
          Changing Decades
          By Suitts, SteveSteve Suitts
          Vol. 6, No. 5, 1984, pp. 4-8
          
          This year, Southern Regional Council marks the fortieth anniversary
of its founding. Today, as in the past, the Council's vision of the
South's future radiates from a belief in democratic principles. From
its beginning, the Council has affirmed the nation's democratic values
while at the same time holding them up as a standard by which to
measure and change Southern realities. Thus it has analyzed, exposed,
and helped to remove many of the cruel ways in which democracy has
been thwarted by segregation, disfranchisement, and the denial of hope
and opportunity to the region's people.
          As the South's olderst biracial organization, the Council's
uniqueness lies in its ability to help others turn knowledge and
vision into tools for constructive change. Over the past four decades
it has played a major role in reconstructing the South. It challenged
the all-white primary system and then helped to lead the way to
enfranchising and registering formerly powerless blacks. In recent
years it has helped to increase the effectiveness of legislators who
represent blacks and the poor. It has persistently analyzed, exposed,
and found means of opposing racial violence. It has helped to free
many of the South's workplaces of low wages and discrimination. It has
helped to integrate the federal courts. Thirty years ago, when the
Brown decision was handed down, the Council was already in the
forefront of the attack on segregated schools and it has remained a
watchful advocate of equal educational opportunity. Perhaps most
important of all, the Southern Regional Council has cast a vision of
what a humane and democratic South might look like.

          Many of the Council's objectives have been achieved, but its work
continues to be vital to the South. Indeed, the very achievement of
many goals has had the ironic effect of disguising new ways in which
opportunities are blunted, the disadvantaged abused, and democracy
denied.
          Now, as in the past, the Council's task is to provide research,
information, and technical assistance to individuals and groups who
are able to bring change and to provide forums for Southerners of good
will to think and act together. In a new era aptly called the "Age of
Information," the Council is uniquely suited to use its skills and
"data bases" to shape the region's future for the better.
          No facet of Southern life ought to escape the Council's ,attention,
but the agenda for the future has been drawn up around the following
broad concerns where democratic principles must be affirmed and
extended: (1) the ballot box, (2) the workplace, (3) the schoolhouse,
(4) the courthouse, (5) the marketplace of ideas and information, and
(6) the uses of technology and information.
          
