WHY PUBLIC TRANSIT MATTERS - EVEN TO THOSE WHO WON'T USE IT

You have probably noticed a few headlines about the issue of public transit in Birmingham, Jefferson and Shelby Counties. It's easy to dismiss those headlines and move on to the Sports or Lifestyle sections of the newspaper because, after all, it's hard to imagine ever riding a bus to work or anything else in Birmingham. Right?

There has been a lot of political back-and-forth about who is going to pay for it, who's going to control it, whether a gas tax or a vehicle fee will be used, etc. Seems like the usual amount of bickering and posturing on the issue. And frankly, it won't really affect you or your family. Right?

Consider this: Our region's traffic congestion is going up significantly every year. It takes longer to get to work and we're spending more of our personal time stuck in traffic. Our air quality is not healthy, and much of the problem is auto-related. Reversing these trends is essential if our community is going to create new jobs, grow and prosper.

Our transit system has been so poorly funded that we can't imagine a modern transit system that would make a difference...much less make us proud of the system.

We've all traveled to other cities, even cities our same size, that have safe and clean transit systems which take us from the airport to the convention center, but we struggle to imagine that in Birmingham.

Perhaps it's time to do just that...to imagine what could be in Birmingham. We're at a critical point in our community's growth. Are we going to tackle a tough issue, i.e. funding a modern transportation system, or are we going to maintain the status quo and somehow convince ourselves that a few
more lanes on each highway would solve the problem?

Our community is often accused of not being able to get its act together on major issues. And the political process involving transit might give someone the same impression. But in fact, there is a significant amount of unity behind funding a new transit system. The County Commission (4 of the 5 commissioners), the Mayor of Birmingham, several suburban mayors, the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Alliance for
Transportation Alternatives, Region 2020, the
Metropolitan Planning Organization, the editorial board of The Birmingham News and other prominent voices in the community are in agreement about how to move forward.

Unfortunately, our Alabama Constitution forces us to trek to Montgomery and get permission, in a highly political environment, to be able to make a local decision about moving forward on creating a top-flight transit system. That creates a huge and unnecessary political hurdle for a metropolitan area that wants to invest in itself and step up to its own challenges.

Is transit more important than our schools, crime, drug abuse or other community issues? Not necessarily. But, with hundreds of millions of federal matching dollars waiting for us in Washington (money that will go to Houston or Atlanta if we don't want it), no single community growth issue has a greater sense of urgency in terms of defining what our community will be in the future.

The community's growth is at stake. A huge carrot
now hangs in front of us (in the form of federal trans-portation dollars that Senator Shelby can access for us).

We need a significant show of local unity on the issue, because we won't ever have a better chance than now to address it.

Even if you don't imagine yourself ever riding a bus in Birmingham, you surely want Birmingham's economy to grow...for your kids and grandkids.
Now is the time to act. Contact your legislators. Ask them not to hold our region back. Ask them to allow our region to move forward. Imagine what the future can be.

-President and CEO
Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce

Please note: This article is being reprinted with permission from the April 2003 issue of the Birmingham magazine.



WHAT OF OUR WILL HERE AT HOME?
By: Rep. Artur Davis
Alabama's 7th Congressional District
May 27, 2003

Operation Iraqi Freedom is virtually complete and Saddam Hussein is in history's dustbin. The path to Middle East peace may be brighter than it has been since Rabin and Arafat joined hands in the Rose Garden close to a decade ago. Terror remains a constant threat to our psyche but America's will abroad is leaving a dominant stamp.

What of our will here at home? It is clear to this Member of Congress that the Bush Administration's global boldness is not matched by an equal measure of imagination at home. The much-heralded tax cut does have its positive features: I supported the expansion of the child tax credit and the easing of the marriage penalty. But the plan's benefits are tilted too heavily towards the high investor class with few brackets to provide much relief for the $40-80,000 wage earner who is bearing the brunt of our sluggish economy and whose confidence is critical to its revival. Similarly, the Administration's budget is far too stingy to meet the needs of the underserved, and the President has no compelling new ideas to roll back the ranks of the uninsured or to jolt our stagnant school systems into performance.

My party's challenge is to stay relevant during these times of international transition and domestic insecurity. As a new member of Congress in the minority party, I have tried to rise to those challenges. While I am convinced that the world is safer without Saddam than it was with him, I have not refrained from questioning the Administration's go-it-alone strategy towards rebelling rogue states. I believe that our international alliances need to re-energized rather than discarded.

