Page 26 - Demo

IntervieA l l i n a W e e k ' s W o r kFrom Saving Souls to Promoting PoliticsBY PETER HALEYIt%u2019s early Sunday evening and Reverend Herbert Daughtry, some fellow clerics, and members of the House of the Lord Church congregation are gathered outside on Atlantic Avenue, socializing after an afternoon service and a celebration for those parishoners who had graduated from high school and college.The afternoon sermon had been %u201c Power, Politics, and Religion,%u201d and Daughtry, the church's thin and energetic pastor, was relaxing before once again putting what he preaches into practice, this time with a meeting at the church concerning simmering conflict in nearby Crown Heights.Over the past year, Daughtry has extended the parameters of his pulpit to conclude a campaign to redirect jobs and money from Fulton Street retailers to Brooklyn%u2019s black community; a crusade to remove Congressman Fred Richmond from office because of his sexual solicitation of a black youth; and, most recently, an effort to take an active role in the Crown Heights dispute between the black community on one hand and the police and the Hassidim on the other, over the death of a community activist and the beating of a black vouth.Daughtry, who has taken his ministry to the streets, is not a stranger to either calling. Although both his grandfather and father were ministers, Daughtry, who was born in Savannah, Georgia and grew up in Brooklyn%u2019s BedfordStuyvesant and Crown Heights sections, spent his youth addicted to drugs, hustling, and crime until his arrest and imprisonment in 1953 at the age of 22 for armed robbery and forgery turned him around.Daughtry spent five and a half years in prison, some of that time in Trenton State, %u201cone of the toughest joints in the country. %u2019 %u2019 But from the very beginning of his term, Daughtry said he was a changed man.%u2018%u2018I was going through withdrawal, with all this time for my crimes crashing in on me,%u201d said Daughtry, recalling the timeshortly after his sentencing. %u201c I don%u2019t know if I was still manipulating, still dealing at that time when I called on the Lord, but I told him 1 had made a wreck of things and asked for his help and from that moment on I felt the reality of the divine presence.%u201dAB.A. FROM PRISONDaughtry educated himself in prison, earning a bachelor%u2019s degree, and shortly after his release in 1958 he returned to Brooklyn as an ordained minister and took over his father%u2019s House of the Lord Church on Fulton Street. Through his Pentecostal preaching, travels from Fulton Street to Pacific Street and finally to Atlantic Avenue, and Sunday morning sermons on the radio, Daughtry built his church from %u2018%u2018eight people%u201d in 195f8 to %u2018%u2018several hundred%u201d 20 years later.Daughtry the man and Daughtry the minister seem to be inseparable. But he remains a personable man, who when speaking in church or at a rally or demonstration is transformed into an intense and at times fiery preacher. Daughtry became active when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, began it.s Operation Breadbasket to boycott the A&P and other commercial food chains until they hired more blacks.According to Daughtry, the %u201960s were difficult times for ministers.%u201c New leadership was springing up then, people like Brooklyn CORE%u2019S (Congress of Racial Equality) Sonny Carson, and the church was really under attack by many militants,%u201d he says. %u201c But I wasn%u2019t afraid to go into the street, I was comfortable and had my faith developed. And I grew up in those same streets.%u201dDaughtry, who became executive vice-president of Breadbasket, brought back its famous boycott tactics against A&S and other Fulton Street retailers this past winter. Rallying blacks around the killling of Randolph Evans, a black teen-ager, by a white police officer, and using Fulton Street as its target, Daughtry disrupted thestores%u2019 smooth operation to point where %u201c negotiations%u201d began.%u201c In order to bring city-wide attention to Evans%u2019 death we zeroed in on Fulton Street,%u201d he explains now. %u201c In New York, which prides itself on liberalism, blacks are powerless without representation on unions or the Board of Estimate. Without any great economic impact, so you have to goto the consumer.%u201dTo Daughtry, the death of Evans and the more recent death of black Crown Heights community leader Arthur Miller are a reflection of blacks%u2019 powerlessness.