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8 GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1968
A Backyard Is Their Playground They Wanted Their Picture Taken
Day Of Awareness, Day Of Hope
by CHRIS ECKL
Mechanicsville, Cabbagetown,
Vine City, Summerhill are
neighborhoods of shattered
windows, shattered hopes and
shattered people.
They are neighborhoods
where thousands of poor
people-black and white-live out
of sight and out of the
mainstream of Atlanta’s life.
They are neighborhoods where
the next meal can be an
overwhelming problem. They are
like other slum areas in the
city-crowded, run down,
depressing.
But there is a spark of life in
these areas, a desire for
improvement, for education, for
recreation, for all the “good
things of life.”
These people beg for help,
hope for help, pray for help,
scream for help. Most of the time
their voices are not heard because
the rest of Atlanta is not aware of
them.
A Day of Awareness,
sponsored by the Department of
Catholic Social Services, was held
last week to present the pleas of
these people to the more
fortunate, to shatter
misconceptions about slum life
and slum people.
“What about the people of
Mechanicsville?” asked Dan
Brand, director of the Sum-Mec
Neighborhood Service Center, 65
Georgia Ave., S.E., one of 14
centers operated by Economic
Opportunity Atlanta (EOA).
“If a man makes $40 to $50 a
week to feed a family of four it is
not enough because of the
extravagant rents. He deserts so
his family can get welfare. He
sends money back to aid the
family, but if he’s caught the
family loses everything.
“Take the old couple who live
in a house near Atlanta Stadium.
She receives $52 a month from
Social Security. He is unable to
work and is not eligible to receive
government assistance.
“Their rent is $43 a month,
leaving them $9 for food. They
have no heat, water or lights. We
found out about them because
we took them to Grady Hospital.
“We get $350 a year in
emergency funds to be handled
on a loan basis,” Brand said. “Yet
we get 30 to 50 people a day who
are in critical need.”
However, the director said,
this is not the whole story.
“Many of the people are proud of
their neighborhood and want to
make it livable. The young people
are making the best of a bad
situation. They go to school
hungry, they work for their
education, but they go.
“There is a concern for people
that is not found in our suburban
areas. These people help those
who are evicted.
“Granted there is a high crime
rate, but ‘outside’ people who go
through these areas are not
harmed. We have local problems
and the crime rate is within the
community.
“Last summer we had street
dances for 22,000 people. There
was not one arrest, not one
incident. Yet when they have a
social at some suburban high
schools they have to have police
cars,” Brand continued.
Brand was just one of many
who talked during the day on the
problems of poverty and the lack
of hope.
In a series of brief talks in the
morning, persons attending the
Day of Awareness were
challenged to move to help the
people they would see. “We want
you to feel tired and poor when
you come back,” said Father
James F. Scherer.
“The Day of Awareness
shouldn’t focus on the poor, it is
needed among the rich,” said Jim
Parham, executive administrator
of EOA. “The rich are just as
alienated as the poor in some
cases...
“Think what it’s like to really
be hungry, how it feels to be on
THE NEW apartments in the
in run-down homes.
uavngiuuuu Ulier
SU1IIC
IV residents oi Mecftamcsville who live
welfare, to ask the landlord for
more time on the rent and he
says ‘No,’ to apply for a job and
nof be able to read the
application, to beg for free school
lunches, to turn down a date
because you are ashamed of your
clothes.”
Sister Mary Rose of Emmaus
House said, “Most of us here will
go away unchanged. To be aware
is one thing. To be involved is
another. If this day is the end of
your concern, then it is wasted.”
“The youth of America are
saying ‘We can’t accept your
excuses about barriers to
opportunity,” commented John
W. Cox of- the Atlanta Youth
Council. “We are tired of this
lack of opportunity because we
are black or Puerto Rican or
Appalachian white. You must
help us now. We want a part of
America now and we are going to
have it.”
DeKalb Juvenile Judge Curtis
Tillman told the audience to
become involved with crime and
poverty problems. “What do you
do with a 14-year-old who stole
shoes because he had none?”
The judge said, “Another
message youth is giving us is
disturbing. One boy out of six
will appear in juvenile court. One
out of three arrests will be a
person under 21.”
Mrs. Helen Howard, director
of the Vine City Foundation,
said, “The lack of resources binds
poor people. Why don’t you pass
laws that will really help people
on welfare? If the husband
doesn’t make enough money, he
should be helped...
“I went to Washington on the
Poor People’s Campaign with
poor whites and blacks. Boy, did
we mistrust each other at the
beginning, but we later found out
that welfare didn’t care what