            The Ballot Box: More Democratic Governments in the
South
          
          No more important task lies ahead for the region and the Council
than assuring that government in the South at all levels becomes truly
democratic. Almost twenty years after the passage of the Voting Rights
Act the promise of democratic government remains elusive, often
obstructed by the way political power is allocated through the drawing
of district lines for Congress, state legislatures, county
commmisions, city councils, and school boards. As the US Supreme Court
has said, redistricting is a primary means by which "racial and
political groups have been fenced out of the political process and
their voting strength invidiously minimized..."
          For almost four years the Council has been drawing model
redistricting plans designed to promote democratic government and to
prevent the dilution of minority voting strength. It has drawn more
than three hundred model plans, for jurisdictions at every level,
which have been used by lawyers, government officials, and community
leaders. But much more remains to be done. There are more than a
hundred congressional districts, eighteen hundred state legislative
districts, and almost ten thousand local government districts in the
region for which political boundaries must be redrawn after every
census. Since 1980, community groups and citizens' organizations too
often have been unable or unprepared to critique, adequately, proposed
redistricting. While progress is being made and plans continue to be
challenged and redrawn, redistricting in this decade is already a
missed opportunity because so few historically disfranchised groups
were prepared to participate effectively in drafting, assessing, and
proposing fair redistricting plans.
          To make matters more complex, local and state govern" meets have
begun to employ sophisticated means of drawing plans using modern
computers and other related technology. Because of a lack of access to
data and expertise in computers, community goups have been and will
increasingly be at a disadvantage.
          The Council proposes to help here by continuing to assist local
groups to draft model reapportionment plans and to begin to prepare
for the reapportionment of the 1990s. Our continued work will require
the development of sophisticated bases of data, improved uses of
computers and computer programming, and strategic technical assistance
to local groups and organizations in the use of data and
computers. Already the Council has prepared perhaps the only computer
programming for micro computers that will develop adequately fair
reapportionment plans of local governments. This work and the
increased the use of accessible computer technology in this field must
continue.
          The Council will also extend its research and technical assistance
to assure that the Voting Rights Act is fully enforced. By helping
local groups participate in the administrative review of voting
changes in the South and by monitoring the enforcement of the Voting
Rights Act, the Council can help to assure that all stand equally at
the ballot box.
          The work in both redistricting and enforcing the Voting Rights Act
can be effective only if there is a systematic collection and analysis
of the major indicators of political participation and political
effectiveness. In the South today, there is a dearth of reliable,
timely information on the level of voter registration, voter turnout,
voting trends, voting records, and other demographic changes in
government jurisdictions. Historically, Southern segregated
governments have had considerable self-interest in refusing to collect
such information and in denying it to others. In this way, they could
evade detailed evaluations of the full level of political
participation which they were impeding. Today, much of this
information remains uncollected by the states and scattered in many
different places. Without hard, reliable data collected and easily
available, the tests of how political participation can be increased
for all are almost impossible.
          The information that is available is usually collected today at the
county level--making it woefully inadequate in judging accurately the
current levels of political participation and the effective methods of
increasing it. Data on the major indicators of political participation
must be collected and analyzed on the precinct level; this level of
information can enable real assessments of the problems and
barriers. Without this information there simply cannot be a
systematicc analysis which indicates where scarce resources and
activities should be placed.
          The final focus of our work in this area will be our continued
research and technical assistance, by request, to 

State legislators on
issues relating to the poor and blacks. In the last several years,
state governments have become increasingly important in deciding the
fate of both state and federal programs that aid the disadvantaged. At
the same time, the opportunity for state officials in the South to
address, on their own, the problems of poverty and discrimination has
noticeably widened.
          Since 1979, the Council has provided state legislators in the Deep
South with research, analysis, model legislation, and current
information about issues relating to blacks and the poor. This work
has remarkably improved the ability of state officials to address the
historic needs in the region and it is setting a standard by which
state governments can become more effective and more representative by
their improved use of information and research. It must continue if
democratic governments are to serve all Southerners.
          The South is now moving into its second generation of democratic
government unbridled by segregation. If the region is to travel from
the end of segregation to the presence of full democracy, a journey
that can benefit both the region and the nation, the Council's efforts
to assure the democratic promise of the ballot box will be
essential.
          
            More Democracy in the Workplace
          
          Attracted to the South's low-wage, non-union labor--lower wages
than anywhere else in the country--and its cheapened land, both
resident and newcomer companies created an unparalleled number of jobs
during the last decade and, with the aid of the climate, earned the
area the name of the Sunbelt. The sun by no means shines in all
Southern backyards however, and in fact a storm of clouds appears on
the horizon. Almost forty percent of the growth in jobs and personal
income for the South in the last ten years has been concentrated in
parts of Florida, Texas, and Virginia. Three Southern states lost as
many jobs in the last five years as they had gained in the first five
years of the 1970s. Unemployment in the region as a whole remains
above the national average.
          The Sunbelt fascination may turn into an extended disaster. The
economy of the nation and the region is increasingly becoming
international and this trend surely limits the future prospects for
jobs in the South so long a' low wages and cheap land are its major
attractions Corporations already threaten Southern workers and
communities with relocation to Central America, Africa or Indochina
where wage scales are abysmally low. In the absence of workplaces in
which meeting the needs of the region's people is as important as
maximizing profits, the South's hopes and the Sunbelt's glitter soon
will be eclipsed.
          The Council hopes to address many of these issues with its recently
created Southern Labor Institute. The Institute will bring together
representatives of labor unions, business civil rights organizations,
environmental groups, govern meet, education, and other interests to
help create common agendas for the region's economic development. It
will also carry out research to monitor and assesses the South's
development of industrial relations and policies that promote the
welfare of workers.
          In the next few years the Institute will develop a sound,
alternative economic development strategy for Southern states and
local governments--a strategy that avoids the heavy reliance upon
cheap land and cheap labor. At the same time, the Council will
recognize the problems of capital formation and need for marketing
expertise by small, minority-owned, worker owned, and local businesses
in the South's increasing service-oriented economy. Work in this area
will include: (1) monitoring and encouraging governmental and private
practices of equitable, accessible capital formation, especially among
religious groups, churches, and labor unions, and, (2) establishing a
network in which marketing expertise and product development can
become available to a larger number of minority, worker-owned small
businesses.
          Also, today, more than seventy percent of the land of the South is
served by ostensibly democratic, economic institutions--the electric
utility cooperatives which by law are controlled by their
customers. Through years of neglect and a history of segregation,
these economic institutions with six billion dollars of assets in the
South, have become unresponsive to needs for job creation, a balanced
ecology, and prudent use of energy in their own communities. This
essential industry in the South will continue to be a central concern
of the Council's research and technical assistance in an effort to
improve democratic decision-making, promote jobs and protect the
environment.
          
