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Editorial
NEWS BRIEFS
by Amelia Hamilton
Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-five, a new
and untouched year is upon our door steps.
Behind us are some troubled and hard times and
ahead still lies an unpredictable year. Our
country’s economy as unstable, war is in the air,
inflation haunts us, scandals scream out at us and
unemployment lias bedded down on many of our
door steps. It is a dangerous time in which we
are living. A time in which we must use caution
and sound judgement in every step we take to
assure some type of security and stability for
tomorrow.
The world outside the gates of our institution
is in a despairing state and within our own walk
we too, have begun to feel the weariness of the
ills that plague our nation. Recently, President
Manley informed us of the financial status of our
Educational majors, and departments will be
dissolved. But despite these setbacks Spelman is
still far ahead of most educational institutions in
acquiring financial support. This year the college
has financial status of our college. Our budget
for next year has been cut by $300,000 and
some of our majors and departments will be
dissolved. But despite these setbacks Spelman
repercussions from the recession our country is
now in but, he firmly stated, “We Are Going To
Make It.”
I have no doubts with Dr. Albert Manley as
head that, Spelman will make it, which is much
more than I can say for the survival and progress
of many for us. Believe me, I would love to be
able to say, and with confidence, that all of us
here now will make it and even more so I’d like
to be able to say it to the seniors of the class of
1975 but I cannot.
However, I will say this — As seniors we have
less than three months to tighten up all our loose
ends before it is time for us to meet the
challenge of the chaotic world. Each moment of
our last few days here is of great value and as
valuables, each moment should be used
preciously and constructively in securing a future
for ourselves. Our halls should hum with the
melody of typewriters keys-preparing job and
graduate school applications, resumes and letters
of introduction. Trails should have already been
made by the footprints of seniors trodding from
the back gate to the Placement Office to meet
interviewers and become acquainted with
employment market outside. We must realize
that the world we are about to embark upon is
full of insecurity. We are promised nothing after
we receive our degrees and will get nothing if we
are idle until May 19, 1975. Nothing! That
nothing sisters, aslo encompasses a man for many
of us. The Spelman dream of a man in a Cadillac
car that picks you up on the steps of Sisters
Chapel after graduation is myth now, more than
ever. For these days he is driving a Volkswagon
which he can’t afford to put gas in and so we
know he cannot afford you. This is not to
mention the fact that the ratio of Black women
to Black men is 5-1 and growing.
Sisters it is not my intention here to gloom
your outlook on the years to come. Yet, it is my
sincere hope that perhaps something I have said
will help you to realize the essence of the time
we have and the danger of idleness we so often
indulge in.
Yours in the Struggle
Amelia K. Hamilton
by Stephanie Nelson
America’s top intelligence organization will
never be the same again. That conclusion is being
reached by many experts as the controversy over
the Central Intelligence Agency — and its alleged
illegal activities against Americans continues to
expand. There is an eight member commission
appointed by President Ford to investigate
allegations that the CIA has illegally spied on
Americans on U. S. territory. Ford named
Vice-President Rockefeller to head the
commission.
A recent study by U. S. News and World
Report indicates that more than half of the 10
million young people enrolled in higher
educational institutes are working to help pay
their way. In fact, evidence has shown that the
new student generation is working harder than
ever before in a tightening job market. Two
well-established programs provide a large number
of jobs for most students. The programs are the
College Work-Study Program and the Co-operative
Education Program which enables students to earn
their own tuition and the study cites various
reasons for the upsurge in college level workers.
One of the most prominent reasons is the fact that
more young people are concerned about their
education and willing to sacrifice for it.
Hostoric Ebenezer Baptist Church will be
getting a new minister in August because Dr.
Martin Luther King, Sr., pastor for 44 years,
announced his retirement. Dr. King said, “I feel
that now is the right time for me to step down.”
He said he wanted to devote his time to speaking
and finishing his autobiography which he has
begun and hopes to finish this year.
A grant of $100,000 from the Rockefeller
Foundation has been awarded to the Atlanta
University Center. The grant is awarded toward
the support of a Center-Coordinated Office of
Development and will be available to the Center
over a period of two years. One of the primary
responsibilities of the Center Office of
Development will be to supervise and administer
all Center-coordinated development affairs.
Foremost on the list of priorities is the
construction of a new library to serve the entire
AU Center.
President Ford was considering asking
Congress for an increase in military aid to South
Vietnam. Last year Congress appointed only 700
million of the $14 billion in aid that the Ford
Administration had requested.
Amiri Imami Baraka (Leroi Jones) has
embraced scientific Socialism which includes the
doctrines of Marx and Lenin as opposed to the
doctrines of the Black Nationalist. This has
caused a split in the Congress of Afrikan People
which Baraka helped to found in 1970.
Baraka said, “It is a narrow nationalist that
says the white man is the enemy. We were all
guilty of that, but it is not scientific at all.”
Baraka’s position is not new. Retired
actor/singer Paul Robeson, the late W.E.B.
DuBois and social activitivist Angela Davis all
have expressed beliefs in some of the aspects of
Marxism or Leninism as a means to Black
Liberation.
Ever wonder what became of the student
rebels of the 1960’s? Today older and wiser, the
young people of that era ponder deeply on the
lessons and the effects their actions had on their
lives.
Back on the Streets
Again
by Debbie Newton
Finite experiences have a way of lasting.
It was in Chicago in ’71 that I met a sister who
graduated from Spelman in ’68. 1971 was a very
good year for the progressions going down in
Chicago. I learned from her that you can paint
your own planet.
In a letter to me a few months ago, she wrote
of the metamorphosis taking place right outside
our front yard existence: “Continue to be
productiove and conscious,” she wrote, “It takes a
lot to be either one in these trying times. It is so
easy to say screw the world and lose a sense of
purpose and consciousness with materialism and
specialized professionalism rampant, but you must
stick to your fundamental goals to survive it all
child.” And in the midst of pondering whether or
not people EVER say what they really mean, I
conclude yes, they do. At times.
People saying something? People are always
saying SOMETHING. What happens when the
material becomes obsolete? Well, don’t look now
but it already has.
One sister suggests we move to the streets. And
thus, here we are, BACK ON THE STREETS
AGAIN. Discovering our initial universalities, some
of us still hopelessly imprisoned by our own
minds.
As for me, I long to be freer and in the process
project: Who will trade situations with me?
SPOTLIGHT STAFF
Amelia K. Hamilton
Editor
Debbi Newton
Associate Editor
Cornelia Edwards
Advertising Manager
Sylvia Washington
Business Manager
Valory Mapp
Literary Editor
Rita D. Ford
News Editor
Ms. Beverly Sheftall
Advisor
Marian “Kittye” Cobb, Catherine Alston,
Jacki Payne, Daol Smith, Carolyn T. Woods,
Connaelia Moyston, Livinia Moyston, Mary
Henley, Margaret Lee, Nelwyn McDuffie,
Stephanie Nelson, Sheila Venson, Sylvia Wofford,
Roxie Hughes, Shirley Henderson and Vicki
Poole.
U.S. NEWS & WORLD reports that the
former rebels - now in their late twenties and
early thirities - all concede somewhat sadly that
the movement that promised to transform
America is dead today. Many are bitter about the
direction their revolution took in later years.
Angela Davis, one of the early revolutionaries,
was Acquitted in 1970 of charges stemming from
her involvement with the shoot-out at San
Rarael, California. Currently, Ms. Davis is living
in Oakland and serving as co-chairperson of the
National Alliance Against Racist & Political
Repression, which the FBI identifies as a
Communist group whose focus is aimed at the
nation’s prison system.