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An American “Racial Cleansing”

richard

Series Documents Ouster of Black Populations

A mention of slavery in an Arkansas county that by the mid-1990s was devoid of blacks set a specialist in computer-assisted reporting on a journey that lasted more than 10 years and resulted on Sunday in the first of a four-part series on an American “racial cleansing.”

“Beginning in 1864 and continuing for approximately 60 years, whites across the United States conducted a series of racial expulsions. They drove thousands of blacks from their homes to make communities lily-white,” read the first installment of the series by Elliot Jaspin of the Washington bureau of Cox News Service.

“In at least a dozen of the most extreme cases, blacks were purged from entire counties that remain almost exclusively white, according to the most recent census.

“The expulsions were violent and swift, and they stretched beyond the South. But they remain largely unacknowledged in standard histories of America.

“The computer analysis of thousands of U.S. census records dating back to the Civil War identified about 200 counties, most in states along the Mason-Dixon Line, where black populations of 75 people or more seemed to vanish from one decade to the next. . . . in 103 cases, the data indicated that there might have been a conscious effort by whites to drive blacks out.”

The series started Sunday in the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, the Cox paper that sponsored the project; the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union; the Journal-News in Hamilton, Ohio; the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post; the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer and the Middletown (Ohio) Journal. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cox’s flagship newspaper, was not among them. Hank Klibanoff, managing editor/news, could not be reached for comment.

A box accompanying the first installment identified 14 counties that “stand out in the history of expulsions”: Mitchell County, N.C.,; Washington County, Ind.; Comanche County, Texas; Polk County, Tenn.; Lawrence County, Mo.; Sharp County, Ark.; Marshall County, Ky.; Boone County, Ark.; Forsyth County, Ga.; Dawson County, Ga.; Uniocoli County, Tenn.; Lauren and Whitley counties, Ky.; and Vermillion County, Ind.

A book expanding on the newspaper series is nearly completed, as is a documentary directed by Marco Williams, who produced and directed the 2003 award-winning “Two Towns of Jasper,” about the 1998 racially motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas.

Jaspin, 60, told Journal-isms the project began about 1995 in Berryville, Ark., when, to kill time, he visited the small town’s history museum and came across a photo of a “Ma and Pa Kettle-type.” Below the photo was the will of the farmer in the photo, which stated, among other things, “I leave five slaves” to his wife, Bessie. “There was a sense of revulsion” at the artifact of slavery, Jaspin said, but also a realization that he saw no black faces in the town, which attracts tourists drawn to country-and-western music. “I even took to looking into cars as they passed me on the road,” he said.

Jaspin grew up in the all-white New York suburb of Baldwin, Long Island, and went to Colby College in nearly all-white Maine. As a journalist, he specialized in investigations. In 1979, he was co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize for local specialized reporting while at the Pottsville (Pa.) Republican, and in 1989 he founded the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.

When he returned to the Cox Washington bureau, Jaspin programmed the computer to find all the all-white or virtually all-white counties in Arkansas, he said. One-third fit the description. Then he expanded his request geographically. Next he looked for counties where the black population had dropped by 50 percent or more. “That’s when I came across this racial cleansing,” he said.

To qualify for the “cleansing” distinction, he said, there had to be a 50 percent or more drop in the black population; an ultimatum issued to African Americans to either leave or die; and contemporary accounts substantiating what had happened. Also, the expulsion had to have been successful.

As he proceeded, Jaspin said he realized “I was providing a history that was almost completely from white sources. I had to go back . . . and make a concerted effort to find black voices and not just provide the white version of history,” he said.

That proved difficult because “blacks were not educated. You don’t have diaries.” Moreover, the expulsion was so complete, “I couldn’t even find graves” of African Americans in the counties where they once lived. Eventually, Jaspin said he found notes from census-takers that had not been not allowed to become public for 70 years. The notes contained interviews with blacks who were driven out, and Jaspin was able to find some of their descendants.

In Magoffin County, Ky., he discovered records of 15 people who had changed from black to white from one census to the next.

The story is compelling not only as investigative reporting, but also because “the power of this historical story . . . really had not been told,” Oriana Zill de Granados, productions director at the Center for Investigative Reporting told Journal-isms. Zill said the center helped Jaspin land a book contract with Basic Books, and that the center is coproducing the 90-minute documentary, to be called “Banished.”

“Reaching across different platforms” – newspapers, books, film – “really magnifies the power of the story,” she said.