            The Schoolhouse: Equal Opportunity to an Excellent Integrated
Education
          
          The goal of excellence in education has little, if any, opposition
in the South or the nation. But controversies do arise over how to
define excellence and how to make certain that no students are denied
a full opportunity to achieve it. Following its long-held views, the
Council will increase its work in this area in the years ahead in
order to assure that citizens of all races and incomes have an
opportunity to find the agreeable means by which everyone has the
opportunity for an excellent education.
          The involvement of local community groups and parents in the
decision-making in schools was instrumental in the resolution of many
problems encountered in dismantling the legally segregated school
systems of the South and that involvement is essential for any
equitable agreement on the 

means to achieve improved education for
all. The Council will encourage local and state groups to develop
agendas and define ways of improving the administration and quality of
educaion, regardless of race or income.
          The Council will also continue its research and analysis of trends
in the South relating to equal opportunity in education and its
assessment of the effects of different means which federal, state, and
local governments can choose to accomplish this goal.
          Of particular importance, especially in the rural South, is the
continued existence of tax-exempt, segregation academies. These
private discriminatory schools have an influence not only in keeping
white children away from public schools but also in influencing local
and state public policies concerning school administration and school
finance in both urban and rural areas. The Council will examine this
area of education and especially the effects of segregation academies
on education in the region.
          
            The Courthouse: Just Men and Women in the Institutions Of
Justice
          
          Few institutuions have been as important in shaping the future of
the South as its institutions of justice. The federal courts have had
a central role in shaping the region's future and while that role has
diminished in recent years, the courts remain a strategic influence
upon the course of the South.
          For much of its history, the Council has been concerned about who
are the men and women who occupy important positions in the
institutions of justice. That concern will continue in the future. It
was not until 1979, after the release of an SRC report, that the
federal courts adopted an equal opportunity plan for employment. It
has also been only: recently that civil rights lawyers, blacks, and
women have had an opportunity to be appointed to the federal bench. At
the state level, surveys by the Council in the late 1970's showed that
most judicial and quasi-judicial administrative agencies remained
predominantly white and too often entirely segregated.
          Through research and technical assistance, the Council will
continue to monitor, study, and prod the courts to be fully integrated
and fair institutions.
          
