Quotes - JJ JONES

With the November 4, 2008 American election of mixed-race President-Elect Barack Obama, the time has truly come for all to TRANSCEND the pains of the past ECONOMIC politics of race, laden since the inception of America by seventeen references to “Negro Rights and Taxation” in the United States Constitution and to bridge our modern day “Jordan River” to forge a bright and shining future for ALL Americans for the WHOLE World to see.

I believe the earliest calls to TRANSCEND the beginning challenges of the “Negro Rights and Taxation and slavery question in America’s history was brought to the forefront by a mixed-race Newspaperman that was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who later became known as Frederick Douglass.

I am also reminded of another time in American History of mixed-race Mary Ellen Pleasant that faced the “Negro Rights and Taxation issues, who was born a slave of a Black African slave woman and a White English slave owner around 1814 on a plantation near Augusta, Georgia. Mary Ellen Pleasant, being of a mixed race union, became not only the financier of Thirty Thousand 1862 Dollars granted to the Abolitionist John Brown to lead the “Raid on Harper’s Ferry” that sparked the Civil War between the States to end slavery in America; but also she filed the first law suit under the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to become know as the “Mother of the Civil Rights in California”.

On a personal note, I am a witness to the TRANSCENDENCE of my mixed-race niece Vanessa Ong, born to her British Mother and my African-American-Indian brother, who as a Senior from the University of Oklahoma became the first Black Woman to enter the United States Navy Nuclear Power Program. Vanessa entered the Navy’s Officer Candidate School, was commissioned as an ensign and taught four years at Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando, Florida; while being admitted to the master's program at the University of Central Florida.

I recall telling my niece Vanessa Ong, who is the splitting image of her late Aunt my sister Betty Jean Jones, that it will be mixed-race children just like herself to bring about “RACIAL ACCEPTANCE” in America. As of Tuesday, November 4, 2008, that “RACIAL ACCEPTANCE” in America has “COME TO PASS” with the American election of mixed-race President-Elect Barack Obama!

Anyone can go to the archives of Ebony-Jet Magazine, and Essence Magazine to view the cover page story about my niece Vanessa Ong or just go to University of Oklahoma website and click http://coe.ou.edu/cems/alumni/okchearchive/OKChE_1989_Winter.pdf; article page 15 and document page 17.

I take to heart the sentiments expressed by one of my business partners Leonard Elion regarding the TRANSCENDCY of the Tuesday night “RACIAL ACCEPTANCE” in America as he wrote: “I am very proud. In the privacy of my reflective moments I thank GOD because this is a clean clear line of demarcation marking the “beginning of the end” of some things (the need for the excuse of slavery, reparations, racism, “..ations” (intergr- and segreg-) while at the same time it’s the “end of the beginning” of others (fairness, equality, and recognizing thatreal human values -integrity, character, truth, honor, faith, wisdom, humility, ethics, etc- have no color. Barak’s proven to have all those and the nation realizes and accepted it in spite or the “packaging”.

We’ve have had so few leaders who modeled all that – black or white- it does make me want to hold my head a higher that THIS TIME he looks more like me. I‘m compelled to see value in others in a way that I didn't before. I don't want to be president, governor or statesman but I am inspired to be a better man, i.e. husband, father, uncle, friend, role model, mentor, teacher, Christian, leader, role model …even a better citizen and I will take more responsibility for holding anyone representing me more accountable to do the same.

Finally, in my opinion, those of us who felt an apology and compensation for the atrocities of slavery and injustices is in order received a major “down payment” in a mighty way last night!”

As a Journalistic Writer in the African Diaspora Black Media, it is incumbent upon me to place my focus on President-Elect Barack Obama’s role as Chief Executive Officer for U.S. Law Enforcement, especially as it pertains to the “Enforcement of the Civil Rights Laws of 1866, 1956, 1964, 1972 and 1987” to TRANSCEND the ECONOMIC politics of race.

