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8
March 30, 1995
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BL’s Restaurant a
catalyst for change
ou probably read or saw in the daily
Y ‘@’-}edia.abwtninemmflmago,flmtdme
alkerGrouphad purchased, and would
convert and open, the two long-vacant Dent
brothers’ buildings into a major new food ser
vice enterprise.
Thus, as you read this FOCUS, the occasion
will see the opening of BL's restaurant.
Itwillbeoneofthelargest, most dynamicand
enjoyable, food service places in our communi
ty. There will be colorful opening ceremonies
and ribbon-cutting events.
Itis expected tobring literally thousandsinto
the Laney-Walker area. There will be a fine
staffon hand to cook for you and serve you. The
renovated building is virtually completed, is
both striking and beautiful, and should do
much to upgrade this important Augusta bou
levard, which could use this expansion. Some
early BL's customers may be able to get early
copies of the Augusta FOCUS, the most inter
esting and fastest-growing weekly of its kind in
Georgia.
There are many reasons to join BL’s. First,
the topflight Executive Chef Alene Overstreet
has promised all kinds of mouth-watering dish
es. Meals to be talked about and remembered.
Next, BL's will offer diners the opportunity to
meet mutual business and civic associates for
food and that rare commodity of networking
and planning.
Mr. Harold Wilkins, the professional builder
and planner for BL’s, informed me that a
survey, looking around several geographic di
rections, found few or nofacilitiessuchasa BL’s
restaurantinoperation. Butthere wereseveral
hundred residents living in those spots.
Still another way of evaluating the impor
tanceof B.L'sisto consider how it will help stem
the unmitigated flow, of more than $1.5 billion,
from Afro-American communities. And look at
the new jobs in place. One can also appreciate
the out-of-state traffic flowing in.
Yes, the presence of BL’s and the visitors
FOCUS IN SOUTH CAROLINA
A question of priority
ouwould think thatastateatthe bottom
Y nationally in both voter participation
and education would want to use every
method available toimprove and betteritselfin
those areas; but no, South Carolina’s current
state government has opted not to do so. Our
focus has to be on the Motor-Voter Law and
funding for Education.
Making Democracy more democraticis what
weshould be about doing. We should be past the
time where we limit those participating in the
voting process. It was not that long ago when
thesameargumentofStates’ Rightsbrought us
literacy tests and poll taxes. African Americans
remeémber if they were forced to engage in such
indecencies, or they should know by lessons
passed down.
There is no voice of decision at the voting
booth when part of the voice is silenced. When
we encourage people to vote on one hand, and
hesitate in ways tomake it easier for them todo
80 on the other, the message is more than a bit
cloudy. For those already skeptical in the first
place—minorities, the long disenfranchised —
it is not exactly a welcoming invitation to the
American political system. Political labels and
affiliations should not be our prime consider
ation. It should be that we have an informed
participatory electorate. It has certainly eluded
us so far, and we should not want to assist in its
continuance.
We are cutting federal and state budgets
where we should not be cutting them. While
proposals such as lotteries are ignored or dis
missed, the Legislature is actually decreasing
educational funding. Weare going inthe wrong
direction, and notjustin SAT scoresorstandard
exams. Attracting industry with an industrial
work force is fine. We can indeed have an
undereducated and limited skilled school pop
ulation. That is apparently enough for some.
The future, however, calls for something differ
ent.
A global economy requires a global-minded
student in every category possible. The Educa
tion Improvement Act was only a start. We are
AUGUSTA FOCUS
Columnist J. Philip Waring
notes that BL's Restaur ant is
expected to bring literally thou
sands into the Laney-Walker
areq, and should do much to
upgrade this important Augusta
boulevard.
e e —
enlivened by the warm strains of music will be
Jjust the thing, and may we also note that BL’s
will sponsor a neighborhood party with free
food and beverages on March 29 from sto 7 p.m.
at 1117 Laney-Walker Blvd.
Lookingbackat pastground-breakings
Now let my 83-year-old mind run back in
Augusta ... [ was at the ribbon-cutting for the
Lennox Theatre in 1920 — just a little eight
year-old tyke at my father’sleg. Then I was also
at the 1924 formal opening of the Penney
Savings Bank, with the six retail banks that
constituted the so-called “Golden Blocks” of the
19205.
Then there was the opening of the new
community libraryin 1937. This was a forerun
nerofthe current Wallace Branchin 1957. Also,
the Pilgrim Insurance Company, the largest
black insurance company in the area, rebuilt
the current structure in 1935 for the National
Negro Insurance Convention (NNIC), which
met in Augusta with Pilgrim as host.
