Black community denied water for decades, jury says

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CNN/Associated Press

updated 2 hours, 20 minutes ago
Black community denied water for decades, jury says

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Residents of a mostly black neighborhood in rural Ohio were awarded nearly $11 million Thursday by a federal jury that found local authorities denied them public water service for decades out of racial discrimination.

Each of the 67 plaintiffs was awarded $15,000 to $300,000, depending on how long they had lived in the Coal Run neighborhood, about 5 miles east of Zanesville in Muskingum County in east-central Ohio.

The money covers both monetary losses and the residents' pain and suffering between 1956, when water lines were first laid in the area, and 2003, when Coal Run got public water.

The lawsuit was filed in 2003 after the Ohio Civil Rights Commission concluded the residents were victims of discrimination. The city, county and East Muskingum Water Authority all denied it and noted that many residents in the lightly populated county don't have public water.

Coal Run residents either paid to have wells dug, hauled water for cisterns or collected rain water so they could drink, cook and bathe.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/11/civil.rights.water.ap/index.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. hot damn.

institutionalized racism. another dagger in its heart.

[flyingfysh]

2. There is a relevant book

I strongly recommend "Sundown Towns" by James Loewen. This incident could have been used as one of many examples in the book. Refusal to connect to water systems was one of many tools used against blacks.

The book is about towns which by policy or local law drove out black residents on purpose; many of them still keep blacks out. Most towns in Illinois at one time had these policies.

The title comes from the fact that in these towns, blacks had to be out of town by sundown. There is a lot of stuff in the book. Read it.

[J R]

3. Go visit Dierks, Arkansas...

...and you'll notice ONLY white people. It was and still is a place my black friends fear. Dierks is a classic "sundown town" complete with a crooked good-ol-boy sheriff, one factory that sustains the town and lots of angry ignorant white people who would never suffer a black person or a Mexican immigrant as a neighbor. Black people around those parts know that it's a strict and spoken taboo to be caught in town after the sun goes down. Wanna step back into the 1950's? This town and a few more in Arkansas I can think of off-hand are like living fossils. If a black family were to move in now I guarantee that they would experience violence on their first night.

[mdmc]

4. thanks for the info

peace and low stress

[SnowCritter]

6. Sounds like a step back to

the 1850's.

[flyingfysh]

22. no, it's a step back to 1900

The phenomenon of sundown towns generally started around 1900, about the time that the Republican Party abandoned its support of civil rights for black people. It was earlier in some places.

Before that, far-west areas were driving out Chinese farmers. That is why Chinese now are concentrated in Chinatown districts.

[peacetalksforall]

21. Don't know the story, but if they only have one factory, then the factory is as

much to blame as the townspeople.

American supremicists - tell me again how we are supposed to be superior to all the other countries in the world. What a lie that is faithfully maintained by self-blinded people.

People who believe this find it acceptable to invade, plunder, kill, thive, lie for the sake of war mongering and profiting corporations. They got their people in for eight years in the first decade of the 21st Century.

[flyingfysh]

24. There is also Paris, Arkansas

(I was there once for an Orville Faubus political rally). My grandfather's brother told me that around 1900 Paris residents drove out all the blacks, and that there was only one black family still left. Harrison, Arkansas (north Arkansas, in the Ozarks) drove out blacks at least twice. Other towns in northern Arkansas have similar sorry histores.

Southeast Arkansas (the more "southern" section of the state) didn't do this; they need the black labor for the rice fields.

[texastoast]

32. Sounds like Vidor, Texas

Racism is such a horribly shameful thing that emanates from very fearful people. Scaredy cats

[DUlover2909]

35. I spent some of my childhood in Whitesboro, TX

I was told that they had signs around town about blacks not being allowed after sundown. There were no minorities at all in Whitesboro in the 1980's when I lived there.

[Divine Discontent]

43. many towns like that all over the US

as a man who is gay, I know the same would be true if I had a partner and moved to those same towns. I have a relative that told me in her TN town, that it's a known rule that blacks understand they are not to be in town after the sun goes down, only for necessary business then to go back to their out-of-town existence.

more at --- www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable

[NuttyFluffers]

59. yes, an excellent book. i heartily recommend it.

it covers the heights of Reconstruction racial mixing and then the spiraling down period into the racial nadir period between 1870s to 1960s in USA. a lot of that racist stuff were well in effect de jure until 1989, iirc from the book. and only recently has the de facto segregation been slowly undone. even still there's a few staunch holdouts compared to the great white swaths before of uninhabitable and verboten to visitation "white towns". quite horrifying history and sociological analysis, but a very approachable and informative read.

