Newspaper Page Text
The Maroon Tiger
February 1, 1979 Page 5
All In The Family Beyond Civilization
By T. Tee Boddie
How would you greet a King? I
don’t mean just any regular, every
day monarch; I mean one of THE
Kings, Atlanta’s own official fam
ily. It seems that every time I see
the “Queen” King (Coretta) I get
this incorrigible urge to bow grace
fully, and humbly, of course, and
give the appropriate greeting, i.e.,
“Good evening, Her Highness.”
Since the assassination of King
Martin some eleven years ago, and
Queen Coretta’s subsequent suc
cession to the throne, the royal
stone has yet to stop rolling, gath
ering no mass, but gaining loads of
power along the way. Surely,
there’s nothing wrong with power,
as long as it is channeled properly
and used unselfishly. I somehow
can picture the royal family’s sit
ting down to a roundtable discus-
sir *\ reading Machiavelli’s The
Prince to each other. The theme?
How to be love and feared at the
same time. What ever happened to
the meek and the lowly ideals of
Good King Martin? Dr. Benjamin
Mays, in his remarks at the inaugu
ration of the King postal stamD,
reminds us that too otten people
remember themselves into name
less graves; but Martin forgot him
self into immortality. Is the family
living for the dream, or are they
resting on the name?
The members of the regal house
hold included King Emeritus and
“daddy” to us all, the one who
“hates no man”. As long as he is
living, the congregation at Ebe-
nezer will have, at the very least, a
pastor AND a King. Who ever
heard of separation of church and
state?
Next in line (perhaps they share
equal power) there is Queen
Coretta. I attend Ebenezer on
occasion, chiefly thirsting after
righteousness. But when I witness
an entire row of people asked to sit
somewhere else because the Queen
arrived too late to claim her desig
nated pew, I leave Ebenezer, thirst
ing after righteousness. But then,
what more can a peasant expect?
Of course we can’t forget
A.U.C.’s own ctpwn prince Martyr
and Princess Christine. They
represent the all-but-remote royal
reticence. Although not as verbal
as the King and Queen, they none
theless hold their own family posi
tions with one hand and their
thoughts with the other—
somewhat like the traditional role
of vice-president here in America.
I doubt that Good King Martin
would take too kindly to this carry
ing on, this Kings—ploitation, as it
were. I am not saying the social
change is not longer the most
important goal in the KING-dom;
I’m simply saying that a name can
become so big on a billboard, until
oftimes, the fine print will be
missed.
America is partly to blame for
this obsession, this utter preoccu
pation with the King name. After
all, a King by any other
name. . . We must not forget the
name of the play on this the stage
of life. It’s called Social Change. It
is written and directed by the
Kings, but we, the people, are the
producers and the actors. It is up to
us to see that the play receives rave
reviews and that it stays a hit until,
alas, civilization is no more.
knowledge and culture be felt in
this con try.” As future young black
leaders we must create a place of
our own and be more active in the
perpetuation of the dreams of our
people. As quoted from Martin
Luther King’s “We Shall Over
come” speech, “Like an idea whose
time has come, not even the march
ing of mighty armies can halt us.
We are moving to the American
dream. Let us march on segregated
housing. Let us march on segre
gated schools. Let us march on
poeverty. Let us march on ballot
boxes, march on ballot boxes until
race baiters disappear from the
political arena, until the Wallaces
of our nation tremble away in
silence. My people, my people,
listen! The battle is in our hands.”
By Rashid A. Halloway
Hardship, breakdown and crisis
are excellent, if somewhat harsh,
teachers. To live with catastrophe,
our lot today, we must come to
terms with it. Then, maybe we
would discover its hidden purpose
too—to make us change, seek for
new foundations'. The crisis of civ
ilization, on everybody’s lips now,
perhaps points Beyond civilization.
Is there any ground for this faith
or feeling? Or are we assuming, a
little too readily, emergence,
wholeness and transcendence as the
normal structure of human expe
rience and expectancy? Inciden
tally, such a view strongly suggests
that till our puerile techniways,
scientism and so-called revolu
tions, red in tooth and claw, agree
to learn the radical wisdom there
will be neither peace nor goodwill
on earth. The need for meta
civilization seems mandatory.
Man, values and cosmos — our
life style depends on a balancing of
the three. To be more precise, the
source of our widest and most
abiding motives centers in the cos
mic man, transcendental values
and the unlimited community.
This is the dynamics at onceof the
inner man and the new society.
Here, as Plato would say, is the
vision of the city laid up in heaven,
the pattern for him who wills to
see, and, seeing to found a city in
himself. The soul, they say, is a
society.
Before these promptings of a
paradise lost can become real we
have To recognize the strange
necessity of what folk poets called
the “man of my heart”, the neces
sity that compelled the “self” to
include the “non-self’, the beyond
and the negative. If history is to be
something other than a recurrent
tragedy of civilizations, the princi
ple of a metaphysical community
seems the only answer.
To admit such a possibility, our
prevailing ideas, warped and
woebe gone, must be given up or
modified considerably. This would
mean that the intimations of our
“peak experiences” which perhaps
come to all of us at some time or
the other, have to be admitted.
This would virtually imply a new
being that we are afraid to be. But,
as Jaspers has emphasized, it is
impossible for man to lose trr -
cendence without ceasing to <e
man. Else civilization loses its ente-
lechy, its power to move, and set
tles down to a fixed pattern, rigid,
repressive, a variation of an
advanced decadence masquerad
ing as order. Or, as with ours, it
grows plainly suicidal.
