Superintendent Bill Cason Birds Eye View of His School Operations! Valdosta, Georgia 2009 Vs President Obama and Inter City Students!

“THE VALDOTA CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM”

The Valdosta City School System is approximately 80 percent black in Title Town U.S.A.  But the following exists in Valdosta City School System!  We can only ask WHY?

1. The City School Superintendent is WHITE.
2. The Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning is WHITE.
3. The Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations is WHITE.
4. The Curriculum Director for grades Pre-K-5 is WHITE.
5. The Curriculum Director for grades 6-12 is WHITE.
6. The Director of Special Education is WHITE.
7. The Head of Human Resources is WHITE.
8. The Administrative Secretary is WHITE.
9. The Director of Title 1, is WHITE.
10. The Director of Title 11, is WHITE.
11. The Director of Title 111 is WHITE.
12. The Director of Instructional Technology is WHITE..
13. The Director of Nutrition is WHITE.
14. The Director of Personnel is WHITE.
15. The Director of School Social Services is WHITE.
16. The Director of student Information is WHITE.
17. The principal of the Valdosta High school, a school that is overwhelmingly BLACK, is WHITE.

18. The head football coach is WHITE.
19. The names of all schools that bear somebody’s name except one is WHITE.

20. The receptionist is WHITE.

21. The ultimate authority that our children face, the Juvenile judge, is WHITE.

22. Five out of 9 school board members are WHITE.  Even though 80 percent of the students are Black.  (The question is raised to the casual observer that the district lines have been gerrymandered to insure that whites would always control the education of black children).

23. With every position of authority, perceived and real, is occupied by whites, in a school district that is approximately 80 percent black.

Birds eye view and more to come! 


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THE FOLLOWING STATISTICS REPRESENT SYSTEM WIDE ENROLLMENT FOR THE FIRST 10 DAYS OF SCHOOL: (September 10, 2009:

CITY SCHOOL BLACK WHITE OTHER GRAND TOTAL

1.  J.L. Lomax Elementary
(Black- 617, White 11, Other 29, G. Tot. 657)
2.  Salas-Mahone Elementary
(Black 443, White 390, Other 119, G. Tot. 952)

3.  S.L. Mason Elementary School
(Black--629, White--189, Other--42, G. Tot.--860)

4.  W.G. Nunn Elementary School
(Black--976, White--50, Other--52, G. Tot.--1078

5.  Southeast Elementary School
(Black--285, White--8, Other--6, G. Tot.--299)

6.  VECA
(Black--56, White--5, Other--4, G. Tot.--65)

7.  Newbern Middle Elementary
(Black—482, White--9, Other--13, G/ Tot.--504)

8.  Valdosta Middle School
(Black—620, White—251,Other—42, G. Tot.--913)

9.  Valdosta High
(Black-1,232, White--358, Other--71, G. Tot.-- 1,661)

10.  PLC
(Black—211, White--7, Other--5, G. Tot.--223)

Grand Total:  Black:    5, 551  Whites:  1, 278   Other:  383 G. Total:  7,212

Mary Turner's Lynching (1918) also Ignored by South Georgia Media Outlets! (We need help from an outside Source)

Republished (HERE) to show a trend of our local news paper, television, radio, and elected officials in Valdosta, Georgia. 

1st posted:  May 21, 2009

A published rant in the Valdosta Daily Times on May 20, 2009, read “Shame on the professor at Valdosta State University (Mark George) for bringing up the past about lynching of blacks almost 90 years ago… (Mary Turner, and twelve other blacks) This community needs to be aware of what liberal professors are teaching our young adults.”

No! My republican friend, the shame and disappointment are on you, our local television stations ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX. Etc., Newspapers, South Georgia and Elected Officials for NOT reporting/participating in the commemoration program held in Hahira Community Center on Saturday May 16, 2009. It was indeed a historic day of reflection upon the upside down lynching of Mary Turner and twelve other blacks that were killed in what have become known the world over as “A Week of Terror” in Brooks and Lowndes County Georgia in May 1918.

Moreover, history records that Mary Turner the mother of two children was lynched at the age of 20, and her third child was ripped from her womb during her eighth month of pregnancy with a hog type pocketknife, with the head of the baby being crushed beneath the heel of a white mob member’s boot. And has been recorded in American and world history as the most brutal and barbaric acts ever committed in a civilized country.

