September 16, 2005
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER!
For The Record
 
This is for those who are still trying to figure all of this out: Don’t stress yourself.  It’ll come to you.
 
From time to time, since we began publishing “The Voice”  I have been bombarded with feedback from a few of our “critics” who still haven’t figured out all the whys and wherefores of this publication.
 
When offered a paper for a mere $.50 cents, even some African-Americans have reportedly reacted with a cynical “What’s that for?”   “Why a “black” newspaper?”  Well, why not?  Tell me.
 
“What are they trying to prove anyway?”   “I’m not reading that mess.”  How do you know it’s mess unless you’ve read it?
 
For the record, if you don’t care to read a black publication, then don’t read it.  Since you think it’s so bad, I wouldn’t DARE force such a negative influence upon your fragile minds. 
 
Oh, guess you never heard of the “black press?”   Guess you don’t watch BET, or TV1;  Or you never read Ebony, or Jet Magazine, Black Enterprise, or Essence.   No wonder you can’t understand.   Never heard of The Pittsburgh Courier, The Atlanta Voice, the Birmingham Times, Speakin’ Out Weekly News, OR The Tuskegee-Montgomery Times;  Indiana Herald or Indianapolis Recorder.
 
For the record, those of us who wholeheartedly support The Voice understand that the black news media is a necessary component of EVERY progressive black community in America.   We are America.   And that is exactly what we are about – PROGRESS.  
 
Bottom line:  There will always be critics.  But, as far as I’m concerned, keep your criticism to yourself.  Because if it’s not constructive,  I don’t want to hear it. 
 
We thank every individual who has supported The Voice either by purchasing a copy or by subscribing.   We thank those who have contributed culturally relevant content to the paper; and those who have kept us fed with your ideas about how ways to develop the paper and the kinds of things you want to read about.  We thank those who have offered their services with typing and processing.   We still need additional help with many of the tasks, but one-by-one God is putting people in our path, who are willing and able to help us.   We thank all the black businesses who have advertised with us, and we ask you to continue to support this grass-roots effort to keep our communities empowered with this word.   We continue to solicit the advertising support of every black entrepreneur in the 8-county area.  
 
I remain grateful to Mr. Tony Malone for his dynamic writing and promotional work.  I appreciate Mr. Malone’s promotional appeals to some local white business-owners who responded to him with undeserved verbal abuse, letting him know in no uncertain terms that they didn’t want black business anyway.  “We don’t want no 77,000 of them people from no eight counties comin in my store, bringin’ their bad checks.”
 
This should serve as a reminder to all of us, that those who don’t want or appreciate our business, shouldn’t get our business.  This is what black economic empowerment is all about; getting our fair share of the economic pie.
 
We promise you that we are continually working to make this not just the best BLACK publication, but the best publication in the East Alabama/West Georgia region.   My promise to you is that if you continue to support us with your subscriptions and advertising business, we will make this area proud to have us as a part of this community.
 
For the record, we don’t even pretend to be in competition with mainstream news media, where we have largely been ignored anyway.   We don’t care what they think about us or what we publish.  It ain’t about them.  It’s about us.  It’s about our issues;  Our Stories. 
 
For the Record, there are some white folks who will never understand that there have always been, and will continue to be unique issues related to race that white media will not, and cannot address.   In the final analysis, they don’t care.   And, if we continue to listen to them, we will end up not caring either.   This cannot be allowed to happen.
 
For the Record, We are reaching out to the 77,000 African-American consumers of this area, and we promise you that if you continue to support us, we will utilize our Voice as an instrument to provide black youth with the opportunity to work in a field where we are seriously underrepresented; to give them a chance to develop their talents in writing and marketing and expose them to opportunities to learn how to do something other than flipping burgers in a fast-food restaurant, or standing on the street corner and peddling drugs.   To the critics out there, if we don’t create these opportunities for black youth, who will do it?
 
For The Record, we don’t care about our critics.  They don’t understand that the First Amendment Of the United States Constitution guarantees us the right to a Free Press, which means we can publish and distribute any information that we believe to be timely and relevant to anyone who wants to read it and allow it to enhance their lives.
 
That’s what we care about. For the Record.
 
THIS COMMENTARY WAS COMPOSED AND AUTHORED BY CHARLOTTE A. CLARK-FRIESON AND APPEARED IN THE  PEOPLE’S VOICE BLACK WEEKLY NEWS, PUBLISHED BY THE WILKIE CLARK MEMORIAL FOUNDATION, INC.
 
