Newspaper Page Text
Historian eulogized by friends
From page one
Paine College. His father was a
businessman who along with Dr.
George Stoney and a group of
friends was responsible for the
construction of the Lenox The
ater, the hub of entertainment of
black Augusta in the 19205, golden
Years of black history. Back then,
what is now James Brown Boule
vard was Campbell Street, and
what is now Laney-Walker Boule
vard was Gwinnett Street.
What distinguished Waring from
the hundreds of others whoshared
similar experiences growing up
black in Augusta was that he made
it a lifelong mission to make sure
that Augusta traveled far and wide
along with its native sons and
daughters.
Longtime friend Joseph Goudy
recalls, “If anything happened in
Augusta, nomatter where we were,
Phil would let us know about it.
We never knew how he knew it.”
Goudy tells the story about how he
returned to Augusta to celebrate
the renaming of the main thor
oughfare through the black com
munity. He could not believe that
in Augusta, Georgia, a hotbed of
racist activity throughout its his
tory, a major roadway could be
named after twoblack leaders. The
street known as Laney-Walker
Boulevard exists by that name
largely through the efforts of J.
Philip Waring in 1974.
Waring was rooted in activism
even as a youth. As a teenager, he
published a newsletter that pro
moted positive images of black
businessmen even as they were
being humbled by the financial
crashthat led to the Great Depres
sion. Phil wrote the truth about
the demise of the Penny Savings
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Senator Charles W. Walker:
“If we imitate him, we will
create a much better place.”
Bank crash in 1928 and in the
process preserved the reputation
of black entrepreneurs be assailed
by the media of the day with un
flattering stereotypes.
Those early experiences fore
shadowed the emergence of Phil’s
love for journalism.
Phil was fond of quoting Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. who once
said to him, “A town without a
black newspaper is in trouble.”
At the age of 18, he served as the
first local reporter for the Atlanta
World (later renamed the Atlanta
Daily World).
In his later years he was never
without a copy of Augusta Focus
to which he submitted a column
each week without fail after join
ingthe publication in 1985. Before
that he was a columnist for Mallory
Millender’s The Augusta News-
Review — and before that wrote
for The Weekly Review from its
inception in 1947 until its demise
in 1970.
No matter where he traveled —
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Joseph Goudy: “He was one
of the reasons | decided to
return to Augusta.”
in this country or abroad — he
always considered himself the un
official ambassador for the city of
Augusta and through his column
“Going Places,” which he pub
lished continually in one publica
tion or another for some 50 years,
he kept people abreast of what he
and other Augustans were doing
whereever they happened to be.
Phil wore many hats in the com
munity. Along with being a jour
nalist, a historian, a civil-rights
activist, a social worker, he was
above all, a solid citizen and an
honest man. He was always ready
with an encouraging word no mat
ter the occasion.
He eventually moved away from
Augusta. Combat duty in Italy and
North Africa, professional life and
schooling in New York City’s
Harlem exposed him to the rich
tapestry of life beyond the Savan
nah River. Phil always exuded a
depth that seemed to have no end.
Phil was a veteran of the civil
rights struggles of the 50s and 60s
PHOTOS BY JIMMY CARTER
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Chaplain A.C. Redd: “Phil
Waring never forgot where
he came from.”
and by the time the battleground
shifted from the curbside and
lunchcounters into the executive
suites in the 70s and 80s, he was
an elder statesman in the move
ment. ;
As a top official for the Urban
League in four different cities rep
resenting the north, south and
midwest, he learned the impor
tance of information and how the
lack of it could be used against an
entire people.
Phil retired from the Urban
League after a 31-year career and
returned to Augusta where so
many of those who mourned his
loss this week met him for the first
time.
Far from retiring, at nearly 70
years of age, Phil embarked on the
last phase of his life with un
matched enthusiasm. He would
tell an interviewer later in his life
that what he accomplished since
his “retirement” was equal in im-
See PHIL WARING, page 8A
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[
1998 looms large
for fate of SRS &
COLUMBIA, S.C.
(AP) The new year could bring
some new hope for the Savannah
River Site. But it also brings some
of the same old problems, like job
layoffs and the question of what to
do with what was once one of the
nation’s premier weaponsfactories.
In 1998, policymakers are ex
pected to defing SRS’s mission,
which has languished since the end
of the Cold War in the 1980 s and
lost more than 10,000 jobs.
Morethan s3billioninlong-range
projects is at stake. If awarded to
the 310-square-mile nuclear com
plex near Aiken, the projects would
hold off massive job cuts at the
14,400-employee site.
“Whether they’ll haveajobin the
next few yearsis constantly on work
ers’ minds, almost daily,” Russell
Britt, general manager of the Oper
ating Engineers Local 470, which
represents 100 workersat SRS, said
in The (Columbia) State. “It’s all
politics at its highest level.”
On Tuesday (Dec. 16), U.S. En
ergy Secretary Frederico Pena
toured SRS’s facilities. The infor
mation Pena received could help
the energy department shape SRS’
future.
If that means just cleaning up its
own pollution — a $2.3 billion job
expected totake more than 30 years
— SRS could lose halfits employees
in the next five years, said
Westinghouse’s Ambrose Schwallie,
president of the company that runs
SRS for the Energy Department.
Savannah River Site is also in for
a new management company next
year. Westinghouse is getting rid of
its nuclear businesses, including
SRS. No company has been named
yet, although Duke Energy isamong
a handful of speculated suitors.
Whoever wins the contract, SRS
__AUGUSTA FOCUS _ DECEMBER 18, 1997
still must try to win three large |
Energy Department nuclear man-* |
agement programs to stay viable. |
First, there’s a project to make; |
the site a center for stabilizing ra-* '
dioactive material from across the .
country that could mean $250 mil- . !
lion and 250 jobs. '
The Energy Department could |
decide to make SRS convert weap- '
ons-grade plutonium into fuel for-, ¢
commercial nuclear reactors. That'’s . |
worth S4OO million in construction-. |
and 300 permanent jobs. '
The most critical task for SRS, |
however, is securing a facility to i
produce tritium, which boosts the: !
power of atomic weapons. T
That $2.6 billion linear accelera- |
tor would refill the nation’s tritium,.
supply and bring 2,000 construc
tion jobs, 500 permanent jobs and.. |
up to S2OO million a year to SRS;- |
Westinghouse officials say. :
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s |
Watts Bar reactor is also in the- |
running for the tritium job. Choos~ !
ing TVA'’s site would save the En-. !
ergy Department the cost of a bil
liondollaraccelerator. But U.S. Rep. !
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says he" :
expectslongtime government policy '
separating commercial nuclear ac
tivities from weapons production |
to win out for SRS. '
Energy Department spokesman |
Jim Giusti says whatever company |
takes over SRS will have to know of: |
the issues facing the site. Giusti- |
sayshisagency will work with West- |
inghouse in screening potential |
buyers. ‘]
Schwallie, the Westinghouse ex-, !
ecutive who oversees SRS, says the !
facility, which has a DOE-funded. !
budget of about $1 billion a year, :
has earned Westinghouse an aver-, !
age profit of S2O million to S3O :
million a year. L.
3A