“Very few people really understand why there are a number of counties today that are all-white,” film director Williams told Journal-isms, explaining why he was attracted to the story. But, he said, “I found myself drawn to ask a question: Why should we care 100 years later?” To help answer that, “I sought to find communities where white residents, or the descendants of black residents who might be there or are doing some investigation into their family history, are looking for repair, remedy or redress.”

And that is what the documentary will focus on, Williams said. A community in Boone County, Ark., addressing how to change the town’s image. African Americans whose ancestors lived in Forsyth County, Ga., mulling over how their forebears were never properly paid for their land. Brothers in St. Louis asking the town of Pierce City, Mo., to exhume the bodies of their grandparents.

Zill said she was negotiating to have the film, which was principally funded by the Ford Foundation, shown theatrically and then on television.

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U.S. Aims to Break Cuba’s “Information Blockade”

“A U.S. presidential commission on Monday urged Washington to spend $80 million to help nongovernment groups hasten a transition to democracy in Cuba, but some dissidents here said the move would do them more harm than good,” Anita Snow reported for the Associated Press.

“The recommendations by the Presidential Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba come just as Fidel Castro’s Cuban government is moving to strengthen its leadership and institutions to ensure the status quo.

“U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice released the commission’s report during a Washington news conference that international journalists in Havana followed by teleconference.

“The $80 million in new funds includes . . . $24 million to ‘break the Castro regime’s information blockade’ and expand access to independent information including through the Internet and $15 million to support international efforts at strengthening civil society and in transition planning.

“But some dissidents worried that the Cuban government could use the new funding as a pretext to harass or even arrest opposition leaders on the island. Communist officials accused 75 opponents rounded up in 2003 of being on the U.S. government payrolls. Both the dissidents and Washington denied the allegation.

“‘I really appreciate the solidarity of the United States government and people, but I think that this report is counterproductive,’ said dissident journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe. ‘It supports the government’s hard-line sector to justify repression.'”

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McClatchy Names Mi-Ai Parrish Publisher in Boise

The McClatchy Co. today named Mi-Ai Parrish publisher of the Idaho Statesman in Boise, the company announced, making her the rare Asian American publisher of a mainstream newspaper.

“Parrish is the deputy managing editor for features and visuals at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, McClatchy’s largest newspaper, where she has worked since 2001. Since joining the Star Tribune, Parrish has held several leadership roles in the newsroom and led a number of successful initiatives, including rebuilding the Sunday newspaper and reshaping the features sections,” the announcement said.

“She is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association and was the fundraising chairwoman for its national convention in Minneapolis last year.”

Parrish, 35, was born in New York and grew up in the Washington area. Prior to joining the Star Tribune, Parrish was the deputy managing editor for arts and features at the San Francisco Chronicle. She has also held key editing posts at the Arizona Republic, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.

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Mob Boss Reportedly Ordered Geraldo Rubbed Out

“You might say Philly has a special meaning,” to Geraldo Rivera, “who will introduce his recently taped interview with mobster-turned-informant Tommy ‘Horsehead’ Scafidi, on his Fox show “Geraldo at Large,” columnist Michael Klein wrote Sunday in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Rivera learned recently, through Fox29 reporter Dave Schratwieser, that mob boss John Stanfa had ordered Scafidi to have him rubbed out.

“Stanfa was furious that Rivera and crew had shown up at Stanfa’s warehouse about 15 years ago and started peppering him with mob-related questions. ‘He was insulted by my confrontational approach,’ says Rivera, who says he was also threatened years ago in New York by John Gotti’s boys.

“Stanfa wanted two guys on motorcycles to whack Rivera if he returned to Philly. Scafidi told Rivera he talked Stanfa out of it: ‘I said, “John, with all due respect, you can’t . . . this isn’t Italy . . . you can’t kill reporters or cops.” And he didn’t say nothing. . . . So, I… I . . . I got a little panicky.”

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Stereotypes Said to Entangle Immigration Debate

“If Americans hit the books, they’d find what Al Gore would call an inconvenient truth. The early history of what is now the United States was Spanish, not English, and our denial of this heritage is rooted in age-old stereotypes that still entangle today’s immigration debate.” Tony Horwitz wrote Sunday in an op-ed piece in the New York Times.

Horwitz, the author of “Confederates in the Attic” and “Blue Latitudes,” is writing a book on the early exploration of North America.

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How About a Big Airport Hand for Reporters?

“Let’s start doing for journalists what we do for the members of the military as they walk through the airport: provide them a loud round of applause and offer to buy their dinner or a round of drinks,” Roland S. Martin, editor of the Chicago Defender, wrote Friday in his syndicated column for Creators Syndicate.

