Pittsburgh Public Schools board member Sala Udin has spent his life fighting for civil rights in the United States as a Freedom Rider, a former city councilman and an advocate of Pittsburgh’s Black community.
Mr. Udin, 77, acknowledged the recent nationwide movement for racial justice in brief remarks he delivered during Wednesday’s virtual school board meeting.
“Police killings are up to 1,000 people a year in America, and we have to strengthen our resolve,” Mr. Udin said. “Pittsburgh, I think, has shown up big in the demonstrations and our rejection of police violence.”
School board members and other participants held a moment of silence before the meeting began in honor of George Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in May. The moment of silence was followed by a rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by Emir Hardy, a 2020 graduate of Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12.
Mr. Udin said he wanted to broaden the view of people the district recognized as being unjustly killed by police or in racially motivated violence to include more than George Floyd. He brought up the cases of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot by police while at home in her bed in Louisville, Ky., and Ahmaud Arbery, who investigators said was killed by a group of white men as he was on a run through a neighborhood in Georgia.
“The people of Georgia brought back indictments today on the Ahmaud Arbery murder,” Mr. Udin said. “It’s the struggle of the people that bring these indictments forward.”
Mr. Udin, a Hill District native, was arrested in 1970 after Mississippi police pulled him over for speeding while he was driving Freedom Riders home from a rally. Police found an unloaded shotgun and a jug of moonshine in the car.
The arrest led to a conviction in 1972, and Mr. Udin spent seven months in federal prison. President Barack Obama pardoned Mr. Udin in 2016.
In Pittsburgh, Mr. Udin co-founded the New Horizons Theater, started the House of Crossroads drug treatment program and championed the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. He served as a city councilman from 1995-2005, and he has been on the school board since 2017.
Mr. Udin’s remarks came at the same meeting in which two board members introduced a resolution calling for more transparency and accountability from the school district’s safety department.
Andrew Goldstein: agoldstein@post-gazette.com.
First Published: June 25, 2020, 10:13 p.m.
Updated: June 25, 2020, 10:30 p.m.
