Racial Equality

Traffic roundabout being constructed at Routes 88, 833 The State Highway Administration will begin work tomorrow to reconstruct an intersection at Lower Beckleysville Road (Route 88) and Black Rock Road (Route 833) in Hampstead. The project calls for a roundabout to be constructed to provide full access to both roads and improve traffic flow and safety. The $680,000 project was awarded to Concrete General Inc. of Gaithersburg. The project will affect roads along Routes 88 and 833. During the work, one lane will remain open to traffic in each direction.

It Wasn't Just Bad ServiceNow that the dust has settled, it is time to examine why the Denny's issue has generated such a strong response in our community. At the heart of this controversy is the question of racial equality and whether blacks know the difference between bad service and discrimination.This year, 1993, marks the 30th anniversary of the famous March on Washington. It has been over two decades since the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In a real sense, we are engaged in a struggle for peace and justice.

County Leaders Must Denounce Hate CrimesRecent disturbing racial events at Western Maryland College provide an opportunity for persons in Carroll County to reflect on the effect of racism and hatred in our midst.We who are members of the Carroll County Human Relations Commission and Carroll Citizens for Racial Equality are joined both in expressing our concern and suggesting specific courses of action to deal with the situation.We believe that the citizens of Carroll County should not tolerate racial, religious or ethnic acts of prejudice and violence.

THE IRONY of celebrating the just-concluded Black History Month is that history for blacks is still happening; their history is their present, and their future their past. All the degradation, intolerance, enmity and inequality still exists. Life for them has never has been nor ever will be the "crystal stair" poet Langston Hughes spoke of.The distance this country still must traverse to achieve racial equality is most apparent outside the big cities. The city has a way of covering over its inequities.

WASHINGTON -- Most young Americans are comfortable socializing with people of different races, but many are comfortable with racial groups being separate if everyone has equal opportunities, according to results of a national survey on the attitudes of young blacks and whites released yesterday.More than 72 percent of those who responded to the survey -- conducted by Zogby International for Hamilton College in New York -- said it was likely they would date someone of a different race.On average, the group of 18- to 29-year-olds who were polled felt campus diversity was as important to the quality of a college as high test scores and grades in college admissions.

Forty years ago today, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. The night before he died, the Nobel Peace Prize winner delivered a speech predicting the nation's future and his own demise. Dr. King prophesied that, while he likely would not live to see the day, he had no doubts that all Americans, including blacks, would some day "get to the promised land" of racial equality. Four decades after Dr. King's death, Barack Obama, the U.S. Senate's only black member, may become America's first black president.

IN 1983, black and Hispanic graduates of Baruch College in New York sought official approval for a racially segregated alumni association. They wanted campus office space, secretarial help, and all the other services that were provided to the general alumni association. The president of Baruch refused, saying that such an organization would run counter to his goals of integration.The black and Hispanic group filed suit, saying that the college's refusal was racist. Seven years later, in 1990, the college capitulated, and Baruch now has two alumni associations: one open to all students and the other open only to certain races.

He's the guy -- one of them, anyway -- Bill Clinton and George Bush will fight over.He's a white male, about 50 years old, married and the father of a teen-ager. He lives in a middle-class-to-affluent suburb of Baltimore. He is colleged-educated, a partner in a highly successful business.He liked John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. As a college student in Maryland, he was a CORE volunteer -- to those who have forgotten, that stands for Congress Of Racial Equality -- and took part in sit-ins at a segregated Prince George's County restaurant in the early 1960s.

Richmond -- FOR 12 years, Democrats -- often led by Bill Clinton -- rightly condemned the code-word racial politics of the Reagan era.But last week it was President Clinton who used code-word politics to try to help Mayor David N. Dinkins, declaring at a fund-raiser in New York that "too many of us are still too unwilling to vote for people who are different than we are."And did Democrats rush to condemn him?Far from it. Some admired the president's skillful manipulation of the race card to rally African-American racial pride and white Democratic (actually white Democratic Jewish)

Baltimore's history books are likely to note the events: the demonstrations that led to the desegregation of Gwynn Oak Amusement Park, the 27-hour sit-in to improve Dunbar High School, the protests to force the Horizon House apartment building to integrate. The leaders will be mentioned, too: Parren J. Mitchell, Furman L. Templeton, the Rev. Vernon N. Dobson. But what about Bob Moore? A teen-ager in July 1963, he was the first person tossed into the police wagon at Gwynn Oak. Or Lloyd Taylor?