Then I was at the inauguration of Laney-
Walker Blvd. on May 31, 1956 as it changed
over from Gwinette St. Then lastly, the newly
built Walker Group Bldg. at 12th Street and
Wrightsboroßd.in 1981, followed by the rebuilt
current Walker Bldg. when the Pilgrim moved
some five years ago.
Best wishes for future successtoall the people
engaged in the BL's Restaurant enterprise.
Says columnist Lawrence E.
Harrison, making Democracy
more democratic is what we
should be about doing. It was
not that long ago when the
argument of States’ Rights
brought us literacy tests and poll
taxes.
by nomeans where weshould be and need tobe.
Ourtax-savings and budgetary balance sheets
will profit us little if we continue to battle the
results of a failed public education system:
cycles of poverty, crime, and illiteracy. Our
politics must not overshadow our need to pro
vide the most common good for the most people.
Quality education is certainly a part of that, a
very vital part.
Who are we hurting the most with limited
political involvement and limited educational
involvement? We have been taught to think
(and perhaps with good reason) that it has been
people of a certain hue, in South Carolina and
the rest of the South as well. We were wrong. It
is sad that it took so long for us to see the total
hurt. In a manner, it was deliberate.
Notions of racial superiority have to exclude
others, tooutcast them, sonomatter how bad off
you are, the “others” will always be worse. It is
a cruel trick on humanity, on all humanity. We
should be progressing beyond that. The pain
that it has caused, the ignorance that it has
produced, the politics that it has created is
somethingthat does us nopride, notas a people,
or as a state, and not as a nation. The legacy we
leave for the future must not be the same. No
future generation, of any people, should ever
have to claim it as theirs. The legacy we should
leave should be one of betterment, for it will be
a future bright with hope. We must not dim it
with our darkness of the past.
Editorial
resident Clinton says
P it has the potential to
splinter the country
in next year’s elections. He
was referring to affirmative
action. He was referring to
his concern about the alien
ation of white working class
voters. What he may not
realize is that it has the
potential to split the coun
try, even if there were no
election next year. And he
also must be concerned
about the alienation of peo
ple of color as this country
lurches toward beinga coun
try with no racial/ethnic
majority early in the new
century.
Affirmative action was
designed to be a remedy for
past discrimination in the
work force, particularly
against African Americans
and women. In the decades
since it was instituted, the
African-American middle
class has grown steadily.
Affirmative action has ben
efited many in the black
middleclass, allowing many
of us to enter educational
institutions where we would
never have studied other
wise and to enter careers
which had heretofore been
closed to us.
But affirmative action has
also benefited the rest of
the country as well. Arch
bishop Desmond Tutu of
South Africa once pointed
out how much their nation
had lost in human potential
because of apartheid and
the same could be said of
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT
Black elected officials in a bind
s an increasingly in-
Afluential caucus
withinthe Democrat
ic Party, the party which
controlled Congress for al
most 50 years, the Congres
sional Black Caucus (CBC)
was the voice of a Black
Agendaingovernment. The
Democrats had the majori
ty. And the CBC had lever
age within that majority to
influence the party to sup
port government policy fa
vorable to (or, in some cas
es, not hurtful to) African
Americans. The members of
the CBC (along with other
Black elected officials) had
the political job of mobiliz
ing Black voters to support
Democratic Party candi
dates. That was the source
of its leverage inside the
Democratic Party, which in
turn shaped the legislative
agenda of the country. But
when the Democratic Party
lost its majority on Election
Day, 1994, the CBC'’s role
asthevoice ofa Black Agen
da in government was sub
stantially muted.
And that is where the
troublelies. The Democrats,
as you would expect, are
trying to figure out how to
retake Congress from the
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL
Affirming affirmative action
A
Walker
Group
Publication
Established
1981
1143 Laney-Walker
Blvd.
Augusta, GA 30901
SUBSCRIBE. TO AUGUSTA FOCUS FOR ONLY 41995 For.
A YEAR SUBSCRIPTION CALL 724-7855
"Affirmative action has benefited many in
the black middle class, allowing many of us
to enter educational institutions where we
would never have studied otherwise and to
enter careers which had heretofore been
closed to us, “ notes columnist Bernice
Powell Jackson.
this country as well. Our
total society has benefited
by its commitment to seek
out intentionally those who
had been kept out in the
past.
It is important to also re
member that African Amer
icans and people of color are
not the only direct benefi
ciaries of affirmative action.
Thus, the inclusion of white
women in the work force
through affirmative action
has benefited white fami
lies directly by increasing
their earnings and standard
of living. Since most white
women are married to white
men, white men, too, have
benefited from affirmative
action.
