By Major W. Cox
President Clinton and a group of Americans of every hue, stood in front of a banner emblazoned with the words, "ONE AMERICA." He used this University of California, San Diego setting to announce his "One America" initiative on race. He told the crowd that in fifty years "there will be no majority race in America." And if Dr. Donald Bogie, of Alabama’s Center for Demographic Studies, is correct; Montgomery will no longer be a city with a white majority within two decades after the turn of the century.
Twenty years doesn’t give us a lot of time to prepare for this inevitability. With a current majority/minority percentage of 55/45, we need to be working to develop a vision for the time when Montgomery becomes a nonwhite majority city.
Will a nonwhite majority racial composition change the lives of individual Montgomerians? Will it change residential housing, political districts and voting patterns? Will the city continue to manifest an east/west racial dichotomy? Will the city suffer a wave of white-flight, with a large number of white citizens moving to surrounding cities like Prattville and Wetumpka?
No one has the answers to these questions. We have never experienced this future-Montgomery. However, there are many things being done in Montgomery today that will shape the social and political structure of Montgomery’s future. My vision follows.
I don’t see a great change in the racial distribution of our residential housing patterns. The east/west racial dichotomy will continue for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the city’s political structure and voting outcomes will most likely continue to mirror the racial dichotomy manifested in our residential housing patterns.
Unlike some other cities changing from majority white to majority nonwhite status, I don’t believe future-Montgomery will experience a significant wave of white-flight. Thanks, in large part, to Mayor Emory Folmar. The mayor’s unrelenting expansion of the city eastward by annexation of all the communities on the city’s eastern boundaries provided these communities with city services and dissuaded them from incorporating and becoming suburban municipalities to Montgomery.
There are other actions in-place or taking-place that forecast a stable and prosperous future-Montgomery. It is a little early to know for sure, but constructing the planned new schools on the west side of the city should positively affect the lives of citizens living in that area.
One of the components of President Clinton’s year-long initiative will be a series of town meetings on race. Noted historian, Dr. John Hope Franklin will chair a presidential advisory board on race that will conduct these meetings.
When Dr. Franklin was asked what sort of action he hoped the meetings would lead to? He responded with a broad sweeping laundry list of actions, that included specific improvements in education, specific improvements in housing, and specific elimination of discrimination in employment. These are only a few of the types of racial issues the panel would take up at town meetings.
There are skeptics, and there should be, because anytime in the past talking about race consisted of mainly white politicians talking about the problem of nonwhite people. The President’s One America initiative on race will be the first national dialogue including all Americans that we have ever had on the question of race.
It won’t be easy now, but it’s time. Ever so slowly, Americans of different hues are beginning to talk together about race.
Nearly fifteen years ago, here in Montgomery, a group know as "One Montgomery," started meeting weekly to talk about race. One Montgomery gave birth to "Youth One Montgomery." Within Youth One Montgomery, high school students selected from schools across the city discuss race from their perspective.
Another group, "The Friendly Supper Club" has been meeting, eating and talking for more than a decade.
Then there is "Leadership Montgomery," an annual class of 30 plus racially diverse Montgomerians learning skills necessary to fill leadership positions in the future-Montgomery.
Interchange is a program jointly sponsored by Leadership Montgomery and the Chamber of Commerce, wherein a select group of individuals, 10 white and 10 nonwhite, have a series of meetings in the home of a host. A facilitator leads the gathering through a carefully orchestrated program designed to produce a vision of Montgomery from each participant.
Clearly, many in Montgomery are talking about race. Everyone needs to participate in the discussion. If the President wants to see an example of a successful community dialogue about race, he should visit Montgomery. Our citizens deserve recognition for the many programs initiated in the city to eliminate race-based conflict. Montgomery’s success in reducing racial conflict with racial dialogue foretells President Clinton’s One America initiative on race will be good for America.
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Originally Published: 2 July 1997, Montgomery Advertiser
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