%u2018%u2018Until we develop power through the political process, things like police brutality will continue,%u201d said Daughtry, who insists that %u201c things have not changed, that%u2019s the same old tale%u201d for blacks in Brooklyn.The Reverend has also made Congressman Fred Richmond a target calling for his resignation and now urging his defeat at the polls. Daughtry says that%u201c Richmond himself%u201d is not the issue; the issue is %u201cwhat he stands for. Richmond is the ultimate insult. That he would choose to , remain in office after debasing a black child and will run for re-election indicates blacks%u2019 powerlessness again.%u201dOn a recent Saturday morning, plans for a big voter registration rally were being made and Daughtry was part of them. In his office he explained how the Pentecostal faith was a %u201c personal%u201d religion and how that faith plays a larger role in political activity.%u201c Pentecostal faith allows people to speak in tongues, experience spiritual healing, and to feel their faith. Our goal is how to translate this personal fervor into social action,%u201d he said.The death of Arthur Miller by the police over an argument concerning traffic tickets and the near fatal beating of a young black by a gang of Hasidim%u2014recent acts that occured within a few days of one another%u2014have inflamed the Crown Heights black community. Shortly after the beating, it was reported in the New York %u201c Post%u201d that Daughtry had included some anti-Semitic remarks in a strong speech he made in Crown Heights on June 19.Shaking his head slowly, Daughtry denied the account and labelled it %u201c an awful lie,%u201d adding, %u201c Some of the most vicious people are in the news media, and they don%u2019t care what they print. This story projects me for what I%u2019m not and it%u2019s a clear defamation of character.%u201d Daughtry, who sees himself as a %u201c moral leader,%u201d particularly in light of his attack on Richmond, was troubled by the %u201c Post%u201d depiction.%u201c Even if you have a conflict with the Jews, which we do, I wouldn%u2019t want to hear anyone say %u2018let%u2019s get the Jews, the Italians, or the Blacks.%u2019 To be labelled anti-Semitic is an anathema for me,%u201d he said.Daughtry%u2019s disturbed look faded and he grinned as he related the success of having Mayor Ed Koch, Deputy Mayor Badillo, Police Commissioner McGuire, and other top-ranked city officials present atOne Police Plaza last week to discuss the Crown Heights situation.%u201c It was just terrific. In fact there were so many top officials there I wondered who was running the city,%u201d he said. %u201c What was important was that they met with a large group of people, not just leaders as they had requested. People in power%u2014it scares the daylights out of them to meet with the people!%u201dAlthough an %u201c outsider,%u201d Daughtry is himself is a leader who feels %u201c I put myself on the line%u201d with the Fulton Street merchant negotiations. He thinks that the retailers were able to %u201cfragment the community%u201d in convincing the Rev. Alfred Sharpton, who demanded more summer jobs for black youths, and the black weekly newspaper, the %u201c Amsterdam News,%u201d that %u201c 100 one-week jobs%u201d for kids was the answer to Brooklyn blacks%u2019 job demands.%u201c We were trying to secure jobs in the ongoing process of building the Fulton Street Mall. This is what I mean by the games people in power play,%u201d said Daughtry, who together with other members of the Coalition of Concerned Leaders and Citizens began negotiating in March with the downtown store officials and demanding %u201c 3000 jobs,%u201d a figure that Daughtry readily admitted was %u201c negotiable.%u201dDaughtry is intent on putting himself %u201con the line%u201d : he has been with the Fulton Street boycottprotest since those cold days in December, and was one of the few black leaders willing to take aim at Fred Richmond almost from the moment of the morals charges disclosure. Still, Daughtry feels that failure is a danger, not because of your enemies, but because of your friends.