Compromise goes nowhere

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Greenville County Council invited unwelcome attention to this community by refusing Tuesday night to approve a resolution honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This was a senseless act on the part of council.

By refusing to accept a modest compromise, the council has ensured the matter of a county holiday honoring Dr. King will return again and again. Each time, it will serve as an embarrassing reminder that Greenville County is out of step with our nation, with every state including our own, with almost all other counties in South Carolina and with the City of Greenville.

Speaking to this newspaper's editorial board Tuesday morning, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Greenville native who was one of King's lieutenants in the civil rights movement, said of the fight over a countywide King Holiday: "Why does Greenville invite that upon itself in 2003?" He urged the county to "cut through the foolishness."

Regrettably, the council was unable to do that Tuesday, which should have been a night of compromise. The council was expected to overwhelmingly approve a resolution crafted quietly behind the scenes and supported in good faith by many community leaders, both black and white. The ultimate goal was, and continues to be, an official county holiday honoring Dr. King, but this compromise was seen as a significant step forward.

The compromise — that Councilman Steve Selby had helped work out — included a gracious resolution honoring Dr. King and proclaiming Jan. 15, King's actual birthday, as "Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Greenville County." It wasn't the official holiday recognized in the city, state and nation, but it was a move in the right direction. It would have started the healing.

Instead, salt was poured into old wounds. The mostly pro-King holiday crowd that packed the council chambers learned at the 6:30 p.m. meeting Tuesday that a vote was taken at an earlier committee-of-the-whole meeting that prevented the resolution from coming up for a vote. Council members Bob Taylor, Joe Dill, Eric Bedingfield, Dozier Brooks and Scott Case voted not to allow the resolution on the council agenda; Mark Kingsbury was absent, and Xanthene Norris, Lottie Gibson, Steve Selby, Judy Gilstrap, Cort Flint and Phyllis Henderson voted to allow the resolution on the agenda. It takes seven affirmative votes to put a resolution on the council agenda for a vote.

Impassioned speeches at the council meeting, including one from Jackson, could not change the outcome. A compromise was crushed. A chance for healing was delayed even longer. And angry county residents vowed not to let this issue die.

One of the key reasons some council members have cited in the past for not recognizing an official King holiday is the cost — estimated to be about $100,000 for a county holiday.

More than a decade ago, when Congress was debating the national King holiday, then-Sen. Bob Dole, a Republican, had this to say when the phony cost issue was dragged into the debate: "I suggest they hurry back to their pocket calculators and estimate the cost of 300 years of slavery, followed by a century or more of economic, political and social exclusion and discrimination."

While at least five Greenville County Council members have their calculators out, let them also estimate the cost of Tuesday night's refusal to accept a sensible and modest compromise. This issue should come before the council again, and soon. Greenville County needs to join our state and our nation in honoring the sacrifice and celebrating the accomplishments of the man who helped our country honor its democratic ideals and extend freedom and justice to all of its citizens.