Article/Column

Baltimore AFRO-American Newspaper

Enough is Enough!

Last Saturday, September 25, we marked the 50th anniversary of racial integration at Little Rock's Central High School. It should have been a moment when Americans of every race could come together and – without equivocation – applaud our progress toward justice and equity.

Instead, a stark example of racial injustice in our own time captured the nation's attention.

The struggle for equal justice under the law being waged by six Black high school students in Jena, LA, called the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, other civil rights organizations and thousands of young Americans of every racial background to that small central Louisiana town.

Ms. Valencia Mohammed, a writer for the AFRO newspapers, reported the events from the scene: A dispute at Jena High School over whether Black students could sit underneath a tree traditionally reserved for White students had spiraled into threatening nooses hung from the tree and, over time, into escalating, racially-charged violence.

Although the White students involved in hanging the nooses and instigating some of the fights received no serious punishment, five of the six young Black students allegedly involved in an assault upon a White student were charged with serious felonies as adults.

Almost no one traveling to Jena for the march and rallies argued that anyone proved to have assaulted another person should avoid punishment. Rather, it was the racially-unequal application of justice so evident in the Jena response that energized one of the largest civil rights rallies in years.

I have been working with Howard University Law School Dean Kurt Schmoke and his students to assist the Jena Six. Earlier this week, we in the Congressional Black Caucus met personally with Rev. Al Sharpton and the parents of Mychel Bell to develop a strategy to have this young man released – and to address similar abuses by prosecutors and judges throughout our country.

Nevertheless, it will be the manner in which our nation as a whole meets and overcomes the wider challenges of unequal treatment in America that will have the most lasting significance.

As Theodore Shaw, head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund has observed: "While the Jena Six [controversy] is an important case, it is emblematic of a larger pattern of disparate treatment of Black and Brown people around the country. . . . We're not in the 1940's or 50's. Things are a lot better than they were then. [But] there is still a lot of work to do."

It was this larger pattern of racially disparate treatment that drew thousands of people to Jena, LA. Black and White Americans alike – and, especially, the young people of our time – were voting with their feet.

The cry of this renewed civil rights struggle is clear: "Enough is enough!"

All too often, our criminal justice system fails to assure that Americans who have committed the same offense receive the same penalty, without regard to their race.

Our public schools fail to give all of this nation's young people the same empowering start in life. Our system of health care fails to provide all Americans with equal access to high quality care. Comparable disparities continue to block the legitimate aspirations of millions of Americans for good jobs and safe, affordable homes.

In recent years, these harsh realities, so evident to Americans of Color, have been given lip service by the broader society. Yet, effective, progressive change has yet to take place. Instead, national policy has been dominated by leaders who believe that America's past efforts to achieve social justice, economic equity and racial reconciliation have been sufficient. Insisting that we now live in a "color blind" society, they argue that we may not use race-conscious legal remedies to pursue equitable goals.

These powerful opponents of constructive, peaceful change have included the current occupant of the White House, his allies in the Congress and at least four members of the United States Supreme Court.

However, as the conflict in Jena illustrates, Americans by the millions – emboldened by a new generation of young people impatient for change – are now demanding equal justice and expanded opportunity.

Another large step in this nation's halting march toward justice is on the way. Our society must find both the will and the way to peacefully achieve that progressive change.

The American civil rights movement of the last century has been applauded throughout the world for its devotion to Dr. King's non-violent philosophy. Yet, as those who pay close attention to the lessons of history will recall, intervention by the 101st Airborne Division was required fifty years ago to allow nine Black students to safely enroll in that Little Rock high school.

History also reminds us that non-violence was not the only approach pursued by the dissatisfied young people of Dr. King's time. There were also those determined to create a new, more equitable political and social reality "by any means necessary."

What, then, would lead anyone today to think that the growing pressure for constructive change in our society today must necessarily follow a peaceful course? The violence that led to the march in Jena should give us pause.

The march toward a truly "color-blind" society in America will be peaceful only if we undertake the concrete policies required to chart that course.

We must give far greater priority to addressing effectively the violence that has come to pervade both our domestic society and our international policies. Equally important, we must continue to remind those who resist peaceful change of this compelling reality:

"Peace is more than the absence of tension and violence," as Dr. King taught us a generation ago. "It is the presence of justice."

America's leadership would do well to listen and learn from the lessons of our history.

Enough is enough!

- The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings represents the 7th Congressional District of Maryland in the United States House of Representatives.