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September 26, 1996 AUGUSTA FOCUS
GOING PLACES By J. Philip Waring
Fourth CSRA Classic
set for Oct. 17-19
uring mid-September 1996, Au-
Dg-usta witnessed many enjoyable
entertainment and religious hap
penings which helped put our town on
the front burner.
They included Arts in the Heart of
Augusta, down adjacent to the beauti
ful Jessye Norman Amphitheatre and
square. It is estimated that this pleas
ant and colorful affair brought out some
40,000 attendees at the unique
Riverfront location.
There were many other activities, in
cluding theinstallment ofthe Rev. Can
on Louis P. Bohler Jr. at St. Mary’s
Episcopal Church by Bishop Henry
Louttit, head of the diocese of Georgia.
It was a large, colorful ceremony with
pomp and circumstance.
The big event, coming Oct. 17-19, is
the Fourth Annual CSRA Classic foot
ball game and other rip-raising attrac
tions. Watch Augusta Focus and other
print and electronic media.
Valley Park-Georgian Place
stands high: Augustalocation good
for senior citizens
I just received a communication from
the lady who headed my own Urban
League retirement ceremonies just 20
years ago in St. Louis. Now she’s retir
ing and looking South for a retirement
FOCUS IN SOUTH CAROLINA By Lawrence Harrison
Television: Mirror
or spectacle
Ithough the new television sea-
Ason is not yet in full bloom, obser
vation and comment can certain
ly be noted from the African-American
and minority point of view. The focus
seems to stay the same year to year.
The news and news reporting is not
all good, and it certainly is not all bad.
The best part is its diversity. The worst
part is a negative outlook. We are all
victims of stereotyping: It is one of those
learned responses. We cannot expect it
to be fully unlearned by those doing the
reporting or those receiving the reports.
Electronic media tells more [than print
media]. We can see the faces, hear the
voices. This allows us to make judg
ments of fairness and objectivity by ex
pression or tone. Print media are differ
ent. We can hide much with the written
word. We can look locally or nationwide
for the effects. It is subtle, but it has
often proven to be the most effective, for
better or for worse. African Americans
and minorities definitely know of the
worse.
The entertainment industry is not
immune from our preconceived notions
either. We can define it in dramas and
comedy, and the levels of each.
The dramatic shows we view are di
verse; however, we should always ques
tion characters in terms of importance
and depth of emotional creativity. We
find that the rainbow inclusion is still
limited there. All people do have a seri
ous side. We do not know it completely
from our media of entertainment.
On the other hand, we do know com
edy very well as it relates to certain
AugEt |Fe eIS
Since 1981
A Walker Group Publication
1143 Laney Walker Blvd.
FOCUS your special luncheons or
dinners in a fine restaurant. Visit BL’s
Restaurant at 1117 Laney-Walker Blvd.
or call (706) 828-7799 to arrange
your celebrations.
site after 50 years with the federal gov
ernment. Naturally, I remembered Val
ley Park-Georgian Place, where I'vebeen
for these 20 years.
Geographically, this private develop
ment has an excellent location with
good services. Its physical structure in
cludes town houses of two stories and
ground-level apartments. Therearetwo
swimming pools, several beautiful
parks, beautiful landscaping with many
trees and much shrubbery, and
launderettes with plenty of off-street
parking.
While many young health profession
als abound, residents also include a
healthy number of military personnel,
with their families and children, not to
mention the happy, retired senior citi
zens like me. Much of the development’s
fineservice thrustis devoted to thelatter.
The Augusta area, as I told my friend,
is the home of the Savannah River Site
and Fort Gordon, which is the largest
military training base in the world.
There are many fine churches, stores
and schools in the area, Augusta State
University included.
“Come down and visit this private
development and meet other senior cit
izens who have resided here for years,”
I told her. “You will be welcomed.”
Americans. We can trace it historically
in allits glory, although it certainly was
not glorious. Then and now, we deal
withlevels of sophistication. Everything
funny is not necessarily comical, and
vice-versa. To laugh at Bill Cosby’s in
terpretation of modern life is good for
the sense of humor. Obscenity for ob
scenity’s sake, acting funny for no ap
parent reason, degrading either person
or condition would seem suspectintheir
appeal. We should know better.
