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8A AUGUST 5, 1999 EDITORIAL b Forget the rebel flag! T he continuing controversy sur @ rounding the Confederate b Flag is at best diversionary. Yes, the flag is offensive to many — egpecially African Americans. But, fhere are many other issues that dre at least as offensive, if not more offensive to all African Americans. Leading the list are incidents of {Eising crime rates, racial profiling by law enforcement officials, the dismantling of our human infrastructure (from welfare reform 0 ever increasing rates of incar f;ération and drug abuse) and the continuing disparity between {Black” and “White” Americans on the economic front. 7 While we understand the emo ional basis for the recent call by the &outh Carolina NAACP to call for a boycott of the state until the confed erate emblem is removed from its government buildings, the decision {o spend precious time and re gources for a goal that is psychologi cal should be questioned by every thinking person regardless of ethnicity. . Consider that, even if the goal is achieved, what would be the benefit — in real terms — for every man, woman and child in the Palmetto state? .How many children will be gradu ated from high school as a result? How many new millionaires will be created from the ranks to the very capable South Carolinian black en ttepreneurs? While the effort speaks directly to the racist symbolism of the Con federate flag — a symbol that many African Americans consider to be on the par with the dreaded KKK ipitials and the Nazi swastika — the effort is likely to have unfore seen negative consequences as fair minded, moderate whites feel the pressure to cross the line and sit at the table with their hard-core white supremacist brethren who welcome yet another issue to further divide the races. - Who can deny that on the thresh old of the new millennium, the key igsues are education, health care and economic prosperity. The South Carolina NAACP, like, the Georgia NAACP, should focus their atten tion on the single most threatening ttend in America’s politics —the dismantling of access to public edu cation. A growing number of politi ¢ians and right-wing conservatives Augusta Focus Since 1981 ' A Walker Group Publication 1143 Laney-Walker Blvd. Augusta, Ga. 30901 N@D NILEA P , [ : Support group for handicapped f" A support group for the handicapped t (handicapped because of loss of limbs) } is being started. : If you are handicapped or know of someone who is, i please contact Sis. Pat Bryant at (706) 738-3589 or L (706) 724-8028 (Harmony Baptist Church). AUGUSTA FOCUS are embracing vouchers and char ter Schools. While civil rights advo cates are being diverted into anti rebel flag adventures, the right wing agenda rolls along unabated. We must resist the temptation to race to the barricades and engage in a flag fight instead of a fight to maintain effective and efficient edu cation strategies. Conservatives are smart enough to realize that with a strong economy, their bread and butter is sues are social and political. They realize that their movement is dead in its tracks unless they can latch onto an issue that would unite their dwindling ranks into a racist strong hold —the rebel flag is just such an issue. They are more adept at playing the race card than liberals could ever hope to be. It has worked before, it will work again, “Throw them coloreds the race bone and they will bite every time.” They know that, when it comes to the race card, the Joker in the wild. Blacks must understand that the right-wing locomotive has run out of steam. Their primary source of energy comes from racial politics. With the election of Democratic gov ernors, in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, the vaunted “South ern strategy” has run its course. The name of this new game is inclu sion and getting mired down in an emotional tussle over a piece of cloth is very unwise at this stage in south ern politics. If African Americans provide the right-wing with the racial fuel to upset the Democratic majorities in this part of the south, we can say good-bye to moderates like Gover nor Roy Barnes of Georgia and Jim Hodges of South Carolina. The con servatives know that 2000 is a piv otal year in southern politics. They must win at all cost or lose southern legislatures for the next decade. They must act and act now. We hope that Georgia’s black elected officials avoid “Flag Fight 2000” at all costs. We cannot afford such a stupid and costly error. An insincere Zell Miller tried the flag .issue for political gain and nearly got run out of town. Zell Miller had no interest in black progress or pride. He simply was looking for an advantage, but he barely escaped political disaster. Black elected of ficials, however, won’t be so lucky. Charles W. Walker Publisher Frederick Benjamin Managing Editor Dot T. Ealy Marketing Director Lillian Wan Copy Editor Samuel Daniels Production Assistant Denise Lipscomb Production Assistant Karen Haeusler Production Assistant Timothy Cox Staff Writer Michael W. Newton Jr. Senior Account Executive Frank Johnson Circulation Manager . Tonya Evans Office Manager Opinion W R - | A , RILANTRS \ fifi% @ %flefi G TR o N/ =BCRG ¥ st TRAGEDY /- fi Ly fi([ E - te | @ ko, MIKE LUCKOVICH CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL By Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson James Farmer: fallen warrior iththe death of James Farmer, we have lost another warrior who served fearlessly on the battlefield for justice. And it occurred to me once again how many leaders of the civil rights movement we really had, contrary to popular opinion and the me dia accounts. Indeed, we are often asked today why we don’t have “a leader” in the contemporary civil rights movement, when the reality always was that we had leaders in the plural and today is no different. James Farmer, former head of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was clearly one of them. Farmer, who was one of the many civil rights leaders de voted to strategy of non-violence, was often on the cutting edge of the move ment. It was to CORE that students from North Carolina turned after staging the nation’s first sit-ins at