By BILLY TYUS
H&R Staff Writer
DECATUR -- The two daughters of Black Liberation Radio operator Napoleon Williams now in state custody have been placed in the Department of Children and Family Service's adoption unit pending further court action.
The Macon County State's Attorney's Office must now decide whether to terminate the parental rights of Williams and girlfriend Mildred Jones, the next step in determining if Unique Dream Williams, 9, and 4-year-old Atrue Dream Williams are to be returned home or placed up for adoption. DCFS adoption specialists assigned to the case met with officials from the Macon County State's Attorney's office Tuesday.
Reginald Marsh, deputy chief of communications for DCFS, said most of the time parental rights are terminated before a child is placed in the adoption unit, but that Williams' case represents one of the rare occasions when the process is reversed.
''The child is placed in the adoption unit when the goal for the family has been changed from returning the child to the home to moving for adoption,'' he said.
If the state's attorney's office decides to file a petition to terminate the couple's parental rights, a review hearing will be held before the decision is made.
This week's action marks the first move toward providing a permanent home for the children, with Williams and Jones or in an adoptive setting, since Unique was removed from the family's home in 1992. The child was removed after Jones was jailed for contempt of court after refusing to testify in a case against Williams. DCFS officials said Unique was in danger being alone with her father due to a 1991 battery conviction.
Atrue was placed in DCFS custody two years later after Williams and Jones were incarcerated and Atrue was alleged to be without parent or guardian. Williams said Atrue should never have been taken because both the child's grandparents had been given legal permission to care for her.
Williams has been calling for Macon County State's Attorney Larry Fichter to petition to terminate his parental rights in recent months, saying the ensuing review hearing is the only way he can make the courts aware of inadequacies in the state's handling of the case.
Williams said Fichter has delayed a move to terminate because his office doesn't have a solid case, adding that he thinks the entire case has been a personal vendetta against him for operating Black Liberation Radio.
Calls to Fichter's office and to DCFS field offices in Springfield were not returned.
Williams said he is confident he and Jones will not lose their children.
''I think word has come down from higher up at DCFS that it's time to quit protecting Larry Fichter,'' he said. ''The only thing that can happen with my kids now is that they can come home or they can (move to) terminate my parental rights.
''Either way, our case will finally be heard,'' he said. ''Mildred and I aren't worried about them taking away our kids.''
Is Illinois the land of Lincoln or not?
Prosecution (PERSECUTION) of BLR
African Muslims have children taken
Our family was worth saving (Malcolm X)
A Few Good Links (Af-Am) & Mumia Page
Barak Obama: Illinois inherits star quality (2004)
A range of foster abuse links, coast to coast
RACE TRAITOR
treason to whiteness
is loyalty to humanity.
freedom of speech - freedom of conscience . . . . . .
Mary McLeod Bethune was a student in Illinois, at Moody Bible College in Chicago
