Cheers! The bald eagle, along with two dozen other species, is off the Endangered Species Act’s protection program.

How about replacing the eagles with the children of East St. Louis, 98 percent of whom are African-Americans, who live in sewer-infested neighborhoods, and attend schools where four out of five toilets don’t work, windows are missing, water fountains are dry, hallways have falling plaster, and books are at a premium?

According, to Johathan Kozol’s book, “Savage Inequalities,” the U.S. Department of housing and Urban Development described East St. Louis as “the most distressed small city in America.”

By night and by day, fumes pour from the vents and smokestacks of the Pfizer and Monsanto chemical plants, contributing to the highest rate of childhood asthma in the nation.

East St. louis is located on the flood plain on the east side of the Mississippi River, opposite to St. Louis. To the east of the city lie the Illinois Bluffs, which surround the flood plain in a semicircle. Towns on the Bluffs are predominately white, and visitors from East St. Louis re not welcome.

The Bluffs do not pay taxes to solve flood problems in the Bottoms, although the Bottoms’ problems are in great part due to the water that drains from the Bluffs. Neither do the chemical companies pay taxes. They have created incorporated small towns, which are self-governed, and exempt from supervision from health agencies.

Raw sewage backs up repeatedly into the homes, schools, streets and playgrounds of East St. Louis, containing quantities of arsenic, mercury and lead, as well as steroids dumped in previous years by stockyards in the area.

While visiting East St. Louis High School, Kozol peeked into an unattended classroom where five boys and two girls were standing around a piano, practicing for a concert one young lady sang in a pure, soprano voice, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” The whole of East St. Louis must feel that way.

One child told Kozol; “We have a school named for Dr. King. The school is full of sewer water and the doors are locked with chains. Every student in the school is black. It’s like a terrible joke on history.” And a terrible injustice to the children.

A history teacher had 110 students in four classes, but only 26 books, some of which are missing the first hundred pages.

Since Kozol’s book was published in 1991, I thought I should make inquiries about the progress since then.

The bureaucrats at the Board of Education transferred me from one office to another until someone at the top came on to say that the buildings had improved, along with test scores, and things were going quite well.

Too optimistic a picture to be credible for my liking. Next, I contacted Sr. Patricia, principal of the Thea Bowman School on the outskirts of the city. Sister said that the one Catholic high school had been consolidated into the Thea Bowman School, which has an enrollment of 278 students,

80 percent of whom are not Catholic.

She also said that the public school system is in desperate straits, primarily because most of the money goes to administration costs; very little trickles down to the needs of the school buildings or the children.

Not to worry, folks. The bureaucrats in Washington assure us that there will be computers in every classroom across the country. Maybe someone should put them on a bus to East St. Louis to check out the wiring and the plaster and the toilets, and to hear the children singing, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.”.

“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,” the children continue to sing.

TEN YEARS LATER...

Dear Friends,

A couple of times, in these intervening, years, I have written the above article to remind all of us that our Black children are still in the bondage of illiteracy in all too many schools.

However, today, I say rejoice to Students, Teachers, Parents, Taxpayers and even Puppies, who eat up homework! And, especially to De Andre Jones and Bryant Alexander.

Different Year; Different Results!

In this morning’s Saturday Tribune, there is a color photo of De Andre Jones with his 12 classmates at Englewood's Urban Prep Academy. Bryant Alexander, another graduating senior, recalled a very different scene four years earlier. His mother, in tears, looking at his eighth grade report card. The grades were barely adequate for him to graduate and certainly no sign of future academic success. Yet here he is, on his way to college. He said of that day, "Something just clicked. I knew I had to do something." That something is his success in high school and entry in to college.

We send everyone joy. Jobs well done. And to the puppy!

Now, Let’s see if East St. Louis can begin to improve.

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