Reflections on an Anniversary

This issue of our newsletter heralds the 15th anniversary of The New Coalition for Economic and Social Change as a nonprofit organization [think tank] whose home base is downtown Chicago. We believe the organization has filled a void for diverse views within the black community, an idea whose time was long overdue.

The month of October has special meaning to The New Coalition and for me personally. Fifteen years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was The New Coalition's Booker T. Washington Awards keynote speaker, which launched the beginning of a new career for me after accepting an early retirement from Sears Roebuck and Company's National Headquarters.

On October 22, 2007, Justice Thomas will be returning to Chicago at the Union League Club to discuss his recently published memoir and first book, My Grandfather's Son. We are looking forward to his return. October is also special to me because both my wife and I celebrate birthdays in October.

Elections, Appointments

Over the past 15 years I have been elected to the board of directors of The Heartland Institute and now serve as a Heartland Senior Fellow. With recent Congressional approval I was appointed chairman of the Illinois Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, a group of 22 members from around the state. Recently, President George W. Bush approved my appointment to a position needing Senate approval.

I was also appointed to and now am a former trustee of the Illinois Community College Board as well as a former member of the Board of Higher Education for the state of Illinois. For seven years I was a columnist for Crain's Chicago Business, and I am now a member of the editorial board of the Chicago Defender--more than 100 years old and the only black daily newspaper in the country. The New Coalition has developed a working relationship with many local Hispanic organizations.

With The Heartland Institute, The New Coalition has published a book (The Conscience of Conservative Blacks), and two others have been completed and are under consideration by a major publisher.

Bumps along the Way

The New Coalition has encountered some bumps along the way.

One in particular that continues to hang over our head is fundraising. We need your donations and memberships as well as major funding to continue our work. (Page 10 describes some specific projects we could do with your help.)

The second bump involves the front cover of this newsletter, where we have for 15 years had the statue of the Booker T. Washington Monument where he is lifting the veil of ignorance. Officials at Tuskegee University have asked that we stop using it, as it is University property.

Celebrating Washington

The new newsletter logo, showing Washington overlooking the City of Chicago, was created in June 2006, when The New Coalition and Heartland sponsored a two-and-a-half-day symposium at Northwestern University's Chicago campus.

This event had been a 10-year goal of mine, where scholars both black and white presented papers regarding Washington's achievements and his vision with respect to character, education, and economic development. The symposium marked the 150th anniversary of Dr. Washington's birth.

The event was acknowledged by President Bush and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. The papers presented at that symposium have been collected into one of the books we plan to publish, provided funds are raised.

I am often asked, why is Booker T. Washington so often dismissed? My short answer is a quote I came across that says "It isn't what you don't know that harms you, but what you do know that isn't true."

Speaking the Truth

I have spent much of the past 15 years exposing with solid facts that which had become accepted as fact because it was what everybody else was saying.

Common misconceptions about Dr. Washington include that he was opposed to higher education. Yet he sent his daughter East for higher education. He was a trustee of both Howard and Fisk colleges. He received an honorary Master's degree from Harvard University--the first black to receive that honor. Dartmouth awarded him a Doctorate degree--again a first for a black American--all based on his achievements.

And what of those achievements? They included being the first black American to build a college in the deep South, now Tuskegee University. He was the first black to be named to the Hall of Fame at New York University, the first to have his picture on a memorial half-dollar, the first black member of the Alabama Hall of Fame, the first to have a commemorative postage stamp. He was the first black to have a naval ship named after him--the SS Booker T. Washington--and the first to be invited to family dinner with president Theodore Roosevelt.

Last but not least among Washington's achievements was the famous 1895 speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. One of America's most distinguished historians, Dr. Rayford Logan, head of the Department of History at Howard University, wrote that Washington's "Atlanta speech was one of the most effective pieces of political oratory in the history of the United States. It deserves a place alongside that in which Patrick Henry proclaimed 'Give me liberty, or give me death.'"

These are a few of Washington's achievements--which most high school and college students are not aware of.

Many Thanks

As I reflect on The New Coalition's 15th anniversary, I must also say thanks to Henry Lucas and Thomas Sowell for organizing the Fairmont Conference in 1980, out of which came The New Coalition. I was elected to the organization's national board. It's worth noting that the late Milton Friedman was there with us in 1980, as was Clarence Thomas, now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Little did I know that The New Coalition's home office would migrate from California to Illinois, where it is incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation. A special thanks to Joe Bast and the board of directors of The Heartland Institute as the two organizations work together. This is certainly an excellent example of how diversity should work in our society.

Lee Walker (lwalker@newcoalition.org) is president of The New Coalition for Economic and Social Change.