. |
Race relations have improved as tally of minorities grows
Published on:Monday, March 26, 2001
By Chondra McLean
The SUN NEWS
By Mark AdamsThe Sun NewsRose and Dan McCoy dance during a
Baha'i celebration of spring and the new year Wednesday at the Grand
Strand Senior Center.
Horry County is becoming whiter as the percentage of blacks in the total
population dwindles, census numbers show, but some say relations between
the races are better than in the past.
Programs promoting diversity and efforts by groups and individuals to
bridge the racial gap are making a difference, residents say.
"Horry County is doing a lot of work to encourage multiculturalism and
people interacting across racial lines," said Adalia Ellis, an Horry
County native and member of the Baha'i religion, which encourages
interaction among the races. "So what if we don't get an overnight
perfect thing? At least people are working on it."
Some of those efforts include the Horry County Cultural Arts Council,
which seeks to expose all races to the arts; county programs geared
toward educating locals about black history; and outreach by members of
the Baha'i faith. While Horry County increased by about 50,000 people
with a jump of 40,000 whites and 4,000 blacks since 1990, the
percentage of blacks in the total population has decreased from 17
percent to 15 percent.
The county also has 794 American Indians, 1,498 Asians, 5,057 Hispanics
and 121 native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders groups that have all
increased in population since 1990.
Most of the newcomers to the county are white retirees from the
Northeast seeking a warmer climate, said Mike McFarlane, a demographer
with the state Budget and Control Board's Office of Research and
Statistics.
Beverly Clark, who moved to Horry County eight years ago from
Connecticut, said she has seen improved race relations here.
Clark is a member of the Bike Week Task Force, which seeks to improve
how the area deals with visitors during the Atlantic Beach Memorial Day
Bike Festival and Harley-Davidson Bike Week.
"I came in when there was trouble with the Atlantic Beach Bike
Festival," she said.
"People were saying, `Put them on a ship and take them out and drown
them,"' Clark said about white people's views of the festival, which
attracts more than 100,000 people mostly black to the Grand Strand
annually.
The task force has helped soothe tensions surrounding the event by
encouraging police and local residents to be more sensitive and
receptive to festival-goers, she said.
"Now, everyone is only concerned about how to make it better," Clark
said. "We don't have people on one side, one on the other side and
people in the middle. We have one group."
That describes the philosophy of Baha'i practitioners, consisting
locally of about 200 people of all races, said Jo Ann Borovicka, a board
member of the S.C. Baha'i Training Institute.
Local Baha'is make constant strides toward racial unity through
educational programs and daily interaction with different races through
social activities, she said. As a result, she said, stereotypes are
destroyed.
"We learn so much from each other," Borovicka said. "We all make
assumptions about people and find it isn't so."
But Horry County still has a long way to go, said Tracy Graham, who has
directed several black history plays for Horry County's Parks and
Recreation Department. Graham sits on the board of the Horry County
Cultural Arts Council.
"The more people outside Horry County who come here, the more it has to
change," she said. "People born and raised in Horry County are seeing
things one way. That's to be respected, but we must be open to others
for oneness."
Harold "Buster" Hatcher, chief of the Conway-based Chicora-Waccamaw
Indian People, agrees.
He said he has tried to educate people throughout the state about
American Indians via radio, television and other outlets.
While Hatcher said he believes the everyday Horry County resident is a
good person who loves other people, some aren't and won't change their
minds, he said.
"Hopefully, most of the folks who come here will be wise enough to know
that people are people, regardless of the color of their skin," Hatcher
said. "When everyone intermarries and comes out the same color of brown,
maybe we'll accept each other for who we are."
| . | . | |
. |
. | . |
Race relations have improved as tally of minorities grows
Published on:Monday, March 26, 2001
By Chondra McLean
The SUN NEWS
By Mark AdamsThe Sun NewsRose and Dan McCoy dance during a
Baha'i celebration of spring and the new year Wednesday at the Grand
Strand Senior Center.
©Copyright 2001, The Sun News
|
. |
. |
|
. |
|
|