Chip Filson
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSdGW_HBrLE)
A citizen inspects a partially destroyed residential building after Russian shelling in the Saltivka district of Kharkiv on April 9, 2023. A prayer for Ukraine.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7cPNrpwfs0&list=RDGMEM8h-ASY4B42jYeBhBnqb3-w&start_radio=1&rv=dpEIplVu7Zk
The present does not exist without the past. This is a factual statement. However how we encounter the past, will strongly influence who we are today. And what we become tomorrow.
This year three of the world’s major religions have some of their holiest days overlap: Passover, Ramadan, and Easter.
The events, liturgies, and services of all three are honoring past events that shape how their followers live and worship today. This is more than remembering. It is continuing a legacy of belief and ideals that are powerful influences still.
An individual example of this commitment is this short interview with Bono about how he practices his Christian faith.
Organizations also honor their past. Sporting teams retire star players jerseys or numbers to remind today’s competitors of past glories.
Organizations and universities name buildings, endow scholarships or professorships with the names of founders, donors and leaders who laid the foundations for today’s ongoing work.
Recently a credit union asked if I might speak at their annual meeting. This is not something I have done recently so asked what he had in mind.
He sent me background on a keynote speaker. It read: Michelle Book, CEO of the Food Bank of Iowa, will be one of our keynote speakers this year. She is a friend. . .When Michelle took the helm of this Feeding America affiliate in 2016, it was on the brink of being decertified. Today FBOI serves 55 counties or over half of Iowa . . . Michelle will have an impactful message regarding changes our state legislature will pass into law this week which will result in . . .another barrier for 300,000 food insecure Iowans to receive their SNAP benefits.
Every event has embedded in it values, ideals and even prior grievances that motivate or guide its leaders.
Today is part of Easter Holy Week. Good Friday worship is a time of somber remembering the crucifixion of Jesus.
The spiritual often sung in these services begins: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”
The words are not meant literally. Rather they evoke the power of worshipping or honoring those who came before to enable us to be who we are.
Religious beliefs are more consequential and longer lasting than most secular traditions, for some but certainly not all people.
However spiritual practice reminds everyone that indeed “you were there” when others created the foundations all stand on now.
And what we will pass on, each in their own way.
Most people familiar with Lincoln’s life, know that he left his home in Springfield, Illinois, to become President. To never return.
Springfield is proud to claim Lincoln’s heritage, his home, the Old Statehouse, and his final resting place at Oak Ridge Cemetery.
But there is another side to Springfield’s story; one that frankly I was not aware of when I graduated from Springfield High in 1962.
Here is how the historian Heather Cox Richardson describes this dark moment in her February 12, 2023, blog which helped spur the founding of the NAACP:
“On February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. Exactly 100 years later, journalists, reformers, and scholars meeting in New York City deliberately chose the anniversary of his birth as the starting point for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). . .
“The spark for the organization of the NAACP was a race riot in Springfield, Illinois, on August 14 and 15, 1908. The violence broke out after the sheriff transferred two Black prisoners, one accused of murder and another of rape, to a different town out of concern for their safety.
“Furious that they had been prevented from vengeance against the accused, a mob of white townspeople looted businesses and burned homes in Springfield’s Black neighborhood. They lynched two Black men and ran most of the Black population out of town. At least eight people died, more than 70 were injured, and at least $3 million of damage in today’s money was done before 3,700 state militia troops quelled the riot.
“When he and his wife visited Springfield days later, journalist William English Walling found white citizens outraged that their Black neighbors had forgotten ‘their place.’ Walling claimed he had heard a dozen times: ‘Why, [they] came to think they were as good as we are!’ ”
A fuller historical account can be found here.
In 1965 a minister from Springfield answered the NAACP’s call to join Martin Luther King’s March from Selma, AL to Montgomery after the bloody Sunday attack on marchers the prior week.
His oldest daughter recalls: I remember mom was scared for dad to go to Selma. Dad said he could feel the hate coming from some of the houses along the route.
By 1967, the minister’s family had grown to eight children, two by adoption. In Springfield, there were few public swimming pools, so neighborhoods banded together to form private swim clubs. The Surf Club, where the family had gone previous summers, asked that they not return because their newest adopted daughter named Darlene was black.
After talks and prospects of legal action, the family was allowed back on “a trial basis.” Here are excerpts from two letters he wrote to supporters after the club lifted their prohibition.
