Newspaper Page Text
10A
NOVEMBER 23. 2000
Phil Kent:
Divisive as usual
When it comes to sowing
discord and dividing people,
Augusta Chronicle colum
nist Phil Kent has few
equals.
Mr. Kent’s hyper parti
sanship (he’s vehemently
against blacks, political
moderates and
progressives of any stripe)
couldn’t come at a worse
time in our city’s history.
Just when there are at
tempts to bridge the racial
divide popping up all over
the place, Mr. Kent looks
for places to drive his
spikes. A recent attack
against apolitical opponent
from his own party (gasp!)
prompted anunusual move
from State Senator Charles
W. Walker. Mr. Walker’s
remarks (submitted to the
Augusta Chronicle edito
rial pages) follow:
I don’t usually write let
terstotheeditor, but I could
not sit by and allow colum
nist Phil Kent to go unchal
lenged and unchecked,
(Sunday, “Politics As
Usual,” Page 4A). I like
Rep. Robin Williams. I
thought he was an effective
legislator. He did all he
could within political con
straints to work across po
litical lines.
is an
award-winning
Walker Group
Publication
Augusta
Focus
Since 1981
A Walker Group
Publication
1143 Laney Walker Blvd.
I
g Lillian Wan
fl“ Timothy Cox
"J;J A Tonya Evans
L B Samuel Daniels
\W Dennis Williams
However, I am not going
to isolate and criticize Rep.-
elect Sue Burmeister. She
won a fair and competitive
election. Mrs. Burmeister
beat Rep. Williams and that
is final.
Mr. Kent’s sour grapes
should cease. There is noth
ing wrong with Mrs.
Burmeister working with all
members of the Richmond
County legislative delega
tion. Afterall, sheistheduly
elected representative of the
114th District. Mr. Kent just
will not let go. He tries con
stantly to drive wedges be
tween blacks and whites,
rich and poor, Democrats
and Republicans. Mr. Kent
is, and has been, the most
divisive public figure in
Richmond County.
Mrs. Burmeister should be
extended every courtesy by
our local delegation, and I,
for one, intend to do just
that.
Mr. Kent made his prefer
ence for Rep. Williams
known, and, as usual, the
people rejected his choice.
It’s time to pen him up. If
Augustaisto grow and pros
per, the Phil Kentissue must
be addressed.
Sen. Charles W. Walker
Augusta
Charles W. Walker
Publisher
Frederick Benjamin
Managing Editor
Dot T. Ealy
Marketing Director
Copy Editor
Staff Writer
Office Manager
Production Assistant
Advertising Production
AUGUSTAFOCUS
TO BE EQUAL By Hugh B. Price
Hosea Williams — a giant passes
osea Williams, one of Mar
tin Luther King dJr.’s
trusted lieutenants and an
heroic figure in America’s
20" century struggle for social
justice, died last week of cancer in
Atlanta. He was 74.
As sad as it is to lose Williams’
blunt honesty, and his unshak
able devotion to those in need, I
can’t help but think at the same
time that his death is gloriously
fitting for this moment in Ameri
can history when the closeness
and confusion of the presidential
balloting in Florida has made the
importance of every single vote
cast — and not cast — unmistak
ably clear.
Hosea Williams’ death is glori
ously fitting now because it re
minds us that he was part of that
band of men and women, boys
and girls in the 1950 s and 1960 s
who put their lives on the line
time and again to secure theright
to vete —the fundamental re
quirement of citizenship in a de
mocracy — for everyone.
He was one of that “beloved
community” of apostles of non
violence who re-made the United
States of America into a real de
mocracy, not just arhetorical one.
As James Framer, another
Movement hero who passed away
lastyear, wrote in his autobiogra
phy, living then “was tenuous ...
but the grasping at liberty, and
the reaching toward the happi
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani
Special interest politics doesn’t
work well for independents either
here will be two lingering
political questions after all
the presidential dust
settles. One is whether
our winner-take-all system as be
come too brittle to translate the
will of the American people into
effective government. The otheris
why Ralph Nader and Pat
Buchanan together only polled 3.1
million votes.
Is there a connection between
these two questions? I think the
answer is “yes.” Nader polled the
lion’s share of the third party vote.
About 2.7 million Americans, or
three percent, cast ballots for the
Green Party presidential candi
date. Buchanan was a distant sec
ond with 441,000, roughly half a
percent. Both were shooting for
five percent, which would have
qualified Buchanan’s Reform Party
and the Greens for public funding
in 2004. Both fell short.
Buchanan’s campaign tanked well
before Election Day, largely be
cause he abandoned his populist
themes and alliances in favor of a
o e ENTERING
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ness ennobled life for this na
tion.”
And Hosea Williams, working
as the “advance guard” of King’s
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, carried his noble mis
sioninto some of the most racially
explosive situations in the South.
Congressman John Lewis,
Democrat of Georgia, whose own
participation in the Movement
stands as a definition of heroism,
spoke an essential truth upon
hearing of Williams’ passing: that
he “must be looked upon as one of”
the founding fathers of the new
America. Through hisactions, he
helped liberate us all.”
Now, when the votes of African
Americansare as critical a part of
the electoral mix as any other
groups’, it might be difficult for
some to realize that just 35 years
ago, racist laws and tactics barred
the vast majority of black Ameri
cansin the South from voting. To
attempt to do so could literally
cost any black person his or her
life.