“How on one hand can we say that American soldiers are giving their lives for the American way of life, democracy and all that other feel good stuff, yet get ticked off when journalists at the New York Times or the Washington Post do their constitutionally-protected job of informing citizens of the US of A what our country is up to?”

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Black Consumers Have More Money to Spend

“According to a new study from Arbitron Inc. and Scarborough Research, black consumers are educated, successful and have money to spend. The study, The Arbitron/Scarborough Black Consumer Study 2006 – Five Years Later: Urban Dictates – Where Are We Now, looks at the current state of the black consumer market and compares it to 2000. It shows that, with more than $760 billion in spending power, black consumers today represent a critical and growing target market for advertisers.” Radio Ink reported today.

“The new study shows that, of 30 million black persons age 12+ in the United States, or 12 percent of the US population overall, black persons are more likely to be college graduates, have more money to spend, spend more money on things like cars and cell phones and are more likely to own their own homes than they were five years ago.

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Tom Brokaw to Report on Black Underclass

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw is working on a documentary about illegal immigration, the Washington Post reported today. Meantime, another Brokaw documentary, about the black underclass, is set to run on NBC later this month.

The documentary on the underclass is airing on Sunday, July 23, at 7 p.m. Eastern time on NBC, spokeswoman Jenny Tartikoff told Journal-isms. Brokaw is the correspondent; David Corvo the executive producer; Joe Delmonico and Shoshana Guy are the producers; Bruce Burger and Sam Casalino are the editors; Rayner Ramirez is the field producer; Liz Bowyer is an additional producer; and Erika Beck is the associate producer, she said.

[Added July 11: NBC issued a news release today that said:

“In the upcoming ‘Tom Brokaw Reports: Separate and Unequal,’ Brokaw travels to 200 miles north of New Orleans to Jackson, Miss., for an in-depth report on race and poverty . . . Jackson was just brushed by Katrina, but it struggles every day with the ongoing issues of race in America. Jackson has many examples of great progress: a black mayor; a black editor in chief at its daily newspaper; a black professional class sending children to elite universities. However, Jackson also has thousands of blacks who are every bit as stranded as the people in New Orleans, and millions of others across the country.

[“‘Separate and Unequal’ is an honest look at the progress that’s been made, and the problems that persist, 40 years after the civil rights movement. It focuses on several students at an inner city high school in Jackson, and follows them from last fall through the school year, showing first hand how problems like poverty, teen pregnancy, absentee fathers, and drug addiction play out in the lives of young people. Brokaw interviews students, parents, and teachers, as well as members of Jackson’s black elite as they grapple with the problems of neighborhoods they had left behind. In addition, the broadcast explores the sometimes-surprising ways in which whites did or didn’t choose to help.”]

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Mike McKinney, Madison TV Anchor, Dies at 41

“Mike McKinney, 41, one of Madison’s most popular television personalities, died Sunday in his home,” William R. Wineke reported today in the Wisconsin State Journal.

“He had been suffering from colon cancer for several years, but no cause of death was given. McKinney joined the WMTV (Ch. 15) news team in 1997 and was an anchor and feature reporter for the station as long as his health permitted.

“His death was announced to stunned silence Sunday at the beginning of a Madison Pride rally. McKinney had, over the years, raised thousands of dollars for AIDS research and assistance to victims of the disease through participation in an annual AIDS bicycle ride from the Twin Cities to Chicago.

“In 2000, McKinney was one of 10 area people honored by the Wisconsin State Journal’s ’10 Who Made a Difference’ feature. He said at the time that being a television anchor was ‘the only thing I ever wanted to do’ and that he overcame a severe stutter in his childhood by memorizing and reciting the speeches of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in school and in church.”

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Philly Sets Services for Photographer Mpozi Tolbert

“The family of Mpozi Mshale Tolbert, 34, a photographer for The Indianapolis Star who died Monday, has scheduled a memorial service for him at 11 a.m. July 15 in the International House, 3701 Chestnut St., in his hometown of Philadelphia,” the Indianapolis Star reported on Saturday.

“That memorial service is publicized in The Philadelphia Inquirer in that newspaper’s story about Tolbert’s life and accomplishments. A memorial service was held for him Friday at Stuart Mortuary, 2201 N. Illinois St., Indianapolis. Another service was held at the Murphy Art Center, 1043 Virginia Ave., where his photos are on display.

“Family members said the Marion County coroner’s office has notified them that there was no initial indication of what caused his death. More tests will be conducted, with results expected in several weeks.”

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