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Charlotte A. Clark-Frieson
Wilkie Clark’s Daughter Enterprises, LLC
322 Wilkie Clark Drive
Roanoke, Alabama 36274
Phone: 334-863-4885
Mobile: 334-338-1149
email: caclarkfrieson@msn.com
 

All my life, I have suffered in one way or another because of who I am.

When I was a kid I always ended up getting the worse whippins from mama because I was “Mrs. Clark’s daughter.” Other children who were punished for their misbehavior always made it their business to bring it to the attention of someone in authority that I had misbehaved, too.  I just guess they wanted to make sure that I didn’t away with misbehaving just because my mama taught at the Randolph County Training School and she “swung a mean strap!”

So, for sure if I erred in the slightest, I was going to receive the maximum penalty for it – which in my case meant I often had to be on the receiving end of the paddling. Mama always explained to me that she had to whip me more severely to keep other children from feeling that I got “special treatment” just because I was her daughter. So, I had my share of undeserved punishment. Likewise, I always suffered in one way or another because I was “Wilkie Clark’s Daughter.”

My daddy will always be remembered as a controversial figure who lived in Randolph County. He challenged the system; he did it because he understood how the system was set up to thwart black progress. Some African-Americans were content with the way things were, and chose to keep quiet about it, and not make any waves. But, not my daddy. Anyway, his out-spokenness always somehow backfired on me. I recall getting undeserved “F’s” at Handley High School, and a lot of other consequences that I don’t care to remember at this stage in my life. There were many other incidents that were just too suspicious to be mere coincidents. The real irony of that is that somehow, it never bothered me. I understood just as my daddy did, and fully agreed that this was part of the deal. I knew who I was. I knew that I wasn’t an “F” student. So, the label of failure that my teacher tried to brand me with, didn’t stick—maybe it did on the report card but not in my mind or in my heart. Because I was not going to let it stick. I knew who I was. If you stand up for what is morally right; if you challenge an unfair system; you’ll become a target. As a family we understood that because daddy was in the position he was in (NAACP President), we would always be under the microscope. Everybody, would always be looking, trying to find a way to shoot us down – discredit us in one way or another. So, life went on and that’s the way it was. Even my daddy was often a target. He was often picked out; and picked on. But he pressed on, because he understood the inner workings of the twisted minds that conjured up all these underhanded plots and schemes. He knew that it was a carry-over from slavery and later from “Jim Crow,” which were actual laws on the books that permitted the legalized and undeserved mistreatment of blacks. They could be mistreated by anybody who wasn’t black; they could be unfairly charged and prosecuted in “Kangaroo Courts” then executed with no legal recourse. It was a sad — but true state of affairs.

Without a doubt, I truly understand what it is to be “picked on” because the pattern has followed me all my life. Several years ago, as Randolph County NAACP President, I met with the Wedowee City Council regarding one of their former employees; Some years later, we were involved in a very controversial exchange with the Randolph County Board Of Education, that led to a Federal Court case. Each time there were personal repercussions. On one of these nights as my late husband and I drove back to Roanoke from Wedowee, after one of the controversial meetings, the Sheriff who was serving at that time was Larry Colley.  He literally “stalked” us as we drove home. He eventually activated his blue light, and we were pulled over. There was absolutely no reason for our being stopped. We were not speeding; we were not violating any laws. It was obvious from his incoherent conversation that the only thing we were guilty of was being black and challenging the City of Wedowee. This was purely and simply a case of “Jim Crow” in practice. This was simply a case of a person with a gun, a badge, a little authority, and the cover of darkness, misusing and abusing his authority because I chose to exercise my Constitutional Right to free speech, and to petition the government for redress of grieviances.

Sometime after that incident, during the midst of the 1994 Randolph County School controversy, the City of Wedowee, attempted to make me purchase a business license from them, simply because we rendered service in the city limits. Another case of “Jim Crow?” Perhaps. One thing I find so shameful is the fact that even though “Jim Crow” has been changed; even though the United States Constitution now supposedly “Equally Protects” all citizens regardless of race, it appears that many contemporary citizens in the south still think and act like “Jim Crow” is still in effect.When and where will it stop? Why should ANY citizen have to “pay” for exercising free speech when it is a constitutional right? Anybody who knows me, ought to know I am not a criminal, and because I know who I am, I am not about to allow anybody to brand me as a criminal. The only thing I may be guilty of is procrastination. 

