THE BOTTOM LINE | From Coon Lake to real diversity in state contracting
The North Cascade Mountains is just a name of a mountain range to most African Americans, but to Wilson Howard, it was a place to make his mark. Howard had placed a claim on the slopes of 8,122-foot McGregor Peak, in the national recreational area of Lake Chelan. A lake and creek that he had named after him was the centerpiece of his little piece of paradise.
But soon after Howard passed away, the residents decided that a more appropriate name of the lake and creek would be Coon Lake and Coon Creek.
Jonathon Rosenblum, according to most press reports, is the person who has really pushed this issue over the years. He frequented the area as a fisherman and once asked the residents whether there were a lot of coons in the area. The residents apparently laughed and said the lake and creek were originally named for a n—, and they changed it to Coon Lake. The replay shook him up and started him on his campaign.
Rosenblum was successful in getting Washington state to make the necessary corrections, and more than 50 Washington legislators sent a letter to the feds asking them to do the same. State senators and Congress people from Washington state were then joined by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who had been alerted to the issue by local activist Eddie Rye Jr. His daughter, Angela Rye, is a national political consultant and once was the executive director of the Black Caucus.
The combination of constituents were finally enough to get the National Parks Service to conclude that a major wrong had been done, and it has now changed all of the names on federal maps to Howard Lake and Howard Creek, as of October 2015.
Another nearby lake near Blewitt Pass had also carried the derogatory name of N— Lake in the 1960s and was changed to a softer Negro Lake. These are small but significant steps that are necessary to turn Washington state into a first-rate state.
Minority contracting
Gov. Jay Inslee also recently made a major step in that direction, as well, when he ordered the state’s major departments to conduct a diversity study after a thorough investigation by a special sub-cabinet team he set up.
His action followed the delivery of a more-than-3,000-page document by the Civil Rights Coalition made up of more than 30 civil rights organizations. These documents were delivered to the state attorney general and governor’s office in June, outlining how and why the state is totally out of compliance with Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act.
While this necessary study is being put together, the governor and his sub-cabinet team also pledged to look for any reasonable opportunity to include minority contracting into their current system.
Unfortunately, this new opportunity has uncovered just how many minority-owned companies have dropped out of certification with the state. Most had simply given up that they would ever get any real opportunity.
Now, the Civil Rights Coalition is putting together the names of those who were once in the system and hope to contact them to get them back and involved.
We are asking the state to put some real funds into this effort because its past discrimination is the main reason we have lost so many qualified contractors.
The governor also made a tentative commitment for a Procurement Technical Assistance Center to help minority contractors work through the state process. We hope to have these centers in all of the key population areas in Washington state before we are done.
Realizing a dream
Yes, we have problems, but ever so slowly, some of those issues are being addressed, and they should be noted.
We still have a long way to go to create the state that George Washington Bush longed for after being denied a place in Oregon. Every little victory makes his dream of an open multiracial environment for everyone less a dream and more a possibility here and in the nation.
CHARLIE JAMES is co-founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. County Institute (mlkci.org). To comment on this column, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.