With the foregoing said, I am encouraged to bring back an article that was written and first published June 3, 2005 before the death on July 12, 2005 of the “Father of Affirmative Action” the Honorable Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher, a truly TRANSCENDENT figure and statesman of the 20^th Century.

“AN ESSAY THE CIVIL RIGHTS WAR IS WON:

A CHALLENGE FROM DR. ARTHUR A. FLETCHER

BY FAITH TO CROSS OUR JORDAN RIVER”

“I was very pleased, no, I was honored to have been present as the “Father of Affirmative Action” the Honorable Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher spent the Memorial Day Weekend in the Seattle area kicking-off a 36-city tour to rally what he calls the “Grandparents to the Rescue!,” to save the next generation of Black youth. Dr. Fletcher, as he is fondly called by millions of African Americans, told the story of the Civil Rights battles won that most people in America, especially African Americans never knew the real background or the true history. Most people still do not know that only one person Dr. Fletcher, himself, signed the Revised Philadelphia Plan document, which is today called “Affirmative Action,” requiring the financial participation by African Americans, White women and People of Color in America’s tax-dollars driven public contracting economy!

Dr. Fletcher proclaimed, to the senior citizens, church congregations and to the Seattle radio audiences listening to his message, “We have won the Civil Rights War!” We won by the battle for enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We won with the battle of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act for the right of minorities to participate without regard to race, color or national origin as businesses in the American tax-dollars driven public contracting economy. We won the battle of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for the right of minorities and White women to participate in the American tax-dollars driven public contracting economy by having a job. We also won on behalf of White women the battle of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act for their rights to have the same privileges under Title VI for the participation in the American tax-dollars driven public contracting economy and public education. More than that, Dr. Fletcher went on, “We won with the Voters Rights Act of 1965!” “We won with the Fair Housing Act of 1968, sponsored by a one-term Republican Congressman from Texas, former President George H.W. Bush.” And we also won with the victory of the 1969 political and 1970 legal battle over the establishment of the Civil Rights Act Enforcement Movement called the Revised Philadelphia Plan that Dr. Fletcher signed into law, which most people today now call “Affirmative Action!”

Dr. Fletcher explained to the “Grandparents to the Rescue” that what he signed and created in 1969 was not some experiment in some type of social engineering. What he alone signed was the right for African Americans, People of Color and White women to have equal pay for equal work. In so doing, he held-up $80 BILLION in construction for eighteen months on the nuclear air craft carrier the U.S.S. Eisenhower, until all the man-labor-hours were distributed in portion to the available workforce in the community.

The question Dr. Fletcher asked was very simple. “Why should the American tax-payers, which include African Americans, People of Color and White women, pay time and a half and even double-time for a few privileged White males to work over-time from the allotted man-labor-hours, when we have a work force that includes African Americans, People of Color and White women who were not working any man-labor-hours at all?”

Former President Richard M. Nixon and the Federal Courts agreed with Dr. Fletcher. So, African Americans, People of Color and White women began a rise in the American Capitalist Society that can only be viewed as remarkable, making America today as strong as it is causing it to be the only true SUPER POWER left in the world!

