar. You don't want it to become Disneyland, but you definitely want it to be something that's exciting," she says.
The museum would have been taken down a very different path had Grazette accepted the board's offer. Her ideas about what encompasses "civil rights" extend beyond the history of African Americans. "There's certainly a broader story that can be told about civil rights, including the Holocaust and women's suffrage," she says. Just as her background suggests, Grazette says she would have formed partnerships with area colleges and universities and emphasized educational programs, including adding a rotating exhibit that would be supplemented by speakers and forums. Such programming, she says, would make the civil-rights museum "not seem like it's just frozen in time in the '50s and '60s."
Grazette, 37, characterizes herself as a "young person who speaks up."
"I don't want to be stereotypical, but I don't think everyone's ready for that," she says, adding that Memphis needs to "bring in fresh blood, the next generation of leaders." The board, she says, agreed with her.
by Jacqueline Marino
Spearheading a national effort to fight housing discrimination, Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that HUD will award fair-housing grants totaling $15 million to agencies across the country, including the city's Division of Housing and Community Development.
HCD will use its $100,000 grant to promote fair housing on billboards and media spots. It will also distribute fact sheets, posters, promotional items, and a renter's guide.
"We are pleased, because we do have a need for fair-housing education in the community," says HCD director Debra Brown.
Cuomo announced the crackdown on housing discrimination at the direction of President Clinton, saying the agency plans to step up enforcement actions.
by Tanuja Surpuriya
Despite plenty of evidence that exercise is good for you, Memphis children are still not required to take physical education in public schools.
According to a study published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine, obesity in children can be hereditary, with children of overweight parents at double the risk for being heavy adults. And a couple of years ago, a survey showed that American kids are getting heavier, with the trend still growing. Doctors say a child can buck these trends and maintain a healthy weight with physical exercise.
However, state laws have lowered physical-education requirements, and in Memphis, schools merely "recommend" it.
According to the State Department of Education's Rules and Regulations, a 1987 rule that "required" at least 30 minutes of physical activity for elementary students was traded in 1994 for one that simply "recommended" it, according to Dee Weedon, Memphis City School's lifetime-wellness specialist. There has since been no new state laws mandating physical education in schools, and there is no local policy either.
"There is a great need for having physical education in schools," says Weedon. "We have too many children who are unfit and unhealthy and who cannot perform well in school because of this."
MCS board member Barbara Prescott brought up the issue at the last board of education meeting, after a mother in her district expressed concern that her child did not have any physical education classes in her school.
"I think she opened a whole new can of worms," says Weedon. "And that is good, because we all need to start thinking of this. Every school needs to have recess for children to at least have a break, but a more vigorous physical-education program is needed to improve their health," she says.