Justice Older Than the Law

     Dovey Mae Roundtree passed away quietly in Charlotte, NC on May 21, 2018 at the age of 104.  Dovey Roundtree was an African American civil rights activist, attorney and ordained minister, born in Charlotte, NC on April 17, 1914. Her father worked as a printer at a local AME Zion Church while her mother was a domestic and a seamstress.  Johnson attended Spellman College and taught briefly in South Carolina before moving to Washington, DC. Because of her college education, Mary McLeod Bethune selected her to be among the first forty African American women who trained as officers in the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.  Later, she entered Howard Law School where Thurgood Marshall was one of her instructors.
As an attorney, her most prominent case came in 1955. Sarah Louise Keys, an African American WAC private had been forced by a North Carolina bus driver to relinquish her seat to a white Marine. Roundtree took the complaint to the Interstate Commerce Commission which on November 7, 1955 ruled that segregated interstate bus travel was banned. The Sarah Keys vs. The Carolina Coach Company decision was hailed as a major breakthrough for the civil rights movement. However, it remained unenforced until US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy used it to support the Freedom Riders Campaign. On May 29, 1961, the Department of Justice ordered the enforcement of the ruling and put a permanent end to segregated interstate travel.  Later, in 1964, she became one of the best known criminal defense lawyers in Washington when she won a not guilty verdict for African American day laborer Ray Crump who had been wrongly accused of murdering a Georgetown socialite.
Her memoir states that “As a woman and a woman of color in an age when black lawyers had to leave the courthouse to use the bathroom, she dared to practice before the court of justice and was unflinching.” She turned her practice to defending the disenfranchised and poor blacks of D.C. and was known as a one-person legal aid society. Today we pay tribute to Dovey Roundtree. “It is on the shoulders of people like Dovey Johnson Roundtree that we stand today, and it is with her commitment to our core ideals that we will continue moving toward a better tomorrow.”  Michelle Obama             

Winner of the Association of Black Women Historians' 2009 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize
A new edition of Justice Older Than The Law: The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree by Katie McCabe and Dovey Johnson Roundtree, will be released in 2019. 

Remarchable Women's March 2018

On January 20, 2018, I was honored to be able to speak at the Remarchable Women's March in Charlotte, NC. Here is the entirety of that speech.

The Best Christmas Ever!

     When I was about 7 years old, attending a small neighborhood school, I had a sincere fascination with the custodian at our school who always sat in the boiler room shoveling coal to keep the heat going. James was a handsome black man with the biggest smile and whitest teeth I had ever seen.  He never came out of the boiler room during the school day.  Students passed the boiler room every day going to lunch. I would always smile at James and give him a shy wave and he always gave me a smile and a wave in return. One day, as I was going to get milk for our daily morning milk break, I decided I had enough of this shy wave and smile and decided to go in and give him a big hug. However, as I entered with arms open wide, he stopped me dead in my tracks with “Oh no! Don’t come in here.”  I did not understand why, but I followed his instructions.  We continued to wave and smile at each other. Then one day, James was gone.  Weeks went by and he was not there.  I felt so sad. I finally asked my dad about James and he reluctantly told me that James had been accused of stealing money from the school office and was in jail. I immediately screamed out in tears that he did not do it, that I knew he did not do it! My heart was broken.  Now I knew where James lived in a little shack in the middle of a cotton field with a big oak tree in the front.  We passed that little house on the way into town and I had seen children playing in the front of the house. As Christmas approached, I asked my dad about those children and what might Santa bring them. That was the moment that I realized that Christmas is for the rich. Now, we were far from rich. My dad was minister on a “mill hill” and my mom sewed all my clothes. We only got one or two cherished things for Christmas, but compared to James we were blessed.  I asked Dad if we might help Santa.  I went through my toys and selected a few good ones to give away. I collected toys from neighborhood friends.  I selected one of my dolls and got mamma to make doll clothes from scarps of cloth.  Mamma always made lots of Christmas candy and cookies and this year we packed some into a nice tin and daddy bought some food items from the grocery. On Christmas Eve morning, daddy and I proceeded to drive to James house with Santa’s sack. When we arrived, the little girl who was about my age, came out.  We told them that Santa had come early and had left some things at our house by mistake.  We gave them the toys and food. Daddy visited a while, and I played with the little girl in the yard. I still remember their dirt floors and little two room house. I remember the rusted tin roof. But most of all I remember how happy we were playing together.  I don’t know who was more delighted, me or them!  I don’t remember what I got for Christmas that year, but I remember daddy and me going to James’ house to deliver Santa’s presents. I remember what they got!  It has stayed with me forever. I will never forget that day. It was a life changing moment for me.