The more our technology becomes so
ciety itself, the more our reading and
viewing of it will be crucial. If we are to
change with the times, the minds and
emotions behind the technology must
advance as well and as far. Some would
say that how we know and see each
other has been the fundamental root of
all our problems. That may not be as
simplistic as it may seem. Human be
ings are a social breed, and we have
come to depend upon communication.
American history must include how we
have communicated about and to each
other. Before, it was with plays and
books, then silent and talking films,
then radio and television. The concerns
of minorities were always there; the
point was just whether or not they were
listened to.
If the effort to listen is there today,
there is still much to listen about. We
should not confuse having more oppor
tunities to portray and be portrayed as
the true progress we seek. It is about
quality as well as quantity. We should
always know the difference. No one has
known or will know it for us.
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
Editorial
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CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL By Bernice Powell Jackson
Churches still burning
guess I shouldn’t have been sur-
I prised wheneven the “liberal” press
began to start questioningthe burn
ing ofblack churches. I guessonce again
my desperate desire that this nation
begins to talk about and deal with the
racism that is a part of life in America
had outweighed my own cumulativelife
experience. Far too many Americans
still are willing to deny what they see on
videotapes, what they live in their own
communities and what they know in
their own hearts — racism is still alive
and well in America. :
Black churches are still burning in
this nation, although it is no longer on
the front pages (or back pages, for that
matter) of our newspapers or on the
nightly television news. But inlate July
and early August seven more churches
burned: two in Arkansas, two in Ala
bama and one each in Mississippi, South
Carolina and Texas. According to USA
Today, which has done the most in
depth and on-going coverage of the
burnings, “Black churches in the South
continue to burn at the same rapid rate
that pushed the arsons to the top of the
national agenda one month ago. The
pace of the arsons — more than one a
week — guarantees that 1996 will be
the worst year for Black church arsons
in this decade.”
Nevertheless, the Wall Street Jour
nal and Atlantic Monthly have implied
inrecent articlesthat the burnings have
been used by the National Council of
Churches to raise dollars for itself and
that there is no real conspiracy of white
supremacist groups and therefore we
T 0 BE EQUAL By Hugh B. Price
Taking care of all of us
our years ago when the Walt
F Disney Company publicly pledged
: to hire 200 young people from
poverty-stricken South Central Los
Angeles to work at Disneyland, more
than 600 youths turned up for inter
views, even though the jobs involved a
two-hour commute between home and
work.
“They were wonderful kids, outstand
ing kids,” a delighted Disney Company
executive later told a reporter for The
New York Times.”We didn’t know they
were there.”
I thought of Disney’s experience re
cently when I watched Christopher
Reeves, his body confined to a wheel
chair, but his spirit soaring, describe, to
a rapt audience at the Democratic Na
tional Convention, his vision of what
America should be.
Referring to Franklin Roosevelt’s guid
ing the country through the Great De
pression, Reeves said that “the most
important principle FDR taught us” was
that “America is stronger when all of us
take care of all of us.”
One couldn’t ask for more appropriate
words to contemplate and be inspired
by as we celebrated Labor Day and, this
.year, lcoked forward to the presidential
‘election campaign.
Many of us were able to celebrate
Labor Day because we have jobs. How
‘ever much we grouse about work, we
‘canbethankful that we havejobs —and
the steady income it brings, and the
self-esteem and sense of participation
in the larger society it brings.
Labor Day underscores that, for both
the society and the individual, work is a
should not be overly concerned about
what is going on. Both of these assump
tions are dangerous and both of them
are wrong.
Asthe scope of the church fires began
to be known in early 1996, the National
Council of Churches, an ecumenical or
ganization composed of 32 Protestant
and Orthodox denominations, focused
its efforts on reaching out to those
churches that had been burned. It was
only natural that these denominations
work together rather than individually
on this issue. They were joined by Cath
olics, Jews and Muslims.
The NCC also worked together with
the Center for Democratic renewal and
the Center for Constitutional Rights to
investigate the fires. They have found
75 arson attacks on black churches from
January 1, 1995 through July 31, 1996,
more than double the number (28) count
ed during the previous five years com
bined. While there have been a similar
number of white churches burned dur
ingthat time period, since African Amer
icans are only 12 percent of the popula
tion, proportionately four times as many
black churches are burning.