So don’t ask Blacks and White right people to forget and move on, without first asking the Jews to forget the holocaust and move on. I am grateful to the many students both black and white, faculty members, from Valdosta State University, Professor Mark George of the VSU sociology programs, Tracy Woodard-Meyers, members of the Mary Turner Project, President of the SCLC, NAACP, (NAN), National Action Network, family members of Mary Turner, community activists, Hahira Police Department, friends, and others that participated in the Mary Turner Project and Commemoration Program held on May 16, 2009 in Hahira Georgia.

I comment the Valdosta Daily Times for publishing two informative articles prior to the event. But I was deeply saddened, ashamed and disappointed in our local television stations and other news media outlets for NOT reporting this historic event to the general public. We the people, must continually ask our local news media why they seem bent on keeping the people at Moody Air Force Base, Valdosta State University, Wild Adventure, Kenderlou Golf Course, and other citizens residing in Valdosta and Lowndes County deaf, dumb and blind to the times, and unprepared to make intelligent decisions based on facts.

For too long the truth about our southern heritage in Brooks, Lowndes County, and in other South Georgia communities have been buried beneath the rubbish pile like the legend concerning the ostrich bird---thanks in part to our local news media WHITEOUT machine.

So how could our local television stations, and news papers ignore over 300 people in attendance at a public commemoration program held at the Hahira Community Center, followed by a 105 vehicle motorcade of people of all races and nationalities, escorted by Hahira Police, that traveled west on U.S. Highway 122 through the City of Hahira, and on to the Little River Bridge to the official site where Mary Turners lynching took place in May 1918? Why would our local media ignore a cross being erected in her honor as citizens and relatives of Mary Turner spoke from the back of a pickup truck as people rejoiced, cried, and reflected upon the progress we had made as a community, state, and nation for the good of all humanity?

Yet our news media seems to have turned deaf ear to this historic event without apology to the citizens of our community. Even though people came from around the nation, and stood on this historic site in shock and awe, as we listened to the grandchildren, great grandchildren, uncles, aunts, and other relatives of Mary Turner. As they expressed their internal pain, and the pain of their relatives who tried to explain the horrible murders in Brooks and Lowndes County in 1918.

Mr. James Turner was one such family member from Brooks County that stepped up to the podium to speak but was too overwhelmed with emotions and memories of what his grand parents had told him as a child about these deaths, (Ms. Mary Turner, Mr. Willie Head, Mr. Will Thompson, Mr. Julius Jones, Mr. Hayes Turner husband of Mary Turner, Mr. Eugene Rice, Mr. Chine Riley, Mr. Simon Schuman, an eight month old Fetus of Mary turner, An Unidentified Black Male, An Unidentified Black Male, An Black Unidentified Black Male, (removed from Little River), and Sidney Johnson.)

So we are forever grateful to professor Mark George, and others now teaching our young adults at Valdosta State University to think outside the box of incarceration, and indoctrination. And we are even more thankful to our elders who passed this information down by word of mouth from generation to generation. In spite of the fact, that South Georgia Television Stations and other news media outlets pretended as if Mary Turner Commemoration Program in Hahira never took place on American soil. How sad?

However, it was truly a great and historic day that allowed Mary Turner’s family members, friends, and white right people a chance to release their internal pain, stress, and anxieties without hatred towards others that had been held within their lineage for nearly a century.

So we do not condemn professors who speak truth to power regardless of their political party affiliation or religious beliefs. Instead, we give thanks to all freedom fighters, organizations, courageous pastors, politicians from both political parties, independents and others that fought for us, and for the good of our beloved nation---before we knew what the fight was all about.

So it my humble prayer, that more white right people of good will who are the descendents of the perpetrators of these criminal acts would confess, as many whites did on May 16, 1009 and joined in the healing process of our community. This includes those in our local news media that have tried to ignore these HISTORIC, BRUTAL and BARBARIC acts that have been documented around the world as “A Week of Terror.” But we simply called Saturday’s event a day of reflection, healing, forgiveness, and moving on with the knowledge of the past so we can improve upon the future.

For people that are interested in reading more about “The Week of Terror,” there are many books and links available to the general public. I recommend “Before the Mayflower”, Chapter 11, page 294, “Your hands are full of blood,” by Lerone Bennett Jr., “Killing them by the Wholesale”, by Christopher C. Meyers, Tracy Woodard-Meyers”, A Lynching Rampage in South Georgia,” and the NAACP, Crisis Magazine, (1918), Walter White Investigator, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People entitled “The Work of a Mob.”

