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- Multi-Media Collection
San Diego and federal officials attend Citizens Interracial Committee, 1968
In addition to the regular members, others present at this meeting included the city manager, mayor, a county supervisor, a judge, and two special guests from the President's Council on Youth, who were sent from Washington to serve as consultants to the west coast. As attendance grew significantly for these meetings, there were issues with not having enough space for everyone, and it was agreed there would be assigned seating for those who were identified as regular members of this group; leftover seats were made available to the public. It was also suggested that a separate "town hall" meeting be organized to accommodate the growing demand of people wishing to express themselves on the issues of racism. It was suggested that people wear name tags.
The agenda included discussion about a report submitted by the City Manager's Office to the San Diego City Council, which was intended to summarize or inventory what various offices and agencies were doing to address the issues of racism and discriminatory practices. Criticisms of the report were mainly focused on the exclusion of input from minorities in generating the report, the report's failure to include what was not being done, and failure to acknowledge the problem clearly as "racism," referring to it instead as an "urban crisis." Also, complaints were raised about harassment by San Diego police officers of minority youth, who were allegedly picked up on false pretenses to glean information from them about local Black Muslim and black nationalist individuals and their activities. Other complaints included "constant" harassment of "green carders" (Mexican immigrants) by the District Attorney's Office, racially discriminatory treatment by police when dealing with drunk drivers, and the lack of promotion of minority police officers to supervisory positions (sergeants, lieutenants, and so on) within the San Diego Police Department.
As in several recent meetings, there remained strong, unresolved differences about whether the role of the Citizens' Interracial Committee was intended solely as a discussion forum, or whether its role was to make things happen.
The meetings were moderated by CIC Executive Director Carroll Waymon, and his voice is often the first one heard in the audio recordings of the meetings. Because CIC_REEL011_002 appears likely to be a recording of the February 9, 1968 meeting since the "next meeting" is said to be February 23, it is suggested that this tape, which has so far no indication of a date heard on the tape, is the March 8, 1968 meeting.
- Multi-Media Collection
- San Diego State University Library and Information Access, Special Collections and University Archives