Published: March 12, 2008 09:04 am         

Racism at Fort Hill behind complaint

CUMBERLAND - Norma Blacke Bordeau, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, said Monday during a community forum that the local police is the first line of defense available to victims of racial slurs, intimidation or violence in area schools.

But Bordeau has lodged a pre-emptive strike on such hostile environments by filing a complaint with Carl Snowden, director of the Maryland Attorney General's Civil Rights Division. She told those gathered at the meeting that she's afraid the area has sent a message of, "if you're different than I am, we really don't want you here."

"I wouldn't move to a place where I thought my kids would be in danger," Bordeau said.

Snowden said he's heard from both Bordeau and Lakeal Ellis, the mother of a Fort Hill High School sophomore. The student is one of a handful to witness racially motivated taunts and threats before, during and after school hours.

"Apparently there have been racial incidents that have gotten pretty ugly from what we've been told," Snowden said.

Snowden is tasked with gathering information about the alleged incidents and interviewing witnesses and local school and law enforcement officials. He talked with Capt. Kevin Ogle, Cumberland's deputy chief of police, on Monday before the community meeting.

Snowden said this is the first incident he's been asked to look into in Allegany County since his job was created in January 2007. Since then, Snowden has received approximately 75 complaints ranging from police brutality to employment discrimination.

Only one incident has been recorded on a school campus. In September 2007, a 3-foot noose was found hanging from a tree outside the University of Maryland's Black Cultural Center.

"It's not a frequent occurrence within the high schools, thank goodness," said Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman with the AG's office.

After receiving a complaint and gathering information, "if we feel that there could be something amiss or something not exactly right, we can make a referral from this office to another agency," Guillory said.

Guillory said that referral could be to local or state police, a federal agency such as the FBI or the AG's own criminal division. Snowden added options range from mediation through his office to referring a case to the Department of Justice. Cases are evaluated individually. There's no timeline for such an inquiry to be completed, Guillory said.

Cumberland resident Charles "Robin" Woods, who attended Monday's meeting at Metropolitan AME Church with Bordeau, other residents, students, school administrators and local law enforcement, feels something should be done immediately.

He lauded Fort Hill Principal Steve Lewis' decision to ban students' display of the Confederate flag from school grounds. But Lewis said Monday he only did so when those students began harassing and intimidating fellow students. Until then, Lewis said, it was a freedom of speech issue.

Woods, however, said the school has the right to ban flags or any controversial items that disrupt a school's "tranquility."

The students displaying the Confederate flag check in at their home school in the morning before traveling to the Center for Career and Technical Education. There, Woods noted, they continue to be permitted to display the flag by parking on school grounds. The flags are painted on the tailgates of students' pickup trucks. The trucks, Woods said, are parked in such a way that "those flags are prominently displayed."

"If you tell them it's OK (there), you're confusing the issue," Woods said. "What we're saying, as concerned citizens, is that there's no place for that symbol in Allegany County on school grounds. That flag should be just as offensive to whites as it is to blacks. Many whites were lynched and murdered (during the civil rights movement) because they were standing up for the civil rights in the South. The people that murdered them flew that flag."

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.



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