My IMAGINATION tells me---that a big screen movie will eventually be made about the lynching of Mary Turner during this week of terror in 1918, and it has been said, that “imagination is more important than knowledge.” (Albert Einstein)

Therefore, I encourage all television stations, newspaper editors, radio commentators, elected officials, religious leaders, politicians, and others NOT to be found on the wrong side of history. Once the cameras start rolling in Brooks, and Lowndes County Georgia, and the ostrich bird raises his or her head, and realize that the world did not STOP, simply because they buried their head beneath the sands of time like our local news media outlets. So let us all understand that truth, right, and justice will eventually win in the end, God Bless America, and everybody else.


GEORGE BOSTON RHYNES
Retired United States Armed Forces Military Veteran
President of Valdosta-Lowndes County Chapter of the NAACP
A concerned citizen and brother of all humanity

Valdosta News Media Continues to Blast President Barack Obama and members of our Armed Forces Executive Commander-In Chief! How sad?

October 21, 2009

TO: Editors, Internet, Blogs, and Beyond

On October 21, 2009, the Valdosta Daily Times once again criticized the Executive Commander-In-Chief of all members of our Armed Forces now serving in Iraq, and Afghanistan. How Sad?

The Times published rants, raves, and letters to the editor along with cartoons that look like two members of our armed forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan holding a military M-16 Combat Riffle.

Both soldiers look Black and one of the Black Soldiers is saying “I happen to like FOX NEWS.” With President Obama standing between the two Black Soldiers pointing his finger towards the other soldier with an M-16,saying “Shoot Him!"

Please note! That Valdosta is the home of Moody Air Force Base and consists of Airmen from all nationalities, religious persuasions, various political party affiliations and this type reporting can only cause disunity and a breakdown of moral within military ranks.

There is already enough hardship upon our military members, their spouses, and children without adding more. Moreover their children here in Valdosta have already been denied the right to watch the presidents live speech on television because of Valdosta City School Superintendent Bill Cason that has caused much tension in the Valdosta community.

http://medianeeded.blogspot.com

Moreover this will not be good when recruiters seek to get our children to enlist into the armed forces. These negatives will only complicate and cause disunity within the armed forces.

As a retired military veteran this is wrong and sets a bad precedence for how we respect future presidents. America can do better in respecting our men and women Executive Commoner-In-Chief of our Armed Forces in 2009. God bless South Georgia News Media Outlets, and our beloved Republic!


GEORGE BOSTON RHYNES, Retired United States Armed Forces Veteran, A concerned citizen and brother of humanity
 
*Why have the squadron, base, and wing commanders at Moody Air Force Base allowed the members of our military Executive Commander-In-Chief to be disrespected in the press?  Is not Moody Air Force Base located in the City of Valdosta?  
 
I served for over twenty years in the United States Armed Forces and this type of disrespect of an American President was never permitted or accepted.  What is going to happen when recruiters ask the daughters and sons of these parents now serving in our armed force that does not like the criticism of the 44th President?  God forbid, if they refuse to serve their nation because of this continuous venom from elected officials,  newspapers, television, and radio stations here in Valdosta Georgia? 
 
We can do much better as a nation.......God bless America and all who served our beloved nation...

Venom continues in Valdosta News Media condemning President Obama, SCLC, NAACP, and White Right Citizens seeking change in their community!

October 19, 2009

On October 16, 2009 the editor and publisher of the Valdosta Daily Times used the majority of space in the Rant and Rave section to condemn our 44^th President of the United States. 

Even the letters to the editor condemned President Obama, the SCLC, NAACP, and other White Right citizens for asking Valdosta School Superintendent Bill Cason to resign for denying Valdosta Inter City School Children to watch President Obama live speech on television along with many other well defined reasons.  But the authors of these letters seem unable to write anything good about our president or the Black and White Right Citizens seeking to change an outdated system.

Even the two cartoons published between the articles were in bad taste.  One showing a vampire wearing a robe with a White lady asking the vampire, “and just where are you going with my good bed sheet?”  The other showing two witches brewing a portion and one witch saying to the other….”And the tongue of Glenn Beck.” 

It is apparent that South Georgia News Media Staffs does not appreciate the diversity or intellect of our students attending Valdosta State University, professors, or the members of our Armed Forces along with squadron, and wing commanders stationed at Moody Air Force Base. 

