Newspaper Page Text
4A
January 20006
' & &
Jlmgmm TSR RN T
Relations
The constant cry tor better race relations is
nothing but a forest. Ihe Augusta Chronicle
is the biggest perpetrator of bad race rela
tions in Augusta. There can be no race rela
tions until 7he Chronicle removes its choke
hold on this community. Politics is the att
of compromise. It is not a game to be played
by whites against blacks or blacks against
whites. Dolitics requires give and take. But
that 7he Chronicle will not let it happen.
When County Commissioner Andy Cheek
tormed a coalition with Commissioner
Marion Williams, they would not stop until
they broke up that brotherly love.
When whites vote together, no mention of
race. When blacks vote the same it is a
“racial block”. When Willie Mays was the
interim Mayor, not one time did 7he
Chronicle or the whites on the commission
call for a veto for the mayor. Had Mays
won, we don't believe there would be a fight
today for veto power for the mayor. We will
have good race relations when this commu
nity \[‘lnd.\ up to t}mr Lm\\\i over [hcrc at
The Chronicle. Mike Ryan in our opinion is
a fraud at best. He speaks with a folked
tongue. He does not believe in racial har
mony nor does he believe in racial equaliry.
[t is obvious to most thinking people that
Mike Ryan was brought in here to rip this
community apart.
During this Martin Luther King celebra
tion perhaps this should be a time to reflect
on where we are headed. Good race rela
tions does not require African Americans to
abandon their dreams and hopes of leader
ship in order to live up to the diminished
expectation of Mike Ryan and 7/e Augusta
Chronicle. Where is Phil Kent anyway?
EDITORIAL POLICY
The Augnita Foows encowsagor thoss, concise Aitiers 1o the editor and
opinion articles from the public. Letters and opinion articles will be used
at the editor’s discretion and are subject to editing. We will not guarantee
publication of material received. We cannot guarantee dates of publica
tion. Letters containing libelous or untrue statements will not be pub
lished. All letters and opinion articles must include a verifiable full name,
adres and ielephone mumber. Thi mformation will ot b publhed a
the request of the writer. Letters and articles should be typed but the pub
lication will accept legible handwritten comments
Al FQCUS
Since 1981
A Walker Group Publication
1143 Lancy Walker Blvd.
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Iraida Brown
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Charles W. Walker
Publisher
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Editor-in-Chief
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Staft Writer
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The FBI and Dr. King
Few people in histcory have
been as dedicated o avil rights
a D King. In an interview
with Playboy Magazine. he
noted that he worked 20 hours
a day, traveled 325,000 miles a
vear, giving 450 speeches. That
grueling schedule alone was
enough o ke a toll on Dr.
King and his tamily lite. But
more mentally and physically
taxing was a viaous, unrelent
ing stealth campaign by FBI
Director . Edgar Hoover o
harass Dr. King, Hoover sus
peaed that Stanley Levison, a
King adviser, had Communist
ties, and used that as a pretext
to smeanng Dr. King,
Wntng in his Pulizer Prize
winning book, Bearing the
Cros. David |. Garrow noted:
“FBI ofhaals focused upon
Levisons ongoing involvement
with Kings and SCLCY affairs,
and in early Ocober renewed
their entreaties o Robert
The future of Supreme Court activism
Listening 1o the debate over
the Supreme Court nomina
tion ot Judge Samuel Alito, a
practical question comes to
mind. It the tramers of the
Constitution could not antici
pate the future and if the future
of this country served up an
agenda of things 1o be decided
bevond their .&;ilin' to concep
tualize the future, then what
role does the Supreme Court
have in moving the country
forward and addressing those
unanticipated questions?
It 1s not enough 1o say thart they
should stay within the orbit of
the Constitution, or that the
issuies raised outside of the orig
inal concepr are merely “politi
aal questions,” especially if they
are also fundamenaally relared
to the human and avil rights of
citzens.
Such an unanticipated ques
tion was the overthrow of
Plessy v. Ferguson by the
Supreme Court m\}xnu{ing )
the demand for equal educa
tion between the races. Yert, |
can hear in the whining abou
“activists judges,” the dear
voice of lament about Brown v.
Board of Education, as well as
the court’s upholding the con
stitutionality of the f9(>4 Civil
Rights Act and the 1965 Vor
ing Rights Act.
At the time these decisions
were passed, Blacks had experi
cnmnmlfa decade of denial of
their rights in the 20th Centu
ry and it took a courageous and
enlightened court to strike
down racism in the system of
public education. Key com
mittees in the Congress were
led by Southemers, but with
this decision behind him, Lyn
don Johnson could exercise his
AUGUSTA FOCUS
185 .r‘,
* J-»
l’ifiii‘% Curry
Kennedy about the serious
security threat represented by
Levisons role and Kings refusal
to sever the relationship. Their
warnings received a sympathet
ic hearing by the attomey gen
eral and Robert Kennedy telt
compelled 1o take the step that
the FBI had been recommend
ing since midsummer: the
wiretapping of Kings home
and office in Adanta.”
