Newspaper Page Text
8
July 11, 1996
GOING PLACES By J. Philip Waring
Dr. Mac Bowman,
Olympic torch-bearer
ay we salute those who chose
MDr. Mac Andrew Bowman as a
centennial Olympic torch-bear
er, along with other notables from the
Augusta-CSRA sector.
Be sure to place this event on your
calendar, which is scheduled for this
coming Sunday (July 14) at 1 p.m. down
at the 10th Street site on the Riverfront.
Watch the daily electric and print me
dia for details of this important pre-
Olympic event here in Augusta. You
may also call the Convention and Visi
tors Bureau for information.
The choice of Dr. Bowman was timely
and well-placed. A state-wide football
star in at Thomson High School, he
attended Virginia Military Institute,
where he again won national football
and academic honors. This was followed
by medical training at MCG, where he
again won high honors in his medical
training. Dr. Bowman held high posi
tions in the military medical corps. In
active practice in the greater Augusta
area for the past two decades, Dr. Bow
man is widely seen as one of the top
heart specialists in the CSRA.
Any time a group of some 800 top
medical doctors, most of them Southern
whites, almost unanimously select this
affable Afro-American as chairman of
its University Hospital Doctors Associ
ation, that person has to be good.
His one-year chairmanship is now
TO BE EQUAL By guest James T. McLawhorn Jr.
Church Fires: What
are They Telling Us?
“If you want to defeat them, distract
them.” — Anonymous
hurch fires are horrible assaults
C on families and communities.
Itiscritical that we sift through
the ashes and determine the real cul
prits behind the burnings.
The culpritisignorance, programmed
by sensational political rhetoric and oth
-10 spew misinformation from high
; that heightens hate and mean
e culprit is the society that toler
ates irrational fears and creates the
angry white male.
‘ ulprit is the society that breeds
1 ids for repulsive acts like church
burnings, businesses like The Redneck
Shop, and hoisting a Confederate flag
atop the South Carolina State House
dome.
In South Carolina, two men convicted
of burning the Mt. Zion AME were Ku
Klux Klansmen. But are they the real
culprits? Wage stagnation, along with
massive layoffs, and an uncertain econ
omy has fueled a backlash from the
economic “victims.” The backlash has
resulted in a malicious attack against
anything and anybody perceived to be
responsible for their condition. In Char
lotte, N.C., Urban League President
Madine H. Fails sees evidence that
whites perceive that “. . . blacks and
other minorities have somehow taken
away white people’s privileges and
rights. Blaming black people for the
economicills ofthis country islike being
the white man who dropped out of school
in the eighth grade, but who beat up a
black man with a PhD. because the
black man was driving a better car.
What kind of logic is that?”
“It’s the same kind of logic that results
inthe burning ofthe churches. Implicitin
that kind of anger is the belief somehow
that white peopleinherently deserve more
than black people no matter what.”
The truth of white male fear has been
s (fefedl s
Since 1981
A Walker Group Publication
1143 Laney Walker Blvd.
Y
AUGUSTA FOCUS
ended, and on a successful and high
note.
Not only is he a high achiever in his
profession, but he has also been a top
volunteer leader with many civic and
allied betterment endeavors. With a
lovely wife and wonderful small chil
dren, Dr. Bowman is indeed a wise and
fortunate choice for torch-bearer. Won’t
you and your family come down Sunday
and greet him?
Congratulations to Judge Hart
May we congratulate Judge
Bettieanne C. Hart on the hard and
upward recent primary campaign. Well,
she’s in the runoff one month from now.
All of us must do several things again,
including (1) raise some more money to
match the hundreds of thousands of
dollars which will again be pitted against
her; (2) fortunately, this time an in
creasingly larger number of local white
women, who saw some of the unfortu
nate anti-female bias, supported Judge
Hart. We must get additional white
women to support Hart. (3) Judge Hart
must expand and enrich her next cam
paign thrust. (4) We must immediately
congratulate Judge Hart on her fine
history-making success in defeating
three wealthy, well-established white
lawyers, all of whom were far less qual
ified to be a Superior Court Judge in the
domestic relations, family and youth
affairs sectors.
exposed — it appears that their power
structure, stealthily maintained for vir
tually over 400 years in the United
States, has been shaken. In South Caro
lina alone, 36 houses of worship have
been burned since 1991. The congrega
tions of twenty-one of those churches
are predominantly black. These violent
acts of arson have taken a toll on our
entire community. Injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice everywhere.
“Today a black church, tomorrow a
synagogue, or a Muslin mosque,” says
Laura Keeling, president of the Trident
Urban League in Charleston, S.C. We
have to fight this crime in our communi
ty because of the threat it poses for the
well-being of us all.
