How Hillary Clinton Went Undercover to Examine Race in Education

[DemocratSinceBirth]

DOTHAN, Ala. — On a humid summer day in 1972, Hillary Rodham walked into this town’s new private academy, a couple of cinder-block classrooms erected hurriedly amid fields of farmland, and pretended to be someone else.


Playing down her flat Chicago accent, she told the school’s guidance counselor that her husband had just taken a job in Dothan, that they were a churchgoing family and that they were looking for a school for their son.

The future Mrs. Clinton, then a 24-year-old law student, was working for Marian Wright Edelman, the civil rights activist and prominent advocate for children. Mrs. Edelman had sent her to Alabama to help prove that the Nixon administration was not enforcing the legal ban on granting tax-exempt status to so-called segregation academies, the estimated 200 private academies that sprang up in the South to cater to white families after a 1969 Supreme Court decision forced public schools to integrate.

Her mission was simple: Establish whether the Dothan school was discriminating based on race.


http://tinyurl.com/qevpq83

[ismnotwasm]

1. Great read!

Thank you

[BlueMTexpat]

2. Thanks, DSB!

Hillary has consistently put herself out there for civil rights and has the track record to prove it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."

[Stryst]

18. On racial and gender equality, yes.

But I still remember her speech against marriage equality in 2004.

[BlueCheese]

4. That is a really wonderful story.

Thanks for sharing.

[Starry Messenger]

5. K&R

[baldguy]

6. Just more proof that HRC is a RW GOP hack running for the 1% against the middle class.

[stonecutter357]

7. K&R!

[Helen Borg]

8. It's nice she did that in 1972.

Relevance for this election: zero.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. " I am part of all that I have met..."

It's nice she did that in 1972.

Relevance for this election: zero

-Helen Borg

[40RatRod]

14. Looks like you disturbed a mound of fire ants.

They just can't stand anything not negative about HRC.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. I just post. Better to be better./nt

[bvf]

15. Oh, be fair. It's probably 1% relevant. n/t

[Hortensis]

28. The black electorate is about 13% nationally, not 1%,

and rises to over 30% in a number of currently red states. Not to be dismissed.

And then there are all the other minorities. With every election the GOP more increasingly faces the danger of losing hundreds of seats in these states. And, of course, their electoral votes. That will continue until the day when minority conservatives finally neutralize or run out the GOP's white supremacist base altogether, and then start warring with each other in a tent that will never be big enough (hard-core conservatives are just that way).

It's not about Bernie or Hillary, you know. We all should be extremely glad one or more of our candidates is seen as a viable choice across the American spectrum.

[bvf]

29. No disagreement there,

but please try not to over-react to an (admittedly dubious) attempt at humor. You've no doubt heard of the 1%, right?

[treestar]

31. By your standard then Bernie's civil rights

participation in the 60 falls under that too.

[Scootaloo]

34. Isn't that what Clintoncrats have been screaming at us since April?

[treestar]

35. It's either one standard or the other

plenty of posters on the Bernie side applying different ones depending on the circumstances.

[Scootaloo]

38. That's the problem with this OP, is the application of different standards

[cali]

9. So according to Hillary supporters, Bernie's early efforts in the civil rights movement

are close to irrelevant, but Hillary is a hero for this.

[Plucketeer]

12. Funny how that works, eh?

[tazkcmo]

13. Nobody likes Sanders.

He has 3 supporters that swarm the internet clicking on polls, making sock puppets on forums like this one and photo shopping large crowds into photos of Bernie speaking at largely empty venues.




sarcasm

[snort]

23. She walked into a school and lied about who she was

and got some information. It was her mission, and she chose to accept it. Now light that fuse.

[SunSeeker]

26. Per his campaign, Bernie was writing a "stupid" essay on "Man - And Woman" in 1972.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/05/29/410606045/the-bernie-sanders-rape-fantasy-essay-explained



So now Sanders supporters are saying what Bernie did in 1972 is relevant? Fine with me.

[treestar]

36. Nobody said that

It just depends. Plenty of Bernie people who want a double standard too.

Apparently what Bernie did is not helping him with black voters today.

[cali]

39. Many, many people have said it and Bernie is not only picking up

black support, he's doing far better than your candidate.

[Segami]

41. Heh heh!

.......It's only relevant when Hillary does it.

[sulphurdunn]

17. Good for her.

She's kind of like Sanders lite.

[NCTraveler]

19. Thanks for sharing this.

Read it this morning and posted it as well. Just deleted it as I hadn't seen yours.

Happy Sunday.

Mrs. Clinton was one of a handful of young researchers and interns who worked in Washington reviewing documents, looking into the schools that had been granted tax exemptions, and coordinating with activists and lawyers in the South who had been at the forefront of integration efforts.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. My pleasure./nt

[mountain grammy]

21. Good story, and yes, Bill and Hillary Clinton have a record of fighting for

Civil Rights and desegregation as white people progressed and joined the movement.
I like what Chris Rock says:
"When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before."

Clinton and Sanders didn't really do anything special. They did what they should have done and what their positions enabled them to do. All whites should do the same. It's on all of us to end racism.

[chervilant]

25. + a gazillion

When I was a young chick, my sister and her husband helped me move home to NW Arkansas from the big city (Houston). We chose to drive through Hope, birthplace of Bill Clinton, and stopped there for lunch.

