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Leaders of Tomorrow! JANUARY 1997 MBC Wolverine OBSERVER 3
that a two year-old needs to be
supervised just as much as a sixteen
year-old. The Bennett family, a
native Georgian family, are filing
suit against the city of Atlanta for
negligence. Their son Antione was
enrolled at Camp Best Friends, a
city-run network of day camps
started in 1981 to keep children off
the streets.
Attorneys say that allocated
funds intended for the operation of
the camp were diverted to rim other
programs. Thus, causing a cutback
in dollars needed for hiring more
staff and better security at the
camp. The Attorney claims that
security was so lax that, like the
Bennett’s son, children routinely
wandered off from the camp
unsupervised.
It was when their son (Bennett’s)
wandered off from the campsite to a
nearby friends home that a childhood
gun prank turned ugly.
Bertha Bridges, a Detroit
resident who has been on AFDC for
the past 15 years, might have been
able to work and get off welfare if it
were not for her disabled child. At
age 8, her son was abused by a
family friend while in the care of
the accused; the boy has been in
trouble ever since.
Authorities sometime send him
home from school two or three
times a week for profanity, fighting
or disobeying his instructors, and
he’s been suspended for fondling
several girls. He was institution
alized twice for depression and
diagnosed as having suicidal
tendencies. Unfortunately, Bridges
as a single-parent has to battle
between part-time employment
and her son’s handicap problems.
Princess Rowell, an unmarried
mother of three doesn’t want to get
a job because she says “I don’t want
to trust anyone having my kids...I
thought they needed me more than
I needed a job.”
We can easily see that there is
a considerable amount of trust
needed to ensure a positive
relationship between parent and
child care facilities.
In the Bennett case we see that
supervision plays a very integral
role in child development. The lack
of proper security, as grounds for a
legal suit, proves that the lack of
proper supervision is just as
negligent as not providing meals
for children. Their son Antoine lost
a palm-sized portion of his brain
after being struck in the head by
a shotgun.
In the case of the woman from
Detroit, her son suffers from the
brutal abuse forced upon him by
his day care guardian. Had he not
been sexually molested by his day
care guardian he would not be the
suicidal mess he is today. Perhaps,
then Ms. Bridges, his mother, would
have been able to work more hours
to raise their income level and
finally get off federal aid, but her
son’s problem prevent that reality
from happening.
The poorer economic status of
single-parent families has far-
reaching effects on children in these
households. In reviewing the
intergenerational consequences of
mother-only family structure on
children in these families, Irwin
Garfinkel and Sara S. Mclanahan
concluded the effects are mostly
negative. Children in single parent
families are less likely to finish high
school than their peers living with
both parents; are most likely to
have lower earnings in young
adulthood and to be poor; and have
a higher probability themselves of
experiencing a marital disruption
or having a premarital birth,
thereby repeating the cycle of
single parenthood.
Atlanta 1996:
Centennial
Olympic Park
by Essex Agee
O n Saturday July 26, 1996
Centennial Olympic Park
became a haven of destruction.
Two tourist were slain in a staged
terrorists attack, who were later
identified as an elderly man from
Turkey, and a woman from Georgia.
Both casualties were suffered as a
result of the inhabitants of the
Earth and how we choose to
resolve conflict.
My job was to martial all
scheduled trucks destined to off-load
at Centennial Olympic Park (CPK).
From 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. my
main directive was to secure the
Luckie and Foundry street exits,
making sure they were clear of
stagnant delivery trucks, so off
loading traffic could flow freely
when midnight martialing began.
On the night of the bombing I was
standing about 250 feet away from
the blast. My first instinct was to
run but my feet were stones. It was
rather shocking to see my boss
The Dream
Gaines Hall Morris Brown Campus
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
It is within this mind set that we
must continue the legacy of our
freedom, the power of his dream.
Our campus life still carries the
seed of his dream; the renovation of
Wilkes and Gaines Hall, Herndon
Stadium, telephone registration, the
environment, we are living in the
last days. We have been going to
school for ourselves (to get good
jobs), now it’s time to go to school for
something more important (our
struggle for freedom). Our freedom
did not end with Dr. King. He led to
He led to the uncuffing of our physical
chains, and it is up to us to heal our
deeper wounds, mental slavery.
CyperLab, the Wolverine Observer,
and soon, our own website. Though
some of these seem to be insignifi
cant, we must see them for what
they are; tiny steps in the develop
ment of Morris Brown College.
However, our struggle is not
confined to the campus grounds and
we must broaden our vision to global
consciousness. I remember reading
that as long as one of our brothers
and sisters is in bondage, be it
Atlanta or Bosnia, we are not free.
Therefore, it is time we take control
of our lives within the domain of our
the uncuffing of our physical chains,
and it is up to us to heal our deeper
wounds, mental slavery. I say this to
you, my fellow students and the
honorable faculty, we must step up
on the shoulders of our ancestor, this
legendary King, and take our place
in history. We must never forget
that if the next generation steps up
before us, the history of our
generation will be snuffed out
eternally. We must respect the
struggle and continue the dream.
Amen.
freeze up like he did. I assumed his
professional years, as a member of
the Peace Corp., had hardened mind
to life’s common atrocities.
Memories of that night cram
together like pieces of a giant
abstract painting full of fire trucks
and people, mixtures of light and
dark crash together on a multi
colored canvas to emerge as sounds
of injured people looking for their
family. Sirens and government
officials stand out of the night in
splotches of blue and black forming
a coat of destructive irony. To hear
the sounds of the bomb ingredients
beat against the ground with the
accuracy of the rain was like
hearing laughter at a funeral.
In a constant effort to disguise
the obvious malicious nature in all
humans the deaths of those innocent
tourists were written as casualties.
There is nothing casual about a
bomb incident that claimed innocent
lives. We have seen eternal conflicts
of wars being raged, one person
against another, nation against
nation, religion against science. I
have seen this nation’s addiction to
war drive us toward implications of
nuclear wipe-out.
Events like the Olympics are
designed to convey images of worldly
peace. Each participant, spectator
or sportsman, are present to
experience a world of competitive
games, created to invite out
competitive nature. The body
bags that usually follow a military
assault as symbols of victory, are
replaced with medals to adorn the
champion for his/her fight. This
was the Olympic “spirit” that I
thought had embraced Atlanta
until a pipe bomb spoiled my pipe
dream. Whoever planted that
dreadful device shared the killer
instinct that A.I.D.S. uses to prey
on its victims. The blatant disregard
of innocent human life illustrated by
the C.RK. bombing leaves me with
feelings of disgust for the human
race as a whole. I say this because
media figure-heads love conflict and
seek to spur it into existence. It was
hard for me to try to avoid the
almost positive connotations of
media folly depicted in their
investigative reports of the ‘The
Unibomber”. Does this guy sound
like a killer or super hero? This
type of glamorized destruction
plants seeds of internal terrorism
that won’t die. They arise at times
when we least expect them.