The Kool Jazz Festival, which travels across the country during the summer, is a salient example of tobacco marketers' pervasive presence in the black community. Civil rights groups are attempting to distance themselves from tobacco money, but that's no easy task. In the past, these groups have justified their indulgence by arguing that tobacco companies are attempting to balance the harm they do with the money they give. Few still make that argument. And, quite frankly, it's not easy.
Tobacco companies fund black music, art, concerts, schools and churches.
They give money to African-American family reunion groups and sponsor family reunion storytelling contests for children. The practice is said to have started in Jamaica, where marijuana is routinely mixed with tobacco, and it took hold in New York City in the mid-80s. A few black groups are fighting tobacco advertising. And Conyers is working within the legal system to make black concerns a vital part of tobacco negotiations in Washington. But it doesn't acknowledge the tobacco industry's special efforts to induce African-Americans to smoke, even though it's important for black America's public health that the settlement do so.