6 minutes now past 12:00 Good afternoon, and welcome back to mid-day on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary often this past weekend Mark the 30th anniversary of the assassination of dr. Martin Luther King jr. There have been numerous events Al to Mark the occasion underscoring King status as America's pre-eminent civil rights leader, but they were going to hear from a man who says that. Dr. King's Legacy has in fact been hijacked by the very kinds of people that he was fighting against back in the 1960s speaker. That's our Theodore Shaw associate director and console of the NAACP legal defense and educational fund is an unabashed supporter of affirmative action. Sean says affirmative action opponents have been misrepresenting Martin Luther King's comments on a colorblind Society in an effort to eliminate affirmative action programs. Shaw spoke last week in San Francisco prior to the 30th anniversary of the assassination. He delivered the keynote address at the annual National Conference of the education writers association. Here is Theodore Shaw the n-double-acp legal defense and education fund. I want to thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you this afternoon. I I'm thinking a great deal about. the issues of affirmative action as we all are And even as we meet here. The University of california-berkeley has released. This noon. It's figures with respect to admissions of next Falls entering class. And the News isn't good. That was entirely predictable and we're being told that. Although it was predictable. it's not something that we should feel any qualms about because what it really reflects is that there was discrimination against asian-americans and white students in admissions prior to the end of affirmative action out here in California and that what we've done is more just Well, as I was thinking about what I would say here today. I could not help but reflect upon the context in which we find ourselves here in 1998. And I've done that in a personal way and I want to share some of that with you if you will. Within a few days this Saturday. To be exact we will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. in Memphis, Tennessee I've been reflecting on that time. And on that year, it was an extraordinary year. I think most of us in this room have a vivid memory of that year. On April 4th 1968 Martin Luther King lost his life. on June 5th of 1968 Robert Kennedy lost his life. in March of 1968 the Kerner Commission issued its now-famous report on the Civil disorders that had torn apart American cities the previous. and of course in the summer of 1968 in Chicago we had the Democratic National Convention in the violence That occurred there. As we saw a continued cementing. Of the issue of race and politics so that now we have the major political parties that are identifiable if they identify will buy anything by race. 30 years ago, of course United States was consumed by the issue of race. It's cities were burning. I was a freshman in high school in 1968. I was born in 1954 the year Brown versus Board of Education. the Civil Rights Movement framed my youth as a boy. I remember sitting at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Where my mother's side of the family? Went back for Generations. And I remember hearing Adam Clayton Powell one of the few African-Americans in Congress. Preach sermon Safari that. I was moved to tears not because I understood the content of the sermons, but because I thought he was yelling at me personally. I remember being on a bus on 125th Street in Harlem with my grandmother passing a crowd. And asking my grandmother. Who? Was the man the power was listening to and she said some pool. She didn't think much of Malcolm X. And she expressed her disapproval. years I recalled the dream. That I could not. Make sense of that's true of many of my dreams. But in this dream that were black people scores of them if not hundreds of them. Laying down in the street stopping traffic and a few white people with them. by the Harlem entrance of the Triborough Bridge Years later when I was in college, I was researching the civil rights movement and I discovered that it was not a dream apparently as a boy. I had witnessed a demonstration against racial segregation and discrimination. On the part of merchants on 125th street. They wouldn't hire black people. And apparently against police brutality and old and continuing issue. And that's what I remembered as a dream. A 1963 my paternal grandmother who worked all her life. As a domestic cleaning homes white people in caring for their children. boarded the bus to Washington DC the join the great March on Washington Which culminated in Martin Luther King's famous? I Have a Dream speech. I remember my great disappointment that day because I wanted to go with her. I wasn't allowed to but I remember watching it on the old black and white console TV that we had in our project Apartments. And I remember the images of that hot sweltering day. Then even is now although she's gone. I was proud of my grandmother my grandma Hattie. I'm watching that day for racial Justice. I can remember the assassination of Medgar Evers. the bomb at the sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama It took the lives of four little girls were approximately my age. And I can remember that hot summer when the bodies of 20 Chaney and Goodman were found the Mississippi. Even though I was a young boy, I remember all that. And 20 years later. I would remember when then President Ronald Reagan launched his re-election campaign. for his second term in Philadelphia, Mississippi from that same place Reviving the same themes of states rights anti federalism and anti civil rights as did the opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And that same year when surance Chaney and Goodman were murdered. And by the way, of course Ronald Reagan was one of them one of the