Annual Meeting Plans

Our annual meeting will be on September 9th at 7 pm. at the Senior Monongalians Center on High Street. We are inviting local government officials, members of the board of education, and directors of some of the local social service agencies to attend this meeting because we feel that Paul Sheridan's topic - "Civil Rights Teams and Other ‘Patriot Acts'" will be a timely one, given the recent discussion of civil rights teams in schools and the upcoming anniversary of September 11th. See below for more information on these teams.

Please invite your friends, neighbors, and colleagues to join us for this presentation. And, if you can help us publicize this in any way, please contact Barb Howe (293-2339, ext. 1155). We can get you copies of our flyer for the meeting or send it to you in an electronic format.

Library Resource Materials to be Presented at Annual Meeting

We will have a display of the approximately 60 books and videos we have purchased for the Morgantown Public Library and a special presentation of these books to the library staff. We will have a list of these materials posted on our website and a list available at the meeting. Many of these are for children and young adults, while some are for teachers to use in preparing their classes. The library has also ordered a subscription to Teaching Tolerance, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, at our suggestion.

This purchase is made possible through the generosity of the Morgantown City Council, which has provided funding to CCSJ for this purpose. The steering committee decided to give some of the materials in honor of Emily Spieler as our founder and first president.

All the books will have special book plates indicating that they are given by CCSJ, some "to promote tolerance and a commitment to diversity in our community" and some to honor Emily. We are very excited to have these resources available and hope to continue to work with the library to build this collection in the future.

Thanks to all those who worked to compile the list for the library and to Sharon Turner and Ellen Hathaway at the Morgantown Public Library for their cooperation on this project. If you have suggestions for additional materials that we might recommend to the library, please send them to Judy Cohen.

Morgantown Human Rights Commission Members Named

The members of the Morgantown Human Rights Commission are: Anna Elfenbein, Debbie Hall, T. Anne Hawkins, Jill Kriesky, Scott Link, Teresa Miller, Becky Rodd, Vicki Shaffer, Charles Spring, and David Stelzig. We are inviting all of these commissioners to our annual meeting so that we may introduce them to our membership, and we very much look forward to working with them on our common concerns.

Civil Rights Teams in the News

Civil rights teams in the schools have been the topic of much "conversation" in the state's newspapers and on the radio stations recently, as well as at a meeting of the state Board of Education. The West Virginia Family Foundation has raised questions about these teams.

According to an article in the Charleston Daily Mail on August 9, "As many as 22 schools in the state have participated in the voluntary civil rights team project in which middle and high school students act as role models against bullying and harassment. It started four years ago after Paul Sheridan, head of the Attorney General's civil rights division, learned about a similar project in Maine at a meeting of the National Association of Attorneys Generals.

"'We teach kids how to react to incidents of intolerance, that there are things that they can do to prevent it, that putdowns, slurs and bullying behavior is unacceptable','' Sheridan said."

For additional perspectives on this issue, please see - Charleston Daily Mail Aug 9, 02 - Charleston Daily Mail - Aug10, 02
- The Register-Herald - The Register-Herald.

Dennis Dible, editor of the Dominion Post, published a strong editorial in the Monday, August 12, issue in favor of these teams. Mike Sharley has agreed to write a letter to the editor of the Dominion Post in praise of Dible's editorial, since CCSJ had worked to set up these teams at South Junior High, Morgantown High, and St. Francis Schools

Upcoming CCSJ Events

Monday, September 23 - place and time to be announced: Jim Lewis, who has been active in economic justice work for many years, will be speaking this evening. Reverend Lewis was the pastor at St John's Episcopal Church in Charleston for many years and then went to the Delmarva Penninsula where he worked with poultry workers and farmers. He now again lives in Charleston. More details will follow, but please save this date if you are interested in this topic.
CCSJ is still interested in the issue of economic inequality and economic justice in the Morgantown area and see this presentation as a way to help all of us understand these issues better. If you wish to be part of our discussion on economic justice, please contact Paul Becker (292-2983) or Tim Hairston (292-0601).

Sunday, October 13 - place and time to be announced: Sunday Afternoon with Al - Part II - Al Anderson's presentation about life on Scotts Run was so popular in February that Al has agreed to present another program that includes even more stories and songs about growing up on Scotts Run. This will be CCSJ's contribution to WVU's Diversity Week, which begins the next day.

Other Upcoming Events

October 14 - 7:30 p.m. - Presentation by Debra Schultz and Faith Holsaert on Jewish women in the civil rights movement - Gold Ballroom of WVU Mountainlair. This is co-sponsored by the WVU Center for Women's Studies, Department of Political Science, Department of History, College of Law, and President's Office for Social Justice as part of WVU's Diversity Week. Schultz is the author of Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement, and Holsaert is one of the women featured in the book. This event is free and open to the public.

October 16 - WVU Council for Women's Concerns Women of Color Luncheon - WVU Mountainlair Ballrooms. The speaker for this annual event will be Thomasine Ruth Hill Troisi of St. Marys, WV; who is a member of the Crow Tribe Crow Agency, Montana. For further information on this Diversity Week event, contact Kim Suder at [email protected]; 293- 4555, ext. 3500. This event is open to the public, but reservations are required.

Web site

Please send suggestions for links or other resources to Mike.

CCSJ Members Needed - Renew/Join Now!

Your annual meeting mailing will include a copy of our new brochure. Please use it to renew your membership. If you wish to have additional copies of our brochure to give to colleagues and friends, please contact Barb Howe (293-2339, ext. 1155).

We will soon be doing a mailing to area organizations to ask them to be members of CCSJ. If you belong to a group that should be part of our coalition, please contact Barb Howe for more information. We are a 501-(c)-3 organization and can supply our FEIN if needed for organizations who wish to become members.

Other Upcoming Events

October 14 - 7:30 p.m. - Presentation by Debra Schultz and Faith Holsaert on white women in the civil rights movement - Gold Ballroom of WVU Mountainlair. This is co-sponsored by the WVU Center for Women's Studies, Department of Political Science, Department of History, College of Law, and President's Office for Social Justice as part of WVU's Diversity Week. Schultz is the author of Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement, and Holsaert is one of the women featured in the book. This event is free and open to the public.

October 16 - WVU Council for Women's Concerns Women of Color Luncheon - WVU Mountainlair Ballrooms. The speaker for this annual event will be Thomasine Ruth Hill Troisi of St. Marys, WV; who is a member of the Crow Tribe Crow Agency, Montana. For further information on this Diversity Week event, contact Kim Suder (293- 4555, ext. 3500). This event is open to the public, but reservations are required.