That profound subversion of
democracy changed forever on
March 7, 1965, a day that became
known as “Bloody Sunday.”
That was the day when Will
iamsand Lewis assembled a group
of civil rights activists in Selma,
Alabama for a 50-mile march to
Montgomery, the state capitol.
Their purpose was to present pe
titions to Gov. George C. Wallace,
gamble that social conservatives
would desert George W. Bush. He
was dead wrong.
Some believe that Nader’s focus
on thefive percent goal was reason
for the underperformance of his
campaign. In effect Nader’s mes
sage, which began as a frontal as
sault on globalist corporate special
interests, devolved into a sectarian
appeal to help the Greens get $7
million in 2004 and to leverage a
Left agenda within the Democratic
Party.
Ironically, Nader and Buchanan,
both opponents with special inter
ests, presented themselves to the
public as special interest candida
cies. For Buchanan, the special
interest was the Far Right. For
Nader it was the Liberal Left. And
whileheoutpolled Buchanan more
than fivetoone, Nader never broke
out of the politics of ideology that
defined, and limited, them both.
Inremarksat a press conference
thedayafter the election Buchanan
put a forward-looking spin on his
dismal results. “This is our party
L N
i
e
i 1
.
Vel
S S e
the leading segregationist in
America,demandingvotingrights
for black Alabamians.
They had barely gotten across
the Edmund Pettus Bridge over
the Alabama River at the edge of
Selma when they were met by a
force of more than a hundred Ala
bama state troopers and sheriffs’
deputies on foot and on horse
back. All were equipped with gas
masks.
The rampage that followed —
of the club-wielding police over
running the defenseless, choking
marchers — shocked white
America and the world and, by
provoking President Lyndon
Johnson to propose a federal vot
ing rights bill, which was passed
five months later, brought democ
racy to the South.
In April 1968, Williams was
among the small group of lieuten
ants talking with King on the bal
cony of the Lorraine Hotel in
Memphis, Tenn., where they had
come to aid the strike of black
sanitation workers, moments be
fore King was assassinated.
In later years, Williams had
what scme might call a “check
ered” career.
He was a state representative
from Atlanta for 11 years, a city
councilman for five, and a DeKalb
County commissioner for three.
And he never ceased his “activ
ism.” For the last 30 years, he
organized a Feed the Hungry and
and this is our home,” he said of
the Reform Party, which will “be
come the core of a national conser
vative populist party. It will be the
first in America. It’s a number of
years off, but it will happen.” But
the Reform Party is now down to
five ballot qualified state affiliates
from 32 after Ross Perot’s 1996
run, and is not positioned for
growth. It was the collapse of
social conservatism that brought
him to the Reform Party in the
first place. I knew that — and told
him that — when he and I formed
what was to be our left/right popu
list partnership. I broke with Pat
when he failed to make good on
that coalition (a coalition which
outraged virtually the entirety of
the Left) but all the evidence con
tinues to indicate that the Ameri
can people want a new populist
alliance that is not driven by ideol
ogy. In theend, it was Buchanan’s
refusal to buck his own right-wing
special interests that destroyed his
campaign and the Reform Party
along with it.
Homeless Thanksgiving Day din
nerin Atlantathat fed thousands,
and he was continually on the
front lines of demonstrations for
a variety of causes.
But he also had numerous
scrapes with the law over traffic
violations, including several
drunk driving charges, and other
offenses, and he spend several
short stays in jail.
Perhaps these tarnished his ef
fectiveness over the last several
years. Butinbroader terms, these
blemishesarestill far outweighed
by the good that he had done —
and the good that he continued to
do.
This truth was wonderfully ex
pressed by a letter-writer to the
Atlanta Journal Constitution. She
wrote that when she had called to
offer a donation to his holiday
meal program, he himself came
on the line and they talked for
some time. “By the time we fin
ished talking... I thought this was
someone I knew personally, he
was that approachable... Without
conceit, he captivated me with
accounts of his many [efforts] to
bridge gaps of fairness and equal
ity between all people. ... I was
honored then;l am saddened now.
Hosea Williams was not a human
being without failings, but he was
a giant any way you look at it.”
Hugh B. Priceispresident of the
National Urban League.
Whatever disappointment exists i
within the Left over Nader’s fail- .'
uretohit thefive percent mark has i
been eclipsed by recriminations ,
over Nader having apparently cost '
Gore the election. The Nation’s ;
Eric Alterman, an avid critic of the ¢
Nader strategy, wrote in his post- :
election piece “Left in Shambles:” |
“For now, we can expect an ugly |
period of payback in Washington :
in which Nader’s valuable network !
of organizations will likely be the i
first to pay. Democrats will no
longer return his calls. Funders
will tell him to take a hike. Sadly,
hislife’s work will bea victim of the |
infantile left-wing disorder Nader ;
developed in this quixotic quest to :
elect a reactionary Republican to -
the American presidency.” In re- ‘
buttal, Alex Cockburn titled his f
Nation election summary, “The |
Best of All Possible Worlds.” He i
listed the multiple issues — from Z
toxic runoff in the Florida Ever- ‘
glades to the diminished salmon
See SPECIALINTERESTS, page 9A !