I read Alice Walker’s essay “Looking for Zora” when I was in college. I had never heard of Hurston and it would be several years before I actually read any of her work. I’ll admit that I am not a fan of her most famous novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” I much prefer her short stories (one of my favorites is “Sweat”).

Since my introduction to Hurston in college, I’ve read her memoir “Dust Tracks on a Road” as well as other books about her life and work. I have found her to be complicated like most of us are. She appears fearless and also insecure. She fought for herself at a time when other women were circumscribed from opportunities. Her racial politics are not mine and she never defined herself as feminist. It turned out that Walker presented (by necessity?) a very truncated version of Hurston’s life, work, and especially her politics.

When I read Robert Hemenway’s “Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography” (1977), I learned for the first time about the sex scandal that eventually led Hurston to leave Harlem for good. The incident is only mentioned in passing.

It’s been on my long list of future projects to learn more about this incident as a way to better understand how black women interacted with the criminal legal system in the early through mid-20th century. Virginia Lynn Moylan’s biography of Hurston’s final decade provides useful information and context about the false molestation charges leveled against her.

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Once again, the terrifically talented Sarah Jane Rhee was present with her camera at Wednesday’s Chicago School Closings Protest. I have selected some of the photographs that illustrate the message that we need to fund schools rather than prisons/jails.

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

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Source

I was perusing a used book store in Evanston last month and came across a first edition copy of Bayard Rustin’s collected writings. I am re-reading them now. I often wish that his contributions were better known. Those who do know something about him probably know that he was an ally to Dr. King and perhaps also that he was an openly gay man (at a time when that was perhaps as dangerous). Since we have spent the better part of this week discussing civil rights and the LGBT community, I thought that it would be fitting to revisit Rustin’s contributions since he isn’t a household name among the icons of the black freedom movement in the U.S. For me however, Bayard Rustin is/was a giant. In reading about the black freedom movement, I gravitated to him, Septima Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer and later Ella Baker as organizers of understated but unparalleled skill.

Rustin was a Quaker and a pacifist. In 1944, he was drafted & as a conscientious objector (CO) he refused to serve. For this, he was sentenced to prison:

“On February 17, 1944, a court found Rustin guilty of resisting the draft and sentenced him to three years (most COs received one year and a day) in the federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky, a segregated prison in a segregated state. On one visit to white COs, Rustin was beaten by a white prisoner who only stopped when he realized that neither Rustin nor the other COs were fighting back. Rustin’s protests against racial segregation, and his open homosexuality, were a source of growing tension. So in August 1945, he was transferred to the higher-security penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he served out the remainder of his time.

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Fund Schools Not Jails!
March 27, 2013

Erica R. Meiners is a Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Education at Northeastern Illinois University. She is the author of Right to be hostile: schools, prisons and the making of public enemies (2009) and articles exploring the school to prison pipeline. She is a member of her labor union, University Professionals of Illinois, and actively involved in a number of non-traditional and popular education projects including an anti-prison teaching collective (Chicago PIC Teaching Collective) and the Chicagoland Researchers and Advocates for Transformative Education (CReATE) and she is currently teaching classes at Stateville Prison and St. Leonard’s Adult High School. 

Thousands of people converged downtown today to speak back to Chicago’s unelected school board against the proposed closure of fifty-four public schools in Black neighborhoods. Amidst the colorful and pithy signs held up by teachers, parents, and young people my favorite (topping even the signs from the fall 2012 Chicago Teacher’s Union strike proclaiming Rahm loves Nickelback) was Fund Schools Not Jails!   

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

While it might appear that the struggle to shutter our prisons, to decriminalize marijuana and sex work, or to release people from prison early on “good time,” is disconnected from the fight to keep open and fully funded high quality neighborhood schools in Black communities, the two are intimately linked.
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This August, it will be 18 years since I moved to Chicago from my hometown of New York City. I can hardly believe that I’ve been here this long. I moved here for graduate school and never expected to stay. But Chicago is a city that grows on you. I’ve come to love this place. Not as much as I love New York where I was born and where much of my family still lives. But it’s a close second in my heart now.

When Rahm Emanuel announced that he would run for Mayor of Chicago. I had a viscerally negative reaction. I ranted to anyone and everyone that he was a corporatist who would seek to further privatize the commons. I supported his opponent Miguel Del Valle in the primary. I believe that the city would be in much better shape had Del Valle won but the truth is that I would have voted for almost anyone besides Emanuel.

