Harry Austin

By Debra Utacia Krol

(Camp Verde, Ariz.) Unless you live in Indian Country—which encompasses not just reservations, but any place where Indians live, work, or play—you’ve probably never heard of the names Frank Harrison and Harry Austin.

The two men were members of what was then known as the Fort McDowell Mohave-Apache Tribe. Fort McDowell was actually one of the ancestral homes of the Yavapai people. But in the late 1800s, the U.S. Army forcibly marched the Yavapais off to a concentration camp in San Carlos, Arizona, where the mostly peaceable Yavapais were interned alongside Apache bands.

The Fort McDowell people didn’t give up their quest to return home, though. And in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order giving them back 48,000 acres of land along the Verde River, just east of Phoenix.

In 1924 the story really got interesting: that was the year all Indians were brought into the union as actual citizens, courtesy of the Indian Citizenship Act. Among other things, the Act gave Indians the right to vote in elections. Unfortunately, many states defied the Act and deliberately denied Indians that most fundamental of American rights: the right to vote.

In an attempt to rectify the injustice, Peter Porter, a Pima Indian and member of the Gila River Indian Community, filed suit against the state of Arizona in 1928. But not only were Indians were under federal guardianship, the Arizona state constitution denied the vote to “mental incompetents and people under guardianship.” Thus the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that Indians could not vote.

What the state hadn’t reckoned on was Harrison and Austin’s determination.

Harrison had already fought for and won the right for Indians to join unions and secure well-paying jobs, especially construction jobs. When the United States joined World War II, Harrison joined 25,000 other Natives who saw combat. Many served with highest distinctions, and some, like Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian who helped raise the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima, became national heroes.

After risking his life on the battlefield for his country, Harrison returned home to his impoverished community, where he was still denied the right to vote. His elderly parents were forced to work hard to survive; many Yavapai elders were still denied old age assistance and other federal benefits even though payroll taxes were deducted from their paychecks.

Frank Harrison

Determined to correct the situation, he sought out Native rights advocates, including Arizona Congressman Richard Harless and attorneys Lemuel and Ben Mathews. All of them were committed to challenging the guardianship clause in the constitution.

On November 8, 1947, Harrison and Austin, the chairman of the Fort McDowell tribe, both walked into the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office to register to vote. When they were turned away, their attorneys immediately filed suit. The case eventually reached the Arizona Supreme Court. Rights groups like the National Congress of American Indians filed legal briefs supporting the case.

Just over half a year later, on July 15, 1948, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously reversed the earlier courts’ rulings. Justice Levi S. Udall, (father of Congressman Morris Udall), quoted noted Indian law scholar Felix Cohen in his decision:

“In a democracy suffrage is the most basic civil right, since its exercise is the chief means whereby other rights may be safeguarded. To deny the right to vote where one is legally entitled to do so, is to do violence to the principles of freedom and equality.”

The case, Harrison v. Laveen, is now required reading in every Indian law class across the land.

Shortly after Arizona’s decision, other states that had been evading the law began revising their own statutes. (The last state to do so was Arizona’s companion state, its neighbor New Mexico.)

Yet Arizona then enacted a literacy test for potential voters, which effectively barred some 80 percent of the state’s Indians from pulling the lever. Only the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 eliminated the practice.

Lucinda Denny and Ella Doka, daughters of Frank Harrison and Harry Austin, have been carrying on the family tradition. Doka, left, was a leader in a 1992 standoff with federal agents over the seizure of Fort McDowell's slot machines.

Currently, rights advocates still monitor challenges to the right of American Indians to vote, but the Native vote is now considered pivotal to many politicians’ political ambitions.

In Arizona, the “Rez vote” is now considered a key swing constituency. It’s not unusual to see candidates marching at the Navajo Nation Fair parade, sampling fry bread, and kissing fat-cheeked babies on the campaign trail.