a Greensboro lunch counter and it was CORE which began the Freedom Rides in 1961. Three of the students who were the first fatalities of the Mississippi Freedom Summerin 1964 were CORE members. Yet his was a name that many Ameri cans never knew. Sadly many young people today not only don’t know of him, but have never heard of Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young or Daisy Bates or Fannie GUEST COMMENTARY By Lloyd «J. Jordan, Esq. Good news! What good news? he recent Newsweek magazine (June 7, 1999) focus on “The Good News About Black America” made a compelling case for African American Greek letter organizations to continue their programmatic work of community uplift. The eight major African American Greek letter organizations are rooted in precepts concerning the advancement of Black People. That is why the Newsweek report hits home with Greeks. In short, the article notes that here have been social and economic gains in Black America, but the quotients of com parative data show that what we may call gains would be called failure by other progressive cultures. The article notes that Black income is higher and unemployment is lower, but at the same time, income is even higher for other Americans and unemployment is twice the rate of whites. Black median income is at a “record high” of $34,644, but still $21,378 less than the average for whites (based on 1997 statistics). Ofparticular concern are statistics rela tive to young people. College completion rates were on a steady rise between 1981 and 1997 for white males climbing 28% to 34% and white females jumping 24%t0 36%, and a marginal rise for Black females 156% to 19%. Meanwhile, Black males are going in the oppositedirection dropping alarm ingly 16% to 13%. These are scary figures because it gives us a prognosis for the future of which we need to be concerned. Black America has the same amount of young Black males going to jail as it does going to college, 13%. Y Lou Hamer. Farmer ”~. N was appalled to learn ] that in one survey or E ¥ young blacks, some did . not even know who @ Martin Luther King, Jr. \ 4 was, thinking he was "‘4 someone who had k- Y worked for Al Sharpton. o When President st | Clinton awarded Farmer Farmer the Presiden tial Medal of Freedom in 1998, he felt somewhat vindicated. “He was one of the founding fathers not just gs the new; South, but of the New America,” said Congressman’ ' John’ Léws, himself a’ leader in the civil rights movement and who, along with Mr. Farmer, was beaten and jailed on the Freedom Rides.’ The grandson of a slave,James Farmer was the son of a minister/scholar and a teacher and spent most of his youth in a protected black college environment. He went to the Howard University School of Religion, but decided against becominga Methodist minister like his father be cause the Methodist Church in the South was segregated. As a conscientious objec tor during World War 11, Farmer worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation, where his commitment to integration Newsweek also re ports that in one Ohio community, Black make up 50% of the high school population, but account for less than 10% of those at the top of the class, and nearly 90% of the bottom. While many Blacks are moving up the lad- o A Jordan der of economic success, most remain mired in the same comparative quotients of disproportionate attainment. Wellness issues such as health insur ance, lead poisoning, cancer and HIV continue to be problems of disproportion in Black America as are standardized education achievement proficiency and voter turnout. That’s just scratching the surface of issues with negative compara GO e MRS O eSB - SASSELE §HE R GRS, g L R s =o A Announcement ‘nnouscement Announcil : ; | The CSRA Classic, Inc. & Delta House, Inc. Youth Leadership i Program is currently accepting students between the ages of 12 . and 17 to participate in the program. ' The leadership program is designed to provide students ‘ : with ongoing activities that will enhance them educa- ; : tionally, culturally, and socially. | ! To register or to receive additional information, | please call Monique Walker at 722-4222 or Lamont i Belk at 721-2320. || i Registration is limited. 3 i The deadline for registration is | X Monday August9,l9oß. ... . . || and non-violence only intensified. James Farmer risked his life for his beliefs on many occasions. On one such night, armed Louisiana state troopers kicked down doors and beat up blacks on the streets on Plaquemine, asthey looked for Farmer. “I was meant to die th night,” Farmer himself recalled, addin that the only way he got out because & funeral home director had him play dea in the back of a hearse that carried hi out of town. , ! He was jailed many times in protes across the South. Indeed, on August 28, 1963 as Martin Luther King, Jr., w deliveringhis famous speech,Jim Farm was §itting in jail in Plaquemine, LA had to send his own speech via an aidd} “We will not stop until the dogs sto biting us in the South and the rats stop biting us in the North,” Farmer wrote.}. Inhislater years Jim Farmer taught several colleges and briefly worked in thé Nixon administrationin the Departme of Health, Education and Welfare. Buth soon realized that he could be more effed; tive outside the government. He h been failing health for many years, bat} tling a severe case of diabetes. ; The world is a better place because of James Farmer. He will be missed. : tive quotients and percentages when comy pared to other Americans. | Greek letter organizations must conh tinue programs that spur Black student§ towards academic achievement, proh grams that move communities towar: betterliving and economic empowerme initiatives that will yield opportuniti for business ownership and jobs. ! Collectively, as college trained profest sionals, we are at the forefront of th continuing struggle and as the sayin, goes-"To whom much is given, much ig expected.” 7 The Newsweek article not only makes a compelling case that we must turn {p the intensity on our various programs, but it has also helped define our agenda going into the next millennium. | Lloyd Jordan is the National President (Grand Basileus) of Omega Psi Phi Fra' ternity i