[Joanne98]

5. K&R

[KG]

7. racism still runs thick and deep in america.

[Obamanaut]

10. And so do areas that do not have municipal water supplies. nt

[KG]

30. i'm sure there was a point to that reply.

[Obamanaut]

37. Yes, there was.

There are areas all over the country that are not supplied services by municipalities. There is no municipal water outside of the city limits where I live - everyone has a well. We do not have curbside trash pick-up, but must deliver it to central collection sites. There is no cable teevee, if one wishes to have other than a tower or other outside antenna, one gets the dish network or some other satellite provider. We have only dial-up internet (refer to dish or satellite provider item.)

There is no racism in this, it's just the way it is. Why must we see (pick one here from among hate crime, racism, sexism, ageism, etc) in so many things when it just might not be there?

[noiretextatique]

38. apparently the civil rights commission and the court disagreed with you

and concluded these people were denied water because they were black.

[KG]

39. hey, Karen!

:hi:

[noiretextatique]

40. hey darling!

:hi: nice to see you. it ain't no damn racism in amerikka...i don't care what that damn court said :eyes:

[Obamanaut]

45. And you've never disagreed with a decision from the court

system, eh?

How's that 2000 election going for you?

[Limelight]

50. The real quesiton is...

Why are there always people like you there trying to make a mole hill out a moutain? Why are there always folks like you who do their best to make excuses for bigots?

You think this court just magically concluded that there was racism? They just made it up out of thin air with zero evidence from documentation and testimony? You really by into that crap that racism, homophobia and sexism are all just grand conspiracies made up by whiners to keep the white man down?

I guess the real question is are you on the right site? Maybe someplace like Free Republic might suit you better?

[hfojvt]

51. maybe because the article does not make a strong case

It wasn't a court that decided it. It was a jury. And juries are not always right. Is it somehow Freeperish to disagree with a jury?

[AlbertCat]

13. and you'll notice not just in the South.

[KG]

17. oh, hell no. it's everywhere.

[flyingfysh]

23. sundown towns are worse in the North

This came as a surprise to the historian James Loewen when he was doing research for his book. Read the book, it's all there.

[pnwmom]

8. Kudos to those nasty out-of-town lawyers. n/t

[HEyHEY]

15. Damned big city lawyer fellers

[flashl]

9. K&R nt

[AllyCat]

11. Oh, the poor rich people!

snip

Landes countered that about half of Muskingum County residents are not tied into the public water system even today. Among those without it are county commissioners, judges and other prominent officials, he said.

snip

Uh huh. These are probably all folks that live on large private lots with plenty of money to dig wells. Just because they aren't tied into the water system doesn't mean they are equally inconvenienced.

Racism is still alive and well. Pathetic.

[HEyHEY]

16. Yeah, if you can pay to have a well dug, you've got money

Cause that ain't cheap.

[OhioBlue]

29. plus they are not in an area that is served by a

public water system like the folks in Coal Run.

They probably also don't have contaminated well water from the former coal mine like the folks in Coal Run.

[nam78_two]

12. K&R

:banghead:

[HEyHEY]

14. Doh, shoulda moved there last year

I coulda made some cash :-(

[knitter4democracy]

18. Why am I not surprised.

Disgusting.

[lonestarnot]

19. Is this what is referred to as the United States?

Richies.

[sui generis]

20. isn't Ohio a blue state?

Bash everyone in Texas for some judge giving the gunjeon crazies a reason to go clean the flaky white stuff out of their panties, shamelessly bash.

Wonder how Ohio gonna go down or if we'll all gather and sing kumbaya.

[ohio2007]

58. Most of Ohio is blue. 6th district is SOLID blue.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=OH




Dennis Kucinich represents the 10th district....he's still pushing impeachment

while blue collar district jobs go overseas

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400227

I doubt Barak has him on the potential VP extended review list.
Forget being on the short list
:sarcasm:

[OhioBlue]

25. looks like Coal Run got the water in 2003 b/c the County was forced

by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.

Twenty-two African American homeowners in Muskingum County, Ohio will receive water service after years of being denied because of their race.

County commissioners awarded a $730,000 contract in July to an Ohio company to run water pipelines to Coal Run Road, one of the few areas in the county without water service. The area on Coal Run Road without water service is predominantly African American.