Harrison and Austin’s daughters, Ella Doka and Lucinda Denny, help out at Native voting drives. Denny makes it personal, reminding her own son, Dwayne, that his right to vote is what his grandfather fought for just over 60 years ago.

Debra Utacia Krol, an enrolled member of the Xolon (or Jolon) Salinan Tribe of central California, is a freelance journalist and NewsPlink correspondent based in Arizona.

Historic photos of Harrison and Austin courtesy of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.

Phil Witte is a widely published Cartoonist-in-Residence at the Cartoon Art Museum.

A sister and her brother watch as their neighborhood is demolished. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

By Sean David Hobbs

(Istanbul) The legendary music clubs and belly dancers were the first to go. There’s no longer a trace of the lively coffeeshops or balcony restaurants. And now, the once-narrow alleyways are strangely opened wide: because of the bulldozers, Sulukule, a gypsy settlement within Istanbul that dated back to before the 15th century, has become nothing more than a memory.

Nearly 1,000 years of history have been unceremoniously demolished over the past six months as the last buildings of this relic of the Ottoman empire have been razed. The roar of bulldozers was unbearable for those within earshot, but barely a sound has reverberated throughout the rest of Istanbul, Turkey and the world, as Europe’s oldest permanent gypsy settlement was torn down.

Sukru Punduk, center, treasures his traditional, close-knit community.

“Now it is gone,” laments Sukru Punduk, close to tears. Punduk, 41, is a Roma musician and native of the district, which traces its history back to Byzantine times. He sits with a few other Roma men in an Istanbul café, angered by the destruction of their homes, businesses and way of life. The demolition—or redevelopment, in the words of the governing authorities—began in 2006. The few remaining buildings next to Istanbul’s centuries-old stone walls were crushed during the past year.

The Roma families who were from this historic neighborhood feel the destruction is also an attack upon their heritage and culture. Once the proud home of nearly 5,000 Roma people, only about five percent are left in the district as bulldozers flatten the mounds of debris.

“Will we continue to exist or will our culture disappear?” Punduk asks.

In 2007, when this shot was taken, the area was still inhabited. (Photo: Sean David Hobbs)

Demolitions began in Sulukule in 2006 as the municipal government started a process billed as urban renewal. However, the national Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported that the municipal government’s Justice and Development Party (known as the AK Party) sold some of the newly-emptied land to family members and friends of AK Party leaders.

Hacer Foggo, whose glasses give her the air of a scholar, is one of the founders of the activist group Sulukule Platform. She called the renewal plan “corrupt gentrification,” and strongly suspects an economic motivation. “The plan is to remove the poor from the city center and build expensive homes in Sulukule,” she said.

But residents were already being moved out in 2007. (Photo: Sean David Hobbs)

The Romani have been present in Istanbul since the middle of the 11th century, when the city was known as Constantinople. Built along the city’s ancient protective walls, Sulukule was Istanbul’s first entertainment district, which included a thriving red light sector. Generations of people from all over Turkey came to Sulukule’s famed music halls.

Punduk explains, “Ours was the culture of music and dance in Istanbul. People came to Sulukule for the music and the beautiful Romani belly dancers. We had fortune tellers and dancing bears.”

Two years ago, there were still kids in the streets. (Photo: Sean David Hobbs)

The exotic strain of Rom music that grew within Sulukule was a mix of traditional Balkan and Middle Eastern music intermingled over generations with the court music of the Byzantines and Ottomans. The result was a unique Istanbul sound.

The beginning of the end came in 1992, when conservative government leaders shut down Sulukule’s music and dance halls. Poverty and poor education—already chronic problems there—became even worse with the loss of the entertainment venues.

By last year, the piles of rubble were growing. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

“Even after 1992, we could all live together at least. We were poor, but rent was cheap,” Punduk says. “We got by economically and preserved our culture.”

Then came the urban renewal plan of 2006, which resettled Roma in the Tasoluk public housing development 40 kilometers outside of central Istanbul. Over the past three years, nearly 700 families from Sulukule took up residence there—but only 20 families remain in the new neighborhood.

