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Community Activism
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14734 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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11 / 1988 |
1,591 Words |
| Author
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Robin Parker
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You awaken to the roar of traffic and discover that your peaceful side street has become an alternate route to a major highway for the next six moths. What do you do? Ignore it? Complain to your next-door neighbor? Or become a community activist?
Activism today, different in mood from the bra-burning, violent demonstrations of the sixties, is a way to make positive changes in your community, ranging from getting more streetlights to electing a new state senator.
The Roper family of Clinton, Maryland, formed a statewide organization to help victims of crime. Their move toward activism was a reaction to the callous treatment they'd experienced at the hands of the justice system during the trial of their daughter's brutal rapists/murderers.
During Easter vacation, 1982, their only daughter, Stephanie Ann, came home from Frostburg State College, from which she was due to graduate cum laude. She and a friend went out one evening, but Stephanie didn't come home. The police wrote her off as just another runaway. Her body might never have been found if one of the two men who murdered her hadn't bragged about how they'd taken turns raping her while driving through three counties. After taking her to a dilapidated farmhouse, they continued to rape, beat, and burn her and then shot and dismembered her.
During the court proceedings, the parents felt that it wasn't the murderers who were on trial, but their daughter. The Ropers were not permitted to defend Stephanie's character or to display any emotion; they were even barred from the courtroom. The two men, convicted of kidnap, rape, and first-degree murder, are eligible for parole in 11½ years.
"My husband and I actively decided we wouldn't allow the men who destroyed our daughter to destroy the faith our other children have in the system," said Mrs. Roper. Their object was to improve the criminal justice system in Maryland so that the court ordeal of other victims' families would be less painful than theirs had been.
From a friend's kitchen
Friends and members of their church began a support group in their homes; they invited the prosecutor and the local delegates of their district to meetings to research meaningful action. The group aired public service announcements asking citizens to call and join the "Roper Family Friends." They received twelve-thousand calls.
"I saw the trial and the announcement on television," said Mary Jane Cook, victim coordinator for the organization. "I thought, it could have easily been one of my girls, and I couldn't stand it." In tears, she called the number and soon her bedroom became the office of this nonprofit, volunteer organization. Two years later the Upper Marlboro Chamber of Commerce gave them an office for a nominal fifty dollars per month.
The Stephanie Ann Roper (SAR) Committee has passed fourteen pieces of legislation in six years. The SAR Foundation also provides a 24-hour victim hotline and a court-watching system that helps victims and their families to assert their rights during the trial. Fundraising supplies the operational means to communicate their
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