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imisA the PEOPLE’S PAPER (20C) NATIONAL BLACK NEWS SERVICE \ J MEMBER S Vol. 2 FOR BLACK READERS ONLY By Carl Rowan Washington - White readers of this newspaper can move on to the crossword puzzle, or the bridge column, or the sports pages. I want to rap a bit with my black readers today. And if what I say angers a few brothers and sisters, so be it. But its time blacks - especially young blacks - stopped deluding themselves into believing that the sheepish following of stupid fads is “black solidarity.” Its time to stop swallowing this marlarky that styling your hair in 30 nappy plaits, with enough head skin showing to cane-bottom granny’s rocker, is the epitome of “pride in racial heritage.” The current Ebony magazine has a feature called “Is the Afro on the Way Out?” It suggests that the college group didn’t find enough “black pride” in the old Afro, so young blacks have now resorted to “ancient African hairstyles” such as the “tree cornrow” - modeled by a lassie who looks as though she got her head caught in a corn-shucker. Another sister sports “cornrows tipped with curls” -- and looks as though she got caught in a stampede of hungry locusts. Anybody who didn’t find enough “black pride” with a “bush” is supposed to finally discover his or her black identity in a “cornrow.” This is, to put it as decently as I can. pure nonsense. Black Minister Says Segregation and Discrimination Not Necessarily Wrong Rev. M.J. Whitaker Contrary to many of his colleagues, the Reverend M.J. Whitaker finds, nothing wrong with segregation and discrimination. He feels that both will and SHOULD always be with us. Reverend Whitaker is pastor of the Second Mt. Carmel Baptist Church and recently explained to his congregation that the words segregation and discrimination are misunderstood by most people. “Neither word carries any connotation of injustice in their true meanings. The purpose for which we segregate determines whether segregation is right or wrong. “The thing that makes the words so horrible to the Negro is the gross injustices, the indignity, the insults that have been heaped upon the Negro within the framework of segregation.” “A man with a communicable disease is separated or segregated from other people. A bad apple is segregated from the good ones Carl Rowan Americans can let their hair grow to the ground, they can shave till their heads outshine cue balls, they can straighten or tease or crocinole or curl process, t hey can buy wigs till they run out of money (as a lot of Americans do in Nairobi and other African cities I have visited), but there isn’t going to be any meaningful black pride until more black people are making solid achievements in competition with the white majority. Nothing galls me more than a black dude who is cutting classes, or who never reads a newspaper or magazine or book, or won’t hold onto a job, or won’t give a dime to help some needy black, sitting around the barber shop or the pool hall or the student union talking about how Iris “rags” or his “fro” symbolizes black pride. No Greek, no Jew, no Roman, no Aztec ever designed enough rags or grew enough hair to cloak failure to the extent that it could pass for to keep the good ones from spoiling. So that the purpose for the segregation determines this wisdom. “The Bible mentions segregation on the basis of rightousness and wickedness. God forbade the children of Israel from marrying with groups that worshipped heathen gods. The Bible does not teach segregation based on one nation being better than another. But on the basis of rightousness and wickedness.” Rev. Whitaker rejects the concept that the Bible teaches segregation based upon race. CLASS DISCRIMINATION “When the people on the upper levels have their entertainment, they don’t invite the people on the lower level. When the big white people give their entertainment, they don’t invite the poor whites from Harrisburg. “Greek letter fraternities do not invite the general public, and there isn’t any harm in that.” They are upholding the laws of their society. We live by discrimination, in our choice clothing, ties or suits. Rev. Whitaker is disturbed over the fact that historians have ommited the contributious Blacks. And feels that whites have suffered from this omission as well as Blacks. Whites who know nothing of the contributions of Blacks have no reason to hold Blacks P.O. Box 953 “pride.” Black people in this country feel a grueling challenge of survival. Many of the most powerful forces in the land are arrayed against us these days, some openly and some secretly. So we need to put down all the nonsense and bull, and get about the business of manning the ramparts. 