Newspaper Page Text
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August 22, 1996
GOING PLACES By J. Philip Waring
Superblock
changes elicits talk
e recently attended a communi-
W ty-wide public meeting that had
2 todo with majorchanges oflong
time residents and business firms. All of
this within the area of Laney-Walker and
Spruce Street, facing north and south,
and James Brown Blvd. to 10th
(Cummings St.), facing east and west.
This area slated for a badly needed
and long-overdue major public health
facility.
- While a number of residents and com
mercial firms will unfortunately be
forced to leave, some of whom have been
there for decades, a large number of
Augustans will be served.
- When he came into Augusta from
Walterboro (adjacent to Charleston,
S.C.) at the turn of the century, my
father told me what is now called the
forenamed “superblock” was referred to
as “out of city limits,” “in the Augusta
fural area” or “the country.”
Oh, but was it not built up and popu
lated until World War I. As one looks
backward to that period one can see on
the corner of 9th and Gwinette an im
portant two-story building. This was
the Burris Sanitarium, which was one
of the first full-fledged private hospi
tals. Dr. Burris and his fellow physi
cians demonstrated an overwhelming
success: That Negro physicians just 30
years or so after the Civil War could
operate a modern hospital and give ad
equate medical service to the public.
That public was made up of tax-paying
colored citizens who were not widely
accepted by public, tax-supported med
ical facilities. The Burris Sanitarium
and the physicians, nurses and other
personnel were widely highlighted
FOCUS IN SOUTH CAROLINA By Lawrence Harrison
Popular fiction harms
African Americans
1 recently had the opportunity to
I videotape and view two movies:
Waiting to Exhale and The Great
White Hope. That’s “hope” not “hype.”
Both were about relationships.
i Low-down, dirty Black men! You
would think Black people had enough
%oblems without the novel and film,
aiting to Exhale. A great new pick-up
line would be to apologize for all the
lack men in the world. It is obvious
that the author, Terry McMillan, has
d troubles with relationships, and it
isjust as obviousthat the African-Amer
igan variety is a very marketable com
odity in American society. If we just
al with the surface, and thatis indeed
hat much fiction and entertainment
als with, we can criticize from all
gles. However, we do not have that
lpxury as African-Americans. Does that
cuse abuse, degradation and violence?
0, it does not. But anything that helps
explain it even partially is important
d should be included in the mix. We
obably should not look for it in popu
-lar entertainment. It is definitely not in
is popular entertainment.
The 1970 film The Great White Hope
i§ really about Jack Johnson, who was
e first African-American (colored, back
en) heavyweight boxing champion,
rca 1910. I don’t recall it being shown
o much around here. Can you imag
ihe? In that time, a Black man who beat
p White men becoming the symbol of
ghting superiority and having fancy
f
i
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AUGUSTA FOCUS
throughout the Southeast.
The corner of Gwinette and James
Brown Blvd. (then, Campbell St.) was
termed “Burris Corner” and recognized
as the “center of Negro Augusta.” Dr.
Burris, who was a graduate of
Morehouse and Meharry, acquired great
and just recognition as a skilled surgeon
and a great leader of physicians, nurses
and similar health personnel. He died
in the horrible influenza crisis of 1919.
(Remember that this era in American
history was rife with Jim Crow, coupled
with bloody lynchings and countless
patterns of racism. May our budding
historians of today remember that, just
asthat unfortunate decade ended it was
called “Bloody 1919.”
Dr. S.S. Johnson Sr., a graduate of
Howard University Medical School and
a great Augusta surgeon, purchased the
old, decaying Burris Sanitarium in the
middle of the 19305, replacing it with a
handsome two-story brick structure,
which still stands today. More on his
family in the future. -
In future columns we plan to give a
picture of the N.H. Mays funeral home,
which is busy today. Mrs. Carrie Mays
was our first female Augusta city
councilmember and also our first black
councilwoman. This was in the 19705.
She retired and was succeeded on city
council by her son W.H. Mays 111, who
was also elected as a commissioner in
the merged government. History will
remember both mother and son as they
served as good soldiers and leaders pop
ularly elected by the people.
