News and Notes with Ed Gordon

I had the opportunity to appear on the National Public Radio show, "News and Notes with Ed Gordon" last week. They recorded the show from a studio in Morgantown. Professor Charles Ogletree from Harvard was also a guest and we discussed the Inclusive Communities Program. I have met Dr. Ogletree on several occasions and he is one of the most articulate speakers on the issues of civil rights and urban public policy. We talked a little about the issue of "sundown towns". The sundown towns were, possibly hundreds of towns throughout the United States that had a policy of no Africian-Americans after the sun went down. This was either implyed or, in some cases, formalized by an ordinance of the governing body. Mayor Ted Ellis of Bluffton, Indiana suspects that his town may have been one of these towns. Ted did a great job in the USA Today article and in a segment, right before mine on NPR.

This has been a great couple of weeks for the Inclusive Communities Program. Over 68 cities have joined the program and millions of people have been introduced to the program by outstanding national media coverage.

If you would like to hear the interview, here is a link:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5633328 and click Listen