1 don’t give a damn how you style your hair; what bothers me is that you spend more time on your hair than on your physics or English class. That folderol over “ancient African hairstyles” gave me a special pain in the scalp because I read it just after reading a very troubling article by a black senior at Harvard. This young man, Sylvester Monroe, wrote in the Saturday Review of Education, about what has happened as black students have let their search for “blackness” and “pride” carry them into a separatism that shuts them off from the intellectual strength of Harvard. Monroe quotes a black Harvard professor. Martin A. Kilson, as saying: “The problem with black students at Harvard is that they are too caught up in ideology. Most people who deal in ideologies believe only 10 per cent of it, at most. But blacks at Harvard want to believe 90 per cent of their own ideological bull So true. A lot of young in high regard. WEEKLY REVIEW EDITOR As former newspaper editor, discrimination is nothing new for Rev. Whitaker. He founded the now non-existent “Weekly Review” in 1947, after buying the “Echo” from the late Edward Simmons. The Weekly Review was very successful until he supported the Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw segregation in public schools. Then the merchants withdrew their advertising from the paper. “From then on, I could hardly make enough out of the paper to keep it going. In 1964, he sold the Weekly Review to Dr. Ranzy Weston and attorney John Watkins. The paper ceased publication in 1970. Rev. Whitaker has been pastor of the Second Mt. Carmel Baptist Church for 29 years and has encouraged young people in his church to unite. Youngsters have received $1,525 in scholarships, mainly writing masonic essays. Under his direction, the Weekly Review won a number of awards including the George Washington Award in 1950, a second place metal for an editorial on “The Negro’s Fundamental Belief in the American Way of Life.” The award also carried a check for S3OO. In 1951, he received the George Washington award for general editorial policy. people think they are snowing Whitey. They are going through his university, taking his degree, without submitting to the rigors of his academic procedures. They get away with it because Whitey doesn’t know how to cope with “black solidarity.” But these young blacks are snowing themselves. Sometimes destroying themselves. Not many are as honest as Monroe, who admits that he is nervous as hell about leaving Harvard to compete in a “complex, demanding white world.” Monroe fears that he has screwed himself by spending three years at Harvard Did Essex Seek Revenge For Student Murders Washington -- NBNS -- The contents of a note presumed by the New Orleans police to have been written by Mark Essex or someone associated with him, links the January 7 battle between Essex and 700 New Orleans policemen with the November 16 murders of two Southern University students by law officers. Meanwhile, here a leading Pan Africanist organizer in a speece before a college student body commented on the implications of the New Orleans “sniper: siege.” Essex, who was killed by gunfire the night of January 7 atop the Downtown Howard Johnson Hotel, had held the police at bay for 27 hours before his body was riddled with bullets by officers in a helicopter. The note in question, according to police officials, was received at a New Orleans television station with a January postmark. According to New Orleans newsman Bill Elder, the letter warned of an attack on police headquarters on New Year’s Eve, but that holiday mail delivery had caused the letter to not be received until after the attack had taken place. The letter apparently referred to a Dec. 31 attack on the Central lockup (police station) in which a police cadet was killed and another policeman standing near him was wounded. Police said the same .44 magnum Ruger carbine found beside Essex’s body was the one which fired the bullets that killed the police cadet. The letter received by WWL-TV said: “Africa greets you. On December 31, 1973 (approximately) 11 p.m. the downtown New Orleans police department will be attacked. “Reason -- many. But the death of two innocent brothers will be avenged and many others. Tell pig (Police Superintendent Clarence) Giarusso the felony squad ain’t (obscenity).” The letter was signed “Mata,” a Swahili word meaning “instrument to kill.” The word “Mata” was also found on the walls of Essex’s New Orleans apartment. According to New Orleans police officials, however, the From the Atlanta Constitution in “an isolated black vacuum.” Let’s face reality: we don’t have enough manpower to dominate it; we don’t have enough dollar-power to buy it. And we’ll be short of all these “powers” until we develop a lot more brainpower. In truth, that’s the one power we can develop rapidly, with zeal, without scaring the dominant group to the point that it loads on new oppressions. So, in the name of the souls of black folk, let’s say to hell with this nonsense about hair. Let’s face up to some tests of manhood and womanhood that are truly revelant to black uplift. investigating officers are not pursuing any attempt to link the Southern student murders with the January 7 events. “We don’t have any other evidence supporting a link,” said an official. “The letter was very sketchy and didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” said the law officer,, reiterating that the letter was received after the police station attack. “There have been no change in the line of investigation,” he repeated. The president of the student government association at the New Orleans campus of Southern University, Earl Picard, is not sure that policemen are not doing some checking in an attempt to establish some relationship between student protest leaders and Essex. “There have been events to verbally tie the two events,” siad Picard, “but as far as he could tell “nothing has come of it, although I would assume that' checks are being made.” At the same time, in a speech to students at Washington’s Technical Institute last week on the relationship between the nation struggle of blacks in the United States and the African revolution, Owusu Sadaukai, president of Malcolm X Liberation University, touched on the New Orleans event. He