Economics to Be Key Issue in Hearings of Civil Rights Panel

Nearly 30 years after the Watts riots and a year after the worst civil unrest in the United States this century, the nation’s political and civil rights leaders are coming around to the idea that economics, not social policy, is the key to solving persistent urban problems, the head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says.

“If I had stood up before an NAACP chapter 10 years ago and talked about economic development, their eyes would have glazed over,” said Arthur A. Fletcher, an African-American appointed to head the commission in 1990 by President George Bush.

“Now when I lay it out, I hold everybody’s rapt attention.”

Fletcher, whose panel will hold three days of public hearings here starting today, said in an interview that the United States has an opportunity to help overcome deep-rooted problems by investing in the economic development of poor inner-city neighborhoods.

“The individual and collective survival of the nation depends on it,” he said.

He will urge the House and Senate, the Federal Reserve Board and financial institutions to provide capital and set up other policies to make it easier for people in the inner city to go into business. That, and helping to form a common agenda among different racial and ethnic groups, is vital, he says.

“By working together we can develop trust,” he said. “Los Angeles has the opportunity to lead us out of this mess.”

Fletcher, a professor of business administration at the University of Denver, and a veteran of the Nixon and Ford administrations, said, “Race, ethnicity and gender notwithstanding, we all want the same things--security, stability, prosperity and a promising future.”

Charles Pei Wang, vice chairman of the commission, said tension between African-Americans and Korean-American merchants in Los Angeles is a result of economic resentment blacks have felt.

“They felt that they cannot own businesses in their own community when Koreans could,” said Wang, president of a New York-based educational group. “We want to see how can we empower the blacks to have the kind of capital to be able to run their own businesses.”

Most of today will be devoted to hearing testimony from experts on civil rights issues and the administration of justice in the Los Angeles area. From 3:20 p.m. today through Wednesday, the commission will take up issues of business development and job creation in minority communities. For most of Thursday, it will hear testimony on the influence of the news media and films on Americans’ perception of race and ethnicity.

The sessions will begin at 8 a.m. at the Sheraton Grande Hotel, 333 S. Figueroa St. At the end of each day, members of the public may speak a first-come, first-served basis.

The hearings are part of the panel’s investigation into the resurgence of racial and ethnic tensions in the United States. The eight-member commission has held similar hearings in Washington and Chicago and will hold others in New York and Miami. The commission will make recommendations to President Clinton and Congress after the Los Angeles hearing.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, now a law professor at UCLA, is the panel’s newest member. He was appointed in April to a six-year term.