Newspaper Page Text
November 30, 1984/The Maroon Tiger/Page 10A
REAL POLITICS
Daddy King’s
Impact On Politics
By Phillip Thomas
Asst. Political Affairs Editor
Martin Luther King Sr. is considered to be the father of the Civil
Rights Movement and as such, his impact on American politics in
general and African-American politics in particular is immeasurable.
Fatherhood in this context has both biological and symbolic
conotations. On the symbolic level Daddy King (as he was
affectionately known) was the archetypal civil rights leader. On the
biological level he was the father of Martin Luther King jr. who is
inarguably the most influential African-American leader of all time
and whose name has become synomous with the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1960’s.
What Daddy King contributed to African American politics was the
concept of Christian Activism. Christian Activism is the idea that
Christians should take an active role in establishing justice in their
society. Confident that they are doing the will of Cod, Christian
activists are capable of great acts of bravery in the furtherance of their
cause. It was this kind of intestinal fortitude that enabled them to
withstand the harsh physical retribution that came in response to
their non-violent protests. As early as 1930 when he first became
pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Daddy King had established in
his own personal philosophy a connection between the Gospel and
the need to end the deplorable social and material conditions of his
people. Through a deep religious faith and a clear conception of
Cod’s plan for his ministry Daddy King forged a commitment to work
against the racist segregation of the South at that time. This
commitment led him to become involved in N.A.A.C.P. work at a
time when that organization was regarded as dangerously radical by
white America. He also became involved with a fight to integrate the
Atlanta Police Department. But most importantly, from the pulpit of
his church he delivered sermons which attacked the evil jim Crow
system, which established in his parishoners minds and hearts the
tenants of the Christian activism which was to be so significant in
subsequent movement.
The most notable person to have been influenced by the words
and deeds of Daddy King was his eldest son, Martin Luther King ]r.
There is no doubt that King was deeply effected by his father's
ministry. It can be said that he fused his father’s views on Christian
activism with the philosophies of the like of Thoreau and Gandhi to
create the tactical basis of the Civil Rights movement. It is this
philosophy and strategy that still characterizes the major part of
African-American politics today. It is no mere coincidence that many
of the major African-American political leaders are also ministers.
Leader’s such as Andrew Young and jesse Jackson are simply
extentions of the Christian Activist model which has its origin in life of
Daddy King and his son. In this ligth we can certainly appreciate the
role that Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. has and will always nave on the
African-American political approach.
Mondale Wins Mock Election
The democratic ticket of Mondale/Ferraro were easy winners of
the SCA mock elections held Thursday and Friday November 1st and
2nd.
With a total of 516 ballots cast by the Morehouse College
community, mostly students, Mondale garnered 500,10 went to the
Reagan/Bush camps, and 6 were undecided.
MON DALE/
FERRARO
REACAN/BUSH
UNDECIDED
Johannesburg, “Join The Winning Side”
By Charles Carpenter
Political Affairs Editor
“South Africa is heading for a violent catastrophe unless the minoirty white rulers talk at length
with the black majority. Moreover, the Reagan administration’s policy of ’constructive
engagement’with South Africa isan unmitigated disaster. Thisaward will turn the world’s attention
to the plight of the little people; victims of apartheid; the ones who’s noses are rubbed in the dust
every day. South Africa’s black people are on our way to victory, on our way to freedom, if you think
you can stop us,’ referring to the white minority, “you are going to be stampeded; you are going to
be overrun. We say, ‘Come join us. Join the winning side.’”
—Bishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize and non-violent fighter for the
freedom of Azania and General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.
The extreme and insupportable harshness of the white occupation/rule continues to lead to
violence that constantly threatens to become a bain desang. External assistance from conscientious
Afro-Asian nations raises the spector of foreign invasion and keeps the situation a live issue at the
United Nations. Although apartheid stands officially condemned by world opinion, the nation and
it’s economy continues to flourish as a result of the slave-like labor force comprised of the
indigenous blacks, and the continuation of world consumption of South African goods and the
continued exportation to the racist regime — all in complete disregard of the innumerable
international sanctions and embargoes imposed thereon. The growing internal and external
frustrations threaten not only regional peace, but world peace.
