You can kill a person, but you cannot kill a movement.
Reflecting on the 50 years that have passed since the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, nothing can accurately – and fully – describe the impact that he had on the trajectory of this nation’s history.
Despite his profound legacy, we find the liberal multitudes of this nation recoiling in abhorrence to the wayward journey we as a nation appear to be on. It feels like our country is traversing the long moral arch of the universe and coming no closer to any semblance of justice. For many, this is a shocking and recent revelation, but others recognize we are on a well-worn course plotted long before November 2016.
The legacy and unfinished work of Dr. King are stark reminders of our failings to recognize the full humanity of all who dwell among these shores. His fight for equality and liberty grew out of a century-old struggle for true emancipation and citizenship. Recognizing that racial justice is justice for all, Dr. King remarked on the night before he was killed that some of the white people present that evening had “come to realize that their destiny is tied up with [Black people’s] destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to [Black people’s] freedom.” But the inability of some – and outright refusal of others – to recognize the humanity of Black people led him to engage in an advocacy that went beyond civil rights.
His advocacy was one that is yet to be fully embraced presently. The persistent racial disparities that exist between Blacks and whites in many instances are the same as – and in some cases, worse than – those 50 years ago. Despite having higher rates of graduation than in years past, the Black unemployment rate in 2017 was 7.5 percent – up from 6.7 percent in 1968 – and still roughly twice the white unemployment rate. Rates of incarceration for Black people have nearly tripled from 1968 to 2016; then, it was 604 of every 100,000 in the total population and in 2016, 1,730 per 100,000.
While Dr. King’s name is known and revered for his fight against segregation and voter discrimination, his final campaign is lesser-known. He took that fateful trip to Memphis to elevate the need for Black people’s humanity to be recognized by ensuring economic rights. Called the Poor People’s Campaign, the later years of Dr. King’s life and advocacy found him organizing with others to develop a movement for economic justice. From living wages for sanitation workers in Memphis to an investment in basic human needs, Dr. King and others developed a platform with unprecedented demands: an Economic Bill of Rights for America’s poorest people, a $30 billion annual appropriation to fight against poverty, guaranteed income legislation, and the construction of 500,000 low-cost housing units each year until slums were eliminated.
Although the vision of the Poor People’s Campaign never fully came to fruition, the need for a movement that advocates for and protects the basic dignities entitled to all people is more relevant today than ever.
That’s where the ACLU strives to be: in the midst of the movement to protect basic human dignities. We’ve been in the courts fighting to defend and protect the oppressed and least among us. Look at our work in Moe v. Secretary of Administration and Finance, which required legislators to secure reproductive rights through the Commonwealth budget so those rights are equally enjoyed by all and not just the wealthy – or take Thayer v. City of Worcester, which ensured the First Amendment right to publicly solicit donations is not infringed upon merely because one is poor.
Injustice, oppression, and white supremacy abound, challenging the ideals of this democracy and threatening the lives of the people. But we continue to stand with the masses of people who have risen up, marched, protested, and advocated in a manner reminiscent of the era Dr. King personified.
Fifty years later, there is a movement afoot and it cannot be killed.
Rahsaan Hall is the director of the Racial Justice Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts.
When the ACLU of Massachusetts conducted a poll last July, voters were most surprised to learn that district attorneys control funds gained through civil asset forfeiture.
Sixty percent of voters were surprised to learn that there are situations where district attorneys can take people’s property – including money – even if the person hasn’t been convicted of a crime. Civil asset forfeiture is a way for prosecutors to seize property and money that law enforcement officers believe is connected to criminal activity.
One problem with civil asset forfeiture is the way it is used – and who it’s used against. There is a perception that individuals involved in drug trafficking are the only ones who have their assets seized and forfeited. There are an overwhelming number of low-level encounters, however, that result in the seizure of funds. The mere allegations contained in a police report are enough for the district attorney's office to move for forfeiture. These are the cases that are not talked about.
The way civil asset forfeiture funds are used are problematic as well. DAs’ offices consistently claim that they are underfunded and use civil asset forfeiture funds to make up for budget shortfalls. Nevertheless, DAs are encouraged to spend at least 10 percent of the civil asset forfeiture funds they take on community-based crime prevention programming. The amount that gets spent varies from county to county, but it rarely surpasses the 10 percent threshold. In one county, they spent more than 10 percent on community-based crime prevention, but it was spent on youth activities in a community that had significant resources as opposed to one that was under-resourced.