Our local media must understand that all members of our Armed Forces must think and operate beyond racial lines or political party differences to accomplish their assigned mission given by their Executive Commander-In-Chief of our Armed Forces. 

Moreover Valdosta-Lowndes County elected officials that embraces those who repeatedly condemns our service members Executive Commander-In-Chief on radio and call him a clown, could very well lead to disunity and kaos among the military ranks in our armed forces.

It will be interesting to see if our local news media whiteout machines and radio stations will accomplish what no other civil rights leader or organization could accomplish?  That is to draw national attention to the problems here in Valdosta, and Lowndes County that our local governmental bodies have ignored for decades?

God Bless America, Valdosta, and Lowndes County Georgia

GEORGE BOSTON RHYNES, Retired Armed Forces Military Veteran, A concerned citizen and brother of humanity

George B. Rhynes Speaks At Valdosta City School Board of Education Meeting (Supt. Bill Cason Resignation Request)

October 12, 2009

TO:  Editors, Internet, and beyond

The Valdosta Daily Times published an excellent article covering the Valdosta City School of Board Meeting on October 12, 2009, and included the following quote from my address:  “George Rhynes said that before the meeting Cason agreed to have the meeting aired live on a local radio station and asked the audience to thank him.  The applause was brief.” 

This was not the case.  There was a long applause from the audience, and it was exceptionally respectful as the entire event.  However, below is my actual prepared address for all to see and review.  G.B.R.

My Address Before

The Valdosta City School Board of Education:

I am George Boston Rhynes, a Retired Military Veteran of twenty-years.  I too am asking for the resignation of Superintendent Bill Cason and this is a serious matter.  To the Valdosta City School Board, and NOT to Superintendent Cason.  There have been forty-three (43) White Male Presidents that preceded President Barack Obama. There have been eight (8) Valdosta City School Superintendents and to my knowledge NOT one of them denied the other forty-three (43) White Male Presidents to address the students in our school system.  No, not one of them.

Moreover it is strange that several local radio stations use the word racists and refers to our president as a clown.  Even more sickening is that our Superintendent Bill Cason, Mayor John Fretti, and other elected officials see nothing wrong with making this their favorite place to address citizens on talk radio.  This offends me as a retired military veteran, and I was almost killed in an airplane in Guam.  This hurts!

President Obama is the Executive Commander-In-Chief of our armed forces, and many of these members are now facing death on a daily basis in Iraq, Afghanistan and on other foreign battlefields the world over.  Some have died for this country.  But their children here in the Valdosta City School System could not hear the president that sent their parents into harms way.  How Sad?

This is the home of Moody Air Force Base and these same parents place their life on the line.  These are their children----attending our school system.  Hello somebody!  But they were denied the right to listen to their president and you cannot tell me.  That this does not hurt those children who are old enough to understand the danger that their mothers and fathers have been placed in by our Executive Commander-In-Chief.  I mean this is unbelievable in 2009.  It is totally unbelievable.

In closing.  The reasons given in the Times by the superintendent for not allowing the president speech to be heard mystified me.  That the speech interfered with or did not comply with Georgia Performance Standards or something along those lines.  But like a previous speaker said, teachers are afraid to speak out about the concerns of our children.  So they get behind a desk and say.  “Brother Rhynes, Rev. Rose, Mark Georgia here is what goes on in our school.  We don’t know.  We are not in the school system.  Even White teachers come and tell me, and I am a Black man, as black as they come.

The teachers informed me that last year.  They “sat for two hours watching a play put together by Valdosta State University Drama Department.  They did fundraiser drives, band concerts, boy scouts recruitment, book fair, pep rallies, student duck walk, school pictures, steep testing and it goes on and on….” So how could the president speech waste time, but not this other junk they complained?

Now in conclusion, please listen, please listen. 

Not even during America’s brutal days of the Black experience of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, the lynching crusades, denying Black African American Citizens the right to vote, use a restroom on the highways, eat in a restaurant, called 3/5 of a human being and worse 

Yet!  {I then pointed to an extremely large 2009 Presidential Calendar (“39 X 27) with all (44) American President Pictures displayed with Barack Obama in the Center}.  History records that Black African Americans NEVER disrespected the other forty-three White Male Presidents as is NOW being done to our 44^th President of the United States.  Then there was an extremely loud applause from the audience.

