`TIME FOR ACTION,' SPEAKER TELLS THOSE AT UNITY BREAKFAST

Lee Langston is tired of hearing speeches about problems in the black community and divisions between whites and blacks. He wants to see some action.

Many at the community unity breakfast Saturday echoed that sentiment.

About 40 attended the meeting by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and House of Prayer Church.

"We've got to stop all these speeches," Langston said. "We've got to move. We need one cause, one focus, some sort of plan."

Langston, a former NAACP president, is a manager at Procter & Gamble.

From the meeting, a group was formed to look into an adopt-a-family plan, and the NAACP will seek cultural diversity training for Cape Girardeau school personnel.

NAACP President Dawn Evans said, "We have got to become more aggressive in pursuing the educational values" of young people.

The group discussed crime, affirmative action, quotas, welfare reform, but nearly every issue brought a call for better education and better communication in the city.

Radio talk show host Carol Keeler-Daniel said many black people are angry, angry for a lot of different reasons, that anger doesn't solve problems.

Keeler-Daniel suggested an adopt-a-family plan, similar to a Big Brother or Big Sister program. Families would offer support to other families. A core group will begin working to organize the program.

The NAACP has asked Cape Girardeau's public schools to require cultural diversity training for faculty and staff.

"The teachers don't know anything about our children," Evans said. "They don't know anything about us. We need to understand one another."

To help build that understanding, Evans urged those attending Saturday to become involved in community activities.

Evans said, "Be at the PTA meetings. Be at the City Council meetings. Join the Booster Club. Talk with the people about what they are planning to do and how it will affect your children and your families."

If people aren't involved, changes take place that they may not like. For example, she said, the new Mississippi River Bridge route will cut off much of south Cape Girardeau.

"How did that highway get there?" she asked. "We weren't there to find out about the plan and to assert our opinions."

Police officer Freddie Ford said involvement needs to come down to each person's own block.

"Get to know our neighbors," he said. "Knock on the door and say welcome to the neighborhood."