Echoes of "we don't want another Cincinnati" floated across theroom as Muncie community leaders signed a race relations agreementFriday.
The debate over renaming Broadway avenue prompted the mediatedagreement between the It's Time for a Change committee and themayor's committee. However, the real issue was racial tension, theRev. Thomas Perchlik of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Munciesaid.
"The point isn't that we're going to rename that street,"Perchlik said. "We're going to work on bigger issues of thecommunity."
Randall Simms, president of the Whitely Neighborhood Council,said that signing the agreement signified a movement to end thetension.
"Healing the races has to start with us," Simms said. "We'llcarry the relationships that we formed in these meetings back intothe community with us."
If the committees' three months of discussion hadn't takenplace, racial tensions in Muncie could have erupted into a caselike Nathaniel Jones's, Aamir Shabazz, president of the IslamicCenter of Muncie, said.
"This community was near the boiling point like I've never seenit before," Shabazz said. "There's a lot of racial pressure. Toomany cities have become polarized between the community and thepolice."
Nathaniel Jones, 41, died Dec. 1 after a brawl with sixCincinnati police officers. Traces of PCP were found in hissystem.
As for discrimination complaints in Muncie, Phyllis Bartleson,director of the Muncie Human Rights Committee, said that theyappear in cycles. Bartleson said that their numbers increase afterthe committee holds civil rights education sessions.
For example, Bartleson described the fatal beating of a gayMuncie man several years ago. After the Human Rights Committee helda series of talks on civil rights, more people came forward withsexual discrimination complaints.
"After we explain aspects of the civil right laws, we usuallyreceive a greater number of complaints," Bartleson said.
She said that if the HRC is going to participate in the proposedMartin Luther King Jr. Institute, the City Council would have torebuild their budget.
"You people on the council are going to have to give me somemoney," Bartleson said. "Our budget has been cut 80 percent overthe years. I can't work miracles with nothing."
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