police investigators / contacts by Washington Times? / contact information for African-Americans who did not help, and some hostile whites from Vanderbilt University
Subject: police investigators / contacts by Washington Times? / contact information for African-Americans who did not help, and some hostile whites from Vanderbilt University
Thanks for all of the info thus far. I'm going to check with Mike Hogan at Vanity Fair to see if he'd be interested in the piece, then will talk to the editor of Rolling Stone, which is supposed to be expanding their politics coverage soon. At the very least, a version of this next piece will appear in The Huffington Post and a few other outlets.
Do you have any written correspondence from the police investigators you mentioned who are supposed to have looked into these threats? It shouldn't have been difficult to identify all of these people; we've already dug up info on a couple of them.
Did McCain even attempt to interview you for his 2002 article?
Hi,
I can give you a call if you want to speak (perhaps tomorrow, since I sent you a lot of material---and I could send more).
I don't think any of the police investigators have written me except for that one email. One called (after I called and emailed multiple times) to say that someone else was working on it.
Dr. Charles Kimbrough and his wife, Dr. Blondell Strong, first put me in touch (I guess in December 2002) with a Detective Derrick Hutchinson (sp?) of the Nashville police department. Dr. Kimbrough was with the NAACP but I don't think he was acting officially for the NAACP. I was more concerned with keeping my reputation from being destroyed, but since Dr. Kimbrough insisted I did forward the threats to Detective Hutchinson. (This is not to say that I did not care about the threats: moreover, Gordon Gee obviously took his one threat seriously, as he makes clear in the book chapter and the newspaper article I sent you.) A friend did uncover what appeared to be the name and address of one of the people sending threats (I believe DreamRing), which I no longer have, but I thought that if I tried to pursue the people who had sent threats---and the detective indicated there wasn't much police could do---I thought the neo-Confederates would magnify their onslaught tenfold. So I did not continue.
But earlier this year I decided I did want to pursue these people; so far the police have done nothing, even though I believe one of the individuals even left his phone number.
***
I see in my address book that I have written down in the space for December 1, 2002 (that doesn't necessarily mean that's when I was contacted) the name of a Robert "Stainz" (this must be him and I must not have heard his name properly) of the Washington Times, along with a number: 202 636 3249. But once I saw how hostile the media was, I decided not to speak to the media anymore. I was hoping to starve the story of oxygen, but I failed in that endeavor.
Incidentally, John Siegenthaler has given awards to people who stood up to the neo-Confederates, and he used to be the publisher or editor of The Tennessean. (He also has been attacked on the internet.) In addition, he set up the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, which even hosted a conference for minority op-ed columnists last year. Yet, despite my trying to get in touch with the First Amendment Center at least half a dozen times, they have never responded.
Here is the contact information for some of the African-Americans who could and should have helped but did not, as well as some of the whites from Vanderbilt University who attacked me. Feel free to contact any and all of them. Tim Wise, noted anti-racist activist, was a supporter:
United Methodist Church 1107 Chapel Ave. Nashville, TN 37206 (615) 228-7334 HobsonPastor@aol.com
successor to Ludye Wallace as Nashville NAACP president Dixon refused to demand that the "Tennessean" newspaper stop publishing their libel and pro-neo-Confederate attacks, saying, "I can't [i.e., don't have the right to] tell the Tennessean what to publish". He did say he would sit next to me if I scheduled a meeting with the Tennessean, but I thought that would have been counter-productive.
Dixon later told the Tennessean he was glad the name "Confederate Memorial Hall" was NOT changed (he probably can rationalize why he said this); and he must have been the NAACP president who gave Gordon Gee the NAACP award in 2003. (I don't believe Gee accepted the award; he instead sent a black administrator.)
Arnett Bodenhamer Nashville NAACP president in 2005 (I believe he may have been Dixon's immediate successor) "Arnett Bodenhamer" <info@naacpnashville.org>,
Arnett Bodenhamer , Vice President arnett@comcast.com President Arnett and Associates http://www.nashville.gov/mc/resolutions/term_2003_2007/rs2006_1120.htm
(resolution honoring Bodenhamer for his work in the NAACP) Bodenhamer called me 3 weeks after I filed a complaint with the NAACP in 2005 (after Vanderbilt surrendered the lawsuit), saying he was too busy This *seems* to be his company:
Arnett & Associates Inc 2900 Starboard Dr, Nashville, TN 37217-4313 Contact Phone:(615) 367-0863
Ms. Tommie Morton-Young "Tommie Morton-Young" <aagen1@msn.com>, she apparently was the first black or first black woman to attend Peabody College, the area where Confederate Memorial Hall is http://www.nashvillecable.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=85&Itemid=81 (honoring her for her work on a Tennessee Civil Rights committee)
She at first said in 2005 that the NAACP was obligated to follow up, but then she didn't. After I wrote the article in the MIT newspaper, which I sent her the link to the day it was published, she libeled me.
http://www.thetennesseetribune.com/ A black newspaper. I wrote for them but they did not run even a news story about the attack against me, despite the fact that it was all over the local TV, and indeed was often in the local newspapers, occasionally in national newspapers, and at least once on national TV and at least once on national radio. I believe the editor was Chris Hughes, although I cannot now recall. He never replied to me when I left messages asking why he never covered the attack, not even as a "neutral" news story.