Now we find ourselves under constant and coordinated assault by Emanuel and his allies in the business community. He closed down six mental health clinics last year with a promise to target more. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) decided to increase its fares and Emanuel responded that riders who were unhappy should consider driving instead. In just a few weeks, the CTA will close all red line stops from Cermak to 95th street for 5 months effectively cutting off much of the Southside from the rest of the city. Emanuel is pushing a new mandatory minimum gun bill (HB2265/SB1003) designed to spike the prison population by nearly 4,000 in the next decade and costing us nearly $1 billion more in state prison funding. And the coup de grace is his recently announced decision to close 54 Chicago Public schools on the West and South sides of the city. He has been called the “Murder Mayor.” The title is earned and well-deserved.

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Frosting
by Langston Hughes

Freedom
Is just frosting
On somebody else’s
Cake —
And so must be
Till we
Learn how to
Bake

In most cases, it is already a FELONY to illegally possess a gun in Illinois. Illinois has among the strictest gun laws in the nation.

In the next few days, however, the Illinois House will vote on HB2265, a bill that would increase the mandatory minimum sentence for weapons-related offenses from one year to three. There is corresponding bill in the Senate (SB1003).

This bill originated on the recommendation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and is being enthusiastically advocated for by Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.

When Illinois imposed a mandatory minimum in 2011, there was no deterrent effect. In fact, the murder rate increased by 16 percent. Rahm Emanuel wants to increase the prison population while closing schools. This “anti-gun” legislation will spike the prison population by nearly 4000 in the next decade, for no public safety gain. TWO NEW PRISONS WOULD BE NEEDED. This alone will require $974 million more in prison funding (source).

Rather than address gun violence in Illinois, HB2655/SB1003 is likely to add to our problems as a state by burdening an already over-taxed prison system and increasing our fiscal woes.

Tell your legislators No to HB2265/SB1003.

HB2265/SB1003 would increase the mandatory minimum prison sentence for unlawful use of a weapon. This bill allows legislators to look like they are being “tough on crime” while doing NOTHING to address the root causes of gun violence.

Your legislators are likely supporting this bill. Do not let legislators pretend to address the problem of gun violence by sweeping more young people in prison. Tell them to invest in proven methods of violence prevention. Please take 30 seconds to contact your reps with this LINK.

Ask them to Vote “NO” on HB2665/SB1003 because:

1) HB2265 will cost Illinois taxpayers nearly $1 Billion over 10 years and will increase the state’s prison population by nearly 4,000 inmates, requiring the opening of two prisons to house them.

2) There is no conclusive evidence that increased prison sentences decrease the number of gun assaults. In fact, there is growing national consensus that mandatory minimums simply don’t work!

Demand that our lawmakers to invest in the things that we know create safe, sustainable communities – good schools, decent jobs, and social services – not building more prison cells and passing laws like HB2665/SB1003 to fill them.

The same neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence are also devastated by mass incarceration. The proposed law will make things worse for communities already decimated by poverty, foreclosures, poor schools and drug addiction.

The fact is, we can’t incarcerate ourselves into safety. We can only make our communities safer by investing in jobs, drug treatment, schools, physical and mental health, and providing wrap-around programs and support both for victims of crime, and people returning for prisons.

Note: Feel free to share the following Fact Sheet (PDF) created by the John Howard Association about HB2265/SB1003.

From Sociological Cinema:

“This short news documentary examines the relationships between race, poverty, incarceration, crime, and the war on drugs. It focuses on Baltimore, and its very high crime rates, showing how poor residents get attracted to crime and the drug business as a means of economic survival…

Read the accompanying story here.

Below is a shorter news clip from 2008:

On my bad days, I like to remember that we have a generation of young people who are as committed to social justice as any who have come before. In Chicago, young people are mobilizing against Rahm Emanuel’s announced school closures; the largest in this nation’s history.

Sara Johnson, a senior at Roosevelt High School and a student leader with Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools, explained the coalition’s demands:

As usual, my friend, the intrepid & gifted Sarah Jane Rhee was on the scene of the student protest documenting the action. We, in Chicago, are blessed that Sarah lives here and that she is so generous with her photography skills. You can see all of Sarah’s photographs from yesterday’s student protest here. Her caption for the photos reads:

“On Monday, March 25, 2013, the first day of spring break for many CPS schools, Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools held a press conference at CPS Headquarters calling on the mayor and CPS to abandon its plan to shutter 50+ schools. They made three specific demands, which were detailed in an oversized letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel: 1) an immediate moratorium on ALL school closings; 2) TIF funding to be reformed and the funds to be used for CPS schools; and 3) an elected school board. From the press conference, the students and allies marched two blocks north to City Hall and crowded into the mayor’s 5th floor office, where they demanded to meet with Rahm. The mayor’s office sent out a representative who received the oversized letter with demands to take to the mayor. The students employed the people’s mic (i.e. “mic check!”) to relay their message to the press that was present and chanted “We’ll be back!” as an indication that this, their first action, would not be their last.”

Below are a few wonderful photographs documenting yesterday’s student protest:

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/25/13)

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/25/13)

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