Domestically, I have introduced a series of legislative initiatives to spur home purchases and construction, particularly in rural areas. I recently helped secure passage through the House Financial Services Committee of a major assistance program for first time home buyers. I have continued to work to build bipartisan support for a comprehensive, new community development engine for persistently distressed areas like the Black Belt.

My principles are oriented toward the economic security of my district. I have broken ranks with the Democratic Caucus on bankruptcy reform, energy policy, and forestry policy because I believed that a more partisan approach would wound economic interests critical to my district. At the same time, I have been persistent in my advocacy for a more equitable funding structure for our urban, suburban and rural schools, and I will soon be turning with renewed focus towards the moral crisis of children in poverty. I have praised Governor Riley's boldness in revamping a tax structure that sits heaviest on the backs of the working poor. I will encourage him to go further to empower local governments to undo the tax inequities that remain.

Leadership is in demand at the national, state, and local level and it will be measured by the sum total of individual creative acts. I do not always embrace the label "new generation" politician, but if there is something to it, it will have these qualities: a pragmatic realization that the private sector is not the automatic enemy of progress, balanced with a renewed commitment toward leveling out the inequities that blemish our national life. It will appreciate the singularity of our superpower status, but it won't consign us to bear our burden alone. One last note from the still vital center: intelligent public policy matters now more than ever, it just can't have the stale, "false choice" character to which we have gotten accustomed.



BIRMINGHAM OR BOMBINGHAM: THE DISTANCE YET TO BE TRAVELED
By: Dr. Horace Huntley

Birmingham, Alabama has meant many things to many people. For most African- Americans, and some others who live elsewhere, Birmingham has been synonymous with segregation, hatred, fear, terror, White Supremacy, bombings, castration, police brutality, etc…. Birminghamiams of African decent can obviously relate to the above negative depictions of the city. However, there has always been another Birmingham that few outside of Black Birmingham knew. We loved and defended Birmingham against verbal assaults from friends and relatives who lived in other parts of the country. My son, who purportedly hated Birmingham, and tried to get as far away as possible when he attended college, called from college in upstate New York one night, and admitted to defending this place that he thought he hated so much. Home for most people is a place to be loved and respected. Natives of Birmingham feel no different.

This love/hate relationship has engendered a long tradition of African-American struggle in Birmingham. Harriet Flood and Helen Long were Black women who challenged the terror tactics that were commonplace against Black people in the 1930's. In the 1940's the International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers, an interracial union, defied the terror of the City, the State, and the Company. In the 1950's, when the NAACP was outlawed from operating in the State, the Alabama Christian Movement For Human Rights (ACMHR) was organized, and made a stance that prepared us for the ensuing struggles of the 1960's.

Then, 1963 should be no mystery when the African-American community of our city took on the adversarial white supremacist status quo. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and other ministers in the city forged a movement that challenged racism in all walks of life. Segregation was obviously law, as well as custom. The various public and White private facilities were legally off-limits to African-Americans. Codified by law, segregation was enshrined by custom. This combination worked toward a debilitating mental attitude of White superiority and Black inferiority that many accepted as being normal in this abnormal setting.

The escalation in challenges to this racist status quo prepared Birmingham to ready itself for the Movement: The ACMHR questioned the lack of a single Black police officer in a city that was nearly half Black; Two African-Americans took civil service examinations and were denied acceptance; Blacks rode city buses in defiance of segregated seating laws; Reverend Shuttlesworth attempted to enroll his children in all-White Phillips High School; Students sat-in at various downtown stores; Freedom Riders embarked upon Birmingham in defiance of Bull Connor's threat of imprisonment; Miles College students organized a Selective Buying Campaign. These efforts led to bombings, jailings, and other forms of intimidation. Parenthetically, this harassment, designed to discourage, actually helped to solidify the Movement.

