[Rockefeller Brothers Fund] Shared Prosperity: The New Voices in Civic Engagement

This article was commissioned for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund's 2008 Annual Review. From the review: "The 2008 Annual Review cover story, 'Democracy in Action, centers on the Fund's Democratic Practice program and examines the issues of elections reform, public financing, and immigration. It includes features by Lauren Foster and Matt Saldaña."

by Matt Saldaña
Photo by Jeff Weiner
June 2009

On a cold day in January 2009, with the economy in freefall and the United States at war on two fronts in the Middle East, Barack Hussein Obama, a self-described "son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas," was inaugurated the country's 44th president.

"We know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness," he said to a crowd of nearly 2 million, huddled together on the National Mall. "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth."

To many, that declaration would have seemed impossible just one year ago. Anti-immigrant rhetoric filled the airwaves for much of 2008 and threatened to upend support for a candidate who had spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. Ultimately, Obama's victory depended not only on the insolvency of such language but also on support by a new class of voters: a coalition of Asian Americans, Latinos, and so-called New Americans born to immigrants in the latter half of the 20th century. According to a study by Pew Hispanic Center, Latinos voted in unprecedented numbers in 2008, favoring Obama by a factor of two to one. Exit polls conducted by CNN show Asian Americans similarly favored Obama and suggest the Latino vote may have handed Obama a victory in several critical swing states, including Indiana and North Carolina.

"We've shown that we have the numbers to really shift the political calculus that goes into election strategy for generations to come. There is no question about the power of the immigrant vote," says Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC).

[View the entire article at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Web site.]

[indyweek] Raleigh's Cuban community: Their stories, their views on Obama's new diplomacy

by Matt Saldaña
June 3, 2009

[...]

Over the past 50 years, the Cuban exodus to the U.S has swung elections, inspired academic studies, spurred CIA-led battles and provided both relief and anguish for Fidel Castro and the 10 U.S. presidents whose terms he has outlasted. Now President Barack Obama has begun the diplomatic dance with Cuba (the U.S. and Cuba have no official high-level relations) and rolled back some of George W. Bush's most ineffective stances toward Cuba, primarily related to the migration of Cubans.

More than 5,000 Cuban exiles live in North Carolina, and many of them settled in the Triangle. Alfonso Sama, who's lived in Durham for the past decade, escaped the country on a raft in 1962. Tony Asion was sent here by his parents in the early 1960s, as one of thousands of parentless "Pedro Pan" kids. Beba Rodriguez missed the 1980 Mariel boatlift, arriving in the U.S. two years later by obtaining an exit visa through Panama. Ezequiel Casamayor and Noelmis Sevila, political dissidents, were flown by the U.S. government to Raleigh as refugees in 2008.

They are united by their flight, but are nevertheless a loose confederacy of exiles. While some fled in the weeks after the 1959 Revolution, others stayed and supported Castro's vision, only to sour of it later. Still others were born into communism, and enjoyed the fruits of a Soviet-supported paradise (albeit one with no room for dissent) before succumbing to the poverty that its collapse left behind. The relative few who have earned priority refugee status in recent years tell stories of humiliation, and time spent in jail, for their political activities—some of them encouraged by U.S. efforts like Radio Martí.

"In no singular moment did I decide to leave Cuba," says Ezequiel Casamayor, 65, who arrived in North Carolina last year with his two sons, two granddaughters and daughter-in-law. "I was part of the opposition there, fighting for a change on the island. But every day was harder to survive in Cuba. If you aren't communist, there is no life for you there."

[View the entire article at the Independent Weekly.]

[indyweek] Trash Talk: Where should Orange County stick its garbage?

by Matt Saldaña
March 11, 2009

Amber Kirby, who works from home for a database marketing company, lives in the heart of dairy farmland in southwestern Orange County. She and her husband are raising their two children on their homestead, which the Kirby family has owned for generations.