Uniformed police kept order for the bulldozers. (Photo: Hacer Foggo.)

High rent in the new development has forced some Roma onto the streets, and many more into cheap apartments throughout Istanbul where, stripped of their community and culture, many say they have suffered alienation and depression.

Watching the demolition of a thousand years of culture. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

All of this has unfolded even though UNESCO listed Sulukule as an endangered World Heritage site. More recently, the U.S. Congress’ Joint Helsinki Commission urged the Turkish government to protect the Sulukule Roma.

The spot to wash your feet before prayers is gone. So is the rickety wooden house in the background. (Photo: Sean David Hobbs)

In April, the commission sent a letter to Turkish Prime Minister and AK Party leader Recep Tayip Erdogan, which noted that the “Roma community in Sulukule is living on the fringes of society and continues to be treated unfairly.” The letter urged Erdogan to implement a program to “preserve this centuries-old neighborhood and allow the Roma there to remain together as a community.”

This man has a portable stove, drinking water, and a coffee pot. But he needs more than a wall to maintain his community. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

Punduk said he and other Romani leaders support music groups that reach out to Roma children, and thus keep the spirit, culture and artistry of Sulukule alive. Still, he is despondent when he considers all that has been lost. Sitting in the café and gazing at his Islamic prayer beads, Punduk has no answers.

“Ours is a very old culture,” he says, “It isn’t just Istanbul or Turkey which lost this special place. The world has lost a piece of its culture.”

Standing guard over rolled-up rugs and some furniture. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

Sean David Hobbs is a New Orleans-based writer originally from Wisconsin. He lived in Istanbul for three years.

By 10:00 a.m., a crowd had gathered by the California Supreme Court in San Francisco. They awaited word of the Court’s decision.

The decision, to uphold voters’ passage last year of the ban, wasn’t entirely unexpected. But it was a blow that affected even public officials. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, second from right, held a press conference.

“Today’s ruling doesn’t mean marriage equality will never be achieved,” he said. “It simply means that, in the end, we can’t rely on the courts to secure it.” He added, “The final decisive round will not be won in the legal arena, it will be won in the electoral arena.”

The effects of strategizing and organizing began to take shape almost immediately. Protesters blocked traffic on nearby Van Ness Avenue, a main traffic artery. There were between 100 and 200 arrests, which were processed relatively efficiently.

Early that evening, a rally gathered.

A march started by the domed City Hall…

…and passed by the state Supreme Court, where police remained on watch.

Quite a number of protesters found powerful and inventive ways to make their point.

At one point, emotions and alcohol set off a limited confrontation.

And that led to an unpleasant arrest of a companion.

Which then led to about 500 people diverting themselves to an unplanned route, leaving hapless drivers unexpectedly surrounded.

Marriage equality activists expect to achieve their goal in California via the ballot box in 2010, or 2012 at the latest.

Luke Thomas is editor and publisher of Fog City Journal, where a version of this story is concurrently posted.

Jerry Brown with reporters.
(Photo: Debra Walker)

This weekend, the flat and fair city of Sacramento hosted the state’s Democratic Convention. With Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on his way out, and a crowd of termed-out San Francisco Progressives looking to get in, attendees felt the excitement while they were still on the interstate freeway or the Amtrak Capitol Corridor train.

Once things began, a long-time Dem, August Longo, stepped on Progressive star Chris Daly’s hope to become a Regional Director for the party. Naturally, charges of “hackasaurus” and “power grab” began to fly between the two camps.

Gavin Newson with his crowd in the crowd.
(Photo: Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

For their part, the Progressives weren’t alone in sneering at San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s attempt to assume the hip-tech cred of none other than Barack Obama. Newsom’s team had amassed a whopping Twitter and Facebook following for their candidate, and even concocted a special “Gavin Drop” cocktail in his honor.

