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Fielding complaints from Livingstone College students about racial slurs, job discrimination and threats of violence in Salisbury, Mayor Susan Kluttz spelled out Thursday night what the city has done to combat racism.
She also laid out a challenge.
“There is a tremendous amount of work to be done,” Kluttz told a gathering of about 40 people crowded into a room at Livingstone’s Carnegie Library.
“I think we’ve all got a responsibility... We all need to work together.”
Kluttz was appearing at “Dialogue with the Mayor: Improving Race Relations,” an event sponsored by Livingstone’s Faculty Library Committee, the Dean’s Office and Continuing Education.
The 90-minute session began with frank talk from students, who packed into the room to tell the mayor they’d experienced more racist treatment since coming to Salisbury than ever before in their lives. They said they’d suffered insults, been harassed by store clerks who suspected them of shoplifting, and felt looked-down upon because they were Livingstone students.
A young woman majoring in physical education said she learned while attending a class at Catawba College that a local employer was still recruiting summer workers on that campus. The same employer had already told Livingstone students all slots were filled.
Two young men told of being threatened with rifles by fatigue-wearing strangers while playing on city tennis courts last October — a crime averted, they said, when a police car drove by.
“Don’t give us a snow job,” student Dana Merck said. “If you want to start solving the problem, you’ve got to take it to the root.”
Kluttz thanked the students for speaking honestly and agreed that talk alone wasn’t enough.
Kluttz said the City Council realized in 1998 that racism was the city’s top problem.
“There was a perception that there was racism (on the city staff),” she said. “Some people felt like the city didn’t welcome them.”
She spearheaded an effort to have all 400-plus members of the city staff complete diversity training. A company called Visions Inc. led the city workers, including Kluttz, through a two-day program to learn to see the world through others’ eyes, and to understand how people perceive things differently.
With a grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the city and the Human Relations Council expanded the diversity program to area businesses, too.
“I want every one of the 130,000 people in Rowan County to take this,” she said. That may seem like an unrealistic goal, she said, but she believes in reaching high.
She has also started a Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast that has drawn more than 100 area ministers.
Salisbury received the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials’ top annual City Cultural Diversity Award for cities with 25,001 to 100,000 population last year.
Kluttz said the drive to improve racial relations must continue.
“The first thing we need to do is realize that we’re not the same,” Kluttz said, “... that this city is made up of people who are very different.”
Kluttz said she believed the actual number of racists was small, though she was sad that any existed. Many more people may be perceived as racist because they say or do things without realizing how they will come across, she said
When she joined City Council, for example, she did not realize the term “you people” was considered racist by blacks until she saw the community’s reaction to its use. (Former Police Chief Jeff Jacobs once used the term in a community meeting, upsetting the largely black audience. Jacobs later resigned.)
Unintentional racists might be able to change through diversity training, she said. But how do you deal with racists who don’t want to change their attitude, she asked.
She compared the situation to dealing with an unmotivated child. “You can yell at them, you can scream at them. What good does it do? None.” She advocated teaching by example, showing love and hoping that they will eventually change.
“You need to realize that ignorance is part of the problem,” Kluttz said. “They really don’t know better.”
She invited the students to participate in the city’s diversity training, an offer accepted by the students and Frieda Nikolai — a member of both the Livingstone staff and the Human Relations Council.
Monty Witherspoon, student government president, said people who don’t realize they are racist may be more of a problem than those who are more openly racist.
Moderator Dr. Pauline Mountainbird, assistant professor of education and chair of the Library Committee, challenged Kluttz’s assertion that the actual number of racists was small. Mountainbird said she believed it was very, very prevalent.
Thomasina Paige, director of continuing education, said that Salisbury is not a college town, despite the presence of Catawba and Livingstone. She called for a gathering place where students from both campuses could get to know each other.
Student Julian McClain said Livingstone could be a powerful tool in the fight against racism, and they might find more success working with children than adults who are set in their ways. He said his own volunteer work, preparing two students at Isenberg School for testing, was a start. “They see things differently now.”
Kluttz commended McClain’s work.
“If every student at Livingstone College would mentor a child,” she said, “it would make a tremendous difference.”
Cecile Archer, a local resident who attended the session, told Kluttz real racism existed in Salisbury, and it created a lot of stress for black people who had to internalize insults and slights. “It’s hurting everyone,” Archer said.
“As a representative of the city of Salisbury,” Kluttz said, “I want to apologize to you, I want to apologize to everyone in this room, who has been insulted in this city.”
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