Urban League affiliates throughout
America and specifically those in com
munities that have been affected by the
church burnings — Charlotte, Mem
phis, Portland, Birmingham, Charles
ton — vigorously support race relations
and anti-hate/anti-crime initiatives.
We must call on those who are still on
the sidelines to join us and others to
defeat this great evil.
Martin Niemoller, the German theo
logian once said, “All that is required for
evil to triumph is for good men to do
nothing.”
We cannot do nothing. We must de
feat the efforts of those who try to use
America’s economic worries to manipu
late and further polarize people. Those
worries must be properly addressed
through candid dialogue and education.
That is why we again call on the
administration and Congress to enact
the National Urban League’s proposal
to implement a coordinated, targeted
and accountable investment strategy
that includes infrastructure rebuilding
programs that would train, employ and
prepare for the jobs being created by a
changing economy.
James T. McLawhorn Jr. President &
CEO of Columbia, South Carolina Ur
ban League, Inc.
Editorial
Charles W. Walker
Publisher
Frederick Benjamin
Managing Editor
Dot T. Ealy
Marketing Director
Rhonda Jones
Copy Editor
Timmy Cox
News Correspondent
Derick Wells
Art Director
Sheila Jones
Office Manager
Lillian Wan
Layout Artist
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FOCUS IN SOUTH CAROLINA By Lawrence E. Harrison
Religion in American life
here has been much discussion
I lately about what part our reli
gious thinking should play in our
lives, whether it is educational or gov
ernmental. Individually, there is no
problem. As groups or as a group is
where we run into difficulties. Locally
and nationally, we are just focusing on
it more.
The United States Constitution guar
antees our “freedom of religion.” That
means, for instance, the religion prac
ticed by most African Americans in the
South is the same as that which was
first taught by missionaries or whatev
er but, at'the same time, we have defi
nitely added our own flavor and inter
pretation. That is the way it should and
must be in a democracy. Then, if we are
tomention the different denominations,
well that is another subject altogether.
Weare free tonourish our spiritual soul
in any manner we see fit, or none at all.
We can be lieve in man’s divine beginning
and nature or not. No one would argue
withthatlogic...exceptfor onefactor. As
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani
Dump Clinton (Part I1l)
hat value might a Dump Clinton
W campaign have for the Black
community? Take a look at an
earlier “Dump” movement —the
grassroots electoral uprising that ulti
mately rid New York of Mayor Ed Koch,
a liberal-turned-conservative Democrat
whose political profile was not unlike
that of Bill Clinton.
Koch was a new kind of liberal, onewho
believed that African Americans, Puerto
Ricans, and the labor unions had too
much political influence in New York
City politics. In the mid-"7os, the munic
ipal government had been forced by the
bankers into a sort of receivership, with
the Municipal Assistance Corporation
(Big MAC) and the Emergency Financial
Control Board taking over budgetary
decisions. Koch, firstelectedin 1977, made
it his mission to balance the budget and
undercut the influence of the unions and
the minority communities within the
Democratic Party. He began to muscle
Black and Latino elected officials out of
positions of influence at City Hall. Re
sentment in the Black and Latino com
munities grew, with the city increasingly
polarized along racial lines.
While the political insiders battled each
other, in 1980 I went to the streets with a
little black-and-white button that said
“Dump Koch.” Within a matter of months
several hundred thousand of these but
tons had been distributed. The 1981 may
oral contest was shaping up as a confron
tation between the people and the mayor.
Dump Koch! would be the rallying cry.
The independent New Alliance Party,
which I led, with its base in the Black and
Latino poor communities, and the Black
United Front — joined by white Demo
cratic Party liberals, the Central Labor
Council, and the left, forged a candidacy
to challenge Koch. The candidate was
Assemblyman Frank Barbaro, a long
time labor leader with ties to left and
liberal circles. Barbaro wanted to run
only as a Democrat, but the Dump Koch
movement insisted on an independent
candidacy in the general election as well
— one that could help create a new polit
ical party to serve the African-American,
Puerto Rican and progressive constitu
encies in the long-term battle for control
thinking creatures, human beings feel
they are sometimes obligated to change
other human beings’ thoughts. History
would mean little without it, and much of
our progress or lack of it was about just
that. The conflict has been and continues
tobe about how much of our own thoughts
areright and how much others are: which
side has the greater share of the morality
scale.
Governments are founded in one era,
and if we are lucky, continues to others.
The best we can be able to hope for is to
take the best that was applicable then
and make it applicable now. The best
and worst were both at America’s begin
ning. Religion was at the core of each.
