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Spelman Spotlight
Page 2
September 1981
Anwar Sadat
A Man Of Love
by Valerie Peete
Political Reporter
While people in Atlanta were
busily turning out to the polls in
what was the largest voter tur
nout in Atlanta history, Anwar
Sadat, President of Egypt, lay
engulfed in a pool of blood.
Pulling for threads of life, un
consciously crying for violence
to cease, this man, this Prince of
Peace, this great leader, lay in
silence with bullet holes inside
his chest. October 6, 1981 was a
cold, grim day in Cairo, Egypt.
The man who strived for peace
in the Middle East was dead. The
man who spoke out for what he
believed in was dead. The man,
who in the face of odds, signed a
peace treaty with Menachem
Begin - a historical landmark
between Israel and Egypt - was
dead.
Some say his fate was destined.
Others say no one is destined to
bullet holes, tempestuous and
ruthless, knowing no shame nor
mercy, ripping through one's
body tearing away at all life. I say
no one is destined to violence.
Cataclysm has once again
rocked the land in which it was
nourished. We live in a destruc
tive, barbaric society. Through
war we make killing people
legal. Terrorist groups who do
nothing but destroy want
political recognition. Bombs are
made daily, while the creators
wait for the right moment. Never
forgetting what happened at
Hiroshima, we were unable to
replace the lives lost and
mutilated. And, we continue to
accept violence in our everyday
worlds. It is a way of life, we
rationalize. However, all we are
really doing is coddling the
wound . . nurturing it while
allowing turmoil to accumulate.
And, what was once an insignifi
cant mound has transformed
into a giant mountain. We kill
without conscience, without
remorse, without regret, without
mercy.
It is ironic that the very men
who struggle for life outside the
violent realms are the very ones
killed because of it. John F.
Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Mar
tin Luther King Jr., each lie in a
cold space in the ground. Each of
them fought for peace; each of
them are dead. Now we add
Anwar Sadat to the running list of
men who challenged the idea of
freedom from violence. Perhaps
the world will understand that
history is slowly but surely
repeating itself. Where do we go
from here? And where does it all
end?
Anwar Sadat leaves behind an
undying legacy because he was
different. He was a man of love.
Wilkins And Jordan:
Changing Of The Guard
As the world continues to mourn
over the loss of Anwar Sadat, the
Spotlight feels it is imperative
that we take time to reflect. We
must reflect upon the plight of
the Black race after having lost
yet another great leader of our
people. The following is an
exerpt from “From the
Grassroots”, written by Manning
Marable. We hope that you
understand the connection. We
hope that you realize our people
stretch across the globe and that
events happening in the Middle
East are not separate and apart
from the events happening in
America.
Two events of some impor
tance to the Black Freedom
Struggle occurred last month
separated only by several hours.
Roy Wilkins, national secretary
of the NAACP for 22 years, died
at the age of 80. Vernon Jordan,
the victim of an attempted
assassination which still remains
unresolved, resigned his post as
head of the National Urban
League. Unquestionably, both
men contributed much to the
struggle for Black civil rights and
social justice. Yet history forces
us to assess the relative strengths
and weaknesses of these two
men, their politics, and their
organizations.
The greatest opponents of
black people recognized that
Wilkins was an unwilling but
invaluable tool in their own
assault against black rights.
Reagan commented that “Roy’s
death darkens our day” - -
noticeably referring to Wilkins in
the first person, a typical
carryover from the antebellum
slavery era. Roy had “a quiet
unassuming manner” which in
Reagan's view, served the in
terests of “Civil and Human
Dr. Manning Marable
rights." Vice President Bush
reiterated that “our nation has
suffered a great loss with the
death of Roy Wilkins.” The New
York Times, in a feature story
declared that Wilkins was “a
solid leader, consistent, stable
and thoughtful.” Yet, “he refus
ed for some time to give up
leadership of the NAACP, even
when he became too ill to
function adequately.” TheTimes
suggested that Wilkins was no
longer an adequate spokesper
son for the Black Movement.
“The times have changed, and
maybe Wilkins himself would
have been confused by the
problems of inflation and
employment, lack of housing,
resurgence of conservatism and
cooling of interest in minority
rights.”
Vernon Jordan is a later-day
version of the Wilkins/Water
White/Whitney Young model of
“Negro Leadership.” Trained as
a lawyer, Jordan assumed the
leadership of the Urban League
in 1971, after serving as director
of the Soutern Regional Council
and later as director of the
United NegroCollegeFund. Like
Wilkins, Jordan rhetorically sup
ported the goals of black libera
tion. But his actions, such as
joining a series of corporate
boards, spoke louder than
words. In the 1979 report of the
Urban League, he warned that
Black America was “at the brink
of disaster.” But after the elec
tion of Ronald Reagan, Jordan
led the pack in making a series of
pathetic concessions to the reac
tionaries. “I do not think that we
can prejudge Reagan on what he
said in his campaign,” Jordan
stated in late 1980. Conservative
Republican programs, par
ticularly the now-notorious
“free-enterprise zones”, tax in
centives and zoning exemptions
to huge corporations were in his
view positive ideas. Jordan was
willing to wait and see “if equali
ty can be achieved by conser
vative means.” Jordan even went
so far as to make recommen
dations in the writingof Reagan’s
inaugural address!