Unfortunately, attendees who were drawn to the Wyclef Jean show at Newsom’s “Block Party” became irate when a system with color-coded wristbands limited their access to VIP areas, restaurants, and even proper bathrooms.

As expected, the heaviest sniping came from Newsom’s turf in San Francisco; his homeys even disparaged the size of his security detail.

By contrast, they noted that Jerry Brown had little by way of a “posse,” and delivered his usual satisfying speech. Brown may be to politics what any Barrymore is to theater: talented, born to it, and been around forever. His “Recession Reception” with little more than chips and salsa got high marks for being sensitive to the current no-frills mood. The biggest hit of the weekend may have been the nostalgic sight of the baby blue Plymouth he used when he was governor thirty years ago.

Jerry Brown's old car: not exactly a Hummer.
(Photo: Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Tulchin Research, in a poll from early April, shows Brown maintaining a lead of 31 percent among likely Democratic primary voters. Newsom polls at 16 percent of likely Democratic primary voters. That is ahead of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who polls at 12 percent.

So where was Villaraigosa? Stuck back in L.A. with union budget negotiations, and either unwilling or unable to be the spoiler for anyone’s race. He took the opportunity to stay above the fray and grant press interviews. Dianne Feinstein still hasn’t jumped in, and John Garamendi is now officially running instead for U.S. Congress.

(Photo: Bill Barnes)

One complaint about the good time in Sacramento: that the bars should stay open later. Maybe to enjoy those Gavin Drops?

More extensive, fun-to-read coverage at CalBuzz.

This is the week that a conference on racism is being held in Geneva. It revisits some of the widely deplored incidents of the previous conference on racism, held eight years ago in Durban, South Africa, just before the attacks of 9/11.

In the ensuing international events, it was easy to forget that during the rush to condemn the tiny state of Israel for bigotry and colonialism, some of the conference participants reached into a dark, dirty bag of tricks and pulled out copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Little wonder so many delegates were prepared to boycott this week’s otherwise seemingly noble efforts. Monday’s speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad again targeted only one country: Israel. The speech did not advance the cause, and scores of delegates strode out (video here).

If this is the best the United Nations can do, it really is time to wash our hands and pull the plug on this enterprise. Here are three urgent reasons:

First, there is simply too much effort paid to condemning one country. That would be Israel, of course. And too much energy is spent creating a cloud of anti-Semitism. This is certainly not new; Pedro Sanjuan, the former policy planning director in the U.N. Secretariat, documents the toxic, anti-Jewish environment in his 2005 book, “The UN Gang: A Memoir of Incompetence, Corruption, Espionage, Anti-Semitism and Islamic Extremism at the UN Secretariat.”

Second, the UN Peacekeeping forces are no such thing. The worst example is from Yugoslavia during the 90s. There were terrible massacres, mass rapes, and genital mutilation. But there was no child prostitution. That arrived with the UN troops, as documented here by Amnesty International. Eritrea suffered similarly. And because UN troops are not an army for which anybody bears responsibility—they are not the army of a nation-state, after all—there is no way to punish such outrages.

Third, there is a terrible record of genocides occurring on the UN’s watch. Only afterwards do they pass unanimous resolutions that are soggy with crocodile’s tears. So it went when the Khmer Rouge ravaged Cambodia, so it was when Rwanda turned into a slaughterhouse, thus it is now as the janjaweed murder women and children and elders in Darfur. UN troops that are sent to places of mass carnage can be counted on to be absolutely useless. Either they withdraw at the moment of crisis and leave the victims to the tender mercies of their killers (Rwanda) or they politely show the murderers the way before the massacre starts (Bosnia).

If the UN were a nation state one would have to call it a banana republic—albeit one that hasn’t produced a single banana in years. If the UN were a company it would need a bailout by now. The United Nations? Flush it down the drain already.

Hannes Stein is a New York-based correspondent for Die Welt, the German newspaper. A version of this editorial is concurrently cross-posted on their opinion page.

