Newspaper Page Text
March 23. 1978
Maroon Tiger
page 5
Men in Graves, Robert Insult Women
Editorial
Morehouse Buildings
Are Falling Down
BY CHARLES E. MAPSON
Editor-in-Chief
A small group of women
were harassed on March 14,
1978 as they walked along the
campus of Morehouse between
Robert and Graves Halls.
Men from Graves and
Robert Halls shouted grave in
sults to the women. The men
involved were on the third
floor of Robert and the third
and fourth floors of Graves.
The women were leaving the
area and faced repeated insult
and namecalling. They made
DEPARTMENT OF
Quality of education and
equality of educational op
portunity have eluded millions
of American school children,
especially black and other
minority students, far too long.
Much of the reason may be
traced to a lack of coordination
in Washington on those
children’s needs and the way
to satisfy them.
We’re not saying that the
failure to focus better on the
problem is deliberate. The
problem just grew out of the
spate of offices, bureaus, com
missions, task forces and all
the rest of approximately 300
programs scattered in about 40
different agencies that work
on some aspect of education.
Somehow the act fails to come
together.
Consider for a moment:
Funds for the education of
children from low income
families are administered
through the education division
of the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare. But if
it’s a child in Head Start—the
special program aimed at in
troducing pre-schoolers to the
world of building blocks and
books—the thrust of the effort
comes from the recently
organized Administration for
Children, Youth and Families
(ACYF), of which Head Start is
a part. But ACYF is not part of
HEW’s education division.
And if it’s vocational
education that is required to
provide, hopefully, a more
useful and brighter future for a
ghetto youth, then it’s the
Department of Labor which
has the major voice.
This bureaucratic maze is
what James Farmer, civil
rights leader and head of the
Coalition of American Public
Employees, is referring to
it to Sale Hall when they
turned around and said that
the ones shouting the
obscenity must have been
boys. I readily agreed as I sat
behind my desk in the
Maroon Tiger office, so I
stepped outside to give the
ladies moral support.
The ladies then displayed
more courage than I have seen
in quite a while. They turned
around and went towards
Graves Hall in the face of the
insult.
EDUCATION
when he says, “Millions of
children, particularly
minorities, are being deprived
of their natural birthright
because there is no
coordinated focus from the
national level on the myriad
problems facing public
education.”
He also reminds us that
while there is a great deal of
talk about the quality of
education and equality of op
portunity in achieving an
education, “we have achieved
precious little of either, and
probably won’t, unless
education is given a higher
national priority.” Unifying
the various education offices
and programs into a separate
U. S. Department of Education
“will provide the focus and
leadership necessary to bring
about the changes that are
imperative for all Americans.”
Farmer is one of three
persons who head the Citizens
Committee for a Cabinet
Department of Education, a
broad based group that in
cludes representatives of
education, labor, civil rights,
government and business.
Serving with Farmer on the
Committee are Coretta King,
of the Martin Luther King
Center for Social Change; and
Vernon Jordan, director of the
National Urban League.
Other civil rights and
minority advocate members
are LaDonna Harris of
Americans for Indian Op
portunity, Vilma Martinez of
the Mexican-American Legal
Defense Education Fund and
Audrey Rowe Colom of the
National Women’s Political
Caucus Advisory Board.
President Jimmy Carter has
proposed a separate
Department of Education, not
When they reached a point
in the walkway directly under
the fourth floor bathroom,
someone poured a liquid over
them.
Examination of the liquid
from one lady’s sweater and
also the ground below revealed
that the liquid smelled like
vomit. Of course it might have
been sour orange juice or urine
mixed with something.
At any rate, the action was
deplorable. The boys involved,
in their cowardly nature, fled
and no one knew who had done
it, thus making those who did
know cowards as well.
Carlton Jackson, tjie Head
Resident of Graves Hall
should be informed of the
culprits and justice should be
removed of her blindfold. Too
long has she worn it here at
Morehouse.
only for streamlining the
bureaucracy but, to give
education its rightful con
sideration. As he told a group
of White House visitors recen
tly, “as long as the educational
function is buried within a
large department with welfare
and health, I don’t think
education will ever get the
visibility it deserves.”
Now some people are ac
cusing him of favoring the idea
only to please professional
educators who supported him
during his campaign. We think
that the President is keeping a
campaign pledge that he made
after devoting considerable
time and study to the problem.
It is ironic that the people
who now criticize him for keep
ing a promise, were those who
were generating some heat
recently about “unfulfilled
promises.”
by THEODORE JONES
I arose, as is my usual
regimen, at 7 A.M., though not
in the usual optimistic frame of
mind which I routinely possess
in the early morning. As I
reached for my bathrobe, the
nagging apprehension which
had nestled in my subconcious
now confronted my waking
consciousness in a form akin
to fear. In retrospect, my hop
ing for some magical (for that
is what it would have had to
amount to) relief from the con
ditions which festered outside
my door. As I opened the door,
the remnants of hope and op
timism congealed into an acrid
reality as the noisome odor of
the second floor bathroom
wafted into my room . . .
The nonchalance and seem
ing non-priority status which
seems to have been assigned
the care of our buildings is now
approaching an even more
pronounced extremity. The
situation cited above had to be
endured in Unit V (Kappa
House) for a solid week (thus
breaking the former record of
six days). Compounding the
adversity of this situation was
the lack of hot water and con
sistently poor up-keep of the
unit in general.
For such conditions to exist
in buildings which have
existed only since the later
I940’s is regrettable. But true
alarm and concern should
enter anyone’s thinking when
one realizes these conditions
are not just limited to Quarles
Court: we must confront
outselves with the fact that all
of our buildings on this cam
pus seem to decay at a
frightening rate. One must cite
Mays Hall as a prime example,
for it seems to age 2 or 3 years
for each year it remains stan
ding. Alas, our 3 newest
dormitories exist with the
probability that this ubi
quitous germ of decay will in
flict them, too, worming its
way inextricably into their
fiber.
But let us remain cognizant
of the fact that infections of the
nature we are concerned about
do not inflict objects, but
rather only manifests its
deleterious affects upon them.'
No, such malignant in
firmities contaminate the
thought processes of our ad
ministration: it therefore
becomes logical to build new
buildings with a feverish
fervor rather than taking the
fullest precautions possible for
insuring the longevity of our
presently existing buildings.
Hopefully, we, as students,
do not sit by vainly, unjustly
allowing the building and
grounds department to
shoulder all blame. We, too,
have done our equally fair
share in accelerating the high
rate of decay among our
facilities. We forget that,
though the transmutation of a
Morehouse man is one which is
manifested in the intellect and
character of individuals, such
prestidigitation has and, in the
future, will increasingly re
quire the best possible
facilities that we, as persons of
the present and future, can
sacrifice for to bring into
being.
YOUR GOVERNMENT
4. &TAT& MJ&'fJfa
Blacks Suffer
in Education
by the Citizens Committee for a CABINET