Newspaper Page Text
January 31, 1985/The Maroon Tiger/Page 14
“Make this holiday a day of doing, a day of
reflection and education, a day of getting involved
in non-violent action for achieving humanitarian
goals.”— Mrs. Coretta Scott King
Legislation Leading To
King Holiday
The first national holiday in honor of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. will be celebrated
on the third Monday in January 1986.
But the effort to make King’s birthday a
Federal holiday began 16 years ago
when U.S. Representative John Conyers
Jr., of Michigan introduced a bill. It did
not get out of committee. Conyers per
sisted, reintroducing his bill each and
every year, but opposition in the House
kept the bill in committee until 1979. In
1979, the bill finally emerged from com
mittee, and almost passed the House,
falling just five votes short of the required
two-thirds majority.
The near success of the 1979 attempt to
pass the bill was due in large part to the
tireless efforts of the Martin Luther King,
Jr., Center for Non-Violent Social Change,
located in Atlanta and headed by Mrs.
Coretta Scott King. The Center had coor
dinated efforts to celebrate King’s birth
day as a holiday on the local, state, and
national level for fifteen years. It secured
6,000,000 petitions in support of the pro
posed Federal holiday, and this is the
largest number of petitions ever col
lected for a single bill in U.S. history.
The closeness of the vote in 1979 was a
prelude to victory in 1983. On June 16,
1983, Indiana Congresswoman Katie
Hall introduced a bill which called for
recognizing the third Monday in January
as a national holiday honoring King’s
birthdate. On August 2, 1983, the House
of Representatives passed the bill by a
vote of 338-90. The Senate passed the
bill by a vote of 78-22 on October 19,
1983, and President Reagan signed
the bill into law on November 2, 1983
at 11 a.m.
The passage of this bill resulted from a
strong bi-partisan effort. Congressman
Jack Kemp, Speaker of the House Tip
O’Neill, and Senator Ted Kennedy were
three of many congressmen providing
unwavering support and enthusiasm for
the effort.
Politicians, however, were not alone in
supporting the bill. The bill was a
legislative priority of the Coalition of
Conscience, an umbrella organization
which brought half a million people to
Washington, DC. on August 27, 1983 to
observe the 20th anniversary of the
historic 1963 March on Washington. The
impact of this timely observance not only
helped to turn the bill into law, but
reminded legislators and the public alike
why it was so important to make Dr.
King’s birthdate a national holiday.
After the bill was signed by President
Reagan, Mrs. Coretta Scott King once
again stressed what she and many of
Dr. King’s associates had been urging
for years: “Make this holiday a day of
doing, a day of reflection and education,
a day of getting involved in non-violent
action for achieving humanitarian goals.”
The Devil’s . . .
(Continued from Page 13)
United States citizens with any
forewarning whatsoever. As the
now declassified document from
the Biological Department
Chemical Corps entitled,
“Biological Warfare Trials at San
Francisco, California 20-27,
.September, 1950” relates; "The
object of these tests was (a) to
study the offensive possibilities
of attacking a seaport city with a
biological warfare aerosol
generated from a ship or some
other source located some dis
tance offshore; (b) to attempt to
measure the magnitude of the
defensive problem presented by
(a) Above, (b) To gain additional
data on the behavior of BW
aerosol as it is borne
downwind.” The document con
tinues. "The trials described
were conducted over that area of
land and water described as the
San Francisco Bay area (com
prising) the waters offshore from
San Francisco proper for a dis
tance of approximately ten
miles, extended inland across
San Francisco Bay and cities on
the east side of the Bay from
Alameda up to and including
Richmond."
They had selected a bacteria
which would approximate, in
effect, the ones chosen for actual
combat usage, known as Serratia.
Serratia can cause a fatal strain of
pneumonia. The test named
“Operation Seaspray," was
animated by a NAVY vessel
which cruised up and down the
San Francisco Bay for six days
spraying the bacteria into the air.
There was reported illness as a
result and an $11 million suit was
filed against the government.
Coincidentally, this same
bacteria was released into the
crowded New York City subway
system in 1966. The tester
weren’t sure if the bacteria could
travel safely through the
system... it could. Similar tests
took place around the same time
in Washington, D.C., Key West,
and Panama City.
In the mid to late seventies, a
particularly vile strain of syphilis
was released into the community
of Tuskegee, Alabama. The
authorities wanted to see what
effect the disease would have on
humans if left untreated. They
found out, and they were found
out. The United States govern
ment was sued in court and was
forced to pay restitution to the
victims and to the victim's sur
vivors.
Again, I must say that the
incidents recounted above in the
U.S. are documented facts, but
any relationship which it appears
I may have drawn between them
and the terrible occurance in
Bhopal is not only non-existant
but also merely conjecture on
your, the reader’s part. I am not
suggesting that the U.S. govern
ment had any part in the Bhopal
incident. I am accusing the U.S.
government of nothing. I am
Maroon Tiger
1 rivia
Compiled by
Charles A. Carpenter
Political Affairs Editor
Below you will find a list of te
inventions, their inventors, the
patent numbers and the year i
which their patent was grantee
At least two of the items wer
invented by black men, it is yoi
job to guess which, if any, othei
were the brainchildren of blac
1. Typewriter Newman F
Marshman 315,386 April 7, 188
2. Elevator Alexander Miles
371,207 October 11, 1887
3. Telephone System Granvill
T. Woods 371,241 October T
1887
4. Fountain Pen William E
Purvis 419,065 January 7, 1890
5. Clothes Dryer George 1
Sampton 476,416 June 7, 1892
6. Tire Treads Elijah McCo>
1,127,789 February 2, 1915
7. Piano Joseph H. Dicksor
1,028,996 June 11, 1912
8. Machine Gun Clarenc
Gregg 1,227,307 August 27,191
9. Vehicular Air Conditionin
Device Frederick M. Jones
2,303,857 December 1, 1942
10. Data Processing System
Donald E. Jefferson 3,701,972
October 31, 1972
ANSWER: All of them! If yo
were surprised, don’t be. This is
very short list of black inventor:
For a more comprehensiv
listing see Dr. Ivan Van Sertima
book, Blacks In Science
There will be a Meeting
of the staff of Th«
Maroon Tiger March 2
1985, at 12:00 noon
New Staff are invited.
Take your
medicine.
If your physician pre
scribes medications, keep
taking them. As a team,
you and the doctor can al
most always get your blood
pressure under control.
American Heart Association
merely presenting to the read*
to construe at his/her leisure, a
easily accessible and muc
published set of facts.