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DEL.ICIO.USMeasure to honor black leaders shelved again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Proposals to hang portraits of Coretta Scott King and five other African-American civil rights leaders in Georgia’s State Capitol were sent back to the drawing board today, angering black lawmakers who have been pushing the measures for the past two years.
Some of the lawmakers suggested opponents are using delay tactics against their proposals to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s late wife and others, including Rosa Parks. Similar proposals died in the House last year.
“How long are we going to run this race?” Rep. Roberta Abdul-Salaam (D-Riverdale) asked the House Special Rules Committee this morning after it suggested she redraft her bill and resubmit it next week. “Is this a put-off technique?”
The committee told Salaam the Legislature no longer has the authority to hang portraits in the Capitol. That power now rests with the state’s Capitol Arts Standards Commission, which the Legislature created last year to oversee artwork in the building.
But Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue has not appointed his three members to the 15-member panel, including the chairman, said Special Rules Committee chairman Calvin Hill (R-Canton).
“We all have the ability to slow down and bury things,” Rep. Al Williams (D-Midway), chairman of Georgia’s the Black Legislative Caucus, told the Hill and the rest of his committee this morning.
“I’m sending a message to all good thinking members of the Legislature that the question ‘How long?’ has got to be answered,” Williams said. “Put it on the floor and let us vote it up or vote it down. And let Georgians see who wants to and who does not. That’s the process. Let’s not bog this down.”
Hill said he would write a letter to Perdue, urging him to appoint his members to the panel so it could start meeting. A spokesman for the governor said Perdue decided on his appointments last week and will likely announce them before the end of this week.
Hill also suggested that the proposals honoring the civil rights leaders be redrafted in the form of requests to the arts commission.
“It is not the intention nor the desire of this committee to hold anything back,” Hill said. “And I take a little bit of umbrage that anybody would consider us doing that. What we are trying to do is follow the law, follow it appropriately, so these can go forward in a proper manner.”
The chances of these measures passing the Legislature this year were already uncertain before today’s committee meeting. The director of the Capitol Museum has said no room is left in the building for additional portraits. And House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) said he has concerns about the measures.
Similar proposals died in the House last year after Richardson said he had “reluctance to hang very many photos” of people who are not elected and are not from Georgia in the state’s Capitol.
State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta), president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, has complained about the “lack of diversity” displayed in Georgia’s Capitol.
The state’s Capitol art collection includes 296 portraits, plaques, statues and sculptures, some of which are in storage. Of the 93 portraits now on display in the Capitol, only five depict African-Americans, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said Dorothy Olson, director of the Georgia Capitol Museum and Capitol Tours.
Brooks, Abdul-Salaam and several other lawmakers want to change that. They want to put up portraits of King’s late wife, Parks, Ralph David Abernathy Sr., Hosea Williams, Joseph Lowery and Joseph Boone. All are deceased except Lowery.
Parks defied segregated bus seating in Alabama in 1955. Abernathy was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s top lieutenants and co-founder and former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Williams served in the House of Representatives from 1974 to 1983 and started a campaign to feed the poor. He also was a leader in the Selma to Montgomery march, which gave momentum to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Lowery co-founded the SCLC and is a longtime civil rights activist.
Since last year, Brooks and other lawmakers added Boone to their wish list. He was a minister and key organizer in the Atlanta Movement, in which students organized marches against businesses that practiced segregation.
The lawmakers also want the state to designate April 27 as Coretta Scott King Day.
Under House Bill 88 and House Resolution 121, the portraits of Coretta Scott King and the other leaders would be hung on the second floor of the Capitol alongside Martin Luther King Jr.’s picture.
King’s portrait is near a corner beside Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office, sandwiched between portraits of former Govs. Roy Barnes and George Troup. No wall space is left for additional portraits, Olson said. If the new portraits went up, she said, others would have to come down.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: politics
Comments
By Doctor LongGhost
February 13, 2007 02:46 PM | Link to this
Were any of these people elected to public office? Why should they be enshrined in a public building? Also, regarding a day for Coretta Scott King, can someone give me a concrete example what she actually did to warrant all the honors? And why does MLK get a day and Malcolm doesn’t? By any means necessary too scary for ya?
By Don H
February 13, 2007 03:13 PM | Link to this
Tyrone Brooks thinks that there should be more diversity in the capital art? With 93 paintings in the capital and five of them depicting blacks that just about equals the present population of blacks in the state. SOOO what is your beef Tyrone ? Do you want more of the pie than you really deserve?
By Pompano
February 13, 2007 03:19 PM | Link to this
It’s great to see that with sky-rocketing birth rates to unwed mothers, these politicians have determined that lack of portraits at the Capitol is the most pressing issue for their constituency.
By ATL in Hawaii
February 13, 2007 03:51 PM | Link to this
I can see everyone else getting a picture, but Hosea Williams? Maybe he did some great things, but my everlasting impression of him is talking to Channel 2 news at a “Feed the Hungry” event, clearly drunk and wasted, stumbling into the drivers seat of his car, blowing through 2 red lights as he drove off, all the while the Channel 2 news camera guy captures everything. Again, he may have done some great things, but I sure I am not the only one that remembers his drunk episodes all over town…..
By Beretverde
February 13, 2007 04:20 PM | Link to this
Not for a “PROFESSIOANL MOURNER.” Many women raised their children after their fathers were killed in Vietnam (same era) and they NEVER received the support or coverage of their personal loss. More are deserving… stop the mediocracy and dumbing down.
By CAU Alum
February 13, 2007 04:55 PM | Link to this
DON H, at last count when I checked the U.S. Census population for the State of Georgia, African-Americans make up 29.8% of the state’s population and growing. So clearly 5 out of 93 potraits in the Capitol does not equal our fair share of the pie as you put it and definitely does not represent the true diversity of the great state of Georgia.
By ramblings
February 13, 2007 05:14 PM | Link to this
For one thing, these people completely deserve to have their portraits alongside other Georgia politicians. These people have done just as much if not more to further the respect and honor held for Georgia as those who have held office. Furthermore, many black Georgian’s were not even allowed to vote when these people did their work, so how could you expect them to have held seats in the Georgia Congress. Second, to Don H, please do some math and a little research before posting such ignorance. 5 paintings out of 93 is 5%, while black people make up 30% of Georgia’s population. There would need to be 28 paintings of our fellow black Georgians for them to have the ‘piece of the pie’ they actually deserve. The illustrious history of great African-American’s in Georgia should be a point of pride for everyone who resides within our border, ignoring it or diminishing it is disrespectful, ignorant and wrong.
By Beretverde
February 14, 2007 08:37 AM | Link to this
I wish people would stop the “Dumbing Down” via numbers and ratios. If you want to carry this agenda into society, then let’s “diversify” the Atlanta Hawks. With Georgia at the bottom tier in education, we don’t need any more of this “progressiveness.” If you are qualified… put the portrait up… if not… shut up!
By Diva
February 14, 2007 02:36 PM | Link to this
People please don’t beat up on Don…he took the short bus to school. Don, you didn’t HAVE to let your math teacher’s know that you were’t paying attention in class! LOL
By Ima Nidiot
February 15, 2007 12:24 PM | Link to this
Well at least the Georgia legislators have their priorities in order. (NOT) Excuse me while I tuck my .357 Magnum into the armrest of my car Of course, if they eliminate red-light cameras, I’ll probably get killed in an intersection crash on the way to the multi-million dollar diversity art exhibit at the capitol building or maybe I’ll just pay my property taxes, unlike dear Mr. Perdue and his theft of $100,000 of our tax dollars(thanks Larry O’Neil) * But *maybe if I can buy beer on Sunday I won’t notice the rampant crime and horrible traffic. Heck, maybe I’ll take Marta, which is such a mess since they get exactly ZERO dollars from our tax-dodging friends in the Capitol.