But, Dr. Fletcher went on to explain that the Civil Rights leaders of that day; NACCP President Roy Wilkins, Brother of Sleeping Car Porters Founder A. Phillip Randolph and National Urban League President Whitney Young; who stood behind President Lyndon B. Johnson as he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, became his most ardent detractors in 1969 and 1970, except the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. They cited that the Revised Philadelphia Plan that Dr. Fletcher had signed and President Richard M. Nixon wrote into into law as Executive Order 11249, which most today now call “Affirmative Action” was a “TRICK!” The NAACP, CORE, the National Urban League and the SCLC all publicly opposed that which is today called “Affirmative Action!” Today, you still hear Ni’ger Innis, the son of CORE long-time leader Roy Innis; speaking out on the ardently “Right Wing” FOX Cable News programs opposing Affirmative Action! The NAACP at one time fought ALL the legal battles to enforce both Title VI for business access and Title VII for employment opportunities of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, filing over 100 lawsuits between 1964 and 1972. The NAACP today only fight for the Civil Rights to have a job under Title VII for fair labor practices, but not for the Civil Rights to have a business under Title VI for fair industries and business practices. The NAACP still maintains the framework of its old “Labor and Industries Standing Committee,” excluding any and ALL efforts to enforce the Economic Civil Rights provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I surmise that the opposition to Dr. Fletcher’s life’s contribution of Affirmative Action from the leadership of NAACP 1972 President Dr. Benjamin Hooks of Memphis, Tennessee in the Civil Rights Movement can be centered on Dr. Fletcher’s maintaining his ties to the Republican Party and Dr. Benjamin Hooks breaking his ties. Those African American ties had been in existence since a time when most all African Americans were members of the Republican Party. Oh, how soon do we forget that President Johnson had to pull together a coalition of Republicans with some of his own Democrats in order to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 enacted as the Law?

Former Alabama Governor George Wallace quit being a member of the Democratic Party, if you are old enough to recall and he started a new “American” political party growing to some three-million former “Cross-Burning-Confederate-Flag” waving Democrats or Dixiecrats, many were found in America’s northern states. Once Governor Wallace was shot in 1972, Presidential Speechwriter Pat Buchanan encouraged then President Richard M. Nixon to invite those dislodged and leaderless former Democrats to become Dixiecrat-Republicans. They did and went on to become known as the “Reagan Democrats” in the 1980 Presidential election. They went on to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the early 1990’s, with their Speaker of the House Former Democrat now turned Dixiecrat-Republican Newt Gingrich rising to become third in line of succession from the Presidency. Oh, what fate has watched over us as Gingrich was defrocked after padding his pockets selling books?

The mainstream Civil Rights leadership had plenty reason not to trust the workings of a Pat Buchanan and the George Wallace Democrat-Republicans. But the battles hard fought for and hard won were hard fought and hard won between 1964 and 1969, clearly two to three years before the shooting of George Wallace in 1972 and before the switch in political party sheets! Or, do I mean political party colors thereafter?

Dr. Fletcher went on to tell the “Grandparents to the Rescue” that because of this confusion about where these George Wallace Democrat-Republicans disappeared to, and we all know that “The Devil is the Author of Confusion,” African Americans have not fully taken advantage of the 1964 to 1969-1970 victories won from the Civil Rights Movement.

It has been almost forty long years that African Americans have wandered in the proverbial “WILDERNESS,” when the “PROMISED LAND” is directly across our proverbial “Jordan River!” Who do we blame other than ourselves? White women have taken full advantage of the victories won from their Title VII and especially their Title IX inclusions in the battles for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They have taken full advantage of the enforcement provisions of the Revised Philadelphia Plan called Affirmative Action that Dr. Fletcher created; to the point they have pierced the so-called “Glass Ceiling!”

However, while a Federal District Court Five Hundred Million Dollar ($500,000,000.00) Title VI legal battle is currently ongoing in Seattle’s Federal District Court over the billions of America’s tax-dollars driven public contracting economy that have been stolen from African Americans and People of Color by a few White construction firms in the Seattle area under the guise of the Anti-Affirmative Action voter measure Initiative-200, the Seattle NAACP is spending its valuable time and resources to get fired a high school teacher who called a Black student the “N” word and to get fired a department store security guard who profiled a Black mother as a shoplifter. “DAH! How many African American and People of Color jobs and business contracts are lost from those stolen Billions of dollars?”

Where are the priorities of African Americans’ Civil Rights officials? We hound a White male over a dime without forgiveness, while we let another White male contractor get away with a Billion Dollars. Even though I am not that smart, I know that a dollar should never wait on a dime! I know that our learned Civil Rights leaders can add and calculate the number of jobs and business contracts our Black youth and Black businesses are missing. I know they can see of Black youth caught into the illegal black market and drug economy that only leads them to prison. I know that the private Corrections Corporation of America is waiting for our youth with open arms.

Dr. Fletcher further brought home to the “Grandparents to the Rescue” the future of their Grandchildren if they do not stop their own children’s chase of the dime instead of the dollar. Dr. Fletcher pointed out that states like Idaho, Montana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are planning to become “PENAL COLONIES” for Black youth. Already, half of the prison populations in America are made up of African Americans and People of Color. You only need to look at who is buying the publicly offered stock of Corrections Corporation of America to see who would have a vested interest in the location of prisons being situated in their towns, cities, counties and states.

Dr. Fletcher pointed out that his beginning a 36-city tour to rally “Grandparents to the Rescue” is to tell anyone who will listen to him that which is about to happen in America. He is telling this story not from a classroom theoretical point of reference; rather he is sharing the knowledge from a decision maker vantage point.

He cites that the United States Government has finally figured it out that they can not solve the problems among African Americans and People of Color by providing money to local government bureaucracies' to remedy our social ills and concerns. The United States Government has finally realized that true social and economic healing can only take place “BY FAITH!” Jeremiah Chapter 29, Verses 5 through 9 tells a chilling story of the message God gave the elders, priests and prophets to tell the people who were taken as captives in a land that was not their own. God said “Build houses…!”

Yes the Faith-Base Community must be involved if true remedy is to be attained. So instead of creating a new government bureaucracy, America is finally ready to allow African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions to do the same as the United States Government have allowed the Catholic, Mormon, Southern and American Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal and Lutheran Faith-Base institutions to do. That is through an Association of African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions allow their own people them to build their own houses on newly created streets and roads and to provide the services for their own communities; i.e., private facilities as hospitals, schools and housing and also public, commercial and industrial facilities as community centers and shopping plazas, and industrial parks.

The New Markets Initiative is what Dr. Fletcher is emphasizing as just the ticket to help the African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions by allowing Foundations and Trust Funds to write-off their Federal Government tax liabilities when they invest in African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions to spur the economic activities for them to build housing, create employment and provide services.

Those laws are already on the books. Now, with the new tax reduction plan that has just passed the Congress and that President George W. Bush is sure to sign quickly, the individually rich are being encouraged to donate to African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions to off-set their Federal Government tax liabilities.

Dr. Fletcher is taking this message “On the Road Again” to African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions to say this could be our last chance to save our children and our communities by providing them the ECONOMIC EQUITY needed to provide ourselves the SOCIAL JUSTICE we demand!

Anyone in American can buy social justice if you have money. One only need look as far as the O.J. Simpson trial. If you do not have money, you are inclined to wound up in jail, or broken down in a ditch. There are only TWO places in America where the United States Government prints the words “In God We Trust!” One place is on money Federal Reserve Notes or U.S. Dollars and the other is on that very same Courthouse that locks up our Black youth! It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that one out!

Dr. Fletcher is not requesting business loans for African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions. On the contrary, Dr. Fletcher is offering to create "STRATEGIC ALLIANCES and ARRANGEMENTS" between African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions and their Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporation.

Dr. Fletcher's efforts combined satisfies the letter and intent of the law of the authority given national banks from the “Savings and Loan” debauch under Section 6 of the Depository Institutions Disaster Relief Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 24 (ELEVENTH)), under Section 4(c)(8) of the Bank Holding Company Act (12 U.S.C. 1843 (c)(8), and under Section 225.25 (b)(6) of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System's REGULATION "Y" and REGULATION “H”, respectively and the Depository Institutions Disaster Relief Act of 1992 for State Banks (12 U.S.C. 338a). These laws give approval and authority for national and state bank holding companies to engage, either directly or through a subsidiary, up to FIVE PERCENT (5%) of the bank holding company's total consolidated capital stock and surplus, without having to receive any additional approval from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or from their regional Federal Reserve Bank.

