Louisiana Weekly

By Ben Jealous TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist Soil. It’s where our food comes from and the foundation of all life on land. The way human beings have tradi- tionally farmed in the modern era dev- astates the soil. It impacts the quality of the food that people and farmed animals eat, and thus our collective health. It’s not sustainable, vastly reducing the amount of farmable land available to us and our ability to con- tinue to feed the planet. There’s a solution. One that we need to consider carefully, that offers a path towards sustainability and environmental health. It’s called regenerative farming. The recent documentary film Common Ground provides a ground- breaking look into this critically important crisis and how we can fix it with regenerative farming. Normally when I’m asked to watch the latest “environmental documentary,” I admit to being susceptible to that mild sense of dread we all get when we’re about to be presented with the problems of the world further solidi- fied before our eyes. But Common Ground is anything but bleak. To the contrary, it offers desperately needed hope at a time when environmental degradation, the climate crisis, the extinction crisis, and threats to our natural resources are driving cyni- cism among even the most optimistic. Common Ground explores how, as Gabe Brown, a Bismarck, North Dakota regenerative rancher featured in film, puts it, the current dominant system industrial agriculture, “is working to kill things,” while regener- ative agriculture “works in harmony and synchrony with nature, with life.” The status quo system of industrial agriculture abuses and degrades our soil with tillage, synthetic substances, monocultures – that is, the cultivation of just one crop in a given area – and not sequestering carbon. Regenerative agriculture, in short, doesn’t rely on these things. In contrast, it relies on methods that protect the soil and offers a sustainable, healthy alternative. Even before today’s high-tech agribusiness, industrial farming meth- ods used by small and large farmers alike were causing devastation to our topsoil. Brown points out that the Dust Bowl of the 1930s wasn’t caused by drought alone but by “copious amounts of tillage.” Common Ground uses historical examples in its storytelling that, as a lifelong student of history, I love. One highlight is a newly told account of the revolutionary agricultural genius, George Washington Carver (told by Leah Penniman, herself a farmer and author of the book, Farming While Black). While Carver is known in history books as “the peanut guy,” he was far more. Carver under- stood that to take farmers out of pover- ty, you had to build healthy soil. Peanuts, it turns out, put nitrogen into the soil. Using peanuts and various techniques he developed by studying nature, Carver taught an entire genera- tion of Black farmers how to farm in harmony with nature, like the indige- nous peoples of America. Common Ground also strikes an important chord in addressing cli- mate. Healthy soil has the potential to sequester tremendous quantities of CO2. From large farms to urban gardens, the caretaking of soil can produce more profitable and more nutritious food and help mitigate the climate crisis. The entertainment industry, through film and television, can be a powerful catalyst for change. It can motivate, enlighten, and inspire us to Common ground is a testament to the power of film By William Trollinger The Conversation.com Columnist It was Dec. 19, 1923 – 100 years ago. The first day of Christmas break at the University of Dayton, with fewer than 40 students still on campus. At 10:30 p.m., the quiet was shattered by a series of explosions, as 12 bombs went off throughout campus. Frightened students discovered that, while damage was minimal, there was an eight-foot burning cross on the edge of campus. Running to tear it down, they were confronted by several hundred Klansmen screaming threats from 40 to 50 cars. It wasn’t the first time Dayton’s residents had endured terror from the Ku Klux Klan. Hundreds of neighbors poured out of their houses and charged at the hooded invaders. The Klansmen sped away, and the stu- dents and others extinguished the fire and tore down the cross. The KKK is most infamous for violently terrorizing African Americans. But in the 1920s its hatred also had other targets, espe- cially outside the South. This version of the KKK, known as the Second Ku Klux Klan, harassed Catholics, Jews and immigrants – including students and staff at Catholic universities like Dayton, where I am a historian of American religion. All of this is the focus of my 2013 article, “Hearing the Silence.” The Second Ku Klux Klan The KKK emerged in the South in the years immediately after the Civil War. Its goal was to use whatever means necessary – including a great deal of murderous violence – to force newly freed African Americans into conditions close to slavery. Having succeeded, the original Klan all but disappeared by the end of the 19th century. But in the wake of the blockbuster film “Birth of a Nation” – which celebrated the original KKK as having “redeemed” the defeated South – the organization was reborn in Georgia in 1915. This second KKK only attracted a few hundred members over the next few years. But it exploded upon the national scene in the early 1920s, thanks to anxieties about immigration, race and communism. In fact, the white-robed Klansmen with their fiery crosses – a sym- bol borrowed from “Birth of a Nation” – very soon attracted between one million and five million members. The second KKK was truly national, with more members