The 15-block area surrounding the Capitol includes the East Capital area languishing from both the displacement of low-income blacks and the reluctance of private developers to build because of the high cost of money and rising crime rates.

Further to the south, there are 1,100 public housing units in an otherwise barren community barred from access to the river front by the old Navy Yard. After 5 years of pleading and maneuvering, this community has not even been able to obtain a long and carefully planned community center. The nearby Anacostia basis has a vast development potential yet we give it to the Defense Department to house more paper.

According to a preliminary study of the District of Columbia Community Renewal Program, the area could house 40,000 families. This development could clean up the Anacostia River; increase blue-collar and industrial employment opportunities; and increase the amount of useable and accessible open space.

It is clear from these examples that the development and execution of a comprehensive renewal plan for these areas calls for the development of an adequate and responsive planning mechanism with intensive community participation. For too long Washington has suffered from the absence of an overall plan linking the city's physical patterns of growth with its economic development. The bit-by-bit approach to planning and development which has characterized our past thinking, has narrowed our vision and severely hampered our effectiveness, while allowing private interests to plan the land-use patterns in the city piece by piece.

A revised bicentennial plan can stimulate a massive planning effort. It could force the resolution of many major issues such as the reorganization of the National Capital Planning Commission and the creation of new and responsive zoning policies; and could hasten the development of the Fort Lincoln and Anacostia areas. The resources are available; the impetus is there; all that is needed is an affirmation need and approval by the Congress.

We ask that the proposed Pennsylvania Avenue Bicentennial Development Corp. Plan be replaced; we need to write a new plan which speaks to the needs of the central city. We ask that bicentennial efforts not be wasted on the creation of high-priced illusions which serve as theatrical scrim-hiding the secret city of Washington, D.C. Our first priority is to make our own city a pleasant and viable home for its residents. If we succeed, then any U.S. citizen and any visitor will be able to explore any part of our Nation's capital with safety and with pride in its urbanity and its humanity, and the Capital of the United States of America will be a living monument to this Nation's commitment to humankind's continued growth and development.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Gibson, for a statement which carries quite a message.

Mr. GIBSON. I hope it gets across, not only to the subcommittee but to the Congress.

Mr. TAYLOR. Tell us more about the Urban League, how it was founded, and so forth.

Mr. GIBSON. It was founded in 1910. This was about the time when the great migration of-from blacks from rural South to the urban industries took place. Between 1910 and 1940, mid-1940's, 40 million blacks migrated from the South to the North. When the blacks got

to the North, they found pretty much what you find today. There is a lack of accessibility to jobs, to housing, and moreover, we found quite a bit of violence, perpetrated against the blacks by newly arrived immigrants who threatened blacks because of our structure, and they felt their jobs were in jeopardy.

The Urban League was created to help blacks accommodate to urban life and to help fight the effects of racial discrimination, and this was in employment and in housing. This was all for the newly arrived black. We have operated almost as a buffer for about 40 years between whites and industry, and in the public sector who would not hire blacks.

We are trying to remodel blacks, cajole, condone that type of thing. Very recently, Mr. Whitney Young, who

Mr. TAYLOR. I understand. I was a great admirer of his. His death was a great loss to the Nation.

Mr. GIBSON. Thank you. I am glad you recognized that. Many of us don't. In 1968, Mr. Young got the Urban League to understand and he no longer wanted us to serve as a buffer between the white and the black America. We must act as a catalyst, to get these issues decided, not on white or black terms, but upon the terms of people and human beings, and we seriously have been trying to help realize that some of our aspirations about black people are different.

We understand that the rising crime rate really focuses in on a kind of despair that exists within the black community for the lack of access to a vital, more alive, healthy, economic, and social life in the District. We see 25 percent of the citizens' revenues and moneys being spent on the police department, rather than using a greater portion of that to give human services, and continuing to give educational opportunities, and even enhancing those opportunities.

We find ourselves in a situation where 35 percent of our population in the black community is unemployed. Over 35 percent of the people who want to work cannot find work. And we find other great percentages of our people actually as working poor, many of whom have worked and served the various government agencies for their total lifetime, only to retire and then be in a poverty wage.

