STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED CRESCENT MAP THAT CREATES FIVE DISTRICTS THAT ARE AT LEAST 50% BLACK
We came to Rochester, New York from the Jim Crow South in search of better job opportunities and a secure future. Unfortunately, when we reached the promised land known as Rochester, New York, we were redlined into overcrowded and subdivided houses that lacked basic services. Deed restrictions, racial covenants, realtor sales practices, block clubs, and improvement associations ensured that we could not live outside of the Third and Seventh Ward, the same areas which still suffer from concentration of poverty and other disparities.
Now we have come to demand our full representation, in accordance with the law.
The Baber Social Justice Commission (BSJC) supports the Crescent Map that creates five districts that are at least 50% black. We support the Crescent Map because it empowers men, women, and their descendants who have experienced and continue to experience the brutal horrors of blatant racism as mentioned above. We support the Crescent Map because we serve a God who empowers those who have been oppressed: God sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to release God’s people (Exodus 5), God protected Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah when Nebuchadnezzar threw them into a furnace because the three Hebrews refused to bow down (Daniel 3), and God sent Jesus Christ to preach good news to the poor; freedom to the prisoner; vision to the blind; to release the oppressed and proclaim Jubilee (Luke 4:18-19). We support the Crescent Map because in the words of the Reverend Martin L. King, Jr., Ph.D., “the time is always right to do right.”
Furthermore, the Baber Social Justice Commission renounces all efforts to undermine the Voting Rights Act (VRA) whether from a conservative supreme court, extremist republicans, or the democratic caucus in Monroe County, New York. We renounce all efforts to create so called “effectively black districts.” The Crescent Map is in accordance with section two of the VRA which prohibits practices that disenfranchise black voters. We marched, protested, rallied, and used other nonviolent, confrontational methods to secure these protections. We endured fire hoses, canines, police batons, and violence to pass this bill. And we refuse to remain silent as the VRA is under attack in our own front yard.
We call each legislator to support the Crescent Map that creates five districts that are at least 50% black. We also call our county executive, Mr. Adam Bello, not to veto the Crescent Map when it lands on his desk. Amen.
Baber Social Justice Commission (BSJC)
Mrs. Gayle Harrison, PhD, Director
The Reverend James C. Simmons, Pastor