opponents of that bill. And he launched his second campaign without so much. as a word of what happened in Philadelphia What a knowledgement of the significance of that place. Two African Americans and two other people who were concerned about racial Justice. I'm at the news footages of the dogs and the fire hoses in Birmingham, Alabama in 1965 And I remember that night as I said. 30 years this Saturday when Martin Luther King was assassinated. What does all this have to do with education? Why am I remembering all of this? Because it's context. Because what we have today is an a historical and decontextualized debate about race. Which in my view? is both Alice in Wonderland in nature and I'll wellian. so that black becomes white up becomes down. And we see the enemies of affirmative action equating. attempts to include people who have historically been excluded and we only recently were allowed the opportunity. Let me correct that not allow the opportunity only recently. One the opportunity because they took it themselves. To have access to the places that guarantee full participation in American Life. and if we decontextualized these discussions Then we can meet a grave error and a grave. miscalculation Following. Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination colleges and universities across the country began to open up their doors Do programs that became known as affirmative action in ways that they never had before? recruitment program scholarships academic support programs and other targeted efforts name that black latino Native American and yes, Asian American students change the face of higher education became commonplace. So that the previously all-white and in many instances all white male institutions. Became much more representative of America. I was a direct beneficiary of affirmative action. I was chosen to participate in the leadership project in New York City. For black male high school students originally in later became co-ed. It was initiated by New York then Cardinal Cooke. He wanted to get more black young men interested in the priesthood. But once the organization was started the leadership project was started it became apparent that we were interested in the priesthood because we were interested in other things. But we went to sit in the black Consciousness movement. and to his credit the program continue eventually down the road after it had produced. Many alumni who went into law and Medicine into business. education it did produce one Jesuit priest. But that program changed my life. And a few years later at Wesleyan University. Where I will come to know Bobby Wayne Clark eventually who's here in the audience from Duke University. Wesleyan was one of the early highly selective institutions to engage and significant affirmative action and Emissions a few years later. I was again the beneficiary of affirmative action. Not only was I the beneficiary of affirmative action admissions, but I know I was a beneficiary of affirmative action in financial aid, which I need it fully if I was to attend college I don't believe that I would have had the opportunity opportunity to attend Westland prior to the Advent of affirmative action. Even though I was a good student at an excellent High School. Now sometimes those of us who are successful. And who Excel? Which hole by the opponents of affirmative action OU Would Have Made It Anyway? implicit in that message is that you a different you are special and that since everything is alright in the world in terms of equal opportunity or it's roughly equal you would have succeeded. Now that might appeal to some people's egos, but it doesn't do a thing for mine. I would not have succeeded. I would not be where I am today. Were it not for affirmative action? And that is no cause for shame. on my part part of the debate that you've heard is that affirmative action stigmatizes individuals. well I suppose that I could have stayed in the projects in the Bronx. an stigmatized by affirmative action Perhaps I would have gotten a job like my father and I take no. Swipe at the significance of what he did but working at the post office. And there's dignity in all work. I believe at least most worth. But that would have been the life that I have now. and so given the choice between staying in the Bronx and not being stigmatized and taking affirmative action and struggling with some people questioning whether I deserve to be where I am. I'm clear, but I took the right choice. I would have been able to attend to from Columbia law school, but for affirmative action, even though I was a good student at Westland because my LSAT. With no shame on my part. They were average you're good, but they want extraordinary. Most people in this country even those who opponents of affirmative action. They don't wear the SAT scores of that LSAT to MCAT. So whatever tests they've taken they don't wear them around their necks on. a chain or card and I suspect many of those who are opposed to affirmative action. Who came from privileged backgrounds? That some of them if not many of them. Brian at the top of the standardized test he either but I don't know that for sure. Maybe maybe they all did extraordinarily well, but I suspect that not all of them day. But I know that those tests why they tell us something about those at the explains. Don't tell us enough about the great majority of us who fall in the middle of what's known as the bell curve. And I know that for a generation now or more we've had African Americans Latinos Native Americans Asian Americans women people have been excluded from institutions of higher education of a tickly from the highly selective institutions of higher education. Who have succeeded and gone out to set the world on fire in some instances and whose lives are much more productive and full and who played much more significant roles in our economy and politics in our communities than they would have