Only one black faculty member at Vanderbilt (or at Fisk or Tennessee State University) did anything to help me, and none publicly. Lucius Outlaw is a good (meaning, bad) example of the black faculty because he gives talks on "moral courage and slavery". http://www.hws.edu/about/presidentsforum/2008/fall/outlaw/ Email: l.outlawjr@vanderbilt.edu Office: 111 Furman Hall
Department of Philosophy 111 Furman Hall Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN 37240
Phone: 615-322-4474 Fax: (615) 343-7259
Lia Epperson lepperson@scu.edu (408) 551-6037 Bergin 202-B Santa Clara Law Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, California 95053 Phone: (408) 554-4767 Fax: (408) 554-5095
She worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and her husband is now president of the national NAACP. She only helped me by putting me in touch with someone else (a John Harper of Columbia, South Carolina, I believe).This man, however, did not help me. When I wrote Epperson later to put me in touch with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 2005, she ignored all of my letters. I brought the attack to the attention of the heads of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 2007, but they were interested only in covering for themselves.
Theodore Shaw
President, NAACP Legal Defense Fund (in 2007 at least)
Jacqueline Berrien, Associate Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund (in 2007 at least)
212 965 2277
fax: 212 219 1594
same address as above
Rev. Charles White
"Charles White" <whitejrcharles@aol.com>, At the time, the head of the NAACP in the Southeast. He said they couldn't do anything until a board meeting in 3 months. Interestingly, the neo-Confederate organizations can act almost immediately but the NAACP has to wait 3 months before they can even have a meeting to decide what, if anything, to do.
Rev Charles White, Director National Field Operations 4805 Mt Hope Drive Baltimore, MD 21215
E-mail:cwhite@naacpnet.org By that time, January 2003, I had already lost and knew the only way out was to stop media coverage, so when I got a call from White in mid-January I told him it was too late.
As the letter from him on the BlackCommentator.com website states, Bond seemed to think it was my personal responsibility to deal with the attack. (The article that he says was enclosed in his letter to me was not enclosed.)
Office: 108 Randall Hall
Corcoran Department of History University of Virginia PO Box 400180 - Randall Hall Charlottesville, VA 22904
It might also be good to ask Vanderbilt administrators at the time why they DID attack me, given that my essay had nothing to do with my job and, moreover, if anything I was on the same side as Vanderbilt, in opposition to the UDC (which was suing Vanderbilt at the time).
It is best to reach him first through his Minority Affairs officer, Dr. Mac A. Stewart Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer 102 Bricker Hall 190 North Oval Mall Columbus OH 43210
Tel: (614) 292- 4355 Fax: (614) 292- 0224
Michael J. Schoenfeld Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations (919) 681 3788 michael.schoenfeld@duke.edu
He may ignore any messages unless you go through the president Office of the President President Richard H. Brodhead Duke University 207 Allen Building Box 90001 Durham, NC 27708-0001 president@duke.edu (919) 684-2424 Fax: (919) 684-3050
Nick Zeppos, the current chancellor of Vanderbilt, did participate in the attack in an indirect fashion.
Chancellor's Office Phone: (615) 322-1813 Fax: 322-6060 211 Kirkland Hall Nashville, TN 37240 chancellor@vanderbilt.edu
I quote from McCarty's letter in my essay from the BlackCommentator.com website.
Richard McCarty Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost Professor of Psychology Vanderbilt University 205 Kirkland Hall Nashville, TN 37240 Office: 205 Kirkland Hall Phone: 615-322-4757
Fax: 615-343-8702 Email: richard.mccarty@Vanderbilt.Edu
The Southern Poverty Law Center's director of the Intelligence Report, Mark Potok, did not help, saying that my essay was really "harsh"
Mark Potok Director, Intelligence Project Editor, Intelligence Report Southern Poverty Law Center 400 Washington Ave. Montgomery, AL 36104 mark@splcenter.org
+1-334-956-8200 (information accurate as of 2005) It may be best to cc his assistant "Heidi Beirich" <hbeirich@splcenter.org>
Vanderbilt students at the time, David Barzelay and his friends, Jacob Grier, Ben Stark, and Jeff Woodhead, ran many attacks on me and ridiculed slavery in Vanderbilt student publications. I asked Vanderbilt not to allow the students to run such articles. Vanderbilt did nothing to stop them, but when Barzelay ran an article making fun of Gordon Gee several months later, Barzelay was fired. http://www.fenwick.com/attorneys/4.2.1.asp?aid=797
P: 650.335.7915 F: 650.938.5200
Other blacks who did not stand up include the following:
Myria Carpenter an officer of the Association of Vanderbilt Black Alumni in 2005
I believe her current contact information is as follows: Myria Carpenter mecarpen@ibb.gov Phone 202-205-8597, Fax 202-260-0855
She claimed the AVBA could not comment on university policy, but, if you read AVBA's by-laws, they state nothing to this effect. When I quoted the by-laws to her, she did not reply.
Candace Chatham was one of the head officers of the Black Student Alliance in 2002; she and Nia Toomer explicitly asked me to help with the Confederate Memorial Hall situation. I helped them because they asked, even though I told them there were more important issues to worry about. But after the neo-Confederate attack began, when I asked Candace for help, she said she had final exams to study for. When I asked her again after final exams were over, she did not reply.
Within the last year, I contacted the current president of the Association of Vanderbilt Black Alumni. I heard back from one of the officers, who said she would respond further but did not. It might be interesting to ask them what they intend to do.
Robert Boxie was president of the black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha at Vanderbilt. I had always assisted them when asked, even though I am not a member of any fraternity. Just 9 or 10 days before the neo-Confederate attack began, I had helped Boxie apply for a scholarship. When the attack began, I went to him for help. He said they could not agree with me and they have to consider things. When I asked them what there was to consider, he never replied.
Robert Paul Boxie, III Associate The Willard Office Building 1455 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Suite 600 Washington, DC 20004-1008 Tel 202.639.6623 Fax 202.879.8923 rboxie@velaw.com
Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree is familiar with what happened to me, as is Harvard Professor S. Allen Counter. I do not know left-wing Columbia University Professor Manning Marable, but he writes favorably of Vanderbilt in his book, Living Black History.