in the Midwest and West than in the South. As the reporter Timothy Egan powerfully chronicles in his book, “A Fever in the Heartland,” “the Klan owned the state” of Indiana. In 1925, “most members of the incoming state legislature took orders from the hooded order, as did the majority of the congressional delegation.” It is possible that Ohio had nearly as many members in the 1920s. Historian David Chalmers – who counted 400,000 Ohioans in the KKK at the organization’s peak – commented that “there was a time when it seemed the mask and hood had become the official symbol of the Buckeye State.” The second KKK presented itself as a supremely patriotic organization: “100 percent American.” And to be 100 percent American, in their eyes, you had to be white and determined to keep African Americans in their place. Emulating the first KKK, the second Klan used horrific violence, including lynchings, to try to terrify African Americans into submission. To be “100 percent American” also meant that you were Christian. The second KKK was the quintessential white Christian nationalist organiza- tion, and it defined ideal citizens by their race, creed and birth. When Klansmen were initiated into the organization, members sang “Just as I am Without One Plea,” a hymn that adores Jesus as the “Lamb of God.” Yet the group portrayed Jesus as one of them: the First Klansman. Anti-Catholic campaigns Actually, being Christian wasn’t enough. To be 100 percent American, in the Klan’s view, meant that you were a white Protestant Christian. In the years between 1890 and 1920, a flood of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe came to America, a large percentage of whom were Catholic or Jewish. While the Klan was – and still is – strongly antisemitic, in the 1920s its members were particularly worried about Catholics, as there were many more of them. This was certainly the case in Dayton, where 35 percent of churchgoers were Catholic, thanks to an influx of immigrants who worked in the city’s factories. In response to the Catholic “threat,” at least 10 percent of Daytonians – some 15,000 people – joined the KKK in the early 1920s, with some estimates placing the number as high as 40,000. As was the case elsewhere in the Midwest, the Klan’s presence in Dayton was visible in rallies and parades that attracted thousands of Klansmen, Klanswomen and supporters – not to mention the burning crosses intimidating Catholics and Jews in working-class neighbor- hoods. As one Dayton resident of those years later recalled, the “threat of Klan violence was always there.” The Klan directed much of its anti-Catholic hostility against the University of Dayton, which was founded by the Society of Mary, also known as the Marianists. As part of their intimidation campaign, KKK members repeatedly slipped onto campus to set crosses on fire. Rumor had it that the police force was filled with Klansmen; whether or not that was true, city authorities made little effort to intervene. But as historian Linda Gordon has noted, “targets of Klan aggression were not always passive or nonviolent themselves.” Students at the University of Notre Dame, for example, stopped a KKK parade and ral- ly, then damaged the headquarters of the local Klan. University of Dayton students fought back, too. They repeatedly chased Klansmen off campus, calling on them to “show their faces.” At one point, football coach Harry Baujan, hearing that another cross burn- ing was about to commence, exhorted his players to “take off after them” and “tear their shirts off” or “whatever you want to do.” Lingering legacy The second KKK peaked in influence and membership around 1925. Over the next few years, however, the Klan was afflicted by a series of By Dr. E. Faye Williams TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist Happy and blessed holidays to all. I’m indeed blessed to know that you read what I write. Despite all the horrors that have hap- pened many of you’ve been kind enough to let me know what you’re thinking. Again, I’m going to let you know what I’m thinking! What if we talk a bit about year-end poli- tics? What if we take away the titles of D’s, R’s and I’s from those parties because some of them have done some scary things the past year – some scarier than others? What if we require candidates for office to explain what they will do to resolve the prob- lems the people they represent face daily? If they’re running for the first time, just tell us what you’re going to do for us. Tell us about the things you’ve already done to prove to us you can do what you’re now promising us to do. If you’ve already served in the office for which you are now running, tell us what you promised to do to help us when you ran. Tell us if you did it. If not, why not, and why should we give you another chance? Tell us what you’re planning to do to help us if you’re re-elected. Let opponents speak for themselves. You have to admit that positive accom- plishments during the past year have been slim to none in many areas and by many who want another chance. We would then ask ourselves if we want to continue elect- ing people if they continuously fail to honor their promises. Before they’re a part of sending our bil- lions of dollars to other nations, do leaders even bother to approve what recipients did with the last funds and equipment we sent? When we receive grants from our govern- ment, we must show what we’re going to do with the funds, and in the end, we must prove we did it or we won’t get any more. Our current system for what our tax dollars are donating is not working for those of us who pay taxes. When those we elect don’t do things to help