No!  Blacks never criticized these other 43 White Male Presidents!  We never did it.  Yet our ancestors were brought to these shores as slaves, considered beasts of the field---but we respected the Office of The President of the United States of America.  {Loud applause}. 

So, how do you think, we feel Mr. Superintendent.  How do you think, we feel when you denied these children, attending our inter city school system?  “The Superintendent should have been gone!“

GEORGE BOSTON RHYNES

Retired United States Armed Forces Veteran

A concerned citizen and brother of humanity.

Leigh Touchton Response to Valdosta Daily Times Opinion Column! (They got it wrong again)

October 15, 2009

TO:  Valdosta Daily Times Publisher and Editorial Board!

I take issue with the Wednesday editorial from The Valdosta Daily Times.  The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and NAACP have always been multiracial organizations.  Never have either organization insisted that Black children can only be taught by black teachers.  Both organizations have consistently maintained that our society is pluralistic and diverse and that all races have equal rights and should have equal access to employment, housing, and education.

Never have SCLC or NAACP demanded an all Black school system, instead we have demanded that our teachers and administrators reflect the diversity that is representative of our society.  It is obvious to us that Dr. King's dream has been denied insofar as employment and education int he Valdosta City School system.

In a school system with over 80 percent Black children, approximately 5 percent of their teachers and administrators are Black.  Virtually all of the Valdosta aCity School teachers and administrators are White.  The superintendent is White.  The only two Black administrators have no authority over other people.  The do not een merit a secretary while their White counterparts have secretaries.

White administrators have been hired whose qualifications are inferior to those of Black candidates.  A White principal was hired whose application package did not meet the standards set in place by the VBOE while Black candidates were held to those same standards.  The VBOE consists of five White members and four Black members, with districts drawn in such a way to ensure a White majority even when the city population is predominantly Black. 

The longest serving board member is Black but has been repeatedly passed over for consideration as chairman.  In a school system that is approximately 80 percent Black, nearly 95 percent of the students sent to ISS/OSS/alternative school are Black.  The VBOE under the leadership of Dr. Bill Cason has obviously been practicing racial discrimination in employment and education.

The editorial Board at The Valdosta Daily Times looked at these numbers and concluded that the SCLC and NAACP were being racist for complaining about obvious racial discrimination.  Such an opinion should never have passed editorial review at your newspaper.


LEIGH TOUCHTON
Valdosta Secretary
Valdosta-Lowndes County Branch NAACP

Dr. Patrick George, Open Letter Responds to Valdosta Daily Times Editorial-----against the SCLC, NAACP, Brothers United, ICU, and others.....

October 14, 2009


AN OPEN LETTER TO THE VALDOSTA DAILY TIMES

Dear Valdosta Daily Times Editorial Staff,

I am writing in response to your recent editorial about the Lowndes/Valdosta SCLC and whether its actions are encouraging racial segregation in Valdosta and Lowndes County.    Your editorial is included at the bottom of this letter.

Although I have appreciated the recent work of the VDT, I am sad to say that your comments are misguided and inaccurate, both in terms of Dr. King’s work in the SCLC and our collective racial history.   They also deny the fact that this community does not have to “return to segregation.”  It is already highly segregated.  That reality is evident in terms of where people live in Valdosta/Lowndes County, where they worship, where their kids go to school, what classes kids attend when they do go to school together, who controls area schools, who will graduate, and finally, who will go to college and who will go to jail.  It is also true in terms of the income levels of different racial groups in the area and who has wealth here.  It is true in terms of who runs any significant institution or organization that exercises power in this community, including the Valdosta Daily Times.   If you would like current demographic data on this reality I will be glad to provide it to you.  So we don’t need to return to anything.  We are already there, Although changes have certainly occurred, we remain a highly racially segregated community.   I encourage us all to stop pretending that we are not.

