In
this crucial election season, over 130 Delta grassroots leaders will
urge much greater action on the eight-state region's distressed economy
to federal, regional and state "powers that be" at the Delta regional
conference in West Memphis on Oct. 23-24. Key participants include:
- Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), Rep. Mike Ross (AR), Mayor A. C. Wharton of Memphis, Jr. of Memphis, Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Dustin McDaniel (AR), Prosecutor and Congressional candidate Scott Ellington (D-AR), Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR), Delta Regional Authority Federal Co-Chairman Chris Masingill, Bob Nash, former senior White House aide to President Clinton, civil rights leaders, and other federal, regional and state officials on Oct. 23-24.
We will have President Beverly Robertson of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, as well as civil rights advocates addressing race relations in the wake of bigoted public statements by three Arkansas politicians regarding African Americans, slavery and other controversial matters. Gov. Mike Beebe (AR) will speak by video.
"For the first time ever the Delta Regional Conference will be held in the heart of the Delta rather than Washington, DC, because we did not want to ask financially strapped partners to take an expensive trip to DC in the fifth year of a weak economy, and the gridlock in Washington is so bad that it would not have been a productive dialogue in any case," said Lee Powell, Caucus Director.
The
Memphis area is the heart of the vast Greater Delta Region extending
from St. Louis and southern Illinois down through Arkansas, Tennessee
and Mississippi to New Orleans.
Key Memphis participants include
Rep. Cohen, Mayor Wharton, President Shirley Raines of the University
of Memphis, President Beverly Robertson of the National Civil Rights
Museum, Gregory Hall, Senior V.P., Technical Operations, FedEx Express,
President Steve Bares of the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, Alan Gumbel of
the Memphis Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA), Minnie Bommer,
civil rights advocate and rural economic development expert from
Covington, TN, Greg Maxted, executive director of the Harahan Bridge
project in Memphis, the nonprofit Shiloh Distribution Center from west
Tennessee, and other west Tennessee leaders.
The opening session begins Tuesday evening at 4:45 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. at the Marion Berry Renewable Energy Center, Mid-South Community College, West Memphis. President Glen Fenter of Mid-South Community College is our host.
The Delta conference session on Wednesday, Oct. 24 is from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., again at the Marion Berry Renewable Energy Center, Mid-South College.
"In
this crucial election season we are asking leaders of both parties to
step up and tell us what they will do to turn around an economy that is
sluggish nationwide and severely distressed in most of the Greater Delta
Region," said Caucus Director Lee Powell. The Delta Caucus is
particularly concerned about middle and lower income working families,
African Americans, women and other minorities, and continuing our
progress in race relations and civil rights.
There
will also be a debate between Mid-South leaders expressing their views
as to why President Obama or Gov. Mitt Romney would be better for the
region's economy. Mayor Carl Redus of Pine Bluff, Arkansas is the
pro-Obama speaker, Sen. Missy Irvin (R-AR) is the pro-Romney speaker.
The
130 Delta regional leaders from across the region are college and
university presidents, mayors and other elected officials, nonprofit
executives, corporations, experts in health care, job creation, civil
rights and other vital regional issues.
The
fundamental issue is job creation. Key issues will be support for
investments in transportation and other infrastructure to create jobs
and:
- support for full funding for the USDA SNAP and other federal nutrition programs, USDA Rural Development and aid to family farmers, as well as full funding for the DRA;
- health care for the underserved Delta;
- small business and entrepreneurialism for job creation;
- promotion for Delta Heritage tourism such as the civil rights movement historic sites;
- equitable tax reform to provide revenue to reduce the deficits and invest in the economy.
"A
disturbing development is that we had been planning to celebrate our
progress in civil rights and race relations in Arkansas and the region,
but this plan was complicated by recent bigoted statements by three
Arkansas politicians--such as Rep. Jon Hubbard's (R-Jonesboro) statement
that African Americans benefited from slavery, and his comparison of
Gov. Mike Beebe and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel to Nazis after they
criticized his statement," Powell said.
Due
to coverage of these disturbing comments in the national media, we have
had to devote time to condemning these statements and emphasizing that
this does not represent the true state of opinion in Arkansas and
certainly not the Mid-South region as a whole.
The
Delta Caucus calls upon Rep. Hubbard, Rep. Loy Mauch (R-Bismarck) to
apologize and resign from the Arkansas legislature, and for candidate
Charlie Fuqua (R-Batesville) to suspend his campaign for the
legislature. Rep. Mauch said that Abraham Lincoln was a war criminal.
Mr. Fuqua advocates the expulsion of all Muslims from the USA.
"We
have speakers such as Beverly Robertson of the National Civil Rights
Museum who are going to address the progress on civil rights in our
region since the civil rights movement, as well as other advocates of
diversity and progressive race relations. We will still move forward
with that plan. It was hard enough before the bigoted statements to
attract investment into the Delta and this was very damaging, to say the
least," said Desha County Judge Mark McElroy, Delta Caucus Vice
Chairman.
For a full detailed agenda, see the website at www.mdgc.us
