Franks: Closing inner-city Catholic schools a civil rights issue
Throughout my life I have had to challenge the establishment. At times this meant confronting bad Republicans as a fellow Republican or fighting the Congressional Black Caucus as a Black member of Congress. Today, as a devout Christian, I am embarking on a battle with the Catholic archbishop of Hartford.
My parents instilled in me a stubborn form of courage when they decided to move from a black section of Waterbury to a nearly all-white neighborhood in Waterbury. We were promptly greeted by the Ku Klux Klan. They burned a huge cross in front of our house, threatened the family nightly in hateful phone calls, killed a dog on our lawn and placed a dead possum in our mailbox, which at the tender age of around 11 I pulled from the mailbox and dropped in the snow, turning the snow red. Tampering with a mailbox was a federal offense. Thanks to the FBI, something that was going on for three months ended in three days.
When I was an alderman, I challenged the mayor, a fellow Republican, who wanted to give the Hispanics in Waterbury a remodeled supermarket for a school. Partially due to my protest, the federal government got involved. Months later the mayor and nearly a dozen other Republican officials ended up serving time in prison for trying to force that deal as they stood to benefit financially. While a sitting congressman I testified against them.
Years later, the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to throw me out as my views were too conservative for their liking. The true issue was over the racial gerrymandering of congressional districts. The CBC wanted to pack the districts to better ensure Blacks being elected. I disagreed with their approach. I had been elected in a 92% white district and felt that Americans would vote for a Black candidate for office. I was proof. I testified before the federal U.S. Court of Appeals in Savannah, Ga., before a three-judge panel. I argued that more Blacks could get elected to Congress if we did not have overwhelmingly Black districts. I said more than 25 years ago, “There is no need for Black districts, Brown districts, Yellow districts, Red districts — we need just American districts.”
However, it did not go over well with the CBC as they voted to kick me out of the Caucus and the father of a sitting congresswoman was arrested for physically attacking me after my testimony in Savannah.
Today the tremendous growth of the CBC is due to my position prevailing. Many of the new members have come from majority-white congressional districts.
Just when I thought these kinds of fights to help Black and Hispanic Americans were over for me, I have been pulled back into the ring. All my fights on civil rights have been while playing defense — someone had done wrong, and I revealed it.
I recently filed four civil rights complaints (federal and state) against the Archdiocese of Hartford. It is clear to me that they have closed or seek to close all inner-city high schools in the Archdiocese of Hartford and eliminate any opportunity for a Catholic school grammar or high school education for inner-city children in Waterbury where Blacks and Hispanics reside, while instead only providing a Catholic school education to the white communities, many of them affluent.
The federal government can once again play a role in providing justice or at the very least discontinuing any federal funding going to the Catholic schools under the control of Archbishop Leonard Blair and maybe even seek a return of federal funds due to their discriminatory practices.
The prospect of denying Black and Hispanic children a Catholic school education cannot be something Americans can condone.
Once again, we need the federal government’s involvement.
Gary A. Franks served three terms as U.S. representative for Connecticut’s 5th District. He was the first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years and New England’s first Black member of the House. He is host of the podcast We Speak Frankly.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/39L0zZs
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