Turning to your other comments, first, let’s be clear, integration and desegregation are two very different things and your editorial fails to make that distinction. It is also a mistake many white people make.   “Integration” was not the goal of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because he knew it meant Black Americans would no longer control how their children were “educated” and who would be in charge of educating them.  Again, integration was not the goal of Dr. King or the justice movements of the 50’s and 60’s.   What people sought was “desegregation.”  Desegregation efforts were about equal access, equal resources, equal power, and equal control.  What instead happened, and it happened here, was “integration.”  Consequently, Black, segregated schools were closed and Black children were shipped to schools that did not want them and who had no real ties to their segregated communities.  Furthermore, skilled and successful Black administrators and educators from those schools were not hired in mass by these white systems.   Put simply, after years of struggle whites conceded, they “gave in” to integration not equitable desegregation.  As a result Black folks gave up significant control over how their children would be taught and who would teach them.  They also relinquished control over whether or not their educational experience would instill in Black children a sense of worth, pride, value, and place in this nation.   As a result, integration and educational “success” became a matter of “passing” in a white dominated and controlled system.   That educational model remains in place today.

What’s more, and contrary to your romanticized account of our racial history, we need to be clear that Black and White people did not lovingly sit down together in the 50’s and 60’s to earnestly create school systems that would serve all children equally.   White people did not want that or allow that to happen.  What whites instead conceded to was again “integration,” which is simply another word for “assimilation.”   In other words, white America said, “O.k., you’ve complained long enough, we’ll let ‘you’ come to school with ‘our’ children.  We don’t really want to but we will.  Now be like ‘us.’   Learn ‘our’ history, do it our way, and we will ‘tolerate’ you, ……as long as we remain in charge.”  With this historical process in mind, is it any wonder our school systems are failing all across this nation? 

Let’s also be clear that “integration” in Valdosta/Lowndes County was not embraced and it involved a multi-year struggle.   It also was certainly not enthusiastically “heralded” as a way to “level the playing field of education” by white people here.  The opposite actually occurred.  It was resisted locally and had to be federally imposed here in1968-1970, a full 14-16 years after Brown versus Board of Education declared segregated schools unconstitutional.  I encourage you to revisit the archived pages of the Valdosta Daily Times if you doubt what I say.    In fact, not only did Valdosta and Lowndes schools drag their feet when it came to complying with federal law, many white citizens here joined forces and created the Valwood School in protest.  Lowndes County schools were not only sued by the federal Department of Health Education and Welfare, they had to lose  $350,000 in federal funds (Fall of 1968) before they fully complied with federal desegregation law.  With that history in mind, it’s a bit ironic that today we have students attending schools and watching football games in stadiums named after people (e.g. J.L. Newbern and Sonny Martin) who weren’t real excited about Black children attending school with white children.   I don’t know about you but it may be time to change the name of that stadium and a few schools?

As for whether the local chapter of the SCLC has “distorted” Dr. King’s dream and objectives, I encourage you to do more study on Dr. King’s life, philosophy, and movement strategies.  If you do, you will find that he knew there could be no real racial reconciliation and racial harmony without equal control and power.  He knew that no real relationship could ever occur when there is a gross imbalance of power between individuals or groups.  He knew there could be no true “beloved community” if one group felt the need to control another.   He knew we could not “get along” with one another without real justice and equity.

Allow me to offer one more comment on our history and people’s contemporary references to Dr. King.   I find it curious when people now evoke and use the name of Dr. King, or reference his “dream,” to criticize current day social change efforts like the Lowndes/Valdosta SCLC.  This tactic suggests that Dr. King was appreciated and listened to by white people when he was alive.  It suggests that he was not a pain in their side.   This was not the case.   Though some courageous white folk did walk along side Dr. King, most despised him, many called him a “communist” (sound familiar?), and many even celebrated the day his life was ended.  So let’s not forget that when he and others were working to advance the cause of racial justice in this nation they were hated, criticized, judged, and dismissed as “trouble makers” and “outside agitators.”    It is only now, now that he is physically gone that people love him and romanticize his memory.  It is only now that people inaccurately reference him as the model all should use for social change.

In closing, as for the shame you think some of us should feel for wanting a change in our failing school system, please know I don’t feel any.  However, I am sad that drastic measures sometimes have to occur before anything gets the attention it needs. 