Let's allow some of those members of the Movement to speak for themselves. James Roberson was a student who lived across the street from the Bethel Baptist Church's parsonage where Reverend Shuttlesworth and his family lived. Roberson explained, "We were less than 100 yards from the church. So when the impact of the bomb hit, it felt as if the earth had just erupted. I could feel the thrust of it and the smell of the smoke…. It was powerful." LaVerne Revis Martin spoke of her sit-in activity. "I went to Woolworth's and sat at the lunch counters when a White gentleman coughed and spat in the face of the man next to me. The man next to me smiled and didn't retaliate. He was nonviolent and did what we were supposed to do. I was real glad it wasn't me, because I knew I wasn't non-violent. I would have hoped that I could have been, but he did the right thing." Emma Young was born in 1902 and an active member of the Movement. She stated, "Before all this started we would have to drink out of the 'Colored' fountains. We couldn't sit at the lunch counters to eat. We thought nothing of it. You know I didn't know any better. We just thought that was just the way it was…. To keep from getting into an argument or something, you go on and do like the rules say to do. They told me you don't have to do like that anymore." Nims Gay related the story of the Freedom Riders whose bus was attacked in Anniston in 1961. "These were Black and White freedom riders that we picked up. After we got the Freedom Riders back to Birmingham we brought them down to Reverend Shuttlesworth. Bull Connor came and told Reverend [that] he was watching them…. Brother [Joe] Hendricks carried them over to his house where they stayed." Joe Dickson said "I don't blame everything that happened in Birmingham on Connor. I blame it on the power structure. The power structure here was determined to keep things as they were. We were [committed to change]. White mobs had beaten Reverend Phifer and Reverend Billups, as well as Fred [Shuttlesworth] with chains at Phillips High School…. By the time of the demonstrations, the situation was getting hot."

The month of May marks the fortieth anniversary of the demonstrations that changed the legal status of African Americans in this city. From the first of April 1963 until mid May, daily demonstrations were carried out to pressure the racist status quo into change. The children's crusade, the first days of May, broke the back of the segregationist's regime. Attorney David Vann had led the effort to change the form of government, and thereby unseat Bull Connor. Connor was the symbol that represented the worst of White supremacy in the city.

Between 1961 and 1965, Birmingham encountered a revolution that changed it forever. In the context of that time, African-Americans riding in the front of the bus, sitting at a lunch counter, attending the Alabama Theater, going to school at Graymont or Ramsay, was revolutionary. Desegregation was accomplished. Some believed we had arrived, and that the Movement was over. However, it became clear that much work was still to be done. Integration was not achieved, because when Black people moved to West End, Whites moved out. As the schools desegregated, they progressively became Black. The 11 o'clock hour on Sunday morning remained the most segregated hour of the week.

Yes, we should celebrate this grand anniversary of Civil Rights victories. The Foot Soldiers must be commended for their sacrifices for the good of the city. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a memorial to the struggle and to those who struggled. However, let us not pretend that we solved the problem of the "Color-line." Someone said, "the more things change, the more they remain the same." Things have changed considerably. Although, today we are still faced with problems of hate crimes related to race, class, poverty, sex, war and other maladies that serve to remind us of the distance yet to be traveled.

Dr. Horace Huntley, Director
Oral History Project
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute



"CLICK IT OR TICKET IT"
By: Latoiya Stout

The $25 million dollar seat belt campaign officially began on May 19th. All 50 states and Puerto Rico will run radio and television ads encouraging people to buckle up. Over 12,000 law enforcement agencies will set up checkpoints to make sure people are using their seat belts. Many of the agencies plan to visit high schools to lecture on the importance of this issue. According to Norman Mineta, Transportation Secretary, "Teens and young adults are killed at far higher rates in crashes because they are caught in a lethal intersection of inexperience, risk taking, and low seat belt use --these tragedies are predictable and therefore preventable." According to safety statistics, in 2002, there were 42, 850 traffic deaths. Fifty-nine percent were not wearing seat belts. Nearly 6,000 of those deaths were teenagers and young adults ages 16 - 20.

Jeffrey Runge, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated, "The only way to achieve significant increases in seat belt use is through strong laws and highly visible enforcement of those laws. So we are putting people on notice to 'click it' or expect a ticket." The "Click It or Ticket" program, which has been in effect for 7 years, has increased seat belt usage by eight percentage points in states that have used the program.

In Alabama and across the Nation, the African-American and Latino populations are at a greater risk to be involved in a car crash that results in death or serious injury. Studies show that minorities are less likely to wear their seat belts. The "Click It or Ticket" campaign is expanding efforts to educate the minority populations of the dangers of not wearing safety belts.

In 18 states and the District of Columbia, policemen have the right to ticket anyone not wearing seat belts. In 31 other states, tickets for seat belt violations can be issued, but only if the driver is stopped for another reason. New Hampshire is the only state without an adult safety belt law.

Resources:
Nationals Highway Traffic Safety Administration, http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov
Click-It or Ticket, http://www.clickit-or-ticket.com



THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
By: Redding Pit

The Democratic Party has a great heritage. We have a great tradition. However, people in this state have not fully yet adjusted to the concept that we're in a two-party environment.

By that, I don't mean that there aren't any good Democrats, because there are. But we have a lot of patterns left over from the days when we had only one party and different ways of doing things. It used to be that the Democratic Primary was the election, now, races are decided in November. Yet the way we act often doesn't reflect that new reality.