"One of the reasons we wanted to live back here is it's nice and peaceful," she said. "We have herds of deer we've named."

Yet the ancestral land in Bingham Township also has the distinction of being sandwiched between two sites the county is considering for a 250 ton-per-day waste transfer station. Six days a week, roughly 45 dump trucks from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough and the University of North Carolina would pass her house on the two-lane N.C. 54 en route to the station. From there, semi-trailer trucks would haul the trash to an undetermined landfill, as the Orange County landfill will be full in 2011. As Kirby put it, her family lives "between a rock and a hard place."

That phrase could also apply to Orange County, which like any government, has to wrestle with the sticky issue of where to put its trash.

Over the past 10 years, the commissioners' failure to solve the waste issue has spawned intense opposition in Orange County: Citizens' groups have formed to fight the landfill and waste transfer station, threatening to file an injunction against the county over the site. The federal government investigated racial discrimination claims over the landfill on Eubanks Road. And other town councils and appointed boards, alienated by the county's actions, or lack of them, are fighting to protect their turf.

As for the recent controversy, 16 months and $254,000 later—the amount the county paid to Charlotte-based consultants, Olver Inc., to search for the best location for the waste transfer station—the final two sites are, at best, imperfect solutions to the uglier problem of a county with nowhere to dump its garbage.

[View the entire article at the Independent Weekly.]

[indyweek] Fall from grace: The two faces of Bo Lozoff

by Matt Saldaña
August 27, 2008

For at least a decade, hundreds of people seeking spiritual guidance passed through Kindness House, headquarters of an interfaith prison ministry and an intentional community led by widely revered spiritual leader Bo Lozoff. Located on 69 acres off a country road 15 miles from Chapel Hill, the site of the former commune contains a pond, garden, outdoor pavilion, wood-paneled cabins, barn and chicken coop, hermitage, meditation hall and a ranch-style house, an ideal setting for spiritual reflection and simple living.

At the head of a dinner table stretching the length of five upright pianos, Lozoff, founder and former director of the Human Kindness Foundation, which operated Kindness House, regularly sat at group meals with volunteers wishing to live in a sacred, communal environment, and with ex-offenders fulfilling the commitments of their parole by working and living there.

In his 2000 book, It's a Meaningful Life: It Just Takes Practice, Lozoff describes "an almost ecstatic sense of gratitude" when he saw visitors at the table "holding the tattooed hand of a reformed murderer who spent many years in brutal prisons." He adds: "Gazing around at such a bizarre mix of human beings, I can almost hear Jesus cheering at the top of his lungs, 'Now this is what I had in mind!'"

But it was on these grounds that Lozoff, who, since 1973, has inspired thousands of prisoners through plainspoken correspondence and spiritual advice, allegedly bullied and intimidated ex-offenders paroled at Kindness House. He berated them for their personal failings and threatened to send them back to prison—which, unknown to the parolees, he could not do—if they violated a strict set of lifestyle agreements, many of which Lozoff himself did not follow.

Despite his teachings against harmful sexual behavior, several female volunteers and one female parolee also allege that Lozoff, who claimed to be celibate, had sexual encounters with them during one-on-one counseling sessions, in which he initiated kissing, touching, and oral and manual sex as a method of spiritual healing. While some of the sexual encounters were initially consensual, the women volunteers say others were not, and that his power over them and the Kindness House community prevented them from speaking out or rebuffing his advances.

These allegations, many of which Lozoff does not deny, prompted the self-styled mystic to close Kindness House, although he did not disclose to his supporters or donors—including an investor currently on trial in South Carolina for fraud—the reason.

Lozoff told the Indy that ultimately, his "unconventional" sexual behavior led to the Human Kindness Foundation's decision to sell the land and close the parole program.

[View the entire article at the Independent Weekly.]