At the same time I do feel shame and embarrassment.  I feel ashamed that in 2009 we still have so far to go.  I feel ashamed that the leadership of the only newspaper here clearly doesn’t know their civil rights history or their local racial history yet they think they should speak to both?  I feel shame that for decades the Valdosta Daily Times effectively censored and/or failed to report on the ongoing racial inequalities that plague this community, particularly as they related to our local schools, residential patterns, jails, and businesses.   In fact, many of your advertisers have been the driving force behind the racial segregation we see today?   I feel shame that for decades many of the people I love in this community have sat aside and been silent as injustice has unfolded.  I feel ashamed that we are a community that consistently finds unlimited time and resources for athletics and but our committed educators go without the resources and supplies necessary to educate our children.  I feel ashamed that we can somehow fire a football coach because they lose a few games but we have educational leaders with extensive failing records, over multiple years, and it’s unreasonable to ask for their resignation?   I feel shame that when people and groups work to bring about Dr. King’s Dream of real racial reconciliation and real racial justice they are criticized for “going about the wrong way” by people and organizations that typically ignore these same problems.   Such criticism, without honesty, action or alternatives, simply serves to maintain the status quo.  Or as Dr. King put it, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.   He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”  Finally, I am ashamed that over the course of the next 16 years best estimates show that 10,000 Black students will not graduate from Valdosta City Schools and many of us don’t seem to care. 

So please know, I do feel shame, not for the reasons you think I should, but I do.  With my shame in mind, I invite you, the editorial staff of the Valdosta Daily Times, to do more to make others aware of our local history and the current, ongoing challenges our community faces.   Please know that you have my full support and assistance in that effort.   It is time we as a community dialog, make others aware of what is unfolding here, and collectively work for a better, more just future. 

My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Mark Patrick George  PhD

P.S.  In the spirit of love and with all due respect, I offer a few words from Dr. King.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.

and finally……

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

SCLC, NAACP, Brothers United, and Issues Concerning Us (ICU) Valdosta Daily Times Wrong Information!

October 15, 2009


TO: Editors, Message Boards, Blog http://medianeeded.blogspot.com/
and beyond

The Valdosta Daily Times Column by the Managing Editor Kay Harris and Publisher J.H. Sanders on October 14, 2009 shows the narrow mind set, incorrect information and perhaps fueling the race issue in order to discredit the messenger and local organizations in order to blur the vision of the general public---away from the real issues.

I agree with Rev. Dr. Martin L. King Jr. quote you published saying, “I HAVE A DREAM THAT ONE DAY ON THE RED HILLS OF GEORGIA, THE SONS OF FORMER SLAVES OWNERS WILL BE ABLE TO SIT TOGETHER AT THE TABLE OF BROTHERHOOD.”

However the editor and publisher is 100% wrong in spreading venom that the (SCLC, NAACP, Brothers United, and Issues Concerning US (ICU) have distorted the work of Rev. King by saying that whites cannot educate Blacks and Blacks should only be with Blacks?

How have Kings Words been distorted and used in such a hate-filled diatribe against another race as indicated in the Times Column? Why make such FALSE accusations to the general public? Why did not the editor and publisher address the real issues and disgraceful statistics: http://medianeeded.blogspot.com/2009/10/rev-floyd-rose-asks-valdosta-city.html, at Valdosta High School that was so eloquently presented before the Valdosta City School Board? Why did you not mention the 1971 Court Order from the U.S. Justice Department and if it had been complied with since the school has received federal funds? Why omit the extremely low number of Black Teachers in employed etc. Why do the times continue to stir up confusion when there is not need for it? Why and why did you NOT ask why local television stations NOT cover this historical and controversial meetings? Why? What are you trying to do? Let us be real!

Why would you say, “Shame on those who want to turn back the clock, to undo all of the true good that has happened in the last 40 years, and to rip apart the dream of equality that so many have worked so hard to create?” How have Black and White Right people in Valdosta tarnished the dream of Dr. Martin L. King Jr. for which he lived, suffered, and was murdered for?

I ask the publisher and editor to prove their FALSE accusations against local organizations, Black and White Right people in support of Superintendent Bill Cason resignation for NOT allowing Valdosta City School Children to watch President Obama speech on live television.

Moreover, the Times are in NO position to remind anyone of Kings Dream. We are

Living the dream every day and receiving the same condemnation from the media as Dr. King did while he lived.
http://community.freespeech.org/george_boston_rhynes_address_to_valdosta_mayor%2C_council_and_beyond%21_%28city_council_meeting%2C_may_5%2C_2005%29

So please don’t play games, unless you are willing to publish the truth on the field of play. The times quoted one of Dr. King’s famous quotes but here is a few more you may want to publish in the paper;

“Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. ““…..and that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.”

“Now it isn't easy to stand up for truth and for justice. Sometimes it means being frustrated. When you tell the truth and take a stand, sometimes it means that you will walk the streets with a burdened heart. Sometimes it means losing a job...means being abused and scorned. It may mean having a seven, eight year old child asking a daddy, "Why do you have to go to jail so much?"