Specifically, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System under REGULATION "Y" has determined that making "EQUITY and DEBT INVESTMENTS" into African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions "STRATEGIC ALLIANCES and ARRANGEMENTS" to develop projects designed "primarily to promote community welfare" as an activity "is closely related to banking."

These African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions "STRATEGIC ALLIANCES and ARRANGEMENTS" call for the Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporation to invest in and provide financing to a class of corporations that (a) "provide technical assistance, credit counseling, research, and program development assistance to low-and moderate income persons, small businesses, or nonprofit corporations to help achieve community development," and (b) "develop, rehabilitate, manage, sell, and rent residential property in which a majority of the units will be occupied by low-and moderate-income persons” or in which the property is a "qualified low income building" as defined in Section 42 (c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. 42 (c)(2)).

Dr. Fletcher’s background includes more than enough experience to help African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ efforts to make their Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporations provide first class and choice services in Community Banking. The "STRATEGIC ALLIANCES and ARRANGEMENTS" Dr. Fletcher seeks to bring about from this 36-city tour to rally “Grandparents to the Rescue” is an Association of African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions and their Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporation that can only be appreciated by knowing the years of dedicated service to the African American, People of Color and White women communities contributed by Dr. Fletcher to American history.

As the Vice Chairman of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, created under President John F. Kennedy and proposed by U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, Dr. Fletcher managed a Two-Hundred and Fifty Million Dollar ($250,000,000.00) Congressional appropriation. These funds leveraged an additional $1 BILLION and created about 18,000 residential housing and apartment units along the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor.

Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fletcher's Learning Systems, Inc. and former Chairman of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, at various times during the past thirty (30) years served in the following capacities in the Federal Government: (1) Chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights; (2) Assistant Secretary of Labor under President Richard M. Nixon's first Administration, where he drafted and authored the Revised Philadelphia Plan from which White women and minorities owe their rights and privileges under Affirmative Action Laws today; (3) United States Delegate to the twenty-fifth (25th) Secession of the United Nation's General Assembly; (4) Deputy Urban Affairs Advisor to President Gerald Ford; and (5) Vice Chairman of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation.

Dr. Fletcher was Chairman of the United Negro College Fund, where he coined the famous phrase “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste!” As a young man in 1954, because his five little children had to walk past three (3) All White schools to go to the Negro school, all four (4) of which were in the same town; Dr. Fletcher as a former National Football League tight end for the Baltimore Colts and the L.A. Rams; raised the money to pay the NAACP attorneys that filed the landmark history making case Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, banning segregated educational facilities in public schools. And through direct involvement in national politics as the Deputy Urban Affairs Director to President Gerald R. Ford, Dr. Fletcher and Chairman of Economic Advisors Dr. Alan Greenspan provided the Ford Administration’s input into the creation of the 1976 Congressional legislation and to the passage of the COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT OF 1977.

A 1999 “Pillars Of A People” poll by Tavis Smiley's BlackVoices.Com counted Dr. Fletcher number 18 of the 100 Most Influential African Americans of the Twentieth Century for his work to develop and sign the Revised Philadelphia Plan creating Affirmative Action Law and Policy, which has helped achieve many of the gains for African Americans, White Women and People of Color. Only 36 of the 100 Most Influential African Americans of the Twentieth Century are still alive today. Of the top 20 Most Influential African Americans of the Twentieth Century only 4 are still alive and Dr. Fletcher is among those 4 great African American people. Check out the Black Voices.com at http://www.blackvoices.com/feature/bhm_00/pillars/i_20-11.html and at http://www.blackvoices.com/feature/bhm_00/pillars/018_Arthur_Fletcher.html!