We also hope to touch on the Charlie
Reids and the Hornsby family, among
others. :
cars, servants, and interracial relation
ships. Either way, he was ahead of his
time, the boldest Black man who ever
lived, or the craziest. Be that as it may,
without Jack Johnson, there would have
been no Joe Louis, and there certainly
would not have been a Muhammad Ali.
On the film itself, James Earl Jones was
nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor.
He should have won.
The manner in which these two movies
were presented on television may tell
something about them too, or maybe it’s
just our imaginations. Waiting to Exhale
wason Pay-Per-View, a very visible mass
consumer kind of outlet. The Great White
Hope appeared on one of those channels
most people, including African-Ameri
cans, click by en route to other channels
— American Movie Classics. How we
view the world is still very dependent on
how the world is presented to us. The
remedy is to make the effort to get a
clearer and truer picture. It need not be
limited to entertainment. That has been
our problem. What is real and what the
masses have been led to believe to be real
hasdamaged us all. Itisjust as true about
history and the makers of that history.
We should make our own judgements on
the worth of each. If it is in our serious
studies, that is fine. If it is in our enter
tainment, that is fine too. Limited pre
sentations and limited judgements have
harmed African-Americans. It is the only
point that needs to be made in movies,
tapes or whatever. :
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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THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani
End the poverty politics cycle
ill Clinton has agreed to sign into
B law a new welfare bill. The bill is
devastating. It shreds the safety
net guaranteed by the federal govern
ment for 30 years. It passes along unex
pected and astronomical costs to states
like New York where the state constitu
tionrequires an ongoing commitment of
government resources to help the poor.
It insists that welfare recipients must
find jobs within two years, in an econo
my where good-paying jobs are difficult
tofind and low-wage jobs are impossible
to support a family on.
The new program is heartless, insid
ious and shameful. It reveals what is
fundamentally corrupt about our gov
ernment.
Do all Americans agree that the wel
fare system had to be overhauled? Abso
lutely. Do all Americans agree that the
country’s anti-poverty programs are too
expensive on the one side and ineffec
tive on the other? Taxpayers and wel
fare recipients agree —the answer is
yes! Studies have shown that upwards
of 75 cents on every dollar spent on
welfare has gone to administration and
bureaucracy and not to the needy. Does
the bill passed by Congress and signed
by the president engage any of these
issues? No. Was there a thoroughgoing
and serious study of how to address the
welfare system’s profound problems in
cluding attending to the concerns of the
poor? Not at all.
Instead, there was a calculated and
politicized review of how to restructure
the system such that members of Con
gress —the majority of whom are Re
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL By Bernice Powell Jackson
Blessed are the peacemakers
An open letter to our young people:
ear Beautiful and Strong and Pa-
Dtient and Committed Young
Brothers and Sisters:
Just meeting with some of you who
participated in the 1993 Kansas City
Gang Summit was an inspiration and a
humbling experience. For after the rest
ofthe world gave you your 15 minutes of
fame and then turned its back on you,
you have not turned your back on the
difficult and on-going task of working
for peace among our youth. After the
cameras went away, you continued to
walk the streets, to talk with young
people, to reach out your hands and
open your hearts to them.
You have taught us adults some les
sons if we choose to learn. You have
taught us the lesson of patience. You
have refused to give up on peace and
refused to give up on young people.
Even when our brief attention span
turned to other issues, you knew that
you have to be in this for the long haul
if you're really going to make a differ
ence in our communities. It took years
for this level of violence to build up and
it will take years to defuse it.
You have taught us the lesson of re
spect. The word respect comes from its
Latin root which means to see again, to
look back at, and you have looked back
Actually, the
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publicans — could return to their home
districts and report that they ended the
federal guarantee of cash assistance for
the poor; that they limited lifetime wel
fare benefits to five years; that a woman
must cooperate in identifying the father
of her children or lose 25 percent of her
benefits; that future legal immigrants
who have not become citizens will be
ineligible; that applicants with a record
of drug offenses can be denied assis
tance. In other words, the bill provides
Republicans and conservative Demo
crats with a series of sound-bytes that
can be paraded in front of voters deeply
concerned about the deficit and the bloat
ed size of the federal government in
order to win re-election.
