KING DAY SPEAKER SAYS RACISM STILL EXISTS

Racism plagues the nation nearly 30 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., black educator Dr. Hugh J. Scott said Monday.

Scott is dean of programs in education at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

"For black Americans, America is both the country of oppression and the country of liberation," Scott told a crowd of about 650 people at the 13th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast at Southeast Missouri State University.

The breakfast annually honors the slain civil rights leader. This year's event was held in the Student Recreation Center.

Scott was the superintendent of the District of Columbia public school system from 1970 to 1973. He was the first black to hold that job.

"Racism cannot be relegated to America's social problems morgue," said Scott.

He said blacks today live in the best and worst of times.

A fourth to a third of the nation's blacks are in the middle class economically, he said. But another third, some 10 million blacks, live in poverty, he said. A majority of them live in urban areas.

Federal civil rights laws have put an end to the visible racism of the past, said Scott. But he said institutional racism remains a problem. "Most whites have surrendered very little power," he said.

Most white Americans don't travel in the social circles where racial equality is an issue, he said.

But Scott said the nation has come a long way since the days when blacks were slaves. Scott is optimistic that the nation will continue to move toward racial equality. "History is on the side of equality for African-Americans," he said.

Speaking on the national holiday honoring King's birth, Scott talked about King's impact on the nation.

"No black person in history has been so honored or so deeply mourned by the nations of the world," Scott said.

King was an integrationist, who viewed black and white supremacy as being equally dangerous.

King's legacy of non-violent resistance to racism wasn't a method for cowards, Scott said. "Make no doubt about it, Dr. King was a black militant," he said.

Scott said Americans of all colors and creeds must work together to end racism.