In short, people throughout America's various racial, ethnic, gender, religious, educational, business, economic and social communities TRUST the national reputation and positive image of Dr. Arthur Allen Fletcher, Period. Today, Dr. Fletcher would be considered in the category of a MOSES! End of that story.

The purpose for which Dr. Fletcher is setting out at Seventy Eight years old on this 36-city tour to rally the “Grandparents to the Rescue” is to create an Association of African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions to create "STRATEGIC ALLIANCES and ARRANGEMENTS" offered by their Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporation to put their national or state Bank in a class by itself, where its declining neighborhoods reinvestment and community development activities and minority and women business enterprise development mandates are concerned and at issue. In short, as banks must play a major role, if not the leading role, in reviving America's most needy communities, your national or state Bank is being offered considerable help in negotiating its way through these troubled uncharted waters.

Because of the debilitating nature of race relations in America and the critical nature of Community Reinvestment Act mandates and requirements placed upon lending institutions, banks are now expected to be up-front and on the cutting edge of cultural change in the economic arena of social events. Candidly, the painful truth is that the record clearly shows that the financial services industry knows very little or nothing about the culture in America's THIRD WORLD NEIGHBORHOODS of African Americans and People of Color.

These African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ created "STRATEGIC ALLIANCES and ARRANGEMENTS" are devoted to the following mission: "assisting both the financial industry (banks) and depressed and declining neighborhoods and their African American and People of Color residents to find the common ground and to achieve their common goals and objectives, with respect to implementing Community Reinvestment and Community Development programs and projects."

Good news for the Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporation is that the person with the national reputation and positive image throughout America's White women, African-American, small business enterprise, minority and labor communities has contracted his personal know-how and involvement to assist the Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporation and their national or state Banks.

In short, it is far better to have Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher with the “Grandparents to the Rescue” in an Association of African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions with the Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporation working to fulfill the Local Bank Holding Company Community Development Corporation's mandates and mission then it is not to have him with the national or state Bank.

The national or state Bank will immediately realize the benefits that will flow from this Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher with the “Grandparents to the Rescue” in Association with African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ "STRATEGIC ALLIANCES and ARRANGEMENTS."

1. A consumer target market will be attracted to the national or state Banks,

(a) 43.0 million White women

(b) 11.5 million African-Americans

(c) 10.3 million Hispanics

(d) 1.9 million American Indians

(e) 8.1 million Asians

totaling 74.80 million individuals in America's work-force who owe part of their success to Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher. plus

2. Millions upon millions of elderly and handicapped individuals that are covered by Federal, State and local Equal Employment Opportunity Laws, State Statutes, City Ordinances, Executive Orders, Court Orders, etc. also owe Dr. Fletcher their success.

The nation-wide source of capital formation that Dr. Fletcher has identified does not require any new Federal Legislation. In conjunction with the traditional lending products offered by the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) and its lending partners, the nation-wide source of capital formation for African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development projects through-out America is Federal Government Tax-Exempt Bonds; i.e., Private Activity Bonds, Mortgage Revenue, Multi-Family Housing, and Educational, Health, and Public Facility, Commercial and Industrial Development Bonds.

From a nation-wide pool of 501-C-3 Qualified Federal Tax-Exempt Bonds, the Association of African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development projects will create Revolving Construction Financing Funds for developing and for building of local infrastructure, the housing units and the service amenities required to service newly developed communities.

In each African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development efforts and in the Sovereign Tribes of the United Indian Nations of America’s Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA), the African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development efforts will assist to create a cycle in which the creditworthiness of the retired or working moderate income of their parishioners and members to purchase their first or new home, which will create the permanent jobs for the race neutral HUD Section 3 low and very low-income workers to move into vacated unsubsidized apartments and begin their climb to credit-worthiness, climb to life skills management and climb to home-ownership. The homeless, therefore, will be able to occupy and to rent public and subsidized housing as it was first intended. The race neutral HUD Section 3 provision of law is from the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 as amended by the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, 24 CFR Part 135 and Subtitle “A” et al.

