AN UNFINISHED JOURNEY

America Has Made Great Progress On Race, But Racism Hasn't Vanished

When you've witnessed, as I have, the astonishing progress in American race
relations over the past half-century, it's easy to feel good about how far
our nation has come.

It's easy, that is, unless you struggle daily with problems that arise
directly from racism or disproportionately affect low-income blacks.

That's what Ted Shaw does.

Shaw was in town Tuesday and stopped by the Observer. A New York native and
Columbia University law school graduate, he's president and
director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. The
LDF was founded in 1940 under Thurgood Marshall's leadership to provide
legal assistance to poor blacks. Originally part of the NAACP, it has been
independent since 1957.

I first encountered the LDF in the 1960s when I was a student at the
University of Mississippi and LDF lawyers were representing James Meredith
in his legal fight to integrate the school.

Meredith won admission, but on registration day a riot erupted. Federal
marshals on campus to protect him were assaulted with guns, bricks, bottles
and Molotov cocktails. Tear gas engulfed the campus. President John Kennedy
sent in federal troops to quell the insurrection. Two men died and 28
marshals were wounded by gunfire.

I consider the Ole Miss riot to be the last battle of the Civil War. Soon
the federal Voting Rights Act would change the face of Southern politics
and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society would do much to alleviate the region's
grinding poverty.

Shaw sees the progress, but he deals daily with cases that show the bad old
ways are not gone. He knows, too, that many whites don't see the problems.
Among the LDF's current concerns:

. Schools that serve many low-income minority children are under-funded and
failing to offer adequate educational opportunities. "There's no right
under federal law to a quality education," he said. "Our view is if we're
going to talk about amending the Constitution, that's the place to start."

. Critics of the Voting Rights Act say the era of racial discrimination is
over and federal oversight of state actions is no longer needed. Not so,
says Shaw. He cites instances of voter intimidation, purges of voter rolls
that disfranchise qualified minority voters, voting machines that
suspiciously break down in low-income precincts.

. To many observers, the war on drugs has become a war on blacks. Addicts
are dealt with as criminals, minor drug dealers get major prison time and
persons convicted of drug offenses lose their voting rights, can't get
college loans and face limited job opportunities once released.

According to one study, African-Americans make up only 13 percent of the
country's drug users but 55 percent of those convicted of drug possession
and 74 percent of those imprisoned for possession. If drug laws were
enforced consistently, Shaw said, Jeb Bush and his family would be kicked
out of the Florida governor's mansion because it's public housing and his
daughter is guilty of drug offenses.

He recalled Tulia, Texas, where a 1999 sting run by a white undercover
agent resulted in the arrest of 46 persons, 39 of them poor blacks, on
bogus drug charges. With the LDF's help, all were freed and paid damages
totaling $6 million for the gross miscarriage of injustice.

Talking with Ted Shaw offers a jolt of reality about racial justice in
America -- a reminder that it's a work in progress, not an accomplished fact.