%u201c Your presence tends to adopt a tactic and if the tactic fails, then you spread disillusionment. So we (leaders) find ourseives in a real bind, because we say if you follow us and do this you%u2019ll obtain results. Which means that people in power have to give in order to obtain results%u2014and -so the game is played,%u20191Community ForumO n J u v e n i l e C r i m e :A View From the Other SideBY SALLY BUTLER1 am disturbed by Patricia Phillips%u2019 moving article in the Community Forum (PHOENIX, June 1) describing two cruel burglaries and their effect on her family.We, too, have experienced such burglaries many times and know the anger and helplessness. We also live in Fort Greene (but are amused to see it described as an %u201c up-and-coming area, very chic%u201d ). We live on the other side of the park, the project side, and therein lies a very complex problem. Things look different from here.The most disturbing part of Phillips%u2019 remarks was her attitude toward our children%u2014%u201cdisadvantaged brutes,%u201d %u201cthe time has come...to stop shielding the young.%u201d This implies that children should be punished exactly as adults if they commit adult crimes. Very simple and pat.O %u201d* %u00bb---D5L%u00ab%u00ab- W U l %u201c JW M * V U V V U I V k > J / V ltV iU V lIsland you%u2019d know that the child-burglar would only be further brutalized and educated for more imaginative crime. Not aSister Sally Butler works with the St.Michael & St Edward%u2019s Church, Indowntown Brooklyn.glimmer of hope exists for rehabilitation of that child.Some belive he should go anyway, to get him off the streets. Before sweeping him away like garbage, we must ask what brought him to this point . __ _He comes from a fractured, fragmented family, one that could not withstand the pressure of illness, unemployment, overcrowded living. He never sits down to a meal with his family, might not even have his own bed. He reads poorly, avoids school, is often quite ill physically and mentally. He and his family need massive help: counseling, a good doctor, clean clothes.Well then, why don%u2019t %u201cthe authorities%u201d do something? But who is an authority? The teacher who never sees him and isn%u2019t even sure of his address? The police who are certain that he%u2019s up to something but can%u2019t catch him? The neighbor who sees him out in a tee shirt in freezing weather? Who is going to take this child, love him and care for him and his family?We have thousands of such children on our side of Myrtle Avenue and, fortunatelly, people here don%u2019t wait for theauthorities to act. A father who works two jobs still makes time for his son, a godmother hugs her godchild and listens to his chatter, neighbors put up a kid on a couch without a thought about legal ramifications. And that%u2019s why thousands more aren%u2019t crossing the park to steal what they know they%u2019ll never have.If the child who does steal is a brute, it%u2019s because he has been brutalized. He is the victim of a kind of urban child abuse%u2014the street child who has never experienced internal or external discipline, never known a steady love. Any human relationship he%u2019s ever had has been shattered and he trusts no one.The worst part is that he and his family are entirely without hope. They give no thought to the future. They HAVE no future. There it is%u2014why should, how could anyone in such bleak circumstances ever care about people a few blocks away who seem to have everything?The overwhelming feeling expressed by Phillips is one of helplessness. This is what poverty really is. Powerlessness is distasteful to someone who is usually in control. It is nauseating to someone who is never incontrol. People on this side of the park must endure a barbaric emergency room because there are no private doctors, there is no chance to go elsewhere. They must climb dark stairs to their apartments because no number of phone calls bring an elevator repair man. They trust no one outside because they%u2019ve never experienced justice, or even gentleness, from outside.Somehow, most people survive because they take care of each other. People watch out for the elderly and feed hungry children. They are protecting the innocent. And most of our children manage to grow up well. Every parent knows, though, that one false step, one chance meeting with a tempting proposition can changed a loved child to an \of having that child in a children%u2019s shelter straight out of Dickens is searing agony, a daily nightmare.Our children are so fragile, so easily crushed and destroyed. Only enormous love (more, apparently, than there is to go around) can insure their survival. .What will become of our children?Page 26, PHOiENIX, July 13,1978