us with what we hold dearly, they must stop clogging up our mail and telephones from being granted the opportuni- ty to tell more lies. All candidates should have a checklist of accomplishments and no opportunity to run on just bad-mouthing and blaming opponents for what they did or didn’t do. In the coming year, can we stop blaming everything on young people? Let’s ask ourselves what we’ve done to give them a fair chance in life – such as having ade- quate good quality food, a safe neighbor- hood, a school where they can get a good education, a chance they’ll be treated fair- ly by our system of justice. Wouldn’t we have a better nation if all adults had a good job and everybody spoke respectfully to each other so young people didn’t learn from them to be dishonest, disrespectful, and worrisome? I know what I’m hoping for in 2024 may be just a dream, but success usually begins with a dream. In a few days, most of us will find some- thing good to do to celebrate the holi- days – then go back to forgetting to be kind to each other. In 2024, can we just try a bit harder to care about each other, to be part of the solution, and not the problem? It’s my greatest wish that those who run for office and seek our vote in 2024 will offer all of us some- thing better than we’ve seen in 2023. Let’s be a positive example not only for our nation but for the world. Let us invest more in America so that we can truly say to the world, “We are who we say we are.” Love & Blessings…◊ Year end daydreaming By Lee Saunders TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist When working people stand together, raise their voice and show their power, they win. That’s the lesson of 2023, a year in which workers boldly asserted their rights and refused to accept less than their fair share of the value they create. Through October, nearly 500,000 workers had taken the courageous step of going on strike this year, three times the number that did during the first 10 months of 2022. And almost 900,000 union workers have won pay hikes of at least 10 percent over the last year. AFSCME affiliates across the coun- try have been a part of this wave of strike activity. From workers in Yamhill County, Oregon, to employees in the Morgan County, Ohio, school district, AFSCME members withheld their labor until their employer afford- ed them the respect they deserve. This is happening across the econ- omy – from health care to hospitali- ty. Writers, actors and other workers in the entertainment industry hung together for months until they finally got a better deal from their employ- ers. Sometimes, just the threat of a strike forces management to soften and cede to workers’ demands. That’s what happened in the standoff between the city of San Jose, California and the Municipal Employees’ Federation–AFSCME Local 101 this summer. Similarly, the Teamsters were prepared to walk off the job at UPS but ultimately didn’t have to, using the leverage of a 97 percent strike authorization vote to land a historic contract. Perhaps the year’s highest-profile worker action came from the United Auto Workers. In an unprecedented gambit, the union went on strike against all of the Big Three automakers – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – at the same time. UAW now has contracts with all three companies that include life- changing raises of up to 160 per- cent, as well as greater retirement security and union protections for those working on electric vehicles. When workers are able to organize, bargain collectively and go on strike when necessary, the benefits are felt especially in communities of color. Unionization has been an economic life- line for generations of Black people, in the public as well as the private sector. My father was a bus driver in the city of Cleveland, and while we sure weren’t rich when I was growing up, his union wages and benefits meant that we could have a decent life. Unions are a force for racial equity. While there are still major pay and wealth gaps between Black and white workers, they would be much larger if not for unions. And in 2022, median earnings for Black union members were more than 20 percent higher than for Black workers who don’t belong to a union. No wonder African Americans are more likely to be union members and more likely to support unions than the population at large. So, as we look at strategies for growing the labor movement, organizing Black workers must be a top priority. Workers of all races are feeling empowered and emboldened, claiming their seat at the table and inspired to take collective action. And strong pub- lic support is the wind at our back. Recent polling demonstrates that unions enjoy sky-high approval rat- ings, particularly among young peo- ple. Growing numbers of people want unions to be stronger and believe they are good for the economy. As we close out 2023 and look ahead to a new year, the challenge for those of us in the labor movement is to build on this momentum. We must continue standing up to the boss and organizing new workers. We must continue bargaining good contracts and electing pro-worker allies. We must continue, every day, to talk about and demonstrate the power of the union difference. Lee Saunders is president, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME). ◊ Why does most of America ignore violence prevention? Page 5 December 25 - December 31 , 2023 THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY - YOUR MULTICULTURAL MEDIUM Continued on Page 7 WILLIAMS TROLLINGER The KKK planted bombs at a US university – part of the terror group’s crusade against American Catholics JEALOUS SAUNDERS Continued on Page 7