As Rev. Jesse Jackson looked to the future by choosing a leader for his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, other news of the week reminded us that while equality is a serious matter, there also are pleasures to be found in diversity and freedom.
Jackson announced Sunday that he wants Rev. James Meeks, a South Side minister, to succeed him as president of Rainbow/PUSH.
It’s not that Jackson, 60, is planning to step down. He made the announcement, he said, because when it comes time for a transition at Rainbow/PUSH, it would be better if the “Who’s next?” question was resolved.
“Organizations that don’t have a line of succession are traumatized by it,” Jackson said.
Meeks is the popular pastor of Salem Baptist Church, one of the largest black Baptist congregations in the city. Jackson has been grooming Meeks, who served as the organization’s executive vice president, for two years.
On equal footing: Madero Military Academy in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood began the second year of its day school program this month as 75 cadets in the 5th, 6th and 7th grades showed up for class.
Principal Rosa H. Ramirez is perhaps proudest of her girls. “The ones who are giving the commands are the girls,” she said. “Here they are feeling free to express themselves.”
Retired Sgt. Maj. Joe Collins, a part-time drill instructor at the school, notes it’s usually the girls who raise their hands first when he calls for volunteers. “They’re not afraid to get up there and take charge,” he said.
Chicago has more military-style school programs than any school district in the nation, officials said.
While this brand of education has its detractors, the system has become a model for other districts.
Old World, new taxes: For nearly a century, the Amish farmers and their buggies around Arthur, Ill., have been a familiar reminder of how to be different, but the state has put a price on that difference.
A new law gives local officials the chance to tax Amish buggies and requires that each of them carry a license plate, a sign of modernity. The rationale is that horseshoes chop up oil-and-chip roads, and so their drivers should help pay for repairs.
It would be wrong to say the Amish are up in arms over the $50 tax and demand for license plates because the Amish don’t get up in arms over anything, although it is said there is some gentle grumbling.
The consensus among the Amish, however, seems to be that it will be money well spent if it improves and maintains the roadways.
The strangest of bedfellows: Ken Starr, the special prosecutor who mounted a multimillion-dollar chase after President Bill Clinton that occupied much of Clinton’s time in office and severely tarnished his reputation, has a new client.
Starr, who returned to private practice once the Clinton watch ended, announced this week that he has filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of a tattoo artist fighting South Carolina’s ban on tattooing.
Ronald White, 33, has been battling the ban since 1999, when he was arrested and fined $2,500 for violating the law.
Starr is backing White’s claim that all of this violates his 1st Amendment rights.
And last but not least: Former President Clinton, talking to the Tribune’s Sabrina L. Miller during his visit to Chicago, had this to say on why he has become active in the global AIDS fight:
“When you’re not president anymore, you have two choices. You can just be a has-been and play golf and pretend you’re a Republican even if you weren’t. Or you have to try to find some way to be useful. You give up all this power, so what you have to do is swap power for influence.”