July 28, 1967 letter:
“We got to swim for the first-time last Tuesday. The kids were so excited about getting to swim with their friends again. Hardly anybody noticed that we were there—which is the way we said it would be. About 85 members had signed a petition gotten up on their own requesting the management let the whole family swim. I’m sure that helped in the negotiations.
“We feel that the manager is unhappy that his attorney urged him to give in- a ‘trial basis. This morning I had a half hour conversation with one of the members who wanted to know what we were trying to do. She found it hard to rebut when we said, ‘for our family to swim there just like yours’—but she kept trying.”
To another supporter on August 3, 1967, he wrote: “The good news, the happy news, the soul-satisfying news, the family all began swimming at the first club two weeks ago. No one paid much attention which is the way we said it would be. The kids were delighted to get to be swimming with all their friends. Darlene thinks it is ‘real nice’ and doesn’t’ seem to quite understand all that had been going on. . .
“We now have some understanding how our Negro brethren feel when they are denied their full rights. It was quite encouraging to us to have so many people concerned about the outcome. . .”
The founders of the NAACP issued a call for support in a 1909 letter which included these words:
“Added to this, the spread of lawless attacks upon the negro, North, South and West—even in the Springfield made famous by Lincoln. . .could not but shock the author of the sentiment that ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.’”
Springfield continues like the rest of America to learn how the past still carries over mistakes, injustice and attitudes into the present.
Sometimes change happens in small ways, just one person, one lifted ban in a summer of growing national turmoil. But these seemingly small, discrete good acts can often inspire future generations.
The family later that year. “They didn’t say anything when our Chinese daughter came to the pool.”
This example lives on because Darlene is my sister. The minister was my dad.
Post script: These are comments from Darlene and my brother after this blog was published.
Darlene: It’s so nice to read the quotes from the Surf Club communications. I actually understood what was happening. I heard or overheard conversations regarding it. Whispering wasn’t a strong suit of the household back then.
I remember Mom being a member of the Urban League Guild and going to a potluck with her realizing I wasn’t the only black person but noticed she was the only white person. I thought it was neat for her to be a part of a black group!
Roy-younger brother:
I recall that we had to sue or threaten to sue, to get back into the Surf Club – the public pool was too far away on the north side of Springfield for us to ride our bikes there safely. Mom was active in the NAACP but do not know if she was a member.
Dad was one of the pastors who answered Dr. King’s call for pastors, priests, and Rabbis to join the march on Selma. We were glued in front of the TV watching news reports at the bridge because Mom was very scared for his safety.
When he got back Dad said that stuff was thrown at them but that the march leaders kept the marchers singing hymns and other songs. Dad said it was sheer genius. You could not sing and get so angry or too scared all at the same time, which prevented marchers from being tempted to retaliate.
In the late 1930’s when Dad was a student at the U of IL Champaign-Urbana, he was involved in civil rights protests with organizations that refused to serve black U of I students.
When the local Catholic Church (Rensselaer, IN) brought over a family from Holland after a dike broke, Dad wanted to do something similar but his church would not do anything.
Charen encouraged us to adopt 2 boys from Hong Kong, but boys were not abandoned unless disabled in some way. So instead we adopted an abandoned girl who arrived speaking with a British accent and a British vocabulary. She had lived for a few months with a British family as foster parents so she could learn English, but British English.
When Gay was adopted, she was front page news in the Rensselaer Republican newspaper which all four of us delivered. For the last day of school – which was just two hours to get report cards, I took Gay to meet the kids. She went to other classrooms with other younger Filson siblings also.
This post is a eulogy. For 36 years credit unions were provided a comprehensive report on their collective progress. That publishing effort grew in scope, analysis and detail while keeping the same title: The Credit Union Directory. It is no more.
In 1986 Callahan’s introduced the first complete Directory of all active credit unions for the industry’s and general public’s use. It was a complete census by state of every credit union, a task never accomplished in the eight decades since the first charter.
One reason for this gap was there was no centralized source for information. NCUA’s call report included only federally insured data. There were approximately 1,800 cooperatively insured credit unions in over 20 states that offered a choice of share insurance.
Prior directories were periodically attempted. One listed the 4,000 largest credit unions by assets. Some state leagues published listings, but they were not for public use.
The Directory was Ed Callahan’s idea. At great expense, Callahans had established a database of all NCUA data, augmented with cooperatively insured information. We believed the industry and public would beat a path to our door for the latest, most complete data on credit unions.