Now since the times editor and publisher apparently have so much hatred and dislike for our 44th president I too will QUOTE Dr. Martin L. King Jr. “We’re not going to win this battle of hate and terror by hating other folks. Hate does not help the hater and it does not help the person who hates. There is something about hate that hurts the hater. Somebody must have the power to transform through love.

You just hate somebody and you are as uncomfortable and as frustrated as the person you hate. There is something about hate that keeps you from standing up straight. And when you hate you cannot see straight. When you hate, you lose your power of objectivity. When you hate somebody, you cannot see them. When you hate strong enough, the ugly becomes beautiful and the beautiful becomes ugly. A good speech becomes a bad speech, and a bad speech becomes a good speech.

When you hate strong enough, hair pins begins to sell for $1.000 and diamond rings for five cents, because that is the wrong price tag on things. Something about hate, that does something to the hater and so our way must be the way of love.” (Martin Luther King Jr.,)

Therefore it is incumbent upon every real patriotic AMERICAN to fully understand. “That hate is a weapon of mass destruction, so don’t participate, and hate will ultimately destroy itself. G.B.R.



GEORGE BOSTON RHYNES (G.B.R.)
Retired United States Armed Forces Veteran
A concerned citizen and brother of humanity

Rev. Floyd Rose Asks Valdosta City School Supt. Bill Cason to Resign for second time! Oct 12, 2009

October 12, 2009

Address to:  The Valdosta City School Board of Education

Let us say first, we don't expect the sons and daughters of slave masters to feel like the sons and daughters of slaves feel. You cannot

Even though the Valdosta City School district is approximately 80 percent black, the Superintendent is white. The Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning is white. The Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations is white. The Curriculum Director for grades Pre-K-5 is white. The Curriculum Director for grades 6-12 is white. The Director of Special Education is white. The Head of Human Resources is white. The Administrative Secretary is white. The Director of Title 1, is white. The Director of Title 11, is white. The Director of Title 111 is white. The Director of Instructional Technology is white.. The Director of Nutrition is white. The Director of Personnel is white. The Director of School Social Services is white. The Director of student Information is white. The principal of the Valdosta High school, a school that is overwhelmingly black, is white. The head football coach is white. Except for one, all of the schools that bear somebody's name, are white. The receptionist is white. And and the ultimate authority that our children face, the Juvenile judge, is white.

Even though 80 percent of the children are black, 5 of the 9 school board members are white. It is obvious to the casual observer that the district lines have been gerrymandered to insure that whites would always control the education of black children.

With every position of authority, perceived and real, occupied by whites, in a school district that is approximately 80 percent black, we have created a culture of what is called the “Rightness of Whiteness;” a culture which breeds a false sense of superiority in whites, and develops a false sense of inferiority in blacks.

It is easy then for whites to believe that there is a white answer to every black question and a white solution to every black problem. And for all these years, not only did whites feel that they knew what was best for blacks, confronted by all of this whiteness, blacks believed that whites knew what was best for them. That is, until now..

October 12 presentation

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Surrounded by an all white Administrative staff, consulting only one of the three black Board members, who incidentally, was selected vice-chairman at the last Board meeting. By the way, he's been on the board longer than anybody else, but has never been appointed chairman. That itself, speaks volumes about what you really think of him.

Against this backdrop, Dr. Cason's decision not to allow the children in this school

district, 80 percent of whom are black, to watch the first African American President's back to school speech, has removed a scab from a festering wound and poured salt in it. It has ignited a fire that only his resignation can put out.

I close with the same observation that I made at your last meeting. You know, I know, and everybody in Valdosta knows that if the superintendent had been black, and the president had been white, and 80 percent of the children in his district had been white, and the black superintendent had denied white children the opportunity to watch the white president's speech, he would have been forced to resign or you would have fired him. To expect us to demand less, is both unfair and unreasonable.

Finally if you feel that we're here to blow off steam, and all you have to do is wait. We're holler loud but not long, Well, not this time. Not now. Look at this audience. They are the intellectual cream of Valdosta's African American community.: Ministers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, lawyers, former Board of Education employees. And Dr. Cason, if you love the children of this district, as you claim, and want to provide the quality education that you say you want for them, you will resign.

Thank you.

Floyd Rose

President Valdosta-Lowndes County SCLC