And we found that the Government is part of the culprit. We have found thousands of black pecple each year who have come here to retire from the Government, retire as a GS-3 or -4 or -5, and have been there for the last 18 years, and they come cut, many of them, with grades such as GS-1 and -2, and they have been serving in those positions for 18 and 20 years, and they come out as a 1 or 2, and that is at $120 a month, and you can't even feed a person on that.

So this is the bureaucracy, and this is what we are all about. And we come in with this background today.

Mr. TAYLOR. In this situation of unemployment, I see two avenues-and I know we are getting off of the subject-one is to remove discrimination wherever it exists and the other is to train people with skills so they fit into the jobs that can be found. Is the Urban League working on both of those approaches?

Mr. GIBSON. I didn't get your first approach; I am sorry.

Mr. TAYLOR. The first approach is to, of course, remove discrimination wherever it exists.

Mr. GIBSON. We are working on that very vigorously.

Mr. TAYLOR. And the second is to encourage people to develop skills so they can fit into our present economic situation.

Mr. GIBSON. Washington Urban League has OJT, on-the-job training projects, and we spend close to a million dollars a year with various employers in the District, paying parts of the salaries, and then they are able to obtain this training. The only contract that they have to sign with us is-and I might add, this comes from the-the money comes from the National Urban League. The only contract they sign with us is that the person has a guaranteed job after whatever training period there is, and there is the training. And then this person is not locked in at whichever level he is trained.

In other words, he has a chance to get an upward mobility for himself, as the man or woman's skills develop. Then they can grow to a corporate level of income and duties of responsibility. We also find that within the metropolitan area, we have other problems also.

We are now working on a program with the schools to aid the District, and we find that in our vocational schools, there are no apprenticeship programs for the trade unions, and we find that until 1955 there was such a program, but after 1954, when the Supreme Court decision came down, they denied this vocational assistance, and they, unfortunately, dropped the cooperation between the schools and the unions.

So none of the school populations, as Mr. Rolack mentioned, was 97.3 percent black, and none of our youngsters while in school can enter into an apprenticeship in the various tradeships. We are trying to change that tide.

I would like to uncover the four major categories of people who are unemployed, and those categories are: No. 1, the person who finishes grades one to seven. No. 2, is persons who finish eight to 11. No. 3 is the person who has a high school diploma, plus added education, and No. 4 is the high school graduate.

And of those, the high school graduate has the least chance in getting employment. If he is looking for a job, the person who has the best chance in Washington, D.C., is the person who has from zero to seventh grade of schooling. Do you know why? Because the people still consider black folk as working only in certain jobs. We are dishwashers. We are the busboys. We are the parking lot attendant. We serve in those capacities, monetarily for a fact, because nobody seeks employment in those levels.

The high school graduate refuses to do it because his society promised him something better if he finished school. You have people as the high graduate, and the high school graduate is the least likely to gain bountiful employment in the District of Columbia.

We have told these youngsters, if you stay in the school, you will be rewarded, and they stay in, and they finish, and then you look around, and why do we have so many young folk dropping out of school? I know we are off the subject but I would like to answer the question on the basis of what I am saying.

In this particular paper before you, we speak to those things that the black-that any corporation that is developed must take into consideration, as consideration develops for Pennsylvania Avenue, it must also take into account the hundreds in this city, if we tie-in the other dropouts through the city with this, then we have something

going for us, and we promised the youngsters if they finished school, they would be rewarded, and they are not.

Year after year, kids are coming out. They want to work. They try to seek employment. They asked, what have I done? And they have done nothing. Society refused to live up to their commitments, and you find the situation like this, and maybe that is one of the reasons why youngsters shoot themselves up with dope.

They get this $125-a-day habit, and in desperation they must go out and get this money. Otherwise, they lay and die or they lay in pain somewhere in some abandoned hallway.

So, if we correct these types of situations, we turn these types of tides, we don't have-or we wouldn't have any continuing problem with the rising crime rate. We would not have any problem whatsoever. If we lie to the youngsters, they learn not to trust us.

Mr. TAYLOR. You have given us a pretty good outlook on urban problems. I would like to say that I represent a rural district. In my district, it is only 5 percent black and 1 percent Indian, and we have much unemployment, especially in the rural counties. Many of these people have been crowded off.