Garrow wrote, “Ever since
the wiretaps on Kings own
home and othee were added in
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Ron Walters
presidential power in-respond
g 1o the Fourteenth Amend
ment- based demands of the
Civil Rights movement.
Think for a moment what
would have happened if there
were no courageous Warren
Court. Blacks may not have
been as emboldened, and John
son may not have had the
precedent to make public poli-
V.
The importance of the
changes that ocaurred is that
they aligned the United States
with not only a response to the
demand for equal ri'yjm in this
country, but to the human
rights revolution occurring all
over the world. In that context,
they were enlightened changes.
The l‘nivcr\.llf Dedaration of
Human Rights created by the
United Nations declared that
civil rights were also basic
human rights to be enjoyed by
all ;x‘()pfc“ everywhere. That
view was the outcome of the
lesson learned in the blood
spilled of the Second World
\&’ar. The credibility of America
as a democratic nation was
already an issue in the Cold
War and rejecting the demand
for civil rights would have con-
November, the supervisors of
the King-Levison investigation
had been tuming their aten
tion more and more to King’s
private life and away from their
previous fixadon on hid sup
posed Communist ties.,
“Ata mid-December confer
ence, Bureau officials discussed
in detail how they could gather
further evidence of what they
felt were King's serious personal
and moral \hflflcflfl]iflp. and
had resolved that if they could,
they would use such material to
expose King ‘as an immoral
opportunist and ‘derical
fraud.”
In “At Cannans Edge,” the
last of his trilogy on the awil
rights movement, Taylor
Branch recounts how the FBI
used tormer Massachusetts
Sen. Leverett Saltonstall to pre
vent King from receiving an
honorary degree from Spring
field College, derailed an effort
firmed the view of America as a
racist state.
With the confidence provid
ed by the post war glolmt move
ment, ,lo{mson responded to
the Civil Rights movement
with enlightened leadership,
proposing public policy that
would hgp to move the coun
try in the direction the world
was going. It also enabled him
to teach (h(’ country that pover
tv was wrong, thar women
needed equality and thart the
bloody revolts occurring in
major cities were happening
because of the long :{leni;ll o\?
justice.
So, if conservative politicians
are right and the task of the
Supreme Court is only to inter
pret exi.stinf; law, that would
appear to throw the matter of
matching an evolving human
situation with enlighrened poli
cies up to the president .m(s the
Congress; in other words, into
the realm of pure politics. That
is what is happening today. The
president ;mJ his cullefiencs in
the Congress appear to believe
that the rights won by blacks,
women, other disadvantaged
groups are situational, political
issues to be changed and dis
carded according to the whims
of the majority.
At this moment, the poten
tial elevation of Samuel /fli(:o to
the Supreme Court would
appear to change the funda
mental nature of that body,
such that it will not be the place
to look for enlightened leader
ship in the future. This condu
sion, based on a thorough
study of Alitos record by ts'\c
Alliance for Justice, revealed his
membership in the Concerned
Alumni of [}‘rinocton; a group
by King to obtain a loan for
SCLC from labor leader
Jimmy Hoffa and, even more
roubling | decided not 1o
inform King of imminent
threats on his life.
“Hoover revised internal
communications about the lat
est threats 1o kill King if he
marched on Tuesday in Selma
one via the Secret Service
about two alleged gunmen out
of Detroit, another abour a
killing squad from the
('fuu\hatm. L)uisi;um. Ku Klux
Klan - and vetoed plans to give
a routine waming to King,”
wrote Branch, wfi() won (%x-
Pulizer Prize for “Parting the
Waters,” his first avil nghts
book. The author conunued,
“No, Hoover scrawled on one
memo, and on another ordered
rents ot to tell King any
:fiing.' He reminded (osw offhi
cals of a previous order to
exdude King from the standard
See FBI, page 9A
that opposed the entrance of
women and blacks into the
university; and as an appellate
court judge, in 86 percent of
avil nghts decisions he sided
against the complainant. In
l‘;{fl(ill' these and many other
mdich positions, he exhibited
conservative activism, often
going beyond the facts present
ed in cases to offer his own
analysis based on his own evi
dence in a case.
The addition of Samuel Alito
would help to check the power
of Congress and elevate (5)12( of
the executive branch, thus dos
ing oft important avenues for
legslating enlifilucned lg)ublic
policy, wonically in bodies
where blacks have recently
begun to participate in effective
numbers. This administration
has shown to what extremes
aivil rights are threatened in its
misappropriation of power in
the conduct of the war in Iraq.
By continuing to pack the
Supreme Court with conserva
tives, Bush continues to move
America toward an unenlight
ened future and the rmge({;' is
they do not have appear to have
measured the practical conse
quences. Most tragic of all, the
evidence is that‘qt}ley do not
aare, but the lack of cring
could be disastrous.
Ron Walters is the Distin
ushed Leadership ~ Scholar,
%irrrmr of the African American
Leadership Institute, Professor of
Government and Dolitics at the
University of Maryland College
Dark. His latest books are: White
Nationalism, ~Black Interests
(Wayne State University Pres)
am(;y”i‘frwdom is Not Enough,
(Rowman and Littlefield).