Pastors take discrimination investigation downstate
The coalition of pastors and the NAACP that has been investigating discrimination in state government will seek testimony at hearings in Kent and Sussex counties starting this week.
The Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, a coalition of churches in the Dover area, and the Central Delaware NAACP have joined black pastors in New Castle County to conduct the hearings.
La Mar Gunn, president of the Central Delaware NAACP, said state employees in southern Delaware are often more reluctant to report issues of workplace discrimination to their superiors because it's a smaller community with fewer opportunities to move between jobs.
"You deal with it; you stay low and keep moving. That's what I was told," Gunn said. "It's such a small community; people are afraid to say anything here because it's not like New Castle County where you have several opportunities to work."
The unemployment rate in June was 6.4 percent in Kent County and 5.2 percent in Sussex County, compared with 5.5 percent in New Castle County, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Another concern, Gunn said, is that there are too few elected officials of color in Kent and Sussex counties, causing black workers to feel less supported.
"You look at the senator makeup and state reps. You don't have that same type of support here in Kent and Sussex county that you have in New Castle County," Gunn said. "It's an entirely different dynamic."
Rev. Michael Rogers, pastor of the Central Baptist Church in Dover, said that although workplace dynamics might be different downstate, the concern "that people are not being treated appropriately" is the same.
"We're glad to join with the northern county to facilitate this opportunity to help people get their message out," Rogers said.
As was done in New Castle County, a court reporter will be transcribing all interviews at the hearings, and the groups will deliver a report based on the testimonies to Gov. Jack Markell this fall.
Markell expressed his support for similar hearings held in New Castle County a month ago when 80 state workers testified and more than 250 attended.
More than 17,000 people are employed by the state of Delaware, and roughly 5,000 are African-American. The coalition of ministers and the NAACP say they've heard stories about black employees routinely being passed over for promotions, enduring outright racist acts and being punished more severely for workplace infractions than white employees.
Retaliation against state workers who attend these hearings is a concern, said the Rev. Silvester Beaman, pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wilmington. Beaman said that one person who testified in New Castle County last month suffered from an unspecified form of retaliation after the hearing. Beaman would not go into details about the incident, except to say that he brought it to the governor's attention "the very next day."
"We had one person who said that something happened, and we jumped on it right away," Beaman said. "We're not playing with that, and we want the state employees to know that."
The hearings will begin Tuesday and go from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the following dates and places:
• Tuesday, Aug. 25, at the Divine Empowerment Christian Church in Smyrna.
• Thursday, Aug. 27, at the Whatcoat United Methodist Church in Dover.
• Friday, Aug. 28, at the Saint Paul AME Church in Harrington.
• Tuesday, Sept. 1, at the Friendship Baptist Church in Lewes.
• Wednesday, Sept. 2, at the Emmanuel House of Praise in Seaford.
• Thursday, Sept. 3, at the Mt. Pisgah AME Church in Laurel.
Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.