had they not had those opportunities. Education isn't about test scores education is about socialization. It's about Awakening the mind. It's about stoking intellectual fire. And setting people on a path where they will continue. To be Learners to be intellectually curious throughout the entire lives. Can we really think that we can take some one-on-one Saturday in their lives? In the early years. Give them a standardized test. Which among the things that does measures reflects? economic privilege and opportunity freezies individuals at that point in their lives and determine what their life chances are going to be. Is that really fair? We don't even begin to know enough about how people learn about different cognitive styles. to begin to make those kinds of judgments those kinds of judgments. I'm not even supported by the test makers. Who say that these tests should not be used as a sole. measure Someone's academic ability. Or that they should not be used as cut off devices. and yet we know that these tests are administrative Lee Convenient and that at institutions that are overwhelmed by large numbers of applications. They provide a way. of determining who gets in and who doesn't. That we can pretend approximates Merit. the truth of the matter is That for all applicants including white applicants. The individualized consideration that we think we really get it when we applied to these institutions. Is often simply not there? And it is an examination of the issue of affirmative action. It is looking in-depth at the admission process that makes that a parent. In 1998 the Civil Rights Movement is dead. People talk about a civil rights movement. There is no movement. In a sense that there are people at the Grassroots level with a vision of adjust America that they are pursuing. They're not in the streets. They are not pressure in Congress for the most part though there a lobbies there are interest groups. But there's not a movement. In a sense of a Grassroots effort to bring about fundamental change on the basis of race and economic status in this country. with the assassination of Martin Luther King and the distraction of the Vietnam War and the uncertainty about how to translate the struggle for civil rights from the south to the north. And the wall of economic Injustice which reflects racial Injustice. placing all of those barriers the Civil Rights Movement ended but affirmative action stayed alive. Although it was contested almost immediately. Your roll I believe in 1998. Is a very important one. because the battle that's playing out is playing out in the courts and public opinion until lesser extent or some degree. I should say at the at The Ballot Box. And when you write about affirmative action and issues of race. You step into the most sensitive. territory that any of us can be it is only recently with the presidents. advisory Commission on race that our leaders have begun to talk about race in an open way. And I can tell you that the person is having a very difficult time and his commission is having a very difficult time figuring out how to talk about. And some of you obviously have reported on that problem. You've observed it. Regressive forces have seized control of public debate about racing affirmative action and they have even appropriated the language of the Civil Rights Movement. They've define affirmative action. with the language of quotas preferences and reverse discrimination and they've equated efforts to include African Americans Latinos and people of color and institutions that have excluded them historically. And have only recently admitted them in significant numbers. Since the Advent of affirmative action with the invidious racially discriminatory practices that once excluded them. Now however, white students even though they continue to put dominate numerically. app reportedly the victims of racist combination As I said, this is an Alice in Wonderland World. Orwellian black is white Up Is Down. An any color Consciousness is evil. See it's only in this a historical and decontextualized Analysis with a simplistic appeal. to color blindness that we can distort the true nature of America's greatest dilemma. in Mass the fact This debate mask the fact that America is originally continuing sin is not color Consciousness. It is white supremacy. It is not a race. It is racism. Unfortunately affirmative action debate has often over even before it begins because the terminology employed. By those who write and speak about it is what we lawyers called out come to terminal tip. That simply means that. The terminology that we use end the discussion is only one place. That it can lead. I want to challenge you was education writers. The question. If not, we think the way you talk in the way you write about race and affirmative action. and the way you think about those who supported and the way you could take those who opposed it? Affirmative action opponents tell us they are pursuing a colorblind Society. They tell us that. Color blindness was a goal of the Civil Rights Movement. And that civil rights Advocates who support race-conscious affirmative action have betrayed our principles and I'll go off of that quote Martin Luther King's famous. I Have a Dream speech, you know the passage about living in a country in which he would his children would someday be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, And when they quote that passage, they ignore to operative words in his speech and in that passage one was someday. And the other was dream. Now that Martin Luther King is safely dead. the opponents of affirmative action Who are the ideological and philosophical inheritors of those who struggle against in life now that he's safely dead. They can twist his words. Put them in another context. And try to take his legacy and use it against the very work for what she gave his life. Any of us who have studied Martin Luther King's words know that