[indyweek] That Empty Feeling

by Matt Saldaña
November 14, 2007

On a recent afternoon, New York City entertainment executives, Swedish developers and local politicians descended on South Mangum Street to watch a construction crew install the final beam on the $46 million Durham Performing Arts Center.

Before the ceremonial "topping out" of the city-owned theater, crowds strolled down a gravel path, past the exposed concrete of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Atrium, and onto an unfinished stage. From the rare vantage point of a young Simba or the Wicked Witch of the West, business bigwigs gazed out over concrete terracing that will eventually hold 2,800 seats. After applauding the project's timetable—DPAC is scheduled to host its opening night one year from now—they were asked, repeatedly, whether they might like to place their company's name on Durham's most ambitious public arts undertaking.

"We still have the naming rights available if anyone wants to step up to the plate," City Manager Patrick Baker told the well-dressed crowd of roughly 150.

Securing naming rights, worth millions of dollars, is one of many hurdles DPAC faces. The theater's financial goals and ticket prices are stratospheric—beyond what some observers say is feasible. And if the New England-based production company over DPAC chooses not to renew its agreement, the city could lose millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

[View the entire article at the Independent Weekly.]

[indyweek] The Hot Zone

by Matt Saldaña
October 31, 2007

In June, Progress Energy released a statement heralding the failure of a local petition to shut down the company's Shearon Harris nuclear plant due to "claims of inadequate fire protection measures."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees the industry, rejected "all three portions of the petition, noting that the agency has granted the Harris Plant 'enforcement discretion' as it makes changes to its fire protection program," Progress asserted in the statement.

At first glance, the announcement seemed a victory for Progress, which has faced years of scrutiny from local and national advocacy groups for Harris' fire-protection violations.

[View the entire article at the Independent Weekly.]

[JFP] Mal Tiempo, Buenas Caras (Bad Times, Good Faces)

by Matt Saldaña
July 18, 2007

José Bacallao stares into a boarded-up restaurant on the edge of a Highway 90 strip mall in Waveland, a tiny town in southwestern Mississippi that was the epicenter of one of the strongest, and deadliest, hurricanes in United States history. Nearly two years ago, Hurricane Katrina destroyed everything inside the building, along with a great stretch of the Mississippi Coast and New Orleans. The only evidence that the bare, gray building was once the site of Las Palmas, the traditional Cuban restaurant Bacallao opened two years before the storm hit, is a poster taped inside the glass door. On it, a dancing Cuban woman in a Tropicana nightclub dress swings her hips and shakes a pair of maracas, a bright flower perched in her hair.

Drops of sweat roll off Bacallao’s face as he stares at the woman on the poster and thinks.

“We never thought something like this would happen. Everything was lost,” he says in Spanish, laughing with Cuban wryness. “The money it had given us, the family portraits—everything was lost.”

He bends down and picks up a plastic tea-urn key out of a pile of shattered glass.

“Una memoria de Katrina,” he says.

[View the entire article at the Jackson Free Press.]

[JFP] The Klansman Bound: 43 Years Later, James Ford Seale Faces Justice

by Matt Saldaña
May 23, 2007

Shuffling behind a young black woman in an identical orange jumpsuit, James Ford Seale entered the fourth-floor courtroom of the James O. Eastland Federal Building in Jackson on Feb. 22 with shackles hanging loosely around his waist and ankles, and his hands cuffed in front of him. The 71-year-old retired cropduster from Roxie, Miss., wore thin wire glasses, orange sandals and thick white socks. The words “Madison County Jail” were printed across his slight, but well-postured back. He stood no taller than 5’8” and looked to weigh about 125 pounds, but he showed traces of his muscular past with a thick neck that recalled his open-collared mug shot from 1964—the year he was arrested and released weeks later for the murders of two black teenagers in Franklin County.