     We are all familiar with the story of the child born in a manger surrounded by farm animals, but very seldom do we consider the conditions and realities of that scene.  We don’t like to think about the poverty associated with the birth of baby Jesus, because Christmas is supposed to be a time of abundance.  We don’t like to consider the violence of an empire characterized by Herod killing children, because Christmas is a time of celebration. We overlook the historical poverty and oppression surrounding the birth of the child because it is uncomfortable and doesn’t fit in with what we have made Christmas to be. We ignore the reality of a poor, immigrant family forced to make a dangerous trip and that the child we celebrate chose to live a life of homelessness.

     The Christmas story is a story that we can imagine in our own time.  There is still the reality of poor immigrant families being forced to make dangerous journeys. This story is played out among the Central American migrants homeless at our border towns. It is played out with the Syrian refugees, cold and hungry in northern Greece.  It is played out in our own towns, in an alleyway or on a street corner or a tent town deep in the woods. It is played out with a neighbor working two jobs and still can't pay the bills. However, the analogy is lost on our politicians who keep assuring us that we should not worry about their fate but focus on our own comfort and safety. This is not the message of the Christmas story.

     We keep hearing that there is a war on Christmas and that we must put Christ back in Christmas. We attended a Christmas parade in a small town this year where there were many churches with parade floats. But not a single church had the manger scene. Their floats only had crosses and one float had a confederate flag on the front with  Peace on Earth on the back. What irony! The war on Christmas comes from some of the very people who yell about a war on Christmas. Every year they are upset because they don’t like the cups at Starbucks or someone saying “Happy Holidays!” I somehow don’t believe Jesus would care about the Starbucks cups or how he was greeted. As the scripture says “You strain a gnat but gulp down a camel.”  The war on Christmas comes from within a person’s heart and soul. If we really want to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, it means forsaking much of our “celebration” and “abundance.” It means forsaking a warm home and elegant meals and tangible gifts. It means abandoning the malls and extravagant spending. It means giving up “over the top” office parties and high expectations for Christmas Day.  Instead, we must take a trip to visit the homeless and feed and clothe them, work in the soup kitchens, house a homeless youth or child, take care of the widow and her children, buy groceries for the poor, help pay medical costs for the sick. We need to visit those in prison and offer them hope and support. Instead of a huge tree ornately decorated in our living rooms, give the tree and gifts to a family suffering from a job loss.  We need to stop telling our children there’s a Santa Claus and involve them in helping us to be Santa Claus for others. And above all, we need to fight for the rights of "the least of these" all year long!  Then we will know the true meaning of Christmas.

     I never saw James again and the family eventually left that little house and it stood empty. It is gone now, but I have thought about them often through the years, especially at Christmas time. Every time we pass the field where that house stood, I can still see them playing in the yard of that little shack with the big oak tree. Talking about James still brings tears to my eyes. How could a man with whom I shared nothing but a smile and a wave, make such an impact on my life? I never knew where the family went. I never knew what fate awaited James. I did know and I still know that James was an innocent man. Above all, James taught me some of the most valuable life lessons I ever learned.  Thank you, James, for helping me understand the true meaning of Christmas.  Thank you for letting me really see poverty for the first time. Thank you for teaching me that the color of our skin does not matter. Thank you for helping me see the unfairness of our justice system. Thank you for gently showing me the inhumanity of man. Thank you for showing me that a smile and a wave can change a life. Thank you for giving me the best Christmas I ever had.

A Knee for Justice

It deeply saddens me that a flag and a song have more meaning than the guaranteed constitutional rights of freedom, equality and justice.  People are offended by kneeling during the anthem but not offended by racism and modern day lynchings. It saddens me that people are more upset about broken windows than about an unarmed man being assassinated by cops or a young child playing in a neighborhood park being shot by police. Slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, segregation, poverty, education inequality, police state justice- no problem-just respect the flag. It is time for those who believe in justice to take a knee. Kneel in prayer for those murdered and oppressed by racism.  Kneel to say that injustice will not be tolerated in this great nation.  Kneel in solidarity as a nation that stands for justice and equality for all people.  Let us not forget that in the 1930s Nazi Germany began arresting thousands of people who refused to salute the Nazi flag and sent them to concentration camps. Not saluting the flag did not mean those brave people did not love their country nor does it mean that the Americans who are bravely refusing today don't love their country.  They are taking a stand on the platform they have to make this country a better place. They are kneeling for freedom, justice and equality. "Our lives end the day we become silent about things that matter." (MLK)

Whose Schools? Our Schools!

