Kansas People’s Agenda in Topeka

On January 11, roughly 500 people from all over Kansas converged on the state capitol to lobby for “Kansas People’s Agenda 2017”.  Plans for this were discussed in the December 27 episode of RadioActive Magazine.

The January 11 event included a rally that ran from roughly 11 AM until 12:30 PM, after which participants went to talk with their state senators and representatives and to attend committee hearings.

A related effort is “Women’s March Topeka” being planned for this Saturday, January 21.

The lead organizer for the January 11 event was Rev. Sarah Oglesby-Dunegan, pastor at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Topeka in joint with many others of many different faiths and political persuasions from across Kansas.

The agenda included poetry, presentations by activists from all over the state, and music. In this episode of RadioActive Magazine, you will hear 26 minutes selected from this 90-minute program.

Because of time and technical difficulties, we are not able to include portions of every presentation.

The rally began with recorded greetings from Rev. William Barber, whose Moral Mondays Movement in North Carolina and books, especially The Third Reconstruction, inspired Rev. Oglesby-Dunegan and others to build the coalition that organized this rally.

Invited speakers included Badger Wahwassuck and Juanita Jessepe, elders of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation just North of Topeka. Juanita said: “No other group has been so affected by the religions I shall not name that tried to beat out of us who we were. We should be beyond that. No other group that I know of has to adhere to such laws as the Indian Child Welfare Act of the State of Kansas. The Indian Child Welfare Act was meant to retain who we are, not destroy who we are. Police come on our reservation. Do our lives matter? It does not seem that way. As I stand here, I feel somewhat humbled that we all stand on Indian land. We’re on the bottom of the totem pole when we come to Topeka. We have the highest rate of arrest, the highest rate of poverty. But yet, we’re considered overzealous. We respect the environment. We respect the air. It takes the people to make something happen. Never stop. Never give up. We’re with you on this.”

Tom Witt, the Executive Director of Equality Kansas. described his work as a lobbyist for the LGBT community in Kansas.  He said he has had enough support in the legislature to stop a lot of terrible bills from becoming law.  He especially acknowledged state representative Jarrod Ousley of Merriam, KS, who sponsored this event.  He also acknowledged the support of State Representative Ponka-We Victors of Wichita, State Senator Oletha Faust-Goudeau also of Wichita, and State Senator Marci Francisco of Lawrence, among others.

Omar Hazim, the Imam of the Islamic Center of Topeka, said that the Quran says let there be no compulsion in religion. Let every human soul pick and choose the religion they want to practice based on the limited free will that God has given every human being.

Yasmari Rodriguez, one of the leaders of Black Lives Matter of Topeka, called for a chant: Black Lives Matter on your mind.

Carolina Hernandez of Sunflower Community Action in Wichita, said she was brought to the US from Mexico when she was three years old. She had a heart murmur and would faint a lot. Her parents decided she would have a better future if they could get her to the US where she could get better medical treatment. She went on to graduate from High School as an honor student and start college. Her immigration status presented obstacles. Fortunately, she qualified for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) which helps her live here without fear. Still she has to fight every year to keep in-state tuition, and she worries about her parents, who are still undocumented. Now she has a beautiful 3-month old daughter and understands better why her parents brought her here. She asked for the support of all.

Tamber Hepner said she has been on both sides of the abortion question. She held a sign against Dr. Tiller. At age 24, she got pregnant as a victim of rape. Now she’s vigorously Pro-Choice and the Director of Advocacy and Outreach at Trust Women.

Heather Ousley, wife of Representative Jarron Ousley, gave an inspiring summary of education policies in the state of Kansas.  She said, “I am a Mother, and I walked out of my front door 4 years ago and walked 60 miles to this capitol, because our state constitution guarantees all children an equal right to an excellent education.  We know that the first territorial schools were provided by free-staters who came here following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which provided that Kansas would be either a free or slave state as determined by the votes of those who settled here.  And we know that the free-staters came and were united in their desire for good schools.  We know that in 1858, before we were a state, the first Territorial Superintendent of Schools, Mr. James Noteware, insisted that we let Kansas from the first take rank among the best educated states.  Whatever else is neglected, let us not neglect the education of our children.  We know that this principle was carried over into our Constitution in 1861, and we know that some of the first state legislation provided that all Kansas boys and all Kansas girls would be educated, and that was when we levied our first property tax that would be distributed to each school district as weighted by their population.

“We know that in 1902, the then-state superintendent, Mr. Frank Nelson, fought for each rural school to hire a wagon to transport rural students and that this daily transport of our children is credited with the development of our reliable rural roads.  We know in 1937 the Kansas legislature passed the school equalization act establishing our first sales tax, and that that also was distributed to rural elementary schools.

“We know in 1951, thirteen brave Topeka families filed the lawsuit that would then come to be known as Brown v. Board of Education and that this lawsuit would result in the unanimous decision that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.  And again, Kansas paved the way to an education for children for whom it had been out of reach.

“We know in 1934 only half of our children needing special education services were receiving them and so our Kansas legislature passed the Special Education Act, so as to develop opportunities for children with disabilities in each school jurisdiction.

“And today, in a state with a proud tradition of feeding the world, 47 percent of our Kansas children participate in the free and reduced fee  lunch program and that this hunger gap for half of our kids comes with an opportunity gap, a resource gap, and a technology gap.  We know that these students face economic hurdles that make it difficult for them to perform at the level of their peers who are less burdened, and that this is what creates our current unequal education disparities in outcomes.