The company had an outstanding invoice for over $100,000 with a local service bureau that managed the information. No one came knocking. Ed decided we needed a “calling card” to let people know about our analytic capability. Hence the first Directory, with 1985 data listing every credit union, was released at the February 1986 CUNA governmental affairs conference.
The initial product was a literal directory organized by state listings in credit union alphabetical order. The single line of information with the credit union was the CEO’s name, contact information and summary financial data: total assets, loans, members and capital.
As the Directory became an annual effort, the content expanded. Advertising was added to support production costs. The concept of a one stop information resource became widely valued. At least three other competitors entered the market: NCUA printed and gave away a state listing of its insured; Thompson’s added a credit union volume to their bank and S&L publications; and CUNA attempted its own version.
All subsequently dropped their “directory” efforts. For Callahan’s, this calling card expanded with more analysis and industry listings. It demonstrated the firm’s software capabilities that eventually led to the development of Peer to Peer as the premier industry analysis product.
The listings remained central, but the annual analysis expanded in multiple ways.
New reference material was included to give added value and market reach. For example, the top 100 Canadian credit unions were listed in the belief this might open up a northern market. It didn’t. World Council information was presented showing the US totals in a worldwide context.
An example of this ever expanding effort is the 2006 edition which totals 646 pages in four tabbed sections.
Each year, the Directory’s cover was redesigned. A theme summarizing the movement’s progress was introduced . In 2006, the message was Communities United by the Cooperative Difference.
The first tab, State of the Industry, presented the industry’s consolidated balance sheet and income statement, key trends and auto loan share by state; 30 “best in class” leader tables; an analysis of the corporate network; a listing of CUSO’s, credit union auditors, leading technology providers and a list of mergers. Contact information for all state and federal regulators, leagues and trade associations and Canada’s largest 100 credit unions were provided in just the first 125 pages.
Tab two was the traditional listings provided by state. Each state was headed by a five year performance summary and a top 50 by assets table preceding the alphabetical list of all the credit unions. Seven pages were devoted to comparing state by state performance on key ratios.
The third tab was a cross reference listing where a user could look up credit unions alphabetically by name, by city, or by the manager’s last name. For example, seven Carlsons and 65 Johnsons. Buffalo, NY, reported 42 credit unions with home offices in the city; Carmel, IN, had just two.
If one wanted a quick summary of credit unions by employment, the reader could look up credit unions that had Post Office or Postal, IBM, State Farm as a first name. Or, if looking for parish-based credit unions, one would find 185 credit unions whose name began with St. (Agnes, et al ).
The final section was a buyer’s guide which showed 115 vendors serving the credit union community. And helped to underwrite the Directory’s printing costs. The sponsor for 2006 was Charlie MAC. For those not familiar with US Central, this was a secondary market initiative for credit unions to compete with the government sponsored GSE’s.
Each edition attempted to list the major system components and the businesses serving credit unions. To address concerns about timeliness of the data (publication occurred about 4-5 months after the financial information), Callahans in 2006 created a “Directory Online” with 24/7 access. This digital version was updated with the latest financial as well as contact changes.
By publishing annually, the industry had a comprehensive set of performance benchmarks in one volume. Who had moved in or out of the top 200? How many credit unions have home offices in DC? Or, what states have the fastest growing coop system? While the information was at a point in time, it was a starting place for limitless stories and analysis, then or in years later.
Callahans last annual printed Directory was volume 36, published in 2021 using December 2020 data. This edition had 221 pages including a 29-page buyer’s guide.
There was industry analysis with ten-year trends, leader tables, and peer group comparisons. There was still a state-of-the-state section in which all the individual credit unions were listed. Contact information was also provided for CUSO’s, Corporates, regulators, and trade associations.
There was no introductory analysis or theme, undoubtedly hindered by the Covid lockdown and recovery during the production cycle.
In 2022, there was no printed edition. The industry trends, top 50 or 100 listings, the corporate network and state summaries are available online. If printed, the information would total 132 pages. There is no advertising or buyer’s guide.
There are certainly virtual substitutes for some of the data listings and contact information. One can search on NCUA’s site for peer information and trends. Pulling other categories of information (CUSO’s, trade associations) would require someone with a knowledge of relevant resources. If interested in a year’s key industry events such as large mergers, charter conversions, bank purchases, or even newer data sets such as subordinated debt or goodwill, one would have to find a credit union database resource such as Peer to Peer.
