Holloway:
We are in Fayetteville, North Carolina on the campus of Fayetteville State University. Tonight we are talking about race relations again. This is part two. We will talk tonight about study circles, working groups. We will tell you about it next on Black Issues Forum. [PAUSE: MUSIC]

Holloway:
Good evening and welcome to another edition of Black Issues Forum. I'm Jay Holloway, your host. Tonight we are in Fayetteville on the campus of Fayetteville State University. We're talking about race relations. This is the town hall meeting, part two. Tonight we are talking about an outcome of a town hall meeting that was held, actually we had one last week but the citizens in Fayetteville had one in April of 1998. And out of that came study groups. And here to talk about that we have three panelists and a studio audience as well. First, Maria Costas, she is Chair of the Human Relations Commission and co-Chair's the study circle's working group effort here in Fayetteville. Maria, thank you for being with us.

Costas:
Thank you.

Holloway:
Also, Sherrie Graham, she is also co-Chair of the study circle's working group. Sherrie, thank you for being with us.

Graham:
Thank you, Jay.

Holloway:
And last but not least, is Karl Locus. Karl is a concerned citizen here in Fayetteville. And Karl, thank you for participating with us today.

Locus:
Thank you.

Holloway:
Let's talk about these study circles working group. That is a new terminology for me and perhaps it probably is for citizens across the state. Tell us how this came about and what the purpose really for these study groups are, if either of you would like to start with that.

Graham:
Study circles are small groups of generally 10 to 15 people who agree to meet for 4 to 6 weeks, to grapple with a social or political issue. Study circles originated from the Study Circles Resource Center which is in Palmfred, Connecticut. And that organization has outlined a model that has been used around the country, actually, for several years now. And the study circles are basically founded in the town hall tradition with the exception that that there is no predetermined outcome to the process. It is an opportunity for people to dialog about that particular issue and present their views without needing to defend their position and then moving toward an action agenda. So, it is two parts, dialog phase and then an action component.

Holloway:
Where are you now with that dialog reaction phase, Maria?

Costas:
The study circles in Fayetteville have three phases. It was the first phase that Linda and Ray and Mr. Stancil talked about when people got together organizational and began to talk about how we can work on race relations. That was the first phase and then the second phase was inviting some of the different organizations in Fayetteville to be part of our working group. The working group is composed of...the first members were of the Fayetteville United and the Human Relations Commission that are the co-sponsors of the study circle. That first phase is already in process. The second phase is training the facilitators that will do the study circles. In the first phase, in between we have what we call the pilot study circles. The pilot study circles are a try out of the study circles. And we have already gone through that first phase. We have Fayetteville United that went through a pilot study circle. The Human Relations Commission and part of some groups in the community went through some pilot study circles. Before, Linda was talking about 2 churches that came together and they all studied in the pilot study circles, Snyder Memorial and the First Baptist Church.

Holloway:
Now when you refer to Linda, that was from our program last week.

Costas:
Yes.

Holloway:
Yes she said that. Let me ask Karl, Karl you will or may participate or have participated in some of these, but I know you probably feel that the action stage doesn't come quick enough. Is that true?

Locus:
That is very true. My concern is that in any organization you have accountability that is supposed to start with top all the way down, setting the goals, setting the vision, following through with the objectives and having follow up. My concern is what brought us really here today, talking with Fayetteville United, was the three police officer situation which EEOC has ruled on. And the unfortunate part is that gets lost in the conversation. There should be a direct action on that issue already because it was said during that particular period of time when the issue was being raised in the city council, we had 5, 3 African-American, 2 white American city council members who said, "let's just investigate," as these three officers said. And at this point now, we have gone for months on end and haven't resolved that issue. That issue needs to be resolved. A study circle will not be able to resolve that issue when you have people who are accountable in political office as well as in government office that can resolve that problem.

Holloway:
Sherrie, did that come up in any of the study circles? Was it an issue?

Graham:
It has come up. It has certainly come up in the study circles, although the content of the dialog is confidential. So, I am not privileged to share that with you, but I can assure you that it is a hot topic. It is expected to be addressed in the community-wide study circle process. I think something productive will come from that dialog, but I agree that is not the actual forum of resolution. I don't think that is the expectation, but it is a functional part of the healing process for this community regarding that issue as well as others.

Holloway:
You can understand, probably, why some people would think that especially when you say that the process is confidential, that maybe this process is not going to really resolve the issue. But just for discussion, where do you see this resolution coming? I guess that is what I am saying, and is the study circle a forum for it?

Graham:
Jay, are you referring to the resolution of race relations or that particular incident?

Holloway:
I guess that particular incident. Or other issues of that kind.

Graham:
Again, I think that some healing will take place in the course of dialog because there are lots of different emotions in the community right now regarding that issue. And coming together to dialog and to work toward an action agenda of ways that we can work together, ways that we can hopefully prevent similar situations from occurring in the future.

Holloway:
Will some of these general findings be made public even though you mentioned that some of the discussions, you mean the persons making the points is confidential.

Graham:
Absolutely, absolutely. But the points that have been discussed, the action recommendations will certainly become public. The plan is that an action forum will take place in May at the conclusion of the round of study circles, the community wide ...

Holloway:
May of 1999?

Graham:
Yes, May of 1999. The community-wide study circles will occur between January and April. The action forum is a public presentation of the recommendations to the elected officials, to the citizens, to the community at-large.

Holloway:
Let me just say to our citizens watching and whether you are in Fayetteville or around the state, we are going to give you the number to these study circles and you can find out more about how the citizens here in Fayetteville are doing that. And we will give you that number at the end of the program. Let's go to our studio audience right now. We have a comment or question ma'am? Go right ahead.

Armstrong:
Yes, my name is Barbara Armstrong, and I am a resident of Fayetteville. A number of issues come to mind when we talk about study circles because one of the largest issues that comes to my mind sitting down here is, it is very easy to dialog with people that understand and have the time for meetings and so forth. But, one of the major problems that we have in this community with the rip, the rupture that has happened with several incidences in this community, is that we are not addressing people who are working class or are everyday folks that have on top of possible racial issues, they have economic demands upon them and their families. There are a lot of problems here that extend beyond the race thing, but the race thing is a part of it. And, I would like to know how the study circles are going to attempt to reach into that area because certainly the people who drove down and killed the couple off of Wilmington Road would not come and sit down at a study circle and try to resolve those issues. You know?

Holloway:
Good point. How are we going to take care of that? Let me say that Karl Locus, when he heard about us coming here, contacted us and engaged himself in this issue and said you know, "I want to talk to you all about this," because he raised some of the similar issues. You might want to talk about that from the citizen's point of view first, and then I would like to ask the study circles, how are you engaging persons like that? Because you are not representing a specific organization, you are a concerned citizen and you have some of the same concerns that she has.

Locus:
Very same concerns. And my concern is simply this, when you are elected to an office then you have the accountability not waiting for a circle group to come up with a conclusion that is already held by law, by public policy, held by EEOC policies and laws. So, why are we waiting for a circle group to tell us what the law is already saying? We need to enforce it. So either if you are in industry as an official or whether you are in government as an official or any other kind of business, you should be acting on that, not waiting for a study circle or study group to look at it. It is nice to have to have dialog. That is good and people feel good about that. But, the action part of it. My question would be what is the healing for the three officers and a fourth that was added by EEOC. What is the healing process for them in terms of a remedy? That is what they are looking for. I am sure they will probably attend some of the study circles, but the first and foremost thing we are saying is that the major issue is that we felt we were unjustly treated. And then we went through the process, wound up with EEOC and had a finding saying 'yes, that happened'. So what is the healing process for them? How come we haven't acted on that? We don't need a study circle to examine that issue. I understand that some of it is going to be confidential because I understand there are going to be legal questions they have to deal with, but at the same token, what is the actual remedy for those individuals? That is where the real healing needs to start at, just like for Michael James and Jackie Burton. Their families would like to see what would be the process to make sure that we eliminate any kind of Klan, Nazi, or skinhead activity in our community because those guys didn't pop up out of the wood work. What are we doing with our sheriff's department, our military policing, our local police. What kind of things are we doing there to make sure that doesn't happen again? Also, when we see hiring practice problems. It was covered well when we had a situation where a principal applied for a position with a PhD and was not given an opportunity. A lesser qualified person was given the job with a Master's Degree. So we are looking for concrete things that will make those things be resolved, not just discussion. Discussion is good. We have been discussing things since Dr. King died, but what are we doing now? We have got to get to some concrete actions especially when you are in office and you have the range of policies within your organization which ever kind it is, to say what you are supposed to do as well as those laws that we founded our constitution.

Holloway:
Let me just ask our co-chairs to respond to that because I guess there has to be some relationship to the study circles and those who are actually accountable. You all are encouraging and with the help of another organization, I guess, forming this dialog, but you all are not necessarily held accountable for resolving those issues are you?

Graham:
No, not at all and I feel the need to perhaps make a point of clarification. Just from a personal point of view because while I am the co-chair of the study circle's project, I am employed by Louis Chappell, Missionary Baptist Church, as the director of special projects. And it is not my understanding that the study circles have any, any study circles program has any obligation or authority to deal with the legal, the resolution of these legal matters. I think that they are quite separate. I understand that they are related, but the study circle's focus is to improve race relations. Clearly, this issue involves race relations and hopefully it will be positively influenced or the community focus will be positively influenced through study circles, but not resolved from a legal point of view.

Holloway:
You have something to add to that?

Costas:
Yeah. Adding to that, this is a personnel issue more than a community issue. Yes, it is has some percussions in terms of race relations, but right now it is a legal issue. And when you go through a legal issue, it usually takes time. We are not a part of that legal issue. As a volunteer for the Human Relations Commission and being the Chair of the Human Relations Commission, the Human Relations Commission as a whole has to made sure to send a letter to the city officers to tell them that we want this issue to be resolved. That we are here to help in any way that we can, but we are not accountable to whatever resolution they have. We are willing to work on resolution and healing process, but as you know, a personnel issue is confidential. I don't want my personnel issues to be all around town. That is the difference between what we are doing and what is happening with the police department issue. I think that there are two different issues, but at the same time they are interrelated.

Holloway:
Let's go to the audience again. We have another comment or question? Sir, go right ahead.

Hill:
Hi, I am Bishop Ken Hill from Church of God, North Ramsey. There is a sleeping giant out there that I wonder if the study circle is considering. And that is that we all fail the work force. We know as welfare is today and in a few more years, will be no more. One of the questions that I have, is there an ongoing study towards training the non-working force here in Fayetteville who are on welfare? And pretty soon their welfare will not be that way any longer. Are there training programs in place to make these people marketable for jobs becoming available and the awareness of those jobs so that people will be prepared for those jobs and for training for those jobs.

Holloway:
So we are back to these two issues. Some specific action that people can do versus the discussion and sensitivity. So we have got two issues I guess. Who wants to deal with that first? Locas: One, what we just finished talking about because I think that is one of the concerns that I have. When I went to the first panel we basically came together because of the police officer situation as well as the murders, as well as the issue when we had the petition about this principal who wasn't given a job but earned PhD. That is what the black community was really responding to, but then we came to that meeting. My concern was what is it going to be diluted to what we're talking about now, where there is no accountability within the circles when we are talking about healing. To me, if I'm cut, you can't talk about me being cut and healing. These police officers were the ones that were cut. They need to be healed. And that is what my concern is. Not that we shouldn't dialogue, we should always dialogue. Dr. King always said "dialogue." But he also said direct action and then results out of that action. And I think that is where we have to move to that next phase. In terms of welfare training, I think there has been a concern of passage across the nation that some of this is going to be dropped on the churches to try to do. And again, their concern that they are already overwhelmed with trying to meet the needs, but how can they also pull up and galvanize other resources to meet those needs. And so again, that goes back to there does need to be a compassionate side of the church being involved. But there also needs to be a governmental role making sure there is a smooth transition, benefits and training and those things.

Holloway:
Let me ask our co-chair to respond to his comment too, and if you could do it briefly, we've got two other comments at the microphone.

Graham:
One of the points I'd like to lift here again is that while the study circles program cannot resolve, literally, these issues legally or perhaps even programmatically, it is a forum, an excellent forum, for people to come out and voice their opinions, voice their concerns and make action recommendations so that when we move to the action phase, again the action phase that is presented to the city officials, that is presented to the community at large which will hopefully develop task forces and other means, a court watch, for example, has even been proposed. Perhaps then we can make progress on these issues of concern. So, I think it is a step in the right direction. I think there is a genuine opportunity for action to flow.

Holloway:
I think I'm glad you said it because, really, that is the purpose of this program as well. We can't resolve it, but we can get people having dialogue. Speaking of dialogue we have a comment or question, go right ahead, sir.

M:
My name is ______ East and I'm a student here at Fayetteville State University and I wanted to ask if the study circles deals with issues concerning today's youth, especially the youth who grows up in a bad family structure or "bad neighborhood?"

Holloway:
That was brought up before.

Costas:
One of the things that we are trying to do is involve all people across lines in the community. It can be youth, elderly, Hispanic, Asian. We have invited everyone that wants to participate to come. As a matter of fact, 750 letters went out several weeks ago to the different organizations including churches, organizations that include youth and include all kinds of races and economical backgrounds and we are already beginning to receive the responses to the human relations staff.

Holloway:
And let me say, we will put that number up on the screen again for youth, if you have not been contacted we'll let you know that number at the end. We have another comment or question. Go right ahead, sir.

M:
Yeah, I'm Tom Hennessy, a teacher at Fayetteville State University. I've also been a member of the human relations commission for about four years now. I want to address a couple of things. I think one of the things, I appreciate Mr. Locas' concerns, but I think one of the things that came out of the original issues was the failure of different parts of the community to hear the concerns that the African American community was raising in regard to those police officers. And I think that is one of the things that the study circles can do is begin to make it possible for people to hear each other's concerns. Perhaps earlier than happened in that particular event. And again, one of the things, the human relations commissions began talking about the study circles almost two years ago under Sandy Schweitzer's leadership and that is one of the things we were addressing is how to get the community to listen to each other. And again, I think one of the things that, both reaching out to youth and one of the things that we want to try to do in the study circles is to get people to understand where they came from and how that impacts on the life that they live. And I think in that reality older people communicating with younger people, understanding how things have changed over time, or how they haven't changed over time. I think the point that was made in the earlier program by Dr. Brown that over the 40 years that he has been in this community he has seen a significant amount of change. Mr. East has only been alive for 22 years, obviously he hasn't seen the same change. But making that kind of awareness is what an intergenerational communication can help to address.

Holloway:
Thank you for your comments. Karl, you, how do you respond to that?

Locus:
I agree. One, I think youth should talk to their elders. It is very important. You should talk to not just elders in your family but other elders, that is always important to get as much information as you possibly can that would help you in terms of growing and life. However, I think that one of the things that we have a responsibility as adults to do is to make sure that 30 years from now we haven't seen what I call the smoke and mirrors, but really know change. And I believe that as you look at what we have heard in the previous program when we talked about economic development, we can see some of the same systemic problems in terms of hiring as well.

Holloway:
Let me get two brief comments in then we are going to go Dr. Brown in just a second. Ma'am, go ahead.

F:
Quick question. I'm Mary Holmes, Executive Director of Cumberland Community Foundation here in Fayetteville and I understand that the, Cumberland County has one of the largest Latino populations in North Carolina, if not the largest, depending on how the measure is taken. Will the study circle program reach out to more than the African American and Caucasian community, will it include a broader group or will it focus on....

Holloway:
Wait, before we get to that, let me ask the next question and I want you to respond about the Latino community being involved. And we will get to that. Can I have the next question or comment, sir, and then we are going to have Dr. Brown come up because we are about to wrap up.

M:
My name is Joseph Johnson. I'm the Dean of School of Education here at Fayetteville State. My question and issue is one of sustained ability. And I understand that this study circle project will end in April, they are going to have an action. But will there be a sustainability of the dialogue. After this is over.

Holloway:
Let's address those real quickly. The Latino community and then the sustainability. Sherrie, if you can take that.

Graham:
In spite of the initiative to include all kinds of races, because we have a large Latino community in Fayetteville, but we also have Asian and other racial background people in this community, we have included several organizations from the Latino community, the Asian community. We have invited the Indian community. All kinds of races and in the pilot study circles we have several members of that has been pilot study circles that you have Latinos, you have Asians. You have Greeks in that pilot study circle, Indian. All kinds.

Holloway:
That's great, so it is very diverse. Time has really run out and we are going to give you a number and you can find out more about the sustainability of these things. But, let's go to Dr. Brown who is the former Associate Superintendent of Public Instruction here in Fayetteville for some concluding comments. Brown: Thank you, Mr. Holloway. May I say that I'd like to leave in conjunction with this segment three words that are very important in life, and Mr. Locas, were Martin Luther King living he and I would be the same age, so I thought a long time as he has thought a long time. And I have learned that there is nothing any more valuable to us than quality communication. And I applaud the people who started this communication too. It is not an end within itself but it is a beginning and may I say that the three words, attitude, study circle people, behavior and consequences. We are usually at the bottom dealing with the consequences that we don't like. What happened, what happened, we don't like. But the step above that is behavior. The behavior begot the consequences that we don't like. But that is basically where we find ourselves running in circles, dealing with behavior, behavior, behavior, not realizing that behavior is a product of attitude. And I hope that the circle and all other groups that will tend to work with race relations will start with attitude, the proper attitude, will get the proper behavior, the proper behavior will get the proper consequences and we will all be happier. Thank you very much.

Holloway:
Our time is completely up now and we certainly want to thank you so much for joining us. And please remember Dr. Brown's ABC's, examine your attitude, look at your behavior and consider the consequences. If you'd like to find out more about the study circles here in Fayetteville, North Carolina call this number on your screen, (910) 433-1696 or you may fax them at (910) 433-1763. Also contact us at Black Issues Forum more about these issues and others. Visit us on the Worldwide Web and join us next week for another town hall meeting in Charlotte. I'm Jay Holloway, you have a blessed evening and a good night.