The African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development projects through PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS in each State in America, in it’s Towns, Cities and Counties; will have the ability to create local jobs that will reduce Federal, State, City and County welfare roles by providing livable wages. The African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development projects through PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS’ Planned Unit Developments (PUD) will utilize a general labor pool; initiate skills training through local or area technical colleges and require that each sub-contractor and supplier of goods and services hire, according to the law, some low and very low-income race neutral HUD Section 3 workers.

Any empowered City or County or Public or Indian Housing Authority in each African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development projects through PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS’ SMSA may carry out Home-Ownership programs, making Down-Payment and Closing Cost Assistance through the race neutral HUD (Home.Ownership.Made.Easy.) H.O.M.E. Investment Partnership Program was enacted into law to make housing projects available for purchase by low-income families that have incomes that do not exceed 80% of the area Median-Income.

The African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development projects through PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS are both committed to assisting to improve the quality of life for people in all of America’s Urban and Rural Towns, Cities and Counties with the full implementation of the race neutral Section 3 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, which is the provision of the African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development projects through PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS Program strategy to reduce the cost of housing by training lesser and semi-skilled low and very low-income persons in the trades of the construction, material supply and services industries; as well as the HOUSING. And the race neutral Section 3 law will provide contracts with those firms that agree to hire these race neutral low and very low-income persons as workers.

Only a comprehensive effort, as Dr. Fletcher is offering through “Grandparents to the Rescue” and as proposed herein through the Association of African American and People of Color Faith-Base Institutions’ Community Development projects PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS’, with the commercial banking industry's consortium of community development investment providing the equity capital for leverage purposes will turn blight into light, and darkness into sunshine.

Through this effort the community welfare will be served as the quality of life is enhanced for the African American and People of Color family households that the bank holding company, Community Development Corporations, the Community Re-Investment Act and Regulations "Y" and “H” were authorized to serve.”

As I stated above on page two of this article, I am encouraged to bring back this article that was written and first published June 3, 2005 before the death on July 12, 2005 of the “Father of Affirmative Action” the Honorable Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher, a truly TRANSCENDENT figure and statesman of the 20^th Century.

Again, as a Journalistic Writer in the African Diaspora Black Media, it is incumbent upon me to place my focus on President-Elect Barack Obama’s role as Chief Executive Officer for U.S. Law Enforcement, especially as it pertains to the “Enforcement of the Civil Rights Laws of 1866, 1956, 1964, 1972 and 1987” to TRANSCEND the ECONOMIC politics of race. This is especially critical in today’s economic climate where American Tax-Payers, including African American and People of Color, are spending a $700 Billion plus Economic Stimulus Package with at least $250 Billion being invested directly into those very same national and state banking institutional members of the Federal Reserve System. Those national and state banking institutions were supposed to have solved many problems with the authority granted by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System’s REGULATION "Y" and REGULATION “H”, respectively, for them to engage and invest, either directly or through a subsidiary, up to FIVE PERCENT (5%) of their bank holding company's total consolidated capital stock and surplus in "STRATEGIC ALLIANCES and ARRANGEMENTS" that develop projects designed "primarily to promote community welfare" as an activity that "is closely related to banking." President-Elect Barack Obama should make certain these requirements are finally ENFORCED AND BECOME A PRIMARY COMPONENT OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S INVESTMENT IN THESE BANKING INSTITUTIONS.

To conclude, the American election of mixed-race President-Elect Barack Obama is a signal that the time has truly come for all to TRANSCEND the pains of the past ECONOMIC politics of race and to bridge our modern day “Jordan River” to a bright and shining ECONOMIC future for ALL Americans for the WHOLE World to see.

Best Regards and Be Blessed,

John Eddie “J.J.” Jones

Can be reached at:

Phone: 253-306-0104 and 253-460-3141

Email:jjjones333@msn.com and pacrimd@msn.com