Civil Rights Figure and Pastor Convicted of Incest Charges
There's just nothing much to say here. Read the story and be informed. This is horrible! How did black folk end up following so many black pastors that ended up with such sorid secret lives?
14 comments:
There are no perfect people (pastors included), just varying degerees of gray.
What he did was reprehensible, but, it doesn't change any good he did. It does destroy his legacy.
Hopefully the victim has healed.
i see your point dlba,
but the good he did is changed because he did it with the wrong motives and heart.
good deeds done for the wrong reasons are cancelled out. not saying that some type of benefit was not had by a few..but that is so small considering how many he was maybe suppose to help whether he knew it or not.
whatever he did it was not what it was suppose to be. it was much smaller and helped less.
This will take a moment to digest.
First class ticket to hell with the window seat. I'm appalled. Why would someone do that to his/her own child?
At that time, PEOPLE KNEW that many of these preachers were morally corrupt.
They simply chose not to expose these kinds of things because it would have thwarted the progress of the CR movement.
Preachers are the worst!!!
I don't know if they act like this out of repressed sexual desires or they were just rotten from the start.
Thank you Professor Tracey for calling this case to our attention.
It is very sad! Daniel Ortega, the current President of Nicaragua is accused of this sort of crime by his daughter. Herbert Aptheker, the great historian and editor of WEB Dubois was also accused of this sort of crime by his daughter, Bettina.
It's most likely in these sort of cases, that the father, or perpetrator was himself molested.
For this reason, and because the daughter loves him, and because he is 71, a better approach would have been for the family to have hired A MEDIATOR.
The mediator would hear every body's stories, including the child's mother's, including the Rev. Bevel's, description of his own abuse, if indeed he was abused.
At some point, the Mediator would have given Bevel the opportunity to ask his daughters forgiveness, and as well as that of her mother, as well that of other family members!
He would also be given the opportunity to make restitution to his daughter, financially or in some other way. He would also be asked to perform some community service that shows what he has learned.- perhaps telling his story to other sexual offenders.
This seems more satisfactory to me than asking a daughter to jail her father.
@seven of nine,
Clearly, it was satisfactory to the victim to purse criminal charges. And that is her right and if that helps her heal, then to jail he must go.
Men really have no right to ask women who are victims of sexual assualt to make such unbelieveable acts of forgiveness when their bodies have been violated. It's asking them to be raped again!
@seven of nine,
Clearly, it was satisfactory to the victim to purse criminal charges. And that is her right and if that helps her heal, then to jail he must go.
Men really have no right to ask women who are victims of sexual assualt to make such unbelieveable acts of forgiveness when their bodies have been violated. It's asking them to be raped again!
Mediation for criminal acts? Am I missing something here?
This was a sorry ass, piece of a man who raped his daughter and STOLE her innocence. Jail time is still too light IMHO for him.
Listing men of prestige and power as being accused by their daughters of rape only reinforces my belief that people chose to conceal these deeds so that the legacies of these men weren' sullied.
I hope this "Rev." rots in hell and dies in jail.
This dude was a major civil rights figure. He was really close to King.
WOW
This is just sad. Thanks for hipping me to this, I hope you don't mind if I use the link over at my blog.
Wow.
Professor Tracey,
The logical consequence of your point of view is the Patrick Kennedy case, now being heard before the Supreme Court. In this case, the survivor of childhood molestation by a family member is being offered the opportunity TO KILL her family member, I suppose by lethal injection.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/13/ST2008041302758.html
Of course, this Kennedy is Black.
I don't have to tell you that in the past, as well as today, the states of Mississippi and Louisiana have never missed an opportunity to enslave (in Parchment Penitentiary and Angola) and to kill (e.g. The Aftermath of Katrina) Black people.
Would you say:
"that is her right and if that helps her heal, then to the DEATH CHAMBER he must go!"
Mediation is considered by experts working in the field to be the most enlightened and progressive way to go where FAMILY MEMBERS WHO HAVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH AND WHO LOVE EACH OTHER are involved.
It is quite possible, that the daughter of so called "Reverend" Bevel - Dr. King's assistant, was not offered the opportunity to sit in front of a skilled mediator with her father and other involved family members.
It would seem to me, that were he alive, this is what Dr. King would have wanted!
@seven of nine,
You leave no room to discuss because you are against the death penalty and clearly against any kind of punishment. That puts us on opposite sites always.
You express no sympathy for victims of rape or murder and I find that extremely disturbing. How do you know that Bevel's daughter loves him? What if she hates his guts?
I don't want a molestor living next door to me - free and unpunished. I don't want a murderer who deserved the death penalty to go free to kill again. There are many cases like that.
You are welcome to your point of view, but you are not going to change my mind. If you assault someone, you should not expect anything less than extreme punishment.
What about the rights of the victims?
My Dear Professor Tracey,
You have no argument from me as to the right of a victim / survivor to justice.
However justice must be extracted from the truly guilty, not an innocent person.
ALTON LOGAN, an innocent Black man just walked out of jail today, after 26 years in prison:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/19/wrongly.convicted.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
As regards the case of Dr. King's assistant, the so called Rev. Bevel, the daughter did not hate his guts as you supposed, but according to the Associated Press story which you shared with us:
==============================================
"... expressed mixed emotions. As she waited Thursday for a verdict, she was occasionally joined by her father as the two smiled and cooed over the daughter's new baby girl — Bevel's granddaughter.
"The hardest part is I love my father, and I wish he loved me as much as I love him," The daughter told jurors during the sentencing phase.
================================================
This, in addition to the fact that the man is 71 years ago, and the sexual contact happened 10 or more years ago is what led me to suggest mediation, which may or may not have been available to the Bevel family.
In a previous correspondence I expressed my support for the Brawley family, mother Glenda and daughter Tawana who after twenty years still have not received justice. I documented the facts in this brutal rape of a 15 yo girl, including the mother's statement, and the lawyers statement of facts in the case.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/18/2007-11-18_20_years_later_tawana_brawley_has_turned.html
http://www.reinstatealtonmaddox.com/tbrawleyfaq.htm
The reason why justice has been delayed so long is that a police officer and a judge's son are among the accused, so the case has been sealed to PROTECT THE GUILTY!
You may not realize, that this case quite possibly involves a murder, since the accused police officer HARRY CHRIST died mysteriously just before he was about to testify.
So the family of a possibly murdered police officer, has also been WAITING TWENTY YEARS for justice, along with the survivor of this brutal assault and kidnapping!
If you support justice for these families - the Christ family, and the Brawley family, it might be well to write our new governor of New York State, DAVID PATTERSON, demanding that the records be unsealed, and the case reopened! Glenda Brawley has already stated on Earl Caldwell's radio program, that she would be willing to testify if the case were reopened.
Thank you for the opportunity to share on your blog,
Barry
As I stated before, everyone is welcome to their own opinion. I can name just as many cases where the feelings are the exact opposite. We can agree to disagree on this case.
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