Katrina II

I had just met Ingrid, and she asked who he was. I really didn't know then but I remembered him as being in the audience when Jim Webb first came to Charlottesville before the primary.  There were many questions that day, and I am pretty sure that this particular man had asked something, though I don't recall exactly what.  But he's difficult to forget.  He is what people in my parents' generation would have called a "character."  He exudes intellect, and just enough idiosyncracy to cause someone to be maybe, kind of, sometimes every so slightly unsettled. 
Now thanks to Don Wells, I have learned a little more about him.  In his 20's Uriah J. Fields did not always fit in easily with the other members of the civil rights community. 

The sensational challenge to the boycott's black leadership by the Reverend Uriah J. Fields receives detailed documentation. Fields, pastor of Bell Street Baptist Church, resigned as secretary of the Montgomery Improvement Association because of alleged "misappropriation of funds."

But Uriah Fields is a part of history.

The following is taken from Rev. Uriah J. Fields testimony in the conspiracy trials (March 1956) against the blacks boycotting the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. There was violence against the strikers, and an effort to show that the movement was lead by Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Q: Do you remember who called the mass meeting for that night?
  A: Since I promised to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I donGÇÖt know. I am not sure of that. I couldnGÇÖt say.
  Q: Where these minutes made by you?
  A: they were.
  Q: Do they reflect what went on at the meeting on the afternoon of December the 5th, to the bast of your judgement?
  A: They do. However, I donGÇÖt profess to be an adequate secretary.
  Q: Are you not the secretary of the organization?
  A: I am secretary in name, sure.
  Q: What do you mean by secretary in name, sure? Somebody else doing the work with your name signed to it?
  A: I am secretary, but my multiplicity of duties makes it impossible for me to be an efficient secretary.
  Q: Do you mean you are secretary but you are just not efficient?
  A: That is right.
  Q: What are your multiplicity of duties at the present time?
  A: I have to keep in touch with my Creator. It takes a lot of prayer through times like this.

Taken from GÇ£To the mountaintopGÇ¥ by Steward Burns.

Two giants in the Civil Rights movement have already endorsed Jim Webb, and you can read their amazing stories by clicking on the links.

-- Dr. Milton Reid
-- Rev. Curtis W. Harris

Along with more familiar civil rights activists of that era such as Ralph Abernathy and Rosa Parks, Rev. Fields is profiled in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Volume III: Birth of a New Age, December 1955-December 1956.

In addition to annotated transcriptions of King's speeches, sermons, interviews, and correspondence, this volume also includes newspaper articles, impressions of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) as recorded by contemporary observers, and minutes of MIA meetings. It is also enhanced by a comprehensive chronology of events relating to the boycott, a "Calendar of Documents," drawings of scenes in Montgomery by the New York artists Burton Silverman and Harvey Dinnerstein, and a dramatic portfolio of photographs. Local African American activists who conceived, supported, or sustained the boycottFred D. Gray, L. Roy Bennett, Uriah J. Fields, Edgar Nathaniel French, Erna A. Dungee, Ralph David Abernathy, Solomon S. Seay Sr., Fred L. Shuttlesworth, E. D. Nixon, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Rosa Parks, and, not least, Coretta Scott King-receive succinct biographical profiles.

Rev. Fields continues to make waves. As recently as 2004 he ran into a bit of trouble for - singing too loudly.

But more recently Rev. Fields received at least a little recognition earlier this year as he sang Old Man River in honor of Black History Month.

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Tonight was the opening session of the Symposium on Race and Society.  The speaker was a much better known civil rights leader, Julian Bond.  His talk was nothing short of amazing, and he was nice enough to give me a copy of his paper.  Here's how it starts.

Imagine a major hurrican hits New Orleans.  Within hours the President of the United States is on Air Force One headed for the strick city. Upon landing in the no-electricity darkness, with a flashlight held to his face, he announces, "This is the President of the United States and I'm here to help you!"

The year was 1965.  The President, Lyndon Johnson.

Forty years later a more devastating hurricane strikes New Orleans.  Neither the President nor any other feder official is there to help.  The citizen would sustain lasting damage -- and so would the Preident.

Unlike the revolution, Katrina was televised, and what viewers saw was a deluge of degradation and despair.  Tens of thousands of people, mostly black, many elderly and infirm - pleading from rooftopos, herded into and around the city's Convention Center and Superdome without food or water, left to rot in the hot sun along the interstate.

This is a 29 page paper full of information.  About poverty Bond writes

In the region affected by Katrina, more than one million lived in poverty before the storm.  Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama are, respectively, the first, second and eighth poorest states in the union.

Poverty in the United States is not confined to the South, of course.  Today, 37 million Americans live in poverty. They represent about 13 percent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world.  Their number has grown since 2001, with 5.4 million people having slipped below the poverty line during the Bush Administration.

And the gap has grown between the haves and the have-nots.  The top 20 percent of earners take over half the national income, while the bottom 20 percent get just 3.4 percent.

There's much more and I hope he publishes it.  Tomorrow is the first full day of the conference, and I'll try to write more in the evening.

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