    

On July 22, 2017, I had the privilege of speaking at the Charlotte March for Education representing NOW Charlotte. The March for Public Education was held simultaneously in cities across our nation including Washington, DC. The mission statement for the march was that "our public schools will be safe, inclusive spaces for learning and critical thinking, where all children discover their passion(s) and role(s) as citizens. As members of March for Public Education, we aim to advance policy and recursively address issues of: equity, inclusion, accountability, a well-funded institution, and the right to organize." The Charlotte March for Education was held at Marshall Park in uptown Charlotte. There was a small but very enthusiastic group of supporters on a very hot Summer day.  This is an excerpt from that speech:

    Public Education is very dear to my heart. My mother was a public-school educator and I am a proud product of public education. I spent my life in public education and now teach at Central Piedmont Community College. I believe in the power of public education to lift all students out of poverty and adversity and into the realm of opportunity. I have had the privilege of being part of the lives of many public-school students who have dreamed dreams and achieved those dreams.

     As a public-school educator during the first few years of desegregation, I saw firsthand the ravaging effects of poverty and discrimination. I see those same ravaging effects of poverty and discrimination still in our schools today. I see school systems being desegregated. I see the continuing inequity of education in high poverty neighborhoods. But we all know that with the proper funding, support and the belief that all students can achieve and succeed no matter what the circumstances of their birth are, we can raise up all our students- including our most vulnerable- our children in poverty, our homeless and our English language learners.  Education is not a luxury for the wealthy, it is a human right and human rights are not optional!

     Today we stand in a very dangerous place. Our public schools are under attack, not by a foreign force, but by our own President and Secretary of Education. The Trump administration’s policies have become synonymous with educational disparity, misguided focus and inhumane cuts to programs and services. Trump’s proposals to cut public education are a direct threat to the very heart of our democracy. The DeVos plan will cause cuts in vital areas of education- with Special Education, Bilingual Education, medically and emotionally fragile students and our socio-economically disadvantaged students taking the hardest hits. Under the Trump/DeVos education plan, class size reduction is eliminated, professional development is ended and thousands of educators will lose their jobs. Title 1 funds for our high poverty schools will decrease because that money can now be used for other things before even being given to the schools that it is designated for. Twenty-two programs are to be eliminated including after school programs that serve 1.6 million children, most of whom are poor.  Arts programs, foreign language programs, programs for gifted students, mental health services, physical education, advanced placement courses, science and engineering instruction and even the Special Olympics are on the chopping block. Our colleges and universities will suffer the same types of devastating cuts with the elimination of over $700 million in Perkins loans for disadvantaged students and work study programs being cut.  Programs that provide child care for high poverty parents attending college and adult literacy programs are cut. I could go on all day! These cuts not only harm our children, but our families and our single mothers who are trying to improve their lives, making it almost impossible for them to get an education. Due to the race/gender wage gap, women have a more difficult time repaying student loans once they complete college; therefore further cuts to grants and loans are devastating. 75% of educators are women so the loss of thousands of jobs will again hurt working mothers.  And who will benefit? Religious, Private and Charter Schools! Public dollars, OUR dollars unconstitutionally supporting religious and privately-run schools, with little or no accountability.
  

     When I look at our own city with 4,400 students identified as homeless, we are looking at a demographic that Trump and DeVos have only seen from the backseat of their limousines! We are looking at a population that they simply do not care about. We have a President that travels with a moral compass that only points to himself! We will never find common ground with an administration that is cruel and callous to our children. Public school children are not products that Trump and his cronies can make money off of!

     We must stand together to fight this injustice to our public schools across our country and in our state by letting our voices and our votes be heard. We must tell our friends and foes in Raleigh and on Capitol Hill to fully fund public education and that public money must go to public schools. We must demand the schools that our children need to be successful in the 21^st century! We must resist and we must persist- starting today- starting right now! We will not give in and we will not give up! We know the power of education to change lives, neighborhoods and nations. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which we can use to change the world.” When we are here on a hot Summer day in the middle of July defending our public schools, we are defending our vision for a better world! Thank you for being here today!