“Contrary to the assertions made last night [in Gov. Brownback’s State of the State speech], we know that implementing performance-based funding, which is also known as merit pay, penalize our schools educating our children facing the toughest battles.  We know that it further rewards the schools who already have so much.  And we also know that the economic disparities facing our kids cannot be fixed via privatization efforts.  We know they will not be fixed by vouchers.  They will not be fixed by for-profit charter schools.  We know that to bridge the opportunity gaps facing our kids, we have to ensure our public schools have the resources to meet the needs of hungry students, and to do this, we have to institute a sound tax policy, relieving the burden on those who work so hard for what they have, and reinstating responsibilities on those who are so fortuntate, they have forgotten what it means to struggle.

“We know our state’s history is the story of Kansans creating opportunities for all of our children, because that was our founding principle.  In solidarity we link arms with the districts that have brought lawsuits demanding the funds necessary to meet the needs of our children, and we link arms in front of the school house doors to block those who would raid our education funds for their own personal private gain.

“On behalf of our children, this is who we were, this is who we are, and this is who Kansans shall be.

“And so I’m going to ask you, “Show me what democracy looks like.  Show me what democracy looks like.  Ad astra per aspera.”

Djuan Wash, the Kansas Juvenile Justice Reform Advocate for the Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, discussed the criminal justice system in America.  He said:

“The criminal justice system in the US is broken and in need of reform, collectively spending $80 billion a year, triple from what we spent in 1980, even though violent and property crime is down 45 percent, although you’d never know that watching the evening news, which is constantly showing you scary black and latino people terrorizing themselves and everybody else. The media bias and lies about criminality of people of color is used to prop up negative racialized attitudes toward marginalized groups. The criminal justice system in this country was and is built on the backs of people of color. From Black Codes to Jim Crow, black bodies have been criminalized and thrown away.

“The time for reform is now. Law and order candidates have pursued policies that have exploded the size of the criminal justice system. Mandatory minimum, repeat offender and drug laws have destroyed communities. Most of these communities have been black and latino. The War on Drugs, 94 Crime Bill, state and local laws have all added to the problem, removing fathers and mothers from taking care of their families, and today locking up kids for normal childlike behaviors, for entry into the school to prison pipeline.

“I don’t know about you, but that sounds like madness to me.

“People often cite the 13th amendment as abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, but few pay attention to the exceptions of the amendment, which says that those people who are found guilty of crimes are not protected by the the 13th amendment. So it’s no wonder that prisoners today work for pennies on the dollar producing all sorts of goods from women’s lingerie to aircraft parts and performing services such as call centers. It’s no wonder that after Trump’s election private prison stock soared — in recent times in an industry that is worth over $70 billion a year.

“Prisoners today, when they are returning out of prison and returning to their communities, they are returning to them as pariahs. They’re unable to obtain housing, food, and employment, education in many cases, as well as not being able to vote. And when they fail to get an opportunity, the obvious happens. The cycle repeats itself, because again the system is broken.

“Luckily, we don’t get too many things to celebrate here in Kansas, unfortunately, with the type of legislature that we have. But we intend to change that, right?

“But not all is lost. And last year, a bipartisan effort passed landmark legislation SB 367, which is the juvenile justice reform bill, which is a complete overhaul of the youth criminal justice system, meant to close youth prisons and keep kids in their homes and in their communities. We were already able to see Larned closed. So next, we just have one additional prison, which is the Kansas Juvenile Corrections Complex here in Topeka. So we’re hoping to have that closed also.

“SB367 is meant to invest $70 million in cost savings back into communities in the form of community based alternatives that will allow these young people to flourish.

“This is what restorative justice is about, and this is a model that we can use for our adult criminal justice system. We have to provide opportunities for people who are entering and returning from prison, and help those individuals build better relations with their families, and with crime victims.
We have to get to a point where we can build communities and not build prisons.

Davis Hammet came to Topeka four years ago to paint the house rainbow across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church.  A year ago he founded an organization called Loud Light.  He said a constitution is empty words if it’s not lived out: If we want to demand real change, we cannot be divided. When I don’t see my struggle separate from your struggle, we have agenda, we can focus on our shared dreams. We learn about each other. We show up for each other. And we don’t go home when we win our own personal victory.

The episode ends with a portion of the Kansas People’s Agenda theme song, “Rise as one” by Aaron Fowler, whose lyrics include the following:

We will march as one.

We will stand as one.

We will rise as one.

Working hand in hand,

We will rise as one

This and other music was performed by the Kansas People’s Agenda music team:  Jonathan Andrews, Laura Dungan, Aaron Fowler, Justin Fowler, Elvin Graves, Tom James, Oshara Meesha, David Norlin, Marie Sager, Shane Schneider, Corey Swertfager and Ann Zimmerman.

Speakers not featured in the recording for this episode of RadioActive Magazine include the following:

Rabbi Moti Rieber, Executive Director of Kansas Interfaith Action.  He spoke of the need for collaboration between different organizations to build fusion politics behind a common agenda with appeal far beyond the false consensus portrayed in the mainstream commercial media.

Rev. Tobias Schlingensiepen, the Senior Minister at the First Congregational Church in Topeka.  He asked, “Why now? What’s possible?”

Luc Bensimon represented Black Trans Men, Inc.

Darnell Hunt from the Johnson County chapter of the NAACP:  He spoke of the need for racial justice.

Except for the music, this episode, text and podcast. is copyrighted under the Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike 4.0 international license.

 

 


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