But our campaign is not the only concerned voice on the issue. In a recent report by the nonpartisan Institute for Justice, Massachusetts earned an “F” for its asset forfeiture laws – a shameful distinction shared with only one other outlier state, North Dakota.
Here’s why we earned that grade: In Massachusetts, our standard for taking that money is the lowest of all 50 states – and as much as 100 percent of forfeiture proceeds go to law enforcement, creating a dangerous motive to seize property.
Current Massachusetts law also lacks transparency around what law enforcement officials – including district attorneys – do with forfeited property and funds. Aside from the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association’s (MDAA) budgetary filing requirement, Massachusetts residents are largely left in the dark about the use of these properties and funds. Seized assets – from cash to cars to real property – can be a major source of unrestricted and unaccounted for DAs’ offices across the Commonwealth. According to filings by the MDAA, the total deposits made into the Law Enforcement Trust Fund over the last three fiscal years totaled to more than $13 million. That’s $13 million obtained outside of the legislature’s appropriation and budgetary process, and not subject to oversight or meaningful public reporting requirements.
Massachusetts law also places the burden on the owner of the property to prove their innocence or ignorance of any criminal activity associated with their seized property in order to recover it. As a result, they must go through costly and time-consuming forfeiture litigation – even when they are not involved in any criminal proceeding, and even if the police lacked probable cause to seize the property in the first place.
We don’t blame voters for being surprised by the power DAs have to seize property: it’s an alarming threat to due process, made even more startling by the lack of transparency and accountability.
The truth is, government works best when people know what it’s doing – and that’s why we’ve set out as a campaign and network to inform voters about district attorneys and their role in our lives and communities.
Learn more about the power of district attorneys and get involved with the campaign by visiting DAdifference.org. You can also follow the campaign on Twitter: @DAdifference_MA.
Rahsaan Hall is the director of the Racial Justice Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts.
Date
Monday, April 2, 2018 - 4:00pm
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From the first-ever National Women’s Rights Convention in 1850 to the marriage equality movement on Beacon Hill, Massachusetts is often among the first states to stand on the right side of history. Here in Lexington, we have a proud record of standing up to government bullies; we were, after all, the site of “the shot heard round the world.” Now, our community has the opportunity to again pick the right side of history by standing up to the xenophobic policies of the Trump administration that threaten our most basic values of inclusivity, acceptance, and democracy.
Decades from now, history will judge how Massachusetts – including our town of Lexington – treated immigrants. A number of Massachusetts municipalities have already passed policies designed to build trust between immigrant communities and the local police by limiting involvement in federal immigration enforcement. From Boston to Amherst, about a dozen cities and towns have drawn a clear line between the roles of federal immigration authorities and local agencies.
The federal government too often relies on local agencies to help deport millions of people. In Massachusetts, it happens every day when local jails detain people at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or when local police send information about a person in custody to ICE.
Beginning this week, Lexington will consider a resolution that proposes new rules preventing the police department from arresting or detaining people based on their immigration status. The Welcoming, Inclusive, Safe Community Bylaw would protect the civil rights of people who live in Lexington by making sure local resources are not used to help the Trump administration deport immigrants. It echoes the Safe Communities Act, a bill in the Massachusetts Legislature designed to ensure that state, local, and campus police do not participate in expansive immigration enforcement activities. Our police resources should be used to fight crime – not separate families.
By ensuring residents do not need to fear detention due to immigration status, we’re actually able to make our community safer by building stronger trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement while still allowing police to fight local crime. Studies show that when the immigrant community feels safer – when people aren’t afraid of their local government – they feel free to participate fully in the lives of their communities. They work, send their children to school, run businesses, and – perhaps most importantly – report crime and cooperate with police. The result? A better, safer place to live for everyone.
Make no mistake: this is bigger than voting for safer communities or wiser management of police resources. This is about once again standing up for our Lexington values. For more than 300 years, Massachusetts leaders have helped shaped our nation’s consciousness on civil rights. Now, we need to signal that kind of courage on behalf of immigrants in our community by voting for the Welcoming, Inclusive, Safe Community Bylaw and supporting state adoption of the Safe Communities Act.
Carol Rose is the executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, and lives in Lexington.