Much has been made of the disagree
ments and fights within the White House
about whether or not President Clinton
should sign the bill into law. Vice Pres
ident Al Gore was reportedly pressur
ing Clinton to sign the bill while Chiefof
Staff Leon Panetta urged a veto. Gore
represents the Democratic Leadership
Council approach which favors cutbacks
for fiscal gain and distancing from the
poor for political gain. Panetta has clos
er ties to the old New Deal coalition
wing of the party, which is trying des
perately to accommodate the needs of
its constituencies with the new auster
ity ofthe DLC. Obviously, the DLC wing
of the party prevailed.
Where does that leave the party’s “lib
eral” wing? Where does it leave African
Americans, Latinos, labor and the poor?
In an inescapable bind. President
Clinton, a shrewd and manipulative
at young people that second time. You
havelooked beyond the sometimes-hard
ened exterior to the essence of the per
son and realized that every human be
ing has a spirit and has worth and can
be reclaimed.
You have taught us the lesson of con
nection —the relationship between the
lack of economic development in our
communities and the sense of hopeless
ness many young people feel. You real
ized that, to tell a young person they
must give up the lucrative job of selling
dope, you have to have an alternative
for them. So you have started develop
ing your own silk-screen businesses,
your own residential rehabilitation and
security businesses. You realized that
battling for territory someone else owns
is useless, so you try to encourage youth
to invest in houses rather than guns.
You have taught us the lesson of com
mitment. Even as state after state has
responded to violence by criminalizing
youth, you have stayed the course of
providing relationships and alternatives
to young people caught up in the vio
lence of the streets. You have under
stood that the answer is not more pris
ons, but more caring.
You have taught us the lesson of the
power of love. You have heard the great
est commandment and then you have
policymaker/politician now turns to his
liberal, Black, labor and poor constitu
ents and says: You put me in this posi
tion. You better get out there and vote in
big numbers for me and the Democratic
Party Congressional candidates. It’s up
to you to give the Democratic Party con
trol of Congress. I saved Medicaid and
food stamps, but only by the skin of my
teeth. If you had taken care of business
in 1994, we wouldn’t be in this position
and I wouldn’t have to sign this bill.
Then, in display of his consummate
political skills, Mr. Clinton turns to DLC
Democrats and Republicans and says:
See! I'm not a bleeding-heart liberal. 1
was willing to pull the plug on poor
children. I can ax programs with the
best of them. I'm as much a Republican
as the Republicans. :
What can the Black community and
the poor do? Nothing. Unless we’re ready
to break the cycle of poverty politics.
That means getting out of the bind.
Getting out of the bind means getting
out of the Democratic Party. We've vot
ed Democratic all these years, because
the Democrats guaranteed a safety net.
Now the net and the party’s political
resolve to preserve it are gone. We are
forever consigned to being a pawn in
their self-perpetuation unless we change
the terrain on which the game is played.
Ifthat isn’t an argument for getting out
of the Democratic Party and into an
independent one, namely the Reform
Party, then I don’t know what is. It’s our
children on the chopping block. Their
survival depends on our making the
right political choices now.
lived it. Even with few resources, you
have reached out to each other in love
and changed the lives of hundreds of
young people in Kansas City, in Boston,
in Santa Cruz, in Chicago.
You have taught us adults not to be
afraid. Not to be afraid of our own young
people. Not to be afraid of the streets.
Not to be afraid of the cycle of violence.
Not to be afraid of fear itself.
And if we're really honest, you have
taught us what it really means to be the
church. For you have understood that
the key to ending the violence is reach
ing the spirit. Our youths, like adults,
arein aspiritual crisis. We in the church
have failed to reach to you, to help you
know that you are all children of God
and created in the image of God.
You have challenged the church to
accept its real role of providing sanctu
ary for you — a place of safety, caring
and love. A sanctuary of safety from the
gunfire and drugs and violence inside
your homes. A sanctuary of caring for
your well-being and your future. A sanc
tuary of love which is the only way you
can be saved. :
May God give us the courage to wot};
with you, the endurance to stay with
you, the power to change you — and
ourselves. e