The Directory’s function expanded assembling performance and individual credit union data to serve as a starting point for insight and analysis. At a macro level, the Directory was the only source for ten-year financial trends and a two-year balance sheet and income statement that includes all credit unions, not just NCUSIF insured.
But the Directory was more than a useful compilation for quick reference. It presented the industry’s multiple connections and comprehensive participants. Each volume was a census of all key movement participants (by name and organization) and an almanac of the year’s trends.
Each edition presented the collective industry’s performance, information missing from all other yearend reports. For example, NCUA’s Annual Report records its activities and financial audits, not credit unions’ role in the economy. Trade groups report their advocacy, education and information services. Individual credit unions promote their own success and accomplishments.
What is lost is the sense of cooperative identity, a shared destiny and a system with special purpose that serves over 100 million member-owners. If one were to understand the history of the credit union system, especially the post deregulation era, the Directory would be the major resource.
This bridge connecting the past to the present no longer exists. Each future writer or researcher will have to find their own way to the history.
The Directory memorialized multiple national, state and local milestones for a movement whose future should be more consequential than its past.
Without this collective benchmarking, can there be a shared purpose? If one fails to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries or other key events, life goes on. So will credit unions but with less of a sense of who they are and where they have come from.
A movement without a collective memory can slowly disintegrate into individual contemporary stories. The shared destiny is lost as firms follow their own independent journey. A Community United by the Cooperative Difference no longer has a record of who they are.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a prolific writer of essays, novels, short stories, and poems. His Catholic faith and love of literature permeates through all his works. This poem is a meditation on Advent and Christmas “for our wonder and our war.”
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost—how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.
This world is wild as an old wife’s tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Joy and goodwill emerge at the sounds of Christmas-in Macy’s.
May these be blessings beyours this special Day.
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp_RHnQ-jgU”
 |
| … no lyin’ !! |
Fred Byrd 
Fred Byrd has passed away at the age of 87. Fred Byrd started out life as one of eight children, son of a hardscrabble sharecropper in rural Hoke County, North Carolina. The funeral was held Saturday at Rock Springs Missionary Baptist Church – standing room only.
Might say that 70 or 80 years ago in the rural South, that the “odds for success” were not exactly stacked in Fred Byrd’s favor; but Fred Byrd was a remarkable man. Loved by many, admired and respected by all.
Fred Byrd was faithful in his mission in life to his five children, his church, his extended family reunion association, his friends and to his work. Those things Fred touched with his life were always improved; he wasn’t always necessarily the leader, but he was always in-charge. The Minister said one of Fred’s favorite pastimes was talking. Fred was plain-spoken and freely shared his thoughts and opinions with others – whether you were ready or not! With Fred Byrd, you didn’t have to wonder what he thought or felt. Fred didn’t shirk his responsibility “to counsel” you when you needed it. The Minister said Fred even counseled him on his sermons: “Keep it simple and, most importantly, don’t take all day!”
Fred Byrd counseled me often over the years; it was always advice well worth getting. I distinctly remember our “first session”….
You probably need to know that Fred Byrd’s career was as the supervisor of housekeeping at a very large, state-operated mental hospital in Raleigh. A challenging task with numerous employees, 3-shifts, 7x24x365 operations in an environment which required not only great skill, but also great flexibility, discretion and compassion. Fred Byrd was definitely the right man for the job; he cared about everything. Fred took his work, his life very, very personally.
But Fred Byrd, true to his roots, also worked a second job at the CU keeping our house in order. One evening Fred dropped by the office and said: “Mr. Blaine (I immediately knew I was in trouble!), could I speak with you a moment about the trash?” You want to “talk trash” to me Fred? “That’s not what I said! I don’t want to talk trash to you; I want to talk about your trash!”(This was really not looking good…)
Fred told me that he knew that I brought in fast food for lunch everyday and ate in the office. Fred was into GPS tracking long before the technology was invented! He noted that the bag and remaining cup of ice from the soft drink ended up in the trashcan nearby. Fred pointed out that by the end of the day that the ice had melted and created quite a problem and a mess for his folks. Fred said softly that he was sure that this was just an oversight and something that had never occurred to me (and it hadn’t); and would I mind emptying out the ice in a sink before discarding it? Fred was looking me dead in the eyes as he “counseled” me. And then he made the lesson stick:
In closing the funeral, as the casket was rolled down the aisle to the strains of “I’ll Fly Away”, the Minister had one final thought about the man Fred Byrd:
At the entrance to the memorial park in Kyiv, there is a sculpture of an extremely thin girl with a very sad look holding a handful of wheat ears in her hands. Behind her back is the Candle of Remembrance, a monument with details reminiscent of authentic embroidery that can be found on traditional Ukrainian costumes. This is a monument that commemorates a historical event known as the Holodomor.
