GARY — Delegates and organizers of the National Black Political Convention ended their meeting with a swarm of angry, sometimes contradictory, pleas, impressions and demands put forward over the last two days in response to creation of a new black agenda.
Many speakers criticized the mass incarceration of black men and women, the failures of public education, gang violence, inadequate housing, disinvestment and poverty in black-majority zip codes.
Complaints about unwarranted police shootings prompted panelist Kayla Hicks to say she is married to a black police office and he and other black officers deserve the black community's support.
Empress Chi, self-styled founder of the Million Women March, issued fiery condemnations of "police and government terrorism," including some schools in which the curriculum is controlled "by the people trying to destroy us."
One delegate demanded more black governors, legislators and the same proportion of black government officials as the county's 13 percent African-American population.
Former Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher warned black officials have to improve the black community's conditions, "or it would be better if they were never elected."
A call for respect of black elders clashed with a complaint about black men who abuse women and drag them into illegal drug trafficking.
Spencer Overton, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said a study of black attitudes toward gun violence shows a need for greater government oversight of gun dealers rather than more harsh punishment for gun violators, and trust-building steps with police, including civilian oversight boards.
Linda Haithcox Taylor, the convention's lead organizer, said they will release their conclusions in the near future.
U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, of Chicago, told a luncheon audience at the convention, "There are some who have said we would always be behind, we would always be a problem, that we would always be the issue. And people even had the nerve to ask sometimes why we haven not made any more progress."
Davis said, "The hands that used to pick cotton now help pick presidents."
Davis said many demands of Gary's 1972 convention remain unrealized. "What really can black people do to change our status in this country? Unity is the most powerful weapon any group can have.
"We have difficulty making decisions. We will talk at a meeting for two or three hours and still can't decide what we are going to do, because everybody wants their own way. We must learn to give and take a little bit more."