Its effect on how we see and treat our
fellow humanbeing has not changed. In
a political system of voting, the voting
reflects our economic concerns, but we
should also be aware that many times it
reflects our innermost private beliefs
and thoughts. The minority, in a sys
tem of “majority rules,” oftentimes knew
just that fact.
of New York. The issue in any “Dump”
movement is not simply getting rid of a
particular politician, but the simultaneous
creation ofanindependent political alter
native. That was my agenda. And reluc
tantly Barbaro and the Central Labor
Council bowed to the pressure from NAP
and BUF to mount an independent may
oral campaign oncethe primary wasover.
Barbaro’s underfunded, grassroots
campaign scored 36 percent of the vote in
the primary, shocking the Democratic
Party establishment. After the primary
the Central Labor Council pulled out of
the coalition,leavingthe Black and Latino
independent forces alone to campaign for
Barbaro in the general election. On elec
tion day, Barbaro got close to 15 percent
of the vote as an independent, seeming to
herald a new day in New York politics.
But Barbaro, like his friends in labor and
the liberals, was a Democrat. Urging the
Dump Koch movement to return to the
Democratic fold, he told the people of
New York that the time for independent
politics was not yet here.
Meanwhile, I continued building an
independent political machine; the cry to
Dump Koch had not subsided. But the
Democrats had learned something from
the last round. In 1985, they inserted a
Black candidate into the primary toruna
phony “challenge” to the mayor, pre
empting a Dump Koch candidate; they
thereby delivered the party nomination
to Koch, who easily won a third term in
November.
In 1989, the Dump Koch forces rallied,
uniting behind a Black mayoral candi
date —the moderate David Dinkins. The
Black community disliked Koch intense
ly, but it was not clear whether Dinkins
— who did not have the respect of young
er and more independent-minded Black
voters — could mobilize a sufficient turn
out.
Then came the brutal murderby a gang
of young, white thugs of Yusef Hawkins,
a 16-year-old African American from
Brooklyn. David Dinkins became the ben
eficiary of the Black community’s frus
tration and rage, and white liberals’ cor
responding fear. Dinkins beat Koch by 51
percent to 42 percent in the Democratic
primpary, then went on to defeat the Re
The issues of the 1990 s may be
wrapped in our modern thinking, like
“Whatislife?” or “When and what should
we pray?” But, in the end, it is whose
moral rights are right or what we per
ceive to be right. The greatest mistake
would be in not deciding on the choices
ourselves, but having them imposed
upon us. Freedom of religion or any
thing else is not about that. The only
thing worse would be to exploit human
desire for moral improvement for polit
ical gain or victory. That hasbeenlifein
America in the 1990 s as well.
Religion in our lives and in the lives of
our past is what gives us an advantage
as human beings. We should know that;
weshould appreciate that. We areright
in wanting toincorporateitin all factors
of our lives. In a democracy, however,
the limitations are not on us individual
ly, but they are collectively. The real
ization has been with us from the begin
ning, judged and framed since. How it
is with us for and in the future is what
we still have to determine.
publican candidate, a law-and-order
former prosecutor named Rudolph
Giuliani, by 45,000 votes. At last Koch
had been dumped.
Meanwhile, Republican Giuliani, gear
ing up for the next go around, made his
pitch to the Democratic Party’s openly
racist blue-collar right wing, and the lib
eral Jewish community. Although liberal
Jews had long been partners with Afri
can Americans in an electoral coalition,
theJewish leadership feared the growing
popularity of independent Black leaders
such as Minister Louis Farrakhan;
Giuliani played on Jewish fears of Black
anti-Semitism.
In 1991, Giuliani and the Jewish estab
lishment — aided and abetted behind the
scenes by the state’s leading liberal Dem
ocrat, Governor Mario Cuomo — joined
forces to tar and feather Dinkins for his
handling of a near-riot in the Crown
Heights section of Brooklyn which saw
Blacks and Jews pitted against one an
other. In 1993 Giuliani came back to
defeat Dinkins by 45,000 votes.
Was the Dump Koch movement un
done by this turn of events? No. Because
several important things had occurred.
The Black community had come face-to
face with the unreliability of the Demo
cratic Party liberal coalition on which it
had relied for support. The rightward
movement inside the Democratic Party
that had propelled Koch’s vicious racism
and retaliatory budget cuts had asserted
itself once more. Indeed, the Democrats’
right wing allied itself with the Republi
cans rather than re-elect a Black Demo
crat. At the same time, independent pol
itics was becoming a national phenome
non. Independent governors were get
ting elected. Independert parties were
forming. Anti-incumbency initiativeslike
term limits were passing in state after
state.
In New York, the sting of the 1993
Dinkins’ defeat remained sharp. And so
did theresentment against Mario Cuomo’s
roleinthat defeat. I ran against Cuomoin
1994, and polled 21 percent of the vote
statewide, 35 percent in key Black dis
tricts and over 40 percent in white up
state districts where Ross Perot had re-
See DUMP, page 9