What is the Holodomor?
After the end of the First World War, Ukraine was an independent state, but in 1919 the Soviet Union “sucked” it into the community of Soviet states. The Ukrainians, who even then considered themselves a Central European people like the Poles and not an Eastern European like the Russians, tried to restore Ukraine’s independence.
In 1932, not wanting to lose control of Europe’s main granary, Stalin resorted to one of the most heinous forms of terror against one nation. In the process of nationalization, he took away the grain-producing land from the Ukrainian peasants, but also all its offerings, thus creating an artificial famine.
The goal was to “teach Ukrainians to be smart” so that they would no longer oppose official Moscow. Thus the people who produced the most grain in Europe were left without a crumb of bread. The peak of the Holodomor was in the spring of 1933. In Ukraine at that time, 17 people died of hunger every minute, more than 1,000 every hour, and almost 24,500 every day! People were literally starving to death in the streets.
Stalin settled the Russian population in the emptied Ukrainian villages. During the next census, there was a large shortage of population. Therefore, the Soviet government annulled the census, destroyed the census documents, and the enumerators were shot or sent to the gulag, in order to completely hide the truth.
World War. Their poison gas was hunger. Their Hitler was Stalin. Their Holocaust was the Holodomor. For them, fascist Berlin was Soviet Moscow, and their concentration camp was the Soviet Union.
Today, 28 countries around the world present the Holodomor as genocide against Ukrainians, which you could not learn about in school, because almost all evidence was destroyed and victims were covered up for decades, survivors were forcibly silenced by not having the right to vote until recently.
The Holodomor at that time broke the Ukrainian resistance, but it made the desire for Ukraine’s independence from Russia eternal. (I was sent this summary and do not know the source.)
From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
Holodomor, man-made famine that convulsed the Soviet republic of Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, peaking in the late spring of 1933. It was part of a broader Soviet famine (1931–34) that also caused mass starvation in the grain-growing regions of Soviet Russia and Kazakhstan. The Ukrainian famine, however, was made deadlier by a series of political decrees and decisions that were aimed mostly or only at Ukraine. In acknowledgement of its scale, the famine of 1932–33 is often called the Holodomor, a term derived from the Ukrainian words for hunger (holod) and extermination (mor).
Postscript:
From Brooke C. Stoddard, author who was at Holodomor Wreath Presentation at the Holodomor Memorial near the U. S. Capitol. He was asked by the Illinois State Society to participate on behalf of the Cleveland Club of Washington, D. C.
The Holodomor Memorial to Victims of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932–1933 was opened in Washington, D.C., United States, on November 7, 2015. Congress approved creation of the Holodomor Memorial in 2006.
Yesterday’s blog described an effort to open two student branches in 1974 in Burbank California. Their purpose was twofold: expand the credit union’s FOM and educate students about the credit union model. The effort ended in 2011.
However high school student-run branches continue today. CUSO Magazine recently wrote about an example in Texas that is especially successful. Here are some brief excerpts from that article:
The Credit Union of Texas’s SMART Branch
The Credit Union of Texas (CUTX), located in Dallas-Fort Worth, recognized the significant gap in financial literacy among young people and decided to make a difference. In an effort to bring financial education to students, they connected with leaders of local high schools, creating partnerships through which they could collaborate to tackle the issue at hand. Through their motivation to increase financial literacy among youths, the credit union and its partners came up with the idea to open branches within local high schools and let the students take the reins.
These “SMART” (Servant leadership, Motivation, Active learning, Reasoning, and Technology) Branches are run by juniors and seniors, with one credit union staff member to supervise. The first, located in Allen High School in Dallas-Fort Worth, was opened back in August 2021, the success of which inspired the creation of a second branch merely a year later, which opened on January 10th, 2022, at Little Elm High School of Little Elm, Texas. . .
Students helping students
In order to achieve widespread financial literacy in the school, CUTX developed a financial literacy program that involves student employees of the branch acting as financial literacy coaches to their classmates. In preparing for their presentations, students employees are provided with additional education on the topics, including money management, loans, credit, investing, and more. CUTX permanent employees also provide informative sessions on various topics, including home equity loans, refinancing, and auto loans to Little Elm High School faculty and staff. . .
The full article can be found here.
