“The Rev. John Butler, who was selected by the board last month from a pool of 11 applicants, was sworn in Thursday night. He fills the vacancy created when the Rev. Charles Tyson resigned in early February.”
“The acquisition of 23 books was made possible with a generous grant of $300 from the North Carolina Family Caregivers Support Group. The grant was presented by the Rev. John Butler, program developer for the Randolph County Senior Adult Association”
At a news conference Wednesday, the Rev. John Butler, the local chapter's president, said statistics show that over the past several years, the school system has built new schools in communities that are 95 percent white and not in those with a black population of more than 5 percent.
"Race is an issue here. We are concerned that when new buildings are built, how that affects our communities in terms of what schools we attend and whether or not it leads back to segregation," the Rev. John Butler, president of the Knoxville chapter of the NAACP, said Wednesday during a news conference at Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church. "We know that separate but equal has never worked, and so we feel like that when you have this type of activity where schools are built in parts of a community and not in another part of the community that speaks to separate and unequal."
The Rev. John Butler, Knoxville NAACP chapter president, speaks during a meeting in regards to school zone redistricting at the Beck Cultural Exchange Center on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017.
"We still feel it's important that all the kids go to neighborhood schools--schools closest to them," Butler said. "Kids who go to school in their neighborhoods have a better academic opportunity."
“Both the magnet school program and Project GRAD have increased diversity in enrollment and student development and success at these schools,” Butler said. “The Knox County Schools Budget should be reflective of its mission and goals of ensuring equity for all students in all neighborhoods and communities. We do not believe the current proposed budget submitted by the KCS Superintendent to the Knox County Board of Education reflects its mission or goals.”
We urge you to adopt the following priorities as part of the strategic plan:
Butler, who along with his colleagues views the current budget process as “opaque,” is firm that the more community members know about how money is being utilized, the more confidence they will have and the more resources they will be willing to provide.
Dr. John A. Butler is presiding elder, Knoxville District, TN Conference AME Zion Church, and is pastor of Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church on College Street. He filed the OCR complaint as president of the Knoxville Chapter NAACP.
"Education is too important to Knox County to not fund it with the essential needs and not to meet the needs of the students," Butler said.
It is our belief that the people’s government has a responsibility to ensure that all citizens have access to quality health care. And we, the Knoxville Branch of the NAACP, demand that our Mayor continue to support the efforts of all those in the community that provides health care services to the poor and underserved in our community.
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