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The Panther
JANUARY - FEBRUARY, 1968
5
Coming Home For Respect
by Ronnie A. Benton
On Monday, Dec. 18 the people of Macon, Georgia and the
United States in general paid hteir last respects to “soul singer”,
Otis Redding.
An overflowing audience crowded into the Macon auditorium,
approximately 5,000 were jammed into the 3,500 seat auditorium.
The entire stage and floor were overflown with beautiful flowers
and wreaths. The atmosphere was very melancholy and sympa
thetic. Laer on recording personalities appeared to pay tribute.
The thing that distrubed me the most was when James Brown,
and Stevie Wonder came into the auditorium during their perform
ance. In so doing, the occasion turned into Otis Redding’s revue
instead of his funeral. You did not even have to be a recording
star, as long as your hair was processed and you wore a silk suit,
you would receive an applause.
The services were attended by personalities like Percy Sledge,
Soloman Burke, Stevie Wonder, Wilson Pickett, James Brown,
Aretha Franklin and many, many more. As the processional en
tered the auditorium, the organist began playing “Come ye Dis
consolate. Johnnie Taylor opened he program by singing “I’ll
Stand By.” Mr. Taylor was followed by Rev. W. T. Reynolds,
pasor of the Allen Chapel A. M. E. Church. Rev. Dumas read
the 23rd Psalms and John 14:1-3.
The first tesimony was given by Jerry Wexler, Vice-President of
the Atlanta Recording Co. Mr. Wexler said that “Otis’s recording
“Respect” brought him respect and now Otis has come home for
respect.”
The second speaker was Senator Leroy Johnson. Mr. Johnson,
speaking as Otis’s lawyer, said “Otis gave away many scholar
ships hat the public did know of.
Hampton Swain paid his tribute and also acted as the master
of ceremonies for the funeral. He told of Otis’s start on the ama
teur program a the Douglass Theare, and hotw he would win first
place every week.” He rose from the bottom to the top and on
the way up he did not forget his friends.
Mayor Ronnie Thompson of Macon stated that Otis was an
ambassador of “Goodwill” and believed in peace on earh good
will toward men.
Mayor Thompson’s speech was followed by a solo entitled
“Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross,” sung by Joe Simon. The eulogy
was given by Rev. C. J. Andrews, pastor of the church that Otis
attended. His message was based on Genesis 1:21.
Otis Redding was laid to rest in the backyard one hundred
yards from his large fashionable home .There was a fellow at the
gate who had the job of keeping out uninvited guests at the private
burial rites. When James Brown who had been roughed up by a
mob seeking his autograph said he did not have his invitation,
the gatekeeper peered into Brown’s car and asked “who is James
Brown?” If you ain’t got the piece of paper you cannot come in
here.”
COLLEGE STUDENT’S POETRY ANTHOLOGY
The NATIONAL POETRY PRESS
announces its
SPRING COMPETITION
The closing date for the submission of manuscripts by Col
lege Students is
APRIL TENTH.
ANY STUDENT attending either junior or senior college is
eligible to submit his verse. There is no limitation as to form
or theme. Shorter works are preferred by the Board of
Judges, because of space limitations.
Each poem must be TYPED or PRINTED on a separate
sheet, and must bear the NAME and HOME ADDRESS of
the student, and the COLLEGE ADDRESS as well.
MANUSCRIPTS should be sent to the OFFICE OF THE
PRESS
NATIONAL POETRY PRESS
3210 Shelby Avenue Los Angeles, Calif.
90034
Guest of Success
This month the Panather newspaper staff is proud to present
Miss Lillie Kate Walker of Spelman College as our guest poet.
Miss Walker is an art major and is minoring in Drama. Recently,
Miss Walker’s work gained city-wide attention when Spelman’s
Focus (school magazine) published an award winning poem by the
title of “The Pigeon School.” This poem also won an Honorable
Mention.
Miss Walker has done very outstanding work in the area of
oil painting. During the month of February (1967) Miss Walker
staged a “one-man” show of oil paintings in Spelman’s Fine Arts
Building that lasted for that complete month. Other interests of
Miss Walker include music, modeling, modern and interpretive
dancing, crafts, costume designing and sports (fencing and bowl
ing). Below are a selected and outstanding writings of Miss Walker.