California is facing a bal
lot test of its affirmative
action policies led, in part,
by an African-American
businessman. Indeed, asthe
debate on affirmative action
grows louder, conservatives
are quick to point out that
there are African Americans
opposed to affirmative ac
tion. They point to people
like Clarence Thomas,
whose entire career is a di
Dr. Lenora Fulani states that, as the CBC
and other African-American elected offi
cials come face-to-face with the contradic
tion between leading the Black community
in its own interests and keeping the Black
community in a no-win relationship with the
Democratic Party, a break to a third party
appears more and more viable.
Republicans. President
Clinton and the Democrat
ic Leadership Council have
decided that the Democrat
ic Party must continue to
reach out to white, moder
ate middle-class voters who
have shifted to the Republi
can party (orsupported Ross
Perot) and downplay its his
torical association with the
Black community in order
toreconstitute its majority.
In a recently published
book, Middle Class Dreams,
author Stanley Greenberg
(Clinton’s pollster in the
1992 campaign and an in
fluential strategist in the
reconstitution of a Demo
cratic Party majority) pre
sents a 300-page blueprint
for the Democrats” come
back. Only four paragraphs
deal with the role of the
rect result of affirmative
action.
But critics of affirmative
action fail to point to the
many, many others who fa
vor its policies. People like
Dr. Joyce Ladner, interim
president of Howard Uni
versity, who has observed
that affirmative action isn’t
about putting unqualified
peopleintoopportunities for
which they are totally un
prepared. People like Hugh
Price, president of the Na
tional Urban League, who
warns, “Now is not the time
for society to waver on the
goal of full inclusion in the
mainstream.” People like
California Assembly Speak
er Willie Brown, who has
pointed out that, even with
current state affirmative
action policies, blacks and
Hispanics still lag behind
in faculty tenure positions
and admissions, as well as
in government business
contracts. People like Jesse
Jackson, Mary Frances Ber
ry and the Congressional
Black Caucus.
Critics of affirmative ac
tion argue that we have giv-
Black community. In fact,
Greenberg doesn’t envision
any role at all for African
Americans. He insists that
Black interests automati
cally correspond to those of
the party.
Buttheevidenceindicates
theopposite. The Democrat
ic Party is more and more
pursuing policies that are
destructive to the Black
community and the Black
Agenda. The latest of these
are the Democratic Party
sponsored welfare reform
packages, which are harsh
and punitive to welfare re
cipients. Their sponsors jus
tify these proposals on the
grounds that, unless they
are passed, an even more
abusive Republican version
might become law. Unfor
tunately, they are right.
Charles W. Walker, CEO and Publisher
Frederick J. Benjamin, Sr., Editor-in-Chief
Dot Ealy, Director of Marketing
Sheila Jones, Account Representative
Rhonda Jones, Copy Editor, Reporter
Rhonda Y. Maree, Reporter
Derick Wells, Art Director
Joseph L. Smith, Layout / Graphics, Distribution
Emma Russ, Layout/Graphics
Jimmy Carter, Photographer, Distribution
Faye Davis, Office Manager
en preferences to African
Americans for long enough.
But they neglect to look at
the millions of African
Americans who are still
unemployed and untrained,
and who have been written
offby society as the “perma
nent underclass.” What is
the remedy for them?
Critics of affirmative ac
tion argue that it discrimi
nates against white men.
But they fail to admit the
300 years of preferences
received by white men, un
der which African Ameri
cans and other people of
color and women were to
tally excluded.
Affirmative action in the
context of an economically
scared society does have the
potential to split this coun
try. But instead of once
again blaming the victim,
why don’t we frame the dis
cussion in a new way? Why
don’t we look at the big pic
ture of jobs in America and
what has gone wrong? Why
don’t we look at how we can
employ working class
whites and African Ameri
cans who have lost jobs to
theinformation and service
revolution?
Our country cries out for
responsible leadership
around the issue of affirma
tive action. Our nation
needs affirmative action,
whether it wants to admit it
or not. Our nation needs
jobs for its people and the
sooner we deal with that,
the better we’ll all be.
All of this puts the CBCin
a bind. During the era of
Democratic Party majority
rule, the CBC was able to
use the Black community’s
political loyalty to the Dem
ocrats to influence govern
ment policy. Now, with the
Democratic Party increas
ingly advocating an anti-
Black agenda in order to
make itself and its candi
dates electable, Black vot
ersareleft without any voice
in the system and withcut
motivation to remain loyal.
For the Black communi
ty, a shift to the Republi
cans is not a serious option.
But as the CBC and other
African-American elected
officials come face-to-face
with the contradiction be
tween leading the Black
community in its own inter
ests and keeping the Black
community in a no-win re
lationship with the Demo
cratic Party, a break to a
third party appears more
and more viable. That's why
I'm building the indepen
dent, multi-racial Patriot
Party in your state, and in
every state where Black
people must have a new
political choice.