Some years ago, I experienced computer failure, which resulted in the loss of three or more years of financial records for our business. It took months on end to reconstruct those records. But, that was nobody’s else’s business, because nobody was going to come in and lift one finger to help me reconstruct the data. It was just something that had to be done. I did it my way—slowly but deliberately. I couldn’t devote but so many hours per day to the task, because I was wearing many hats. I wasn’t just the bookkeeper, but I was the errand girl, and every thing else. Subsequently, I got behind with my current records because I was so involved in trying to reconstruct the old data. 

At any rate, I was very late applying for renewal of our business license. The City of Roanoke did everything they could to turn me into a criminal – for what? A late license application? It was one of the most ridiculous instances of harassment I’d ever witnessed in my life. I was placed under arrest, booked, fingerprinted the whole nine yards. For a business license! Yet we have unsolved murders within our community. We have all kinds of peddling — unlicensed peddling going on in our city — from drugs to illegal liquor to stolen merchandise. But the city was more concerned about making me pay for being Charlotte Clark-Frieson. I understood this. Because, all my life, I’ve had to pay for being who I was. You think they cut me any slack?  I paid every fine; every late charge; every penalty; at one point they even wanted me to do 80 hours community service. For what? I am not a criminal. And I refuse to be made to feel like a criminal. Why should I be punished for having sense enough to know that enough is enough. The Constitution of the United States protects every citizen from having cruel and unusual punishment inflicted upon them. I know I had paid for the license, I paid the late charges, and I paid the penalties—what more should I have had to pay. Now how much punishment am I expected to take?

Do you think I should have been treated like I had committed grand theft? Or perhaps treated like a slave who had escaped from the Massas’ plantation and been captured by bounty hunters in which case I’d have had to endure 100 lashes from a horse’s whip?  See, something like that can only be conceived in the mind of a modern day Slave Master.  But, I am not a slave. Oh, I know. A lot of you think I should have taken it. 

Ironically, I have often been challenged by my own son who says to me almost daily, “Mama, I pay the price for being Wilkie Clark’s grandson….and I paid the price for being your son.” Son, it grieves my heart to know that you feel so indicted by your kinship to me.  I don’t feel that way about you. I love you.  And because I love you, I need you to learn how to stand up and be a man.

My question to you and other youth your age is: “When and where will you find the intestinal fortitude — the sense of pride, fairness and justice to open your eyes; straighten your back up, and understand and appreciate what other folks went through for you NOT to have to put up with “Jim Crow?” Dr. King was a martyr because he suffered and died at the hand of a merciless gunman so you could exercise your right to be treated with fairness and not have to shred your dignity for any reason.  Thousands of civil rights advocates (including little children) were gunned down, beaten all up side their heads, some even gunned down by policemen and beaten with night sticks, attacked by police dogs, and hosed with water, taken to jail and arrested just trying to get the right to vote. And all you can think about is the personal repercussions of standing up to an unfair, racist judicial system that still insists on “persecuting” black folks. You don’t know what repercussions are.  It is this attitude that is going to continue to keep disproportionate numbers of young black men and boys behind bars; it’s is this attitude that is going to keep innocent men black and white on death row; it is going to result in the extinction of an entire race of people because you somehow have assimilated your thinking to coincide with the thinking of other bigots who believe that all black boys are criminals, and take every opportunity to throw the book at them. I just want you to care about the world we live in, and stand up and take your rightful place in it instead of being selfish and self-serving. What kind of world would this be today if those people – those martyrs had had your attitude? You enjoy many privileges because of their courage. As an eye-witness to much of it, I don’t want it to be in vain. So, I’m sorry that you feel like you’ve had to suffer because of who you were.

There are many people reading this, who will never fully understand why I am the way I am – why I feel so strongly about social and racial injustice. You’d have to walk a mile in my shoes. Experience has taught me well, and I’m here to tell you that unless we change our way thinking and behaving, we’re going to suffer a whole lot more because of our refusal to see the obvious. 

How have I managed to come through all these “racist moments” in my life, and remain in one piece? Well, I believe that it’s because I know I’m God’s child. He is my father, and He has remained true to his word by keeping me shielded and protected from hurt, harm and danger. He has relieved me of fear and worry, because I trust him to engineer every aspect of my life. And I DECLARE, He has NOT brought me this far to turn around and leave me now.

This article was composed and written by Charlotte A. Clark-Frieson, and appeared in the September 16, edition of The People’s Voice African American Weekly News (www.peoplesvoiceonline.com).   This article may be reprinted with permission from the author:
Charlotte A. Clark-Frieson
email:  caclarkfrieson@msn.com
322 Wilkie Clark Drive
Roanoke, Alabama 36274
334-863-4885
334-338-1149