Medium or well-done?

Richard Tamm, 61, a former computer programmer for the Federal Reserve Bank, said “Some of these companies are bankrupt and they won’t admit it. We need to wake up to what actually is happening — to force Obama to do the right thing.” Tamm added that trying to support the existing “failed financial oligarchies” was a move in the wrong direction.

No arrests necessary. No spelling corrections needed, either.

About 20 law enforcement officers present made no arrests.

“We are here to say loudly, as a nation, that we want to bail out the people, not the banks and the CEOs,” said Nancy Mancias, of CodePink Women for Peace.

All photos by Luke Thomas. A version of this article is available at FogCityJournal.com.

Is Rep. Tauscher's replacement being pre-selected?

Now, we know that politics is a clubby business. Still, any citizen can file the necessary papers, campaign war chests and political party machines be damned. The rest of us gamely watch the local papers and blogs to see who will be the latest stalwart of democracy. We count on the press, in whatever form, to help this system work.

Imagine our disappointment, then, when we were alerted to the Contra Costa Times, one of the main information sources on the developing race to replace Tauscher in a special election for California’s Congressional District 10. In a column from this past weekend entitled “Race for CD10 Getting Crowded,” there was no mention at all of any in the “crowd” listed in the headline. Only one candidate—one!—was mentioned: Mark DeSaulnier, currently a state senator.

In a joyful account of DeSaulnier’s political friendships and his recent trip to Washington, D.C. to hire a professional fundraiser, there was “no room” to mention a single other candidate. We know this because the columnist, Lisa Vorderbrueggen, said just that via e-mail when we asked. “DeSaulnier is the clear frontrunner,” she added. “Unless or until that changes, you can expect DeSaulnier will receive the most attention.” …And nobody else will get any, we thought.

Never mind that the column had no room to list DeSaulnier’s rivals, but plenty of room to list the potential candidates for his seat should he win. And still more room for the possible candidates who would then run for the subsequently-vacated seat after that. Much of this information, we noticed, was broken out into spacious, one-sentence paragraphs.

Our suggestion is simple: keep political coverage relevant and meaningful. We need to know more about the real DeSaulnier, and his frenetic political history. Also, some enterprising columnist might confirm that DeSaulnier’s father was really a Massachusetts state senator, and see how the voting public feels about that.

Most importantly, voters need to know who all is running. It turns out there is indeed a political newcomer in this race: Adriel Hampton, a former newspaper reporter and currently an investigator for the City Attorney’s Office in San Francisco. His father was not in politics, he was a nurse. Adriel has assiduously gone the “Government 2.0” route, adopting digital tools to communicate his platform. There are other candidates, too, including Republicans.

Sounds like there’s lots of story there, Contra Costa Times. We’ll wait for the press to keep the engines of democracy humming.

Photo of Rep. Ellen Tauscher via Closing Velocity.

This story cross-posted on Fog City Journal.

Jackson hasn’t been getting important mail. Checks from the government, reimbursing him for heating costs, went missing two months in a row. His beloved science magazines haven’t made it, either. And before she died, his mother told him she had just mailed him a letter. It never arrived.

“You have tremendous turnover among the desk clerks,” says Jackson. “Some of these people are not very well educated, or they’re illiterate.” So he is supporting a planned lawsuit against the United States Post Office, brought by San Francisco’s city attorney, to require delivery of mail to individual mail receptacles at residential hotels.

Such a move brings up very basic questions, like what, exactly, the difference might be between a hotel and an apartment building, and why one might get direct delivery to individuals in an apartment but not in an SRO hotel. In a memo last December, Noemi Luna, the Postmaster General of San Francisco, was very clear that it no longer mattered. Citing “current fiscal shortages,” she wrote that “the Postal Service will not offer individual mail receptacle delivery” to any SRO that had not been getting such service for less than 90 days. A few SROs, it seems, had managed to install regulation boxes by the city’s imposed deadline in 2007. The rest, like Jackson’s residential hotel, didn’t comply and are expected to continue to rely on the traditional open pigeon holes.