I should note that my sister's husband had beautiful dark chocolate skin, having a mixed heritage of African, European and Indigenous ancestors. My sister and I are both European, with our mixed heritage too far back in our ancestry to be visible on our skins.

The wait staff of the small restaurant we chose clustered in the corner farthest from our table and engaged in a heated discourse for about twenty minutes. Finally, the eldest waitress brought over three waters, slammed them onto the table--sloshing water everywhere. She left the menus she brought on the edge of our table. She did not greet us, nor did she look directly at us.

My sister and I wanted to get up and leave, but my BIL adjured us to stay. He encouraged us to be polite and gracious to the people who were waiting on us. He noted that most of the citizens of the South had grown up racist, and that we could model love and compassion for them. It took forty minutes for these pitiable racists to bring us our meals. We left a 20% tip and thanked the older waitress who helped us. She never responded to us verbally; never smiled.

I have never forgotten this overt display of racism. It was a turning point in my activism, learning to extend compassion in the face of hate.

[mountain grammy]

44. Coming face to face with the ugliness of bigotry is memorable,

but people like your brother in law are the real heroes. He faced the ignorance of hate with his head held high and his dignity intact.

Learning to extend compassion in the face of hate, in my opinion, is the only real effective way to deal with hate, but it's oh so hard to learn.

[Number23]

43. I love this post.

And I agree with every word. Thanks for that.

[mountain grammy]

45. Thank you. n/t

[Katashi_itto]

22. I remember this, she took sniper fire here while on recon.

[lovemydog]

24. Thanks for sharing this DSB.

I find these kinds of New York Times articles quite fascinating.

From the same article:

"Mrs. Clinton spent part of that summer working on the issue of segregation academies, and only a couple of days in Dothan. But in many ways, her work on segregation academies best encapsulated her “commitment to pragmatism” in the struggle for equal rights, as her college adviser at Wellesley, Alan H. Schechter, described it.

Decades later, when young Black Lives Matter activists confronted Mrs. Clinton backstage at a New Hampshire campaign event on what she would do about racial injustice, she articulated the approach she had adopted that summer in Alabama.

“I don’t believe you change hearts,” she told them. “I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.”

[SunSeeker]

27. Thanks for the post, DSB. nt

[cherokeeprogressive]

30. She lied to a military recruiter. She lied to a school guidance counselor. She lies to us.

Has she ever NOT lied? And WHY does lying come so easy to her? And WHY does she think lying is the best way to solve a problem?

[treestar]

32. you have a problem with "lying" on that mission?

oh that poor segregation academy! Are you sympathizing with them?

[nc4bo]

37. AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your Jury Service

On Sun Dec 27, 2015, 01:29 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

She lied to a military recruiter. She lied to a school guidance counselor. She lies to us.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=950207

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

I'm sorry, but this is hateful nonsense. The poster takes a positive article and turns it into a screed against Secretary Clinton. This site is about thoughtful disagreements. Not knee-jerk hate.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Dec 27, 2015, 01:37 PM, and the Jury voted 3-4 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Though normally loathe to hide comments simply critical of candidates, this clearly falls under the "over-the-top" category. I agree with the alerter.
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No worse than so much that both sides spew in this forum. Why pick on this one?

I would have never clicked to come in here if the jury service hadn't lured me.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given

[azmom]

33. She goes undercover a lot.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

40. Some of the posts, at least those I could see, have been illuminating./nt

[Luminous Animal]

42. Too bad that Hillary fucked over the org she went under cover for. They disavowed her.

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Well, you know, Hillary Clinton is an old friend, but they are not friends in politics. We have to build a constituency, and you don’t—and we profoundly disagreed with the forms of the welfare reform bill, and we said so.

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/how-hillary-clinton-betrayed-the-childrens-defense-fund-for-political-gain/3862-how-hillary-clinton-betrayed-the-childrens-defense-fund-for-political-gain

Bill and Hillary purposefully threw more children INTO poverty than any Democrat in my lifetime.

And bragged about it.

[Renew Deal]

46. Was part of disavowing her giving an award "for her dedication & contributions to child advocacy"?

-The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) celebrated forty years of changing the odds for children and honored Former Secretary of State and CDF alumna Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday, September 30, 2013. Secretary Clinton was recognized for her dedication and contributions to child advocacy.

“CDF is pleased to recognize Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been a tireless voice for children. She’s brilliant. She cares deeply about children. She perseveres. She’s an incredibly hard worker, and she stays with it. She’s done extraordinarily well in everything she’s ever done. and I’m just so proud of her,” said Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children’s Defense Fund.

In a video tribute Clinton, said “It’s the mission that CDF has stood for that I’m proud that I was a small part of promoting…We worked hard in the White House. We certainly appreciated the efforts of organizations like CDF kind of, you know, charging ahead.”

http://www.childrensdefense.org/newsroom/cdf-in-the-news/press-releases/2013/honoring-hillary-clinton.html

[Luminous Animal]

47. ….

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Well, you know, Hillary Clinton is an old friend, but they are not friends in politics. We have to build a constituency, and you don’t—and we profoundly disagreed with the forms of the welfare reform bill, and we said so.