As a U.S. marshal led him to a seat next to his lawyers, Seale smiled at his wife, Jean Seale, who sat in the front row on the defense’s side of the court. One of his stepsons-in-law arrived late, scanning the half-empty room with his buzzed head held high as he placed his arm around Seale’s stepdaughter, a blonde woman in high heels who blew bubbles with her gum. Other than flashes of eye contact with his family, Seale sat upright and still. At one point, he turned to stare at a large security camera behind a glass plane, high in the back corner of the courtroom.

When U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate—the court’s black-robed, baritone-pitched voice of authority—granted the defense a 15-minute recess to review case history, Seale sat still and looked at the ground.

One month earlier, on Jan. 24, 2007, a federal jury had indicted Seale for two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy leading to the deaths of Charles Moore and Henry Dee, the 19-year-olds beaten by members of the Ku Klux Klan in the Homochitto National Forest and then drowned in a backwater of the Mississippi River in 1964. The prosecutors believe that Seale chose Dee and Moore because they thought Dee, who had just returned from living in Chicago, was involved in civil rights activity in the area.

Five days later, in a packed courtroom on a lower level of the Eastland Building, U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Anderson denied bond to Seale, stating, “Neither the weight of the crime nor its circumstances have been diminished by the passage of time.”

It had been 42 years and eight months since Dee and Moore died, the longest wait for a case to be successfully tried in a civil rights era killing.

[View the entire article at the Jackson Free Press.]

[JFP] Unholstered: A Greenwood Family Fights For Its Rights

by Matt Saldaña
February 14, 2007

The bell rang for fifth period at Greenwood High School, and James Marshall walked to class. The 17-year-old wore his throwback Dave Wilcox jersey that his mom had bought him, a bright red 49ers uniform from 1964 with three-quarter sleeves that reached below his wrists. On the way, he spotted his friend Jarvis Williams, who was telling a group of boys about his tattoo.

“James, come over here and show us your tattoo,” Williams shouted across the hallway.

Marshall headed toward the group, and lifted the loose sleeve on his left arm up to his elbow, bunching the number four—one half of Wilcox’s 64—around his shoulder. In looping cursive letters stacked like a totem pole, the word “James” curved along his inner arm and stopped three-quarters of the way down, the spot where Wilcox’s sleeves would have rested on the linebacker’s body.

Marshall had never played football, though it was his childhood dream, because of chronic asthma and a weak chest. In eighth grade, a baseball to the sternum ended his brief encounter with sports. He had played baseball for three years, and after the injury his mother wouldn’t allow anything else. With his sleeve up, his inked arm looked slighter and more delicate than a football player’s. At 5’9” and 170 lbs., he could have played tailback or wide receiver, but not many other positions. He didn’t clench his hand into a fist but tucked his fingers back against his palm as he showed the other boys his tattoo.

He had no idea what would happen next.

‘Assaulting the Police’

Casey Wiggins, a 26-year-old white police officer of stocky build and slightly above-average height—about 5’11”, judging by video footage—was patrolling the hallways of the now-majority African American high school by himself on Dec. 6 when he saw Marshall and his friends. Wiggins had not completed police academy training, and was required to be under supervision by a fellow officer at all times, but today he was alone. As he approached the group of three boys, all black, he thought he saw Marshall try to hide something in his left hand.

A teacher making plans on a desk calendar inside the teacher’s lounge heard a thud outside the door. He walked over and opened it to see what had happened. As soon as he did, Wiggins stumbled backward into the lounge, grabbing at Marshall’s jersey and bringing him down with him, as captured by a security camera in the teacher’s lounge.

Stunned by the fall, Marshall tried to steady himself and stand up. He held his hands limp and to his side. Wiggins, balancing himself with one arm on the ground, unholstered and then aimed his gun at Marshall’s face. Wiggins would later report that he reached for his firearm because Marshall was grabbing him. Upon seeing Wiggins’ gun, Marshall put his hands up and backed out of the lounge. Students who had gathered at the doorway cowered away at point-blank range.

[View the entire article at the Jackson Free Press.]