SIPPI
A New Novel
By John Oliver Killens
Saul Bellow has called John
Oliver Killens, whose third nov
el, ‘SIPPI’, “a writer of great
honesty, whose talent is for soli
dity and doing justice.” He is
widely held to be one of the
most important and representa
tive spokesmen for the Negroes
in America today. In ’SIPPI, he
explores the fundamental change
that has taken place in the atti
tudes of Negroes to white men
and of white men to Negroes
since the historic Supreme Court
decision to integrate the public
schools in 1954. In scope, struc
ture, and subject matter, this is
his most ambitious novel to
date.
’SIPPI describes a political
struggle, but does so by depic
ting its effects on the lives of
ordinary people. In it, Mr. Kil
lens traces the lives of richly
varied characters from that mo
mentous day in 1954 to the
present. A black boy grows up
on a Southern plantation, is sent
to college by the “nigger-loving”
white man (who sees every
“good” Negro as Gunka Din),
and finally has to choose be
tween his ambitions for a ca
reer in New York and his loyal
ties to the struggle back home.
A white girl, Southern, spoiled
and clever, shares a room with
a Negro in a northern college
and learns painfully the real
meaning of political commit
ment. Plantation workers are
evicted when they register to
vote; half a nation mourns the
death of Malcolm X; and the
Negroes’ desparate struggle for
full equality mushrooms through
out the land. The story moves
from Mississippi to New York
and back to Mississippi again,
as scene after scene teaches the
reader never again to feel com
placent about America’s largest
minority group.
In ’SIPPI, John Oliver Kil
lens evokes in fiction the prob
lems of violence and commit
ment that he has explored in
numerous articles and essays
written over the last few years.
The violence in his new novel
may shock some readers, but it
reflects his firm conviction. In
the psychological castration of
the Negro, the denial of his right
to self-defense has been one of
the main instruments . . . Non
violence is a tactic, but it must
never be a way of life for the
black American.” These ex
treme views, with their connota
tions of “black power,” may
shock and alienate some readers.
BLACK MAN’S BURDEN,
published in 1966, Mr. Killens
expressed similar ideas in six
trenchant essays, and his book
received nationwide acclaim
from black and white men alike.
A JOKE
SON!
A magician entertaining on a
ship was interrupted after each
trick by a passenger’s parrot,
who kept saying, “I know how
that was done!” All of a sudden
the ship blew up and sank. The
magician found himself in the
same lifeboat as the parrot. Af
ter drifting for three days in
silence the parrot finally said.
“All right, I give up. What did
you do with the ship?”
The Pidgeon School
I went to a pigeon school today,
And learned of why they fly.
As I queried each one on his
phantic ways,
He mused the air with fluttered
coos:
“The day I was born, I spirited
myself from a pod, sucked
the four winds and swelled
the welkin with the breath of
my body.
I eagle the clouds and beak at
their forms,
Ride on rain polls and rest on
the motion of its fall.
I trek as a vanguard, open to the
sky becoming
One giant wing coursed by one
soft flap of flitter.”
Flying whispers of varied hues,
Hush-h near me,
Soft your wings on my tread and
bless me with your open flight.
Wings of pigeons,
Lilting, lifting, lilting, lifting,
high!
Let me feel the weight of your
lift,
Let me savor the sound of your
lilt.
Bleach me!
senseless softs that bold the as
phalt and settle on roof tops,
speak to the night under a coo
of sough bleach me!
Nude Ball
The nude ball rolled down the
street.
Nobody stopped it.
The nude ball bounced up into
the air.
Everybody looked up.
The nude ball rolled and rolled.
All eyes of the people fol
lowed it.
And the ball rolled some more.
To see a nude ball roll.
A nude woman walked down
the street.
Nobody stopped to look at
her.
The nude woman danced all
around.
Nobody watched the dance.
The nude woman stood and
spreaded her arms
Out to the sky,
Screamed loudly and walked
away*.
And all eyes watched the
ball.
The Poet
Stooped from pit to pendalum
In poverty,
Come the moans of the poet,
Pious of words, the struggling,
Layman for Consumers of prose.
He is made up of literary logic,
He must unravel the twine
Of truth, he must brief the
process.
Around Campus
Members of Phi Beta Lambda