Blacks in South Africa are by law confined to living areas designated thusly by the South African
regime called homelands. The blacks are segregated from one anothet* according to ethnic group;
which is in jitself a tactic employed by the government to create division between the native African
peoples and thereby remove some of the focus from it's own perverted system — one of Pharoh’s
favorite tricks used to keep the Israelites managible in their slavery was to keep them fighting
among themselves by creating division.
There are ten major homelands: Transkei and Ciskei, inhabited by the Xhosa people; Kwazulu,
occupied by the Zulu people; Lebowa, the Pedi/N. Ndebele; Vanda, the Venda; Gazankulu, the
Shangan/Tsonga; Bophuthatswana, the Tswana; Lesotho and Basotho Qwa Qwa, the S. Sotho;
Swazi, the Swazi; and S. Ndebele, the Ndebele.
Typically, the homelands range in population from about a quarter million to well over a million.
Sadly, employment opportunities within these non-self-sufficient homelands are limited. Often,
fewer than 10,000 menial tasks may be available. It is just this sort of statistic which contributions to
the median per capita income level being less than $100. Not surprisingly, life vvithin the barren
homelands is miserable.
Travel outside of one’s homeland requires a “pass,” a passport-like identification booklet (which
the government produces with the help of computers purchased from IBM). Penalties for being
without run the gamut between temporary revocation to imprisonment — the latter being
comparable to nothing known to Americans. In 1982, more than 200,000 indigenous Africans were
arrested under the pass law. , ' .
The South African government, recognizing it’s deservedly precarious position, will stop at
nothing to maintain the obscene status quo. On April 2, 1983 Saul Mkhize, a leader of African
landowners and peasants, was shot to death while leading a protest against government orders to
remove 5,000 black residents from a white designated area to a homeland. Three Weeks later on the
25th, Harrison Dube, an interpreter at the Durban, South Africa Supreme Courtj and prominent
community leader, was shot dead outside his home by South African police officers shortly after
returning from a meeting of a joint rent action committee. He had obviously been followed. On
October 23rd of this year, 7,000 South African army troops swept through three homelands just
south of Johannesburg to “rid the area of criminal and/evolutional elements.” Arrests duffing the
raids totalled 358,
These are only a tew examples of the thousands of documented acts of barbaric lawlessness
habitually exhibited by the South African government. There are perhaps twice this number where
the only witnesses are either the perpetrators or the dead.
The Union of South Africa has made feeble attempts recently to display .a semblence of
reasonability by holding elections to give suffrage to the “coloreds” and people of Indian descent
within their borders. However, the good people of S.A. seem to havq>oyerlooked someone; the
Blacks. The termerity of the white minority in doing this is incomprehensible and may well prove
fatal.
The United Stales is not without blame tor the continuing success of flie South African ruling
class. Our government has not only refused to take a stand against the brutal, oppressive South
African regime, but has done much to assist it. More than $28 million in American military-related
equipment has been sold to S.A. since the Reagan Administration took office in 1981. The sale of
items are greater than all previous exports of this type since 1950. The result is the complete
undermining of the international arms embargo. The South African United Democratic Front (UDF)
concurs with my assessment. The UDF issued a resolution which stated that the U.S. government
was “only furthering its own economic interests in our country at the expense of the well-being of
our people.” But the resolution didn’t stop there: “This unashamed greed and callous support for
this unpopular and undemocratic government by the U.S. cannot stop us in our march towards
freedom.”
If I were inclined to give advice, I would advise the white minority to turn the government over to
the indigenous majority with great speed, while it may still do so with a modicum of safety, for the
perversely obscene treatment of God’s people will not go forever unpunished. I would advise the
current administration here in the U.S. to, for once, do the right thing: rise up out of the filthy, cold,
dark shadows of evildoing and be bathed in the bright, warming rays of virtue.
“Would you have collaborated with Hitler? With Stalin? What has happened to the moral
condition of the United States that you cooperate with a system as evil and vicious as apartheid?
Your president gets real hot under the collar when things happen to Solidarity in Poland. When it
has to do with Black liberation, the whole Western world turns pacifist.” — Bishop Tutu.
The Staff and Faculty of The Maroon Tiger wish you and
your family the very Best during this Holiday Season!