The county commissioners’ decision to run water to the Coal Run Road area comes less than a month after the Ohio Civil Rights Commission (OCRC) issued a probable cause finding in a fair housing complaint filed by African American families and the Fair Housing Advocates Association (FHAA) of Akron. The Commission’s finding indicated that its investigation yielded evidence that the race of the Coal Run Road residents and other African American residents in Muskingum County was a factor in the decision not to run water to the area.

http://www.fairhousing.com/index.cfm?method=page.display&pagename=advocate_august03_page3

Also, to the County official that keeps repeating the line about "oh well, a lot of county residents don't have municipal water".... I would like to tell him we are not all stupid. We all know there are plenty of rural areas where water lines do not exist. If location prevented the installation of water lines and not race, this would not have been a case.

African Americans waited 30 years for water; white neighbors did not face “similar hurdles” to access

According to the OCRC complaint and reports in the Zanesville Times Recorder, the African American residents on Coal Run Road have been denied water service for nearly 30 years, while adjacent, predominantly white areas have not faced “similar hurdles.”

An OCRC report noted that in some cases, water lines were extended to within 100 yards of African American residents but that those residents were still denied access to the system. The report also noted that there are 61 homes on Coal Run Road, Langan Lane, Circle Drive, and Russell Street in Muskingum County. Thirty-four of those homes are occupied by whites and 27 are occupied by African Americans. Thirty of the white homes receive water service, compared to four of the African American homes. One of the African American homes had water service established when it was owned by a prior white resident.

Curry also noted that the $730,000 water service project approved by Muskingum County Commissioners includes substantial improvements to the existing water supply to white residents. “This decision wasn’t necessarily in response to the complaints of racial discrimination,” Curry said.

According to the Times Recorder, the Muskingum County commissioners blamed the lack of water service for African American residents on a combination of “bad planning and bad luck.”

[Blue_Tires]

26. k+r

[bertman]

27. Heartwarming stories like this one make me wonder how Rev. Jeremiah Wright could ever say

"God damn America!!"

What's wrong with that uppity, terrorist-supporting niggra? Can't he see that helping THOSE PEOPLE just takes time?

[oasis]

28. U-G-L-Y.

[madrchsod]

31. i wonder if the country club had good water?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=coal+run+ohio&ie=UTF8&ll=39.557795,-81.584387&spn=0.037521,0.064201&z=14

[MrsBrady]

52. ha! good one. n/t

[vietnam_war_vet]

33. As others have replied, you can still find such blatant racism nationwide

During our Thanksgiving 2006 trip to Waco (Texas), my wife and I made a special detour to the small city of Uvalde in southern Texas, north of Del Rio. Her Dad's family had been one of the first white families to have settled in Uvalde. She wanted to visit her Dad's grave-site since she hadn't been there since his January 1999 funeral.

At the large city cemetery, we initially drove around looking for her Dad's grave, but we were unable to locate it. She then got out of our car to look around on foot while I drove to the far side of the cemetery to talk to the only other folks who were there at the time to ask if they knew where my wife's family plot was.

Before I was able to drive over to those folks, I noticed a short, single iron pipe "fence" (about 12 inches high and painted bright orange) that ran across the width of the cemetery. It was split in the middle by a single-lane dirt road. I had to take that road in order to reach the folks who were on the cemetery's far side.

I then drove up to those folks, got out of my vehicle, and introduced myself and my wife (pointing her out across the cemetery). These folks were a nice hispanic family who were spending part of that Sunday sprucing up their family plot.

I asked, by chance, if they knew where my spouse's family plot was, telling them that her father had been born and raised in Uvalde and later became a well-known west Texas physician. The hispanic wife said, "oh that has to be so-and-so's son....she taught some of high school classes that I took" (my wife's grandmother had been a long-time elementary and secondary educator in Uvalde).

The hispanic husband then asked me, "you're definitely not from around here, are you?" I said that I wasn't. He then pointed to that bright orange pipe "fence" and informed me that that was the boundary....all the "white Christian folks" are buried on the other side of that fence where your wife is walking and on this side of that fence is where all the non-white and non-Christian people are buried.

I was incredulous! I asked him how -- in 2006 in America -- such blatant bigotry was still possible, let alone tolerated. He responded that if I lived there, then I would be able to understand why. He also said that the reason they didn't know where my wife's family plot was....they and all the other non-white and/or non-Christian residents were never allowed to set foot on the "white Christians only" side of that cemetery.

I then drove back over to where my wife was. She had finally found her family's plot. I told her about what that hispanic family had just shared with me. She responded that it was true and that I "hadn't seen anything yet....just you wait."

