The CHAIRMAN. David Barksdale? The CHAIRMAN. He is head of the Disciples? Reverend BRAZIER. I did, and my staff. Senator MUNDT. In other words, the center chiefs were selected with your knowledge and approval? Reverend BRAZIER. That is correct. Senator MUNDT. They may have been recommended by the assistant project director? Reverend BRAZIER. Yes. They were recommended by the youth groups. Senator MUNDT. Before they were on the payroll, did you approve their selection? Reverend BRAZIER. I did. Senator CURTIS. Now I want to ask a question. Of all those positions shown on that chart, how many of them would regularly meet with the trainees? Reverend BRAZIER. You mean these positions here? Senator CURTIS. The whole chart. How many of them would regularly meet? Reverend BRAZIER. The house of delegates, the steering committee would never meet with the trainees. The Xerox analyst met with them every day. He worked with them every day. The Chicago Urban League Senator CURTIS. Worked with them or instructed? Reverend BRAZIER. Trainees and instructing. It was his job to work with them both. He worked with the vocational education people, with the trainees. Senator CURTIS. What was his name? Reverend BRAZIER. Sam Sanes. Senator CURTIS. Who else on that chart worked with the trainees? Reverend BRAZIER. Everybody on that chart worked with the trainees with the exception of Arthur Anderson and the house of delegates and the steering committee. Senator CURTIS. The monitoring unit did not? Reverend BRAZIER. No; the monitoring unit did not work with them. Senator CURTIS. Did the vocational educational supervisor work with them, or were his duties primarily supervision and not direct instruction? Reverend BRAZIER. His duty was primarily supervision and not direct instruction. Supervision in the sense that he was to supervise the training of the instructors. Senator CURTIS. Is the same thing true of the basic education supervisor? Reverend BRAZIER. Yes. Senator CURTIS. And supportive service supervisors? Reverend BRAZIER. Yes. Senator CURTIS. And social counselor? Reverend BRAZIER. The support services supervisor worked with the trainees because it was the trainee that needed the most support. Senator CURTIS. Which was the last one involved? Reverend BRAZIER. The social counselor. Senator CURTIS. When was that? Reverend BRAZIER. Yes. Senator CURTIS. But the supportive services supervisor, did he take time to instruct, did he have regular classes? Reverend BRAZIER. The supportive services supervisor was not to do any instructing. He was merely trying to work with these youths when they got into some kind of difficulty, like maybe they had to go to court, maybe they had some kind of problem in the home or maybe they had some kind of problems on the job. The supportive services supervisor would work with him. Also, he would work with the community aides. Senator CURTIS. As I understand it, that line across there consists of four positions, vocational education supervisor, basic education supervisor, supportive services supervisor, social counselor. Reverend BRAZIER. That is correct. Senator CURTIS. None of them was engaged in regular instruction? Their duties were other than that? Reverend BRAZIER. None of them were engaged in regular instruction of the trainees but they were engaged in regular instruction of the instructors. Senator MUNDT. Now you use instructors and center chiefs interchangeably? Reverend BRAZIER. No. The center chief, and there is a line, then we have instructor. The instructors were under the center chiefs. The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you a question. Who was instructing the instructor? Which one was doing that? Reverend BRAZIER. The vocational educational supervisors were giving instruction to the instructors because the instructors are not qualified teachers, you see. Our idea was, Senator, it is just like when we are in the Army, many of us who were in the Army were trained or received instructions on how to break down a .50-caliber machinegun. We were told, one, two, three, four, five, six seven steps. We learned that by rote. We in turn instructed other recruits coming in. We were not ordnance experts but we received instruction and then we transmitted it. The CHAIRMAN. Wait a minute. We are not in something that is so highly technical. The purpose was to give basic education. What instruction besides to get basic education? Reverend BRAZIER. Job orientation. The CHAIRMAN. What do you mean by that? Reverend BRAZIER. When we say job orientation we mean trying to show an indivdual about job applications, to give them some understanding about the kinds of jobs that would be available, to talk to them about problems that would erupt on jobs as related to himself and the supervisor to get him to understand the importance of being on time on jobs, the importance of coming to work every day, many of these other kinds of things that we did The CHAIRMAN. The things that ordinarily any human being knows? Reverend BRAZIER. No ordinary human being knows. I would disagree with you on that, Mr. McClellan. The CHAIRMAN. That he should not be to work on time. Reverend BRAZIER. There are a lot of people who don't understand why the foreman should be so outraged when you come to work 5 minutes after 9 when you ought to be there at 9 o'clock. Everybody in the world does not understand that, Senator. You would be surprised at a lot of things that everybody should know that I don't know and I am quite sure that The CHAIRMAN. If you hire me and say, "Your hours are from 9 to 12 and from 1 to 5," you don't have to explain to me that you need to hire somebody to give instruction that you want me there at 9 o'clock. Is that what these people were hired to do now? Reverend BRAZIER. This is a part of the job orientation. We can show you many things about job orientation if you would care to see them. The CHAIRMAN. Were these people professional in that area? Reverend BRAZIER. Who? The CHAIRMAN. To give them that instruction. Reverend BRAZIER. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Are these instructors, were they professional in that area? Reverend BRAZIER. They were not. The CHAIRMAN. I just ask you this: Why not use the people who knew how to do it to give the instruction instead of hiring them as instructors? Reverend BRAZIER. I will give you our rationale for that, Senator. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Reverend BRAZIER. Many of these youths have had bad experiences in school. The CHAIRMAN. In what? Reverend BRAZIER. In school. Many of them do not relate to professionals because the professionals do not relate to them. The CHAIRMAN. What do we mean by "do not relate to professionals"? Reverend BRAZIER. Many people with middle-class attitudes think you are 18 years old, you ought to know that you should be on the job at 9 o'clock instead of 5 after 9. They just don't communicate with this population well. I am sure that studies have been made that will show that oftentimes nonprofessional people, people who come from the same background, are able to relate and communicate and do more with their own peers than somebody who has come from another background, than somebody who has developed the kind of middleclass standards and ideas that other youth are not fortunate enough to develop. Sometimes they don't relate well. This is true in the public school system where many teachers who are trained, Mr. Chairman, just don't relate to their pupils. They just don't understand that when they say, when one of the youth is not able to identify a pail, they think the youth is dumb. As far as he is concerned, it is a bucket. He doesn't understand about this being a pail. The CHAIRMAN. I don't want to draw out a picture here that is unreal, that is not realistic, but do I understand that we are now engaged in this project in hiring people to tell people how to relate to get to a job on time? Reverend BRAZIER. That, Senator, is one of the things that I think is necessary and is one of the problems of our society, that a lot of people do not understand the problems of the ghetto. The CHAIRMAN. Of what? Reverend BRAZIER. A lot of people do not understand the problems of the ghetto. The CHAIRMAN. Getting to work on time Reverend BRAZIER. Some people have never had a job. Some people, all they know is a life of welfare. Some people don't understand that 5 minutes after 9 upsets a production schedule. The CHAIRMAN. It would not take but one or two mornings for the boss to make them understand. Reverend BRAZIER. That is the problem. The boss makes them understand, they either get fired or they quit. The CHAIRMAN. Are we going to nurse people all the way through life? Reverend BRAZIER. Senator, let me make this point. I would not want to use the word "nurse" but there are some people who need a tremendous amount of support. Now if we are not willing to give them that kind of support, then we are going to have a chaotic situation in our society. We must recognize one of the problems we have in this chaos is that we are not willing to spend the time, the effort, and the money to go down and find out what are the problems that these people are confronted with and how do we help them help themselves. I think the time is over when we ought to be pouring out millions and millions of dollars in public welfare, millions and millions of dollars putting people in jail. The time has come when we have to do something to help people help themselves. The CHAIRMAN. This Government is spending several billion dollars in that category now. Reverend BRAZIER. Not enough. The CHAIRMAN. Where is the "enough" coming from? Reverend BRAZIER. Well, Senator, a lot of people are saying that we ought to get out of the war in Vietnam. A lot of people are saying that, Senator. Some of that money we are spending on going to the moon ought to be channeled into some of the areas of poverty. The thing that disturbs me is that I am hearing and, of course, Congress has a right to do this if they so choose--I am hearing about a lot of cutbacks in aid and education and poverty, of people voting these things down. While they are cutting back on money in the poverty areas, cutting back money in Headstart, cutting back money in the demonstration program, the problem is growing worse. We say what can we do about it? A committee that was appointed by the President said very clearly we need to work with this population and we are going to have to spend a lot of time and a lot of money if we are going to really get to the root of this problem. This problem has been with us for a hundred years. Jeremiah the Prophet says the fathers eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are sitting on edge. We are paying for years and years of deprivation today. The CHAIRMAN. That is a good integration speech. That is all right. Let us get down here to this project, what you are doing with it. Senator MUNDT. There is one piece of confusing evidence that we should straighten out, Reverend. It may be a confusion in terms or a conflict of testimony. Our record shows and previous testimony shows and our staff reports that the center chief for center No. 1 was Jeff Fort, whose picture is up there along with the salary that he got. Reverend BRAZIER. They did not give you the full facts. That is one of the problems. You haven't been getting the full information. That is why I am happy to testify here. Jeff Fort was a center chief. Senator MUNDT. He was? Reverend BRAZIER. He was. Senator MUNDT. When the program started? Reverend BRAZIER. That is correct. We opened up our centers in September. Senator MUNDT. 1967? Reverend BRAZIER. 1967. Jeff Fort, I believe, was arrested maybe in October or November, I am not sure. He has never been back in the project. Jeff Fort served as center chief in the center for maybe 2 months, maybe. Instead of him being paid $6,500 like it has been intimated, I think he got something like $1,000 out of this project. The CHAIRMAN. At this point, he went on the payroll July 1. You did not open your project until when, September? Reverend BRAZIER. That is correct. The CHAIRMAN. July, August, 2 months he was on the payroll before the project was opened up? Reverend BRAZIER. That is correct. The CHAIRMAN. Shortly after it was opened up he got into trouble, a month or two afterward? Reverend BRAZIER. I say he was arrested. I wouldn't say he got in trouble. I say he was arrested. He was arrested and no charges. He was arrested and the newspapers blared the big headlines The CHAIRMAN. You say he didn't get into any trouble, he was arrested? Reverend BRAZIER. I don't want to defend anybody who has done wrong. That is my point. The Woodlawn Organization side is not being brought out, has not been brought out in this hearing yet. That is why I am here to bring it out. I am saying when Jeff Fort was arrested the newspaper blared that this man was arrested on charges of murder and it went all over, the Chicago Tribune drum-beated it every day, murder, murder. But when the police dropped the charges on the man or whatever they did, however it was, he was released, no big headlines. Everybody still thought this man was in jail for murder. The CHAIRMAN. You can't blame the Government for that, surely. Reverend BRAZIER. No. You said he got into trouble. Anybody is in trouble if the police grab him and put him in jail. I am not saying he did something in order to be put in jail for that particular crime. 85-779-68-pt. 12- -8 |