he was a strong supporter of affirmative action. In that very same speech. the I Have a Dream speech In the park what you didn't talk about dreaming? He talked about coming to Washington to present. a check that America had Dishonored and he wanted that check to be honored. It was a check that was outstanding to African-Americans. He was there because he was saying that black Americans were older debt. And that it was unpaid. If you haven't had an opportunity to study his work, I refer you to a wonderful collection called a testament of Hope of all of his writings go back and look in the index lookup Envia. It'll take you to page 159. And read about Martin Luther King trip to India. when he discovered that the Indian government has special programs in education and housing unemployment set aside for The Untouchables because they had been discriminated against for Generations. Dr. King said he wished that America had the mall Vision to engage in such an effort. Not nobody knows what Martin Luther King would believe if he were alive today. Oh who he would be? But we do have an obligation to represent what he stood for while he was alive accurately. And he never never would have supported the efforts against affirmative action. the witch's name Is being applied? color blindness I don't believe that this country has ever been color blind. And frankly, I don't believe that it ever will be. But I also don't despair about that. Because I don't see color blindness in and of itself as a goal. The question isn't whether we see color or race or ethnicity. The question is having seen it. How do we treat one another? The question isn't whether we see gender course we see gender. The question is how do we treat one another once we see it? This is not about blindness. It's about seeing and then doing Justice. Being simply fair to one another even as we acknowledge recognize and celebrate our differences. So we have a debate that is distorted and misplaced. As of colorblindness is a goal. And it is within that debate that we can take. a remedy for racism and then say because it necessitates seeing race. to solve the problem with the illness that in and of itself Is the same kind of evil you trying to remedy? Well, that's all well e it doesn't make sense and it is morally wrong and reprehensible and the fact that there's some African-Americans. What are the people of color who support that view and even advocated and her willing to take the lead? And these struggles against affirmative action, which end up? Closing up opportunities to people just like them. And it's some of these individuals and fat will beneficiaries of affirmative action themselves. Makes it even more morally reprehensible with expected them. But it doesn't provide any Aid and comfort. to those who opposed affirmative action There are always there have always been those. Who will be used allow themselves to be used or who I misguided in my view. And went up advancing positions that hurt their own people. I don't believe that we should personally attacked these individuals. Because it's not about them personally. I don't believe that they have horns on their head. But I also don't think that they have any particular call to. Brilliance or Insight or moral standing? Because they happen to be black and oppose affirmative action. I hope I'm being clear. I know that if I begin to speak about affirmative action. as an opponent tomorrow I would be jumping it all the sudden his billion. buy some people and I probably very quickly be going to the bank on it. But I wouldn't have any higher moral standing simply because I happen to be an African-American. So we should be confused about that. last year, there was a and are checking out the New York Times of the full page or half a page ad. I think was the American Association of University presidents of universities and it was in support of affirmative action. And next to the air was a story about the fact that the ad had been taken out the headline to the story and I realized that headlines are written by another group of people not the writers of the story. So I understand that. But the headline of the story was University president endorse bias in admissions. I won't tell you what paper I saw that in. But it was a paper that I read every day in New York. The debate is over. Because of those headlines doesn't even begin. The term preference is a discussion Ender. Many people use it without even thinking about it when you use the term preference. The debate is over. What does preference conjure up the notion that somebody is getting an unfair advantage? Simply because of race. All they have to do is show up present themselves identify themselves as black. That's a notion that a lot of people get even though. We know it's more complicated than that. But if we're really talking about properly structured affirmative action. Which says given that we have disadvantages in life? That are unearned and unmerited. Because there still such a thing as a white skin privilege in this country. Given that that happens and that it has real effects in terms of who gets what kind of education who lives where? What kind of resources that schools have? That by the time they get to apply to college. It is unrealistic to think that somehow or another they're all going to perform in the same way on standardized tests given what we know standardized test measure. Can we really say that properly structured affirmative action? And I underscore that please? Is really about giving preferences. I think what it ought to be about what it is about. Is looking a little bit harder than we otherwise would look at people who have those kinds of disadvantages and seeing if in fact the light of opportunity should shine and places where it ordinarily doesn't shine. And if you can dust off. What made Peter you to be a cold and find a diamond? now a lot of affirmative action isn't properly structure. I