Gridiron activist

Gridiron activist

Even after professional sports allowed black players, team owners failed to consider that these players needed accommodations when teams traveled. In 1960, wide receiver Art Powell refused to play in a Philadelphia Eagles exhibition game when he was not allowed to stay at a hotel with white teammates. In 1961, Powell, then with the New York Titans, refused to play in a South Carolina exhibition game for the same reason. In 1963, Powell, then an Oakland Raider, and three black teammates refused to play in a segregated exhibition game in Mobile, Ala. This football star and civil rights fighter died early this month.

|Paul L. Newman, Merion Station

Brother's legacy keeper

The more Jeb Bush reveals his feelings about his brother's failed policies, the more it's apparent he would be a dangerous president ("Jeb Bush embraces brother's worldview," April 17). George W. Bush took this country into its longest war ever. Now Jeb Bush has surrounded himself with every hawk adviser he could muster to support him, including Paul Wolfowitz, among the leading Bush war architects.

|Philip Lustig, Downingtown

Water-borne profits

I'm surprised and dismayed that Aqua America chairman and CEO Nick DeBenedictis is unhappy that demand for water was reduced last summer, apparently due to cooler, wetter weather ("No treading water," April 19). In this age of deep concern for water availability worldwide, I would have assumed that any and every water provider would encourage and applaud reduced usage. Treating a public utility as a profit center clearly undermines the vitally important need to conserve our most critical resource.

|Rosemary Lynch, Havertown

Nick DeBenedictis has been good for Aqua and the shareholders; for consumers, not so much. The rate hikes come fast and often, and the quality of the product leaves a lot to be desired.

|Wil Janson, Bala Cynwyd

Schooled on Williams

The airwaves are filled with ads touting Anthony Williams as a devoted advocate for public schools. Yet much of the financing comes from American Cities PAC, which advocates for charter schools and vouchers. I guess it depends on the definition of public schools. Maybe this is why the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers supports someone else.

If Williams walks like a charter and voucher supporter, while quacking that he is a champion of public education, is he a duck or something else?

|Sheryl Kalick, Philadelphia

Willful climate ignorance

No one should expect George Will to have a sensitive understanding of climate change, but his sarcasm around the real bias of environmental racism warrants a response ("Unsustainable college silliness," April 17). Environmental racism does not mean storm surges consciously target minority communities. It is when the nation's first coal-waste power plant is sited next to the nation's largest waste incinerator in a largely black community in Chester. And institutions like Swarthmore have a responsibility to address the injustices that occur so close to campus.

|Russell Zerbo, Philadelphia, rzerbo@cleanair.org

Pension buck-passer

Gov. Christie seems to have a new mantra: Did Jim Florio fund the pension? Did Christie Whitman fund the pension? Imagine America today if Abraham Lincoln had said something similar about freeing the slaves. We elect people to office to fix the mistakes of those who came before them, not parrot phrases and excuses in the place of courage.

|Gerard Iannelli, Haddon Heights, g.iannelli@yahoo.com

An editorial Monday incorrectly implied that the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, an independent, nonprofit publication, is affiliated with Parents United for Public Education.