Reconciliation and Change
Like man, civilization is a link in
our endless becoming. No civiliza
tion can claim to be the last word
either in its own environment or in
the world at large. Each has been
provisional, contradictory,
approximate. Clearly the old mod
els and methods will not serve our
turn. That explains the under
ground malaise and NETI, NETI
of the sensitives everywhere. If, a la
Sri Aurobindo, we define civiliza
tion as a harmony of spirit, body
and mind, where has that harmony
been altogether real?
To answer that question we have
to learn the old lesson again, but
under a set of new conditions.
What is that old lesson? That trans
humanism is the only true philo
sophy of civilization. “Trans” does
not reject but transfigures. This is
the evidence of wisdom everywhere
and in all ages. The unified man
finds the “self’ in all beings and all
beings in the “self’. Here is a new
or integral humanism purified of
its all-too-humanness, of which
some humanists have not heard
anything.
How shall the idea be realized?
continued on page 6
On Rev. M. L
continued from page 4
most successful at reeking havoc is
to be found within our own selves
— apathy and lack of initiative.
Students of Morehouse, we
must do all that we can to carry on
the hopes and dreams of our grea
test alumni. Though many of us
may feel comfortable with our
present position and our projec
tions of future status in society, we
must be more mindful of eality.
Continuing to take for granted the
rights and freedoms which Dr.
King and others struggled so dili
gently to secure is in itself self-
destroying. We must not forget
. King, Jr.
that the opportunities for advance
ment in our united cities and states
were not brought about by random
chance but by the bittersweet sweat
of a God-inspired minister. The
time has gone and come again for
each of us to unharness the yokes
of ignorance and laziness and take
time to find out what the “struggle”
is all about. In the words of Fran
cois Duvalier, eighth president for
life of the First Free Negro Repub
lic in the World, “Since we have
claimed the moral and spiritual
leadership of the Black World, it is
necessary that the afflatus of
Letters to the Editor
Gloster, Where Are You?
A Look at the Griffin
Administration
It is sad to pick up Jet or
Ebony to see that our president
Hugh M. Gloster is alive and well.
As we, the students walk about our
campus, we rarely see or hear from
the man who is suppose to be lead
ing us in the right direction.
Although our president is an inter
nationally known scholar, a man
respected by his colleagues, a man
who students and others model
after, he still has problems.
Last year our president prom
ised that he would show more of
himself to the students. So far that
promise has not been fulfilled. Our
president promised that he would
sit down and eat with us. So far he
has not. Our president promised to
establish a personal relationship
with us. Now it seems as if we are
more apart from each other than
before.
It seems as if our president is a
compulsive liar or he does not care
about the welfare of the students
which should be his main concern.
Our president should remember
that we are the ones who pay his
salary, who put gas in his car, and
keep up the home that he and his
family live in. It seems as if our
president has misplaced his priori
ties. He is concerned with building
buildings instead of men. Well Dr.
Gloster, remember that it takes
men to build buildings. And also
remember that sometimes build
ings through fires, tornados,
storms, etc., destroy men.
In closing, I pose a question to
you Dr. Gloster our president.
Why are you president? And I hope
that you have a good answer and if
you do not, resign and let a man
take over.
Please forgive me for not signing
my name. I am familiar with the
tactics of the Morehouse family.
Watchfully yours,
An observant student
The identity of the author is being
withheld at the author’s
request.
Dear Mr. Editor,
As we begin a New Year and
another semester, we as college stu
dents and young people should
look squarely at our own condi
tions on our campuses; for we are
all responsible for the kind of
government which we want ancf
what kind of leadership we will
have.
Morehouse in particular must
stop and look at the administration
of services which are a part of of
the entire school administration’s
responsibility with the SGA acting
as a mouthpiece for the student
point of view. This is where we, the
student body must come in at and
demand that our basic concerns
from health and welfare to safety,
be addressed with organized
thoughtjnstead of mass confusion.
I would give the Griffin adminis
tration a plus in style and a minus
in substance in terms of perfor
mance for the first half of the
school year. Lack of direction and
action in school politics is the
worst possible thing a college stu
dent body can do, especially if one
is a Black college.
The problem with the Griffin
administration for the first semes
ter is not unusual. Many potential
leaders still believe that greatness is
achieved by getting all they can,
canning all that they get and then
sitting on their can! But greatness
comes by service which everybody
elected or non-elected may
participate.
We as college students must
remember that we are not here
because we are the best and the
brightest but because a lot of peo
ple who never get their names
printed in “Who’s Who Among
American College and University
Students”; give it up that we may
stand at Morehouse with our dig
nity and with our splendor.
Our commitment for school year
1979 must be a commitment of
concern, a commitment of action.
Somehow when we truly make our
commitment to better ourselves,
our institutions and our society,
the energy for effective change will
be met.
We must reject any attempt to
keep our political concerns in
ignorance. It was Booker T.
Washington of Tuskegee Institute
wh proclaimed to “lift the veil of
ignorance from our people.” And
this school year will be better, for it
was an old Black Baptist preacher
who said, “We ain’t what we ought
to be, we ain’t what we gonna be,
but thank the Lord we ain’t what
we was.”
In Peace and Freedom,
Karl Robinson
One inch of rain contains the
same amount of water as 10
inches of snow!