Jordan’s effectiveness as a civil
rights spokesperson was severely
curtailed last year when it was
learned that he was with a white
woman, Mrs. Martha C.
Coleman, when he was shot in
Fort Wayne, Indiana. The issue at
once sparked a semicomic
debate both within the Urban
League and across black
America. A number of the
league's 117 affiliate directors
even called for a national
meeting “to discuss the Jordan
shooting and any potential
damage to the league’s image."
Years ago black activist A.
Philip Randolph observed that
“radicalism is a relative term and
three decades hence may
pronounce the radicals of today
as the reactionaries of
tomorrow.” Wilkins and Jordan
are prisoners of the Afro-
American’s past. They lacked any
theory of social change which
Where Does Reality
Begin For Us?
All day Tuesday my thoughts
were not with Young, Bond or
any_other candidates. Instead,
my mind had travelled across the
seas to Egypt, because I had just
heard the confirmation of Anwar
Sadat’s assassination. Now I
realized that beforehand I had
little regard for the Egyptian
President, although I was very
aware of his desperate efforts for
world peace. But on that day, the
day of his death, I walked around
numbly, for I knew this violent
event would have a dramatic
effect on our future.
I was abruptly taken out of the
depth of my thoughts as I walked
by the TV lounge in the student
center. While the television
newscaster spoke of Sadat’s life,
his efforts for peace, and his
untimely death, my attention
focused on a fellow student
saying, “This stuff is going to be
on TV all day long. How am I
supposed to keep up with my
stories?”
As I began to open my ears to
the voices around me, I found a
general air of "so what” regar
ding Sadat’s death. Here I was
wondering exactly what would
be the effects of the outcome of
Sadat's death on Egypt and also
on America; and the majority of
my peers seemed to be thriving
on the fantasy relationship of
Luke and Laura. I soon began to
question vyhether we are living
in and dealing with the real
world, or whether we are still
playing grown up in momma’s
closet. It is to my understanding
that we are here not only to gain
knowledge, but also a true sense
of reality. These gates around
this campus are designed to
protect us from physical forms of
harm; they are not here to
entrap our minds and prevent us
from adequately dealing with
reality.
We must rid ourselves of the
false concept that we are
alienated from the Middle East -
from Africa. Anwar Sadat is a
Moslem - a man of color; he is
one of us. And what he did to
encourage world peace, he did
not do just for his people in
Egypt, but for all his people,
including you.
True, we all tend to wrap
ourselves into the fantasies of
television and other means of
entertainment mainly to escape
the pleasures of the real world.
However, if we must escape,
we must first have a firm concept
of what we are escaping from. It
is essential thatweasa peopledo
not center our lives around the
scandalous escapades of im
aginary, white soap opera stars.
Instead, let us focus on the
possibilities of our future in a
world where peace makers are
assassinated (such as Anwar
Sadat) and makers of neutron
bombs are commended.
would advance the economic,
educational and cultural in
terests of the black community in
the age of Reaganism, racism,
and reaction. The only way to
honor the many positive and
constructive aspects of their
respective programs is to go
beyond them, building a new
Black Movement for self-
determination, which relies
more on confrontation than
compromise.
Dr. Manning Marable teaches
political economy at Cornell
University, and is an activist in
the National Black Independent
Political Party. Elis column
appears in 135 newspapers in the
U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Editor-in-Chief
Circulation Manager
Reporters
Bridgett M. Davis
Valerie Pinckney
Nancy Bouman
Yolanda Cooper
Associate Editor
Co-Circulaton Manager
Carla Johnson
Lisha B. Brown
Lillian Jackson
Elena Jordan
Valerie Peete,
Managing Editor
Public Relations Chairman
Carolyn Robinson
Susan Hart
Eric Blocker
Emily Patterson
Yolanda Williamson
Office Manager
Business Manager
Kimberly Harding
Carla Thomas
Denise Reynolds
Contributing Writers
News Editors
Copy Editors
Daphne Ward
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Spotlight Advisor
Feature Editors
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Judy Gebre-Hewitt
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Photography Editor
Special Features Editors
Rugby Hall
Angela Moore
Whitney Young
The Spelman Spotlight is a bi-monthly publication produced
by and for the students of Spelman College. The Spotlight
office is located in the Manley College Center, lower
concourse, of Spelman College. Mail should be addressed to
Box 50, Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia 30314. Telephone
numbers are 525-1743 and 525-7404.