In addition, they have documented
case after case of spray-painting of rac
ist graffiti, use of molotov cocktails and
otherincendiarydevices, vandalism and
targeting of churches with a history of
strong advocacy for African-American
rights. This includes death threats and
racist insults by phone at night and by
mail. At least 13 of the fires since Janu
ary 1990 have taken place around Mar
tin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. They
necessity and a right. For the great
mass of people, to be unemployed is to
be separated, cut adrift from the rest of
civil society.
William Julius Wilson, the noted soci
ologist, brought that truism to life in
poignant and disturbing detail a few
weeks agoin an articlein The New York
Times magazine simply titled, “When
Work Disappears.”
The article, from Professor Wilson’s
forthcoming book, explores the impact,
in the past three decades, of not having
enough jobs within and outside inner
city black neighborhoods to employ the
residents of those neighborhoods.
To greatly simplify an article, and a
book that all of us should read, the
impact of the loss of jobs has been the
impoverishment of most of these neigh
borhoods’ residents; the destruction of
the neighborhoods’ businesses and se
vere decline of their housing stock; the
flight of many of the neighborhoods’
employed residents; and a hollowing
out of what had once been a stable
community.
Inavacuum, criminal activity, partic
ularly the scourge of drug-trafficking,
takes root. The result of this economic
deprivation has been an intensifying of
social isolation that further divorces
thosetrapped in poverty from the mores
of the rest of the society.
Professor Wilson also makes clear,
however, that isolation does not pre
ventthe devastating effects of the great
depression in inner-city America from
showing up outside them.
Professor Wilson, who is also a trust
ee of the Urban League, states plainly
have found evidence of racist motiva
tion in the majority of cases, with sever
al clearly connected to white suprema
cist groups.
While no national conspiracy of white
supremacist groups has yet to be found,
if these are the acts of individual or
small groups of racists, is that less dan
gerous for race relations? i
Does that mean the rest of us can
relax, take a breath and go on with
business as usual? B
Finally, the NCC has indicated that
about 85 percent of the funds they are
receiving are being used for the restorg:
tion of the burned churches. The bal
ance of the contributions is being used
for programs to address racism and for
administration of the funds. But, if.do
nors indicate they want their contribu
tion only used for rebuilding, the NCC is
honoring the request. Some $2 millipn
hasalready been approved by its Grants
Committee, on which I sit. Churches
are being rebuilt; hymnals and Bibleg
are being replaced; pews and altars are
being built. i
But the NCC has also taken the posi:
tion that it would be futile to rebuild the
churches and do nothing about combat
ing the underlying causes. “We must
take such a holistic approach lest we
rebuild churches only to have them burn
down again,” said Dr. Joan Brown
Campbell, general secretary of the NCC,
Black churches are still burning and.
we still have work to do. We must re
build the churches and we must build a
racism-free nation. =
that the difficulties of these neighbor;
hoods and their residents stem not from
moral deficiencies, or lack of individuyal
initiative, but from the lack of a basic
component and privilege of being an
American: having a job. As he puts it,
“It’s a myth that people who don’t work,
don’t want to work.” =
And he also states plainly that, “Solu%
tions will have to be found — and thosé
solutions are at hand.”
A great part of what he suggests dowi
tails with what I (and others with aé
outside the Urban League moveme
have advocated in several columns in
recent months: an urban jobs program ;
repairing and rebuilding cities’ crum!
bling infrastructure that would provide
poor, inner-city residents with both’
employment and meaningful job-train® "
ing in order to bring them into the’
nation’s economic loop. i
We are not proposing a “giveaway”
program. We are proposing a program’
inwhich poor, inner-city residents would
get meaningful work and training'at’’
decent wages and all of America would'’
get a refurbished urban environment -
and a newly-developed pool of workers"
Yes, such a program would cost money.
We contend that America cannot afford’ "
the cost of not mounting such an effort”" -
What it takes, at the basic level,jß
understanding that America’s econom
ic survival rests on a society in which' fig 4
levels of the society are economically
healthy. What it also takes is under-' "
standing of the more exalted meanitig' =
behind Christopher Reeves’ worj‘dé‘!l
America is stronger when all of us take' "’
care of all of us.