Our greatest challenge before us, in addition to defining and being right on the issues, is thinking in partisan terms. Two-party competition and strong partisan support for the Democratic Party is healthy for this state. Out of partisan competition and commitment comes the heat of battle, which produces progress for our state.

In Alabama, 1994, the decision as to who governs, and in who's interest they govern, is made in the general election. Yet Democrats are in the habit of working as individuals. In the past, candidates were on their own with no help from an organized party, and essentially, candidates wanted it that way. This is an approach that will no longer work in general elections. Democratic candidates' success depends upon a long-term strategy of working together as a party year-in and year-out.

Last fall was the first time we saw an entire statewide Democratic ticket traveling and campaigning together and for each other. The old habit was for everyone to go his or her own way. It's not a conscious thing-- It's not that people do it on purpose-- It's the way it always was under the one-party, no-party umbrella. Now, those days are over.

Often, people invoke parties' need to stand for something. Yet when a party stands up and takes a position, that same group will say, "Oh, they're being partisan, they're being narrow, we need to be bipartisan and in the broad interest." What's in the broader interest is for the party to have a position and to take it, to advocate it, and to put it forward in competition with the other party. That's what will move this state forward. It is time to work together and put the Party ahead of individual choices.

The next time we take a position as a hard-line party on issues like congressional redistricting, trying to organize the Senate by Democrats, or electing people who stand for something, I want to see that position supported and understood in the editorials. We're not just sitting around in back rooms drinking tea. This Party will stand for something, and fight for something. I'm all for good-spirited people coming together on issues, but sometimes you've got to get in there and fight.

We have renewed our strength and our faith at the local level. We dominated county elections, and we still hold the vast majority of locally elected positions. People are closest and most knowledgeable about issues in their communities, and it is a place where Republican misinformation can't shake what they can see with their own eyes. Democrats win locally most of the time. We need to learn from that record and take back more state and Federal offices. When the Party begins to define issues so that people can understand what is going on, those who run under our banner will be more successful.

People ask me, "Where is the future of the Democratic Party; where are the candidates?" It's the young people who ran statewide and ran well. We've got half a dozen people in their twenties and thirties that have already run statewide. There are people in the legislature that are poised to take this state forward into the future.

We've got great people in elected offices in every corner of Alabama. We are teaming with talented and committed people. What we have to do as a party is put our shoulders to the wheel, understand what our obligations are as a party, and get out there and do it. When Democrats have a strong identity, we'll win more races.

We are in a different environment today than in any point in our state's history, especially since January 20th. It is up to us, the Democratic Party, to take firm and advanced positions on what is needed for the people of Alabama. We've got to think like a Party. I pledge to you that I will work with you to recruit people to develop our issues and our positions at both the state and national levels.

At the state level, we must have our own positions, not broad, vague, sorts of things. We have specific positions on constitutional reform. What do we want in it? We want tax reform and fairness. We want educational funding. We're going to have positions on health care, elderly affairs, youth affairs, and economic progress. We are going to take positions as a party, and we are going to fight for those positions. This is our challenge, and this is something that we must do. Then we must go beyond just taking a position and advance issues in a partisan manner. When this administration falls short, we're going to call their hand. When they come up with an idea that may have some merit, we're going to critique it, and we're going to improve it.

We will oppose people who only want reform to benefit the wealthiest in the state. We will fight to develop reforms in ways that benefit all the people of Alabama. We can do it. We've got the best people. We've got the best resources. We're right on the issues.



DONALD V. WATKINS' STATEMENT CONCERNING HIS PURSUIT
OF A MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL FRANCHISE

Birmingham, AL -- Last year, I have had several very positive discussions with individuals involved in Major League Baseball. They have shown me that my ambition to become an owner of a Major League Baseball team is a concept, which they look upon with favor as they continue to process my application. As we continue through that process, we will of course continue to assess with care the impact of the intense economic uncertainty confronting Major League Baseball over the next several months as the owners and players strive to reach an agreement on a satisfactory contract. I am most grateful for the support and advice I have received from Major League Baseball as I continue to seek the franchise which is right for me.

I have narrowed my options, and I am undertaking the requisite due-diligence with all deliberate speed. However, that speed is likely to be governed by overall developments in Major League Baseball economics over which I have no control. I am under several confidentiality agreements, which make any further public comment on my pursuit of a team inappropriate and impossible. For that reason, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the fans and others in the baseball community who have so earnestly supported me. When we finally complete the application process in the coming months, you will be the first to hear about it right here on the Voter News Network website.