found that out some years ago when I came out to California to open a Western regional office for the legal defense fund came up here to San Francisco to meet with people from the University of California Berkeley about the law school admissions process and when I found out that they had What appeared to be separate tracks for admission? We told them that we being Mexican American legal defense and representative in and myself. We told them. That they have to change that mission scheme goes there. We'll go all Noble. And although this sounds implausible. They ultimately told us that they finally agreed with our analysis, but they will catch too much heat from students if they changed it. that was an irresponsible position to take and eventually they were the subject of a complaint that was filed with OCR Thank goodness. It wasn't in a federal court. They were found to be in violation and they use that as a cover to change the system. The University of Texas law school engage in its admissions game. I had some discussions before the suit was filed with one of the faculty members and told them they were out of compliance Tsubaki. They ought to change it. They said we're doing the same thing as everybody else is doing And we're not going to change it and they were sued and you know the results they didn't have to do emissions in the way they did. They couldn't they couldn't have set up Baki for more serious fall intentionally if they wanted to some people think they did. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but it doesn't matter. It was an irresponsible implementation of an emissions game. When is Piscataway School Board? fire Sharon taxmen in a layoff situation it didn't do what we would have advised them to do. When I decided that they wanted to pursue that case throughout the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court. Notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court instead of 1986 and Wygant versus Jackson School District that layoffs are almost never inappropriate circumstance. for primitive action They acted irresponsibly. The record they made had nothing to do with the reality in that case. It didn't reflect the fact that Deborah Williams black teacher. Had a master's degree. Washington tax when did not didn't reflect the fact to be fair and balanced that Sharon taxmen had more experience teaching within her subject matter area when she started out and Deborah Williams didn't reflect the true nature of the Workforce in the Piscataway area because it kept out by stipulation. the fact that Newark, New Jersey if a domini black area Was in that region. Lawyer who is ready to argue that case. was ready to argue that if Piscataway was lost. Hibachi fail even though Baki had nothing to do with the issues in Piscataway, but this was his moment. at the Supreme Court in the middle of History And this was not an experienced lawyer and civil rights litigation. Why am I telling you this not to attack him as much as to tell you that a lot of was laid at the doorstep of civil rights Advocates like the legal defense fund lawyers and others. It's not at work. It's not what we say should be done. And that's why we facilitated a resolution of that case of got it out of Supreme Court. Now the opponents of affirmative action said that that showed our bankruptcy on moral bankruptcy and that we were Running Scared. I have no qualms about the fact that we got that case out of the Supreme Court because that was the worst possible case to present. To the court to resolve the and informative action issue because it was no African-American voice in that case because the school board was not the right party in the right lawyer. The defender primitive action because that case was unwinnable. We are at the school board to pay the Judgment since that was all that was at stake. There was no injunctive relief at issue they refuse to do it. And so we did what we had to do. Not a model doesn't mean we're going to do that another cases, but that kind of resolution is not uncommon in the Supreme Court. In Corporate America. It happens with some frequency. They pay a judgment to get a case out of the Supreme Court that is a bad case for their issues. We will not shrink. From the day in which the court considers affirmative action in the case in which we have a voice in which the record is a record that truly reflects what was going on. And in which what was done below was defensible. That was not this case. I want to ask you when you report on these issues to think about how you talk about him. And I want to close with some thoughts about what race even means what color really means. I want to challenge you on the issue a color blindness not to make that the goal but to make fairness and inclusiveness the goal You know if you think about it a moment. None of us are really color blind and you was right as don't even write as if you are color-blind personally. How do you describe African Americans for the most part? It's not on you. How did we Americans talk about each other blacks whites not even black people and white people convenient just to say blacks and whites, but the descriptive becomes a nominative. and it becomes in many respects the most important thing about us to one another if it comes to sum total of who and what we are. Just think about that blacks wipes. Now. I know we don't live in a black white world, but we don't talk about asian-americans in the same way or Native American but when it comes to the race question, the heart of the race question continues to be the black white divide doesn't mean that it has a very any higher moral calling then the race question does with respect to other ethnicities in groups, but that's the heart. The real problem in this country and we talked about each other. We talked about each other in ways that signify that we really are not colorblind, and we're not about to be And so it is unfair for us to