Many of the black people have come north, but a lot of them are underemployed, and some of this would go to the lack of skills. Our emphasis has been on vocational and technical institutes, and, of course, industry must move in to help get our people trained so they are capable of taking jobs in industry, and at home, and elsewhere. I can't help but think that that, in the final analysis, is the only answer to many of our problems.

I must say that the black people in the urban centers, who do not finish high school have more trouble in finding jobs than others, and "others," I mean dropouts.

Mr. GIBSON. You can get this information from the Labor and Manpower Administration, right down on Pennsylvania Ave.

Mr. TAYLOR. I think in most cases, and cases down in my area, we need to go a step further past high school graduates. A man needs a skill. He needs to be an expert at something, because the pick-andshovel jobs are gone. We try to encourage each individual to become an expert in something.

Today there is a particular mechanized field in every field. There is a shortage all around, and we are coddled too much. We do not give enough credit to the people who work with their hands. I think we must come back to more of that. I notice there are many, many college graduates who can't find work, especially girls who have degrees. But people who were trained and who have specialized, usually find jobs available.

Mr. GIBSON. Not if you are black, and that is our problem; not if you are black.

Mr. TAYLOR. I can see that you have that additional problem in many, many cases, but I think that developing these technical skills has to be the answer.

Mr. GIBSON. Well, it sounds good, but I think at least the answer lies in the rededication to the use of a human resource that is before you. I could give you documents from the Federal Government where blue-collar blacks who have tremendous skills are held down-are held down or discriminated against-just in entering the work force.

Once they get in, they are locked in at a certain level. I can give you instances at level after level, where agencies have this type of thing. These are the things we work with every day.

I wish they had the type of mentality in this type of community that would allow every man to reach his fullest potential, but we don't, and, then, as I look and I see the unemployment rates going up, and Gross National Product going up, what incentive to really develop the resources we have, if our main objectives-and they keep soaring what have we done?

You see, that takes humanity and dignity out of being a man.

Mr. TAYLOR. I attended a meeting of the Democratic Party back in my district last week, and a lady who was running for office was the main speaker. Throughout all of these discussions they were speaking for women, as you are now for blacks, and she stated that they were held back and locked in.

Mr. GIBSON. I agree with that.

Mr. TAYLOR. We still have problems. This bill can't solve all of them.

Mr. GIBSON. But I think that we have decided that it could make a dent, and it would be a good start.

Mr. TAYLOR. Well, thank you very much for your testimony before this subcommittee.

For the record, I have a statement from H. George Schweitzer, attorney for and on behalf of Anita H. Eckles, Karla H. K. Harrison, and C. Heurich, Jr., which, without objection, will be inserted in the record at this point.

(The statement above referred to, follows:)

STATEMENT Of H. George SCHWEITZER, ATTORNEY FOR AND ON BEHALF OF ANITA H. ECKLES, KARLA H. K. HARRISON, AND C. HEUrich, Jr.

Anita H. Eckles, Karla H. K. Harrison and C. Heurich, Jr., are owners of a certain tract of land containing approximately 50,300 square feet in Square 291, situated on the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. They have specifically authorized me to file this statement on their behalf regarding the pending bill to establish the Pennsylvania Avenue Bi-Centennial Development Corporation.

This property has been and is presently leased in its entirety to a Tenant who operates a major portion thereof as a parking garage and subleases the remainder to retail businesses, such as a dance studio, liquor store, novelty shop and shoe store. Admittedly, the present improvements are not imposing and are not in keeping with the type of buildings that should be established along one of the most prestigious avenues of this country. The owners recognize the need to adopt a development plan for the improvement of the Avenue and the importance of renovating areas along same to the end that its overall appearance will be in keeping with the planned Bi-Centennial ceremonies. Consequently, my clients are generally in favor of the pending legislation with one important proviso, namely, that meaningful legislation be passed with the necessary funding and powers to immediately develop and maintain the properties along the Avenue. This property is simply not being put to its most productive use and cannot be until the Congress either takes meaningful action or dismisses its intention of establishing a corporation for development of the Avenue. After Congress announced its proposal of the Plan rentals have decreased by approximately ten percent (10%) while real estate taxes have increased by over one hundred percent (100%). The following is a summary of the rental income derived from this property and the real estate taxes levied against same from 1965 to the present: