Published: April 03, 2008 05:31 pm            

HAMILTON: Does anyone really remember King?

Forty years after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., current and former politicians are still pimping black Niagarans and nobody seems to care.

With a black presidential candidate and our governor, state senator, Niagara County legislator, city administrator and two of five city councilmen being black, the Niagara Falls political landscape has drastically improved, since all of this has occurred over the last twenty years.

But, with each election of a black person, the number of African-American businesses seemingly has been reduced ten-fold since the death of King, almost to the point where there are more African-American politicians in Niagara Falls than there are African-American businesses. The only way that those business numbers improve is if we count the number of street pushers; and even then, the consequences worsen.

Last Tuesday, the latest gang of social evangelists held their tent revival on how they were uniquely equipped to drive out the devils that made Highland different from the rest of the communities. Their goal, they said, was to develop “a community-driven plan” to heal the area of its plague of brownfields by restoring areas for parks, residences, retail and clean manufacturing businesses. However, of the forty or so people in the auditorium, there were only a half-dozen who actually lived in the contaminated community. On the side of the microphone where the $400,000 was held were the spewed promises from those who lived in neighborhoods very much unlike Highland. They would get paid despite any outcome of the third of such Highland brownfield plans. While those one the other side of the microphone, who lived in the stricken community, may be left with hope, they still have to deal with whatever was causing what Legislator Renae Kimble called an infant mortality rate that is believed to be twice the national average as well as cancer rates that exceed those even for the rest of the contaminated state.

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster was there polishing his image of environmentalist, praising both the group and himself for their mutual restorative goals of a black neighborhood, despite his pretty paltry agenda for actually improving the lot of the lives of the people who live there and several NAACP snubs. With his nearly 100-day honeymoon over, Dyster not only has yet to hire one African-American to a permanent job in his administration, he has actually fired black transition team-member and staunch supporter Elliot White for citing that he had not done so.

Dyster’s may redeem himself by hiring an applicant female African-American as city administrator; however, the out-of-towner would only replace current City Administrator Bill Bradberry for a net gain of only being female.

Niagara Falls Six city employee Emmit Cox said that he approached the mayor, asking for a conciliatory meeting with the group to help settle the long-standing discrimination lawsuit and was shunned. Black former city clerk Cynthia Baxter’s discrimination suit is also still outstanding and whispers abound throughout both the black and white communities echoing the concerns about veteran and detective Carl Cain not receiving the courtesy of even an interview by Dyster for police chief position, despite the paltry number of black public safety officers. Racial discontent among workers at the Department of Public Works continues, despite, and some say as a result, of Dyster’s selection for DPW department head.

King died in Memphis 40 years ago while campaigning about discrimination against black municipal city workers; but while the number of black politicians and programs have increased, many African-Americans are still being corralled into contaminated communities and treated the same by politicians of all colors.

We all know what is in City Hall that is killing us. Nonetheless, the social-evangelical group led by former bow-tied Buffalo Council president James Pitts is right that the community must get involved in their highly paid program. Not so much for the things that Pitts got paid to do in Buffalo, like cutting the lock off the Johnnie B. Wiley Sports Pavilion for Fruit Belt kids and helping move people out of the contaminated Hickory Woods, then turning around and getting paid in Niagara Falls to take the Center Court athletic park from the Highland Community to plant overpriced houses between known brownfields; instead, at the very least, it is to give environmental group TGVA the opportunity to find out what is under the ground that is killing us.

Does anyone really remember King?



Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident whose columns appear each Friday. He can be reached at Kenhamilton930@aol.com.

        

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