continue to talk about each other I think about each other in that way and then pretend that race doesn't matter. But you pretend that race doesn't matter only when the effect of that pretense. Is it continue to perpetuate the exclusion? Of African-Americans or Latinos or people of color from opportunity? That is the most. Emerald kind of hypocrisy that I could imagine So I ask you when you think about these issues to do an analysis of the terminology of your own terminology. Think about the use of the term preference. And asked whether that's the best way to describe what we're talking about a weather was talking about race conscious efforts to be inclusive. Some people can still be opposed to that. But let's talk about what we're really talking about as opposed to a terminology that is out come to Terminal 2. You have a great responsibility because in some respects the public debate. Is at least as important if not more important than the legal debate. And the two cannot be separated. They influence one another. When I was in law school, I was taught that judges are isolated that they somehow or another make decisions based upon some disembodied notion of what the law is put aside all the experiences and everything else that they hear and what goes around them. Will that that doesn't happen. That is counterintuitive. We know that people just don't live that way. They don't operate that way. So what you write and how you talk about these issues also influences the way the courts talk about these issues. An intern with the courts talk about them influence how you talk about it? So I hope that you are conscious of this now. Berkeley has announced today that the class of David middle for the fall will be 2.4% African American I didn't get the numbers yet on Latinos, but I think the numbers either they were higher but still single digit. And that's only the students have been admitted. We don't know who is going to enroll. And I think the question that we have to ask is whether we are more comfortable with the University of California, Berkeley or UCLA or the University of Michigan for the University of Texas. Before front of action was ended at those institutions on a Case of Michigan may be ended when those institutions of African-Americans. I mean is not enough African Americans enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. To cancel all of the Angry white folks who think that they were excluded because of affirmative action. but whether those institutions institutions that we felt better about then or now when they are virtually all white. and African Americans Latinos excluded from those institutions I don't think we're going to feel better about that. But even more to the point, I don't think it really is any going back. I don't think people are going to lay down and support institutions with that public institutions with their tax dollars. I wish their students that children don't have an opportunity to attend. Martin Luther King said that the moral Arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward Justice. that's significant because these days a lot of people say well you must be pretty tomorrow lies depressed discourage and I am not I am not because I realize that we have always had to struggle. around the issues of race And those who think that we are going to lay down the issue of race as we enter the 21st century. the new millennium aroma like the environment nobody thinks that we can give the environment 10 or 20 years and then let it go. We know our children are going to have to deal with it and their children and we'll have to deal with the issue of race in the same way because it's part of the human condition but I am optimistic because I know that we are better than we were. 40 years ago I believe that 209 will not last. I believe that Texas will find a way to make sure that it's institutions of higher education representative. And I believe that the country will see that we cannot continue to waste all the lives that we waste by denying opportunity with an owl vision of what Highridge acacian is about. And how we should admit students to higher education and I believe in spite of the difficulties of where we are that most Americans. Believe that also and so the clothes with Martin Luther King's final evening. He said that would be difficult days ahead. And indeed these are difficult days. But he also talked about a Promised Land. I'm not a preacher, but I believe. That the moral Arc of the universe is long and sometimes there detours but it bends toward Justice. Thank you. Theodore Shaw who is the associate director in Council of the NAACP legal defense and educational fund. He delivered the keynote address at last week's education writers association National seminar held out in San Francisco. By the way, if you miss part of the speech will be re broadcasting in at 9 tonight here on Minnesota Public Radio. So you get a second chance to hear what mr. Shaw have to say broadcast rebroadcast at 9 tonight programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by Cooperative power providing electricity to Seventeen member Cooperative serving customers throughout West Central and Southern, Minnesota. What does it for midday today? Like to thank you for joining us and we hope you'll be able to join us tomorrow. It should be an interesting noon hour tomorrow. It's off to the National Press Club. Stephen Goldstone. Who is the head of RJR Nabisco? One of the big tobacco companies will be speaking at the Press Club tomorrow. I'm Lorna Benson on the next All Things Considered taking the pulse of pulse the alternative newspaper celebrates its first year on the twin city scene. It's all things considered weekdays at 3 on Minnesota Public Radio know FM 91.1 You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. We have a cloudy sky 47° at Kinder W FM 91.1 Minneapolis. And st. 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