We then went to Uvalde's most popular family restaurant for lunch. When I came in the door, I noticed that there was a long, wide aisle going all the way back to the rear of the dining area. As a sign requested, we waited for the hostess to seat us. Once seated, my wife asked me if was there anything about the restaurant that had caught my eye. Yep, all the white folks were seated on the side of the aisle where we had been seated while all the non-whites were all seated on the other side of the aisle. Unbelievable!!

Later that afternoon, we had to drive through the small town of Utopia. My wife had forewarned me that Utopia was another of the "just you wait....you hadn't seen anything yet" examples. We stopped in Utopia for snacks and while I was waiting in the car, I realized that all I saw on a beautiful sunny afternoon in that town was white people. There wasn't a single non-white walking about or driving by. When my wife returned, I told her what I had been observing. She then informed me that Utopia was founded as and still is a "white Christian-only" community. Former Chief Justice Rehnquist is proudly the town's role model. Just like Rehnquist had on his personal properties, every piece of property in Utopia has a deed covenant that decrees the property can be sold to "only white Christians."

Such property deed covenants have long been ruled illegal, but that doesn't seem to matter to those "good folks" in Utopia.

We still have a long way to go to truly deal with our country's entrenched racial, religious, and sexist bigotries. - Michael

[Celeborn Skywalker]

34. That's truly awful.

Who would've known that stuff's still going on in th 21st century?

[Divine Discontent]

44. sounds like...

a black millionaire needs to pay a hefty some to a needy white person in the town for a small piece of land and have the town go crazy over that, and then put black history photos in the windows and such, and then take them to court over it when they demand they sell, or when the townsfolk burn it...

it is amazing there's this many places in our country - and sadly, it swings all ways, with all types of races judging others in their little communities and I pray Obama can figure out a way to help this if we're fortunate enough to get him in...

more at --- www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable

[superconnected]

36. They didn't get nearly enough money after some suffering through that for 50 years.

[pitohui]

42. that's what i was thinking

how do you put a price on not having water for fifty freakin years?

[pitohui]

41. WOW!

unbelievable that this went on into the 21st century

[Catherine Vincent]

46. Gawd damn America! nt

[bertman]

47. Tonight on Pacifica Radio, Amy Goodman was interviewing some guy about something related

to racism in America. I only caught the last four or five minutes of the interview--which were appalling and enlightening.

The commenter told how blacks had been held in actual (not virtual) slavery in primarily the southern U.S. until 1942 when the U.S. government under FDR outlawed slavery and actually prosecuted the FIRST case of slavery against a family in, of all places, Texas.

Until that time, the government of the United States had "looked the other way" even though everyone knew that black people were being kept as slaves by the white law enforcement and corporate power structure and Jim Crow laws.

THE REASON SLAVERY WAS FINALLY OUTLAWED: FDR did not want the Japanese to use that issue as a propaganda tool against us during WWII.

[Doctor_J]

48. Damn trial lawyers insisting that people have rights

:thumbsup:

[MrsBrady]

53. i know....we need to do something

about those pesky trial lawyers. They are the real problem, you know. :sarcasm:

[anitar1]

49. K & R n/t

[Enthusiast]

54. I worked in Zanesville for years.

Coming from a small outlying community I was shocked at the outright racism. And I actually grew up in a sundown town. But by the time I was growing up in Southeast Ohio no one even wanted to live in my sundown hometown. Not even blacks. Some of the racism in Southeast Ohio is a result of the coal mine owners bringing in black strike breakers from Virginia in the late 19th century. Believe me, Barack Obama will not carry these communities.

[ohio2007]

55. What's the name of the politicians who are in charge of running Muskingum County ?

Is the county red or blue ?

[BayjanDem]

56. I loved when

the defendants said "things were fine,until we were interfered with by outside agitators." LOL, where have I heard that before.

[windoe]

57. Reality is segregated in this country, a segregation of truth.

These stories somehow rarely even see the light of day and are not even acknowledged, so this reality does not even reach mainstream radaar. The myth of freedom and equality is kept intact, people can keep their ideals, but it is not the truth.

Even American History education is segregated. American History (the cleansed version) is taught, separate from African American Studies, and native American Studies in some schools. Even the reality is kept separate, in order to keep the ugly truths from most people so they do not have to even think about what goes on in 'some places'. Then World studies are kept separate, so people do not even understand the history of other cultures, much less our own.

The dissemination of information, or the censoring of information is where the prejudices are kept intact.

What would this world be like without white supremacy, or any kind of supremacy? Now I really am dreaming again, but it is a nice dream.