“It’s not a black and white issue,” said James Wigdel, spokesperson for the postal service. “I can’t say this defines an apartment or this defines an SRO. But at face value, an SRO is a hotel according to the postal service.”

Jeff Buckley, a tenant organizer in San Francisco’s scruffy but historic Tenderloin district, finds the entire business “discriminatory against poor people.” When the mail carrier comes by, he says, “They get buzzed in, and they drop a big bundle of mail on the first or second step.” From there, the bundle is at the mercy of the on- duty desk clerk. He feels the pending law suit could have been avoided had there been a regulatory body that enforced the city’s, and now the state’s, requirement to install individual mailbox receptacles. Besides, “the Post Office fought this from Day One,” he adds. He wants SROs to be recognized as legitimate housing stock for members of the lower middle class like Jackson, who worked as a janitor for many years after he quit his post office job.

The City Attorney is currently gathering evidence for a possible argument based on First Amendment rights. “The fact that they live in an SRO hotel doesn’t make them any less entitled to receive mail than someone who lives at the Four Seasons,” said City Attorney spokesperson Matt Dorsey, referring to a new luxury highrise hotel and condominium tower. “This is more than a minor inconvenience — for many of the tenants, the loss of a check or a form for their medical care can be devastating.”

A call to the Four Seasons revealed that neither hotel guests nor condominium tenants had the compliant mail receptacles required by the Postal Service for delivery. A mail truck pulls up to the loading dock and the mail is then under the care of the private staff, as with the SROs.

The difference is, of course, the expectation of prompt and reliable service.

Cross-posted at FogCityJournal.com.

OFFICIALLY IN: John Garamendi, currently Lt. Governor.

Democrat, age 64. So far, the only candidate to declare his candidacy officially.
(Photo for NewsPlink by Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Jerry Brown, currently Attorney General of California. Formed exploratory committee.

Democrat, age 70. Has already been governor of California -- 30 years ago.
(Photo for NewsPlink by Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Tom Campbell, currently a law professor. Formed exploratory committee.

Republican, age 52. The least-funded of the Republican candidates.
(Photo: John Decker/Sacramento Bee)

Dianne Feinstein, currently United States Senator. No campaign at present.

Democrat, age 75. Would be the first female governor of California, but she would have to leave her post in Washington, D.C.
(Photo for NewsPlink by Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Bill Lockyer, currently Treasurer of California. No campaign at present.

Democrat, age 67. A lifetime politician and shrewd fundraiser.
(Photo for NewsPlink by Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Gavin Newsom, currently Mayor of San Francisco. Formed exploratory committee.

Democrat, age 41. The youngest candidate, he is about to become a father.
(Photo for NewsPlink by Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Steve Poizner, currently California Insurance Commissioner. Formed exploratory committee.

Republican, age 52. With his latest stance on immigration, he is probably the most conservative candidate of the bunch.
(Photo: California Dept. of Insurance)

Loretta Sanchez, currently United States Representative from Orange County. No campaign at present.

Democrat, age 49. Her younger sister Linda is also a congresswoman from a nearby district.
(Photo for NewsPlink by Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Antonio Villaraigosa, currently Mayor of Los Angeles. Formed exploratory committee.

Democrat, age 56. He is shown here with Willie Brown on the left; both are former Speakers of the State Assembly.
(Photo for NewsPlink by Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Steve Westly, currently an investor in green technologies. No campaign at present.

Democrat, age 52. Ran a strong race during his last attempt to become governor.
(Photo for NewsPlink by Luke Thomas, FogCityJournal.com)

Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay. Formed exploratory committee.

Republican., age 52. This is her first foray into politics on her own behalf.
(Photo: Brian Baer/Sacramento Bee)

Coming soon: a closer look at each candidate. This is a high-stakes game, and the biggest players are seriously loaded.