warned student revolutionaries about the danger to the national Black community caused by undertaking of unorganized individual acts of violence against the enemy. “Although we might positively respond at a gut level to such acts, and share fully the rage that instigates them, those of us who speak to black students around the country have a duty to point out the reaction that sets in, and the resulting further intensification of repression against the black community,” Sadaukai continued. “We have to weigh whetger or not the black community is organized enough to be prepared to deal with the consequences,” said the Pan Africanist educator and organizer. “Not now, not now, not now,” he repeated indicating his belief that the community is not now so Augusta, Georgia ZZ JFI City councilwoman Carrie J. Mays, representing Mayor Lewis A. Newman, presents the Key to the City to Mrs. Lillian P. Benbow, National President of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The program was held in the Gilbert-Lambuth Chapel at Paine College on Sunday in observance of the Founder’s Day of the Augusta-Aiken Chapter. (See related photos, page 4.) organized. “What I’m saying should in no way be interpreted as unsympathetic criticism of brother Essex,” Sadaukai stressed. “I just feel very strongly that it’s my duty to point out Wilkins Blasts Nixon, Budget Cuts Washington -- (NBNS) - Noting that there cannot be “true justice in this country until we have eradicated all vestiges of discrimination,” civil rights leader Roy Wilkins lambasted President Nixon and his recent cutbacks in federal programs which enable blacks and other minorities “the opportunity to realize themselves fully.” Speaking before the annual board dinner of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Wilkins recalled the President’s oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” However, he added, “our experiences with the way in which he (the President) discharged that oath in the past are a desquieting preview of what we may expect in the next four years.” Wilkins, who serves as chairman of the Conference and whose remarks came on the same day that Mr. Nixon’s budget was released also denounced the Adminis tration’s substantial cutbacks in education, housing, employment, health, and welfare programs. Referring to Constitutional provisions of insuing domestic tranquility and promoting the general welfare, Wilkins said: “There can be no domestic tranquility unless the general welfare is advanced .... We, the most powerful nation, the wealthiest nation in the world, are on the verge of turning our blacks upon those among us who are most disadvantaged. “We are embarked upon a course that must alarm all of us concerned with the nation’s well-being,” Wilkins said. “Even before Inauguration Day, the process was underway the reactive repression that individual strikes bring down on the community,” he said in his concluding remarks on the matter. “Revolution must proceed from an organized mass-based movement,” Sadaukai EDITORIAL REWARDS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION We wish to congratulate the Chief of Police and the Mayor for their decision this week to offer a SSOO reward for information leading to the arrest of persons involved in unsolved assault, robbery and rape cases. This kind of affirmative action is long overdue. There is one glaring omission, however. Why weren’t BURGLARIES included among the offenses the rewards are aimed to stop. Burglaries are by tar the most common offense in the Black community (the majority community in Augusta). And this could raise some interesting questions. Is the recent action taken because most of the offenders are Blacks who have begun to assault rob and rape the "wrong” people? And is it that burglary is not yet serious enough to be included because most burglaries involve Blacks burglarizing Blacks? Although we are pleased to see the action taken to deter assault, robbery and rape, we believe that no less action should be taken to halt the tremendous amount of burglary in our community. Whereas we have heard no statement on the subject, we feel that it is very important that citizens be made aware that they can give information leading to these arrests in complete confidence, it is absolutely unfair to ask citizens to provide this information unless they are assured that their identity will not be made available to the offender. it is also important that we get co-operation of the judicial system. Lawyers and judges who repeatedly return criminals to the streets are just as dangerous as the offenders themselves. And action needs to be taken to assure that the courts work to protect the public and not the criminal. Eliminating crime is going to require the co-operation of all, and we urge this co-operation. of cutting back and weakening and even abolishing programs designed to promote the general welfare.” In addition, Wilkins said, the Nixon Administration “both excites and panders to the current hysteria over busing,” this, hampering school desegregation and equal See Wilkes P. 4 February J 1973 No. declared. In response to a student’s question he implied that individual acts should only be carried out within the larger context of the mass-based organization, as happens in other national wars of liberation. The local chapter of the NAACP will meet Monday, February 12, 1973 at 7:30 P.M. at the Tabernacle Baptist Church. The Rev. C.S. Hamilton is president. Members and non members are welcome.