            More Democracy in the Marketplace of Ideas and
Information
          
          As it continues to help shape public policy options, the Southern
Regional Council will also continue trying to reach the hearts and
minds of Southerners, to make human relations and government more
democratic. Its public education work has involved assistance to the
news media, conferences, the publication of magazines and special
reports, and, most recently, radio and television production. In the
future, the Council will increase its efforts to reach a larger number
of Southerners who in the decades ahead can share a vision of the
region.
          The use of mass media by the Council will continue to branch into
new areas as we try to diversify the marketplace of information and
ideas. Already, the Council is preparing radio programming for
distribution to public and commercial radio stations across the region
and exploring ways of establishing syndicated programming to different
stations throughout the area. This programming will provide
information, education, and a sense of history about the region in
lively and entertaining formats.
          In television, the Council also has begun efforts to reach a larger
audience. With the Atlanta Media Project, the Council recently
established the Southern Network, where it produced each weekday two
hours of non-partisan programming for nine weeks about the
presidential candidates in the South. This programming was distributed
by cable systems to more than one million households in Alabama,
Florida, and Georgia. The Council's first venture into production of
programming will be followed by a cooperative venture of groups across
the region, and perhaps the country, to provide by cable a link among
people and organizations of good will.
          As it has for more than forty years, the Council will continue to
provide information, consultations, and advice on regional isues to
the regional, national and international news media. This informal
service helps to illuminate problems and opportunities and to guide
the coverage of issues by the mass media. A formal part of this
assistance to news media may be a yearly press institute where bureau
chiefs, editors, and reporters meet and discuss the major regional
issues.
          The Council also hopes to improve its services to the news media by
providing a subscription service of microfilmed newspaper
clippings. This collection covers more than thirty years and contains
more than 1.3 million newspaper clippings about people, places, and
events of the South's recent history. For subscribing news media, this
microfilm service would be available in order to provide background on
issues, place, or people through computer retrieval. This service will
also be used to improve the Council's general use of an increased
"data base" in research and technical assistance in other areas.
          Although the Southern Regional Council intends to move further in
reaching a larger audience through mass communications, it also
intends to maintain its own modest journal of opinion which is a
tradition as old as the organization and as important as free
thought. Now named Southern Changes, the Council's 
magazine provides a

means for covering emerging issues and helping Southerners to think
critically about the region as a whole. In the days ahead, the Council
hopes to begin to syndicate some articles in Southern Changes to daily
and weekly newspapers around the country in order to enlarge its
readership and to provide a regional perspective on current events
which is seldom available elsewhere.
          As the Council reaches out to new eyes and ears it will also need
to understand better the currents of opinions in the
region. Complementing other aspects of its work, the organization will
begin periodic surveying of the opinions of the public (and different
segments of the public) in the South. Private and public leadership
will also be surveyed on major issues and concerns from time to
time. This polling should permit the Council to perceive better the
public understanding of issues and its own need for additional public
education and research. Surveying will also be used as a tool in other
areas of the Council's work for assessing opinions on education,
understanding patterns of political participation, and aiding in
testing marketing concepts for emerging worker-owned and minority
businesses.
          
            More Democratic Use of Technology and Information
          
          In this age of information, new and alternative technologies--some
very simple and others very complicated--are shifting radically the
manner in which services are provided and decisions are made. In this
dramatic shift, no sector of society appears less equipped to master
the changes than the long-standing comunity groups who represent the
historically disfranchised of the South. Computers,
telecommunications, health care technology, solar technics--these and
other developments of recent years must be understood and mastered by
community leaders in the days ahead if their constitutencies are to be
represented adequately.
          In the future, the Council will explore ways to help community
groups and non-profit organizations in the South find useful
applications for new technologies. This area of work will be done in
very practical ways and as an extension of SRC's ongoing work.
          By increasing its own capacity to use new technologies, the Council
will share its technical knowledge, computer programming, and
practical applications with others across the region so that there can
be more democratic access and use of the technology and information on
which the region's future will be built.
          
            "A Bunch of Renegades"
          
          In dealing with the old or the new, no region of the country has
experienced greater and more rapid change than the South. In that fact
lies the promise of even greater change for the region and the
nation. It is the promise of democracy: that people can change
themselves, their institutions and their government for the better. To
that simple notion, so precious and fragile today as in the past, the
Southern Regional Council has devoted its energies. With increased
capacities the Council will continue, as one of its founders, Ralph
McGill, said, "to be a bunch of renegades who insist upon telling the
truth."
          
            Steve Suitts is the executive director of the Southern
Regional Council.
          
        