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The Augusta News-Review - June 7, 1973, |j If ■Walking I I ilfcnE f ill Dignity W L ZdP || fHa by Al Irby ; JfJiOlljy A PERSONAL RETROSPECTION OF MY LIFE, GOD HAS WONDERFULLY BLESSED ME. I HAVE LIVED THROUGH AN INTERESTING SPAN, AND I’VE LEARNED VERY MUCH. “IF A THOUSAND OLD BELIEFS WERE RUINED IN OUR MARCH TO TRUTH, WE MUST STILL MARCH ON.” This week I’m in a mood of reflection as the panorama of black history unfurled before my very eyes. The early years of my adolescent life was spent in New York City. I knew Marcus Garvey, the Kingston Jamaica organizer, who had America worried with his “Back-to-Africa movement.” Paul Robeson, the mer Xll-Ar Hcan at Rutgers University, and world famed baritone soloist, .ve attended the same church; Mother Zion, the anchord church of the Zion Methodist connection ot which his brother was pastor. I was employed by James Weldon Johnson, and listened many days as his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, the noted composer rehearsed such tunes that became famous: “Under the Bamboo Tree”, “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble” and “Lazy Moon”. Duke Ellington brought his small band from, Washington, D.C., and with his great talent for popular composition, soon from Harlem to Broadway. Jim Europe, Bert Williams and George Walker were staring in Ziegfeld Follies downtown, but we young fellows would catch them after hours in the small uptown clubs. I would occasionally attend the church where Countee Cullen’s father pastored, Salem Methodist Church. By the way Countee was born in the parsonage at Salem. 1 was there when that super musical team of Sissle and Blake had the nation tapping its feet to their great song hits, a few: “I’m Wild About Harry”. “Love Will Find a Way”, and many others.” I witnessed Cab Calloway’s debut to New City where he captivated the country with his delightful “Hi! Hi! De! Ho!”. 1 was there when the late and great Jimmy Lunceford invaded the big town, fresh out of Fisk University playing his sweet music. He soothed the loud and raspy brass of the contemporaneous dance bands. One of his musical hits, that still lingers on is “It ain’t what you do, it’s a how you do it.” Then Count Basie came rushing out of Kansas City with his great big band that knocked the nation into a ditty. The inimitable Ethel Waters was packing them in the prestigious Cotton Club with her haunting hit, “Stormy Weather”. About this time the horrible Lindburgh kidnapping drew the attention of the world. A while later I saw Joe Louis win his first fight in Madison Square Garden, the next day 1 left New York, and came home to be with my ailing mother. These were my youthful years, and what years they were, speak-easies, gin-parties, and the annual fall meeting of the two mightly giants of he gridiron, Army vs. Notre Dame at the famous Yankee Stadium. - I attended City College night school and met people of all races, this multi-racial relation made an indelible impression upon my early life. In my life span I’ve died several times. They were the assassination of President John Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy killed in California, the bombing of the 16th St. Bapt. Church in Birmingham, where four young girls were killed in Sunday School. The cowardly shooting of Dr. King; all of these incidents were a part of Black People’s struggle. “WALK HARD AND TALK LOUD ”, THIS IS WHAT SOME BLACK ACTIVIST LEADERS ARE DOING. THEY ARE USING THIS TOUGH RHETORIC AS A PREREQUISITE TO A LONG HOT SUMMER IN THE “BLACK GHETTOES”! Some black leaders in various cities throughout the nation are trying in a subtle way to propagate the idea of mass street demonstrations this summer. There were no rhyme or reason in the 60s. Liberal administrations had given blacks the greatest social and economic boost since emancipation, yet they went berserk. PERCY SUTTON' MANHATTAN’S BLACK BOROUGH PRESIDENT-recently said that race riots will ignite in black areas, because of cutbacks in federal funds for cities. Many blacks have wised-up to the fact that only a small percentage of these glamourous government programs reach the grass-roots, where the need is. Brother Sutton added some polemic big talk, when he added, that the disorders will be beamed into the white communitiesand to the downtown banks; where he says the real power is situated. He contends that blacks are much more sophisticated than they were in the 60s and much more bolder. This kind of super “Mau-Mauing” jive does not do the race any good. It could lead to other senseless Jackson and Kent States. REV. JESSE JACKSON, THE ARTICULATE COUNTRY-PREACHER, who many people though had the badge of real greatness has been indicted with this summer sophistry. He made a recent statement to this effect: “1973 is a key year for advancement of human rights and that revenue sharing is a key issue, because of its potential for political corruption. The good preacher in speaking like this was exercising his rights as a citizen and the voice of a civil rights spokesman. In saying that the moral authority must shift back into the streets is really putting the nation’s hopes to the return to the violence and disorder of he past; while many blacks are making more progress than ever before. There is cheap publicity in frightening the unthinking persons of both races, especially those of the lower strata with threats. This type of wild prophecies sound self-filling, when sugar-coated with half-truths. Rev. Mr. Jackson indeed has a point when he states that mayors and county officials can build political cliques. There remains a danger when Congress and the Executive use federal funds for any local program. The Federal Bureaucracy rewards certain factions and deny funds to unfriendly groups. That is the reason so little federal money gets to he central city’s poor after salaries and overhead. This loss is estimated at 85% to 90% of the controversial anti-poverty programs. The bulk of the hard cash is taken off the top by the briefcased bureaucracy. If there must be public protests and demonstrations, it should be against the top boys and girls getting the majority of Federal lush pots and the bottom masses getting relatively nothing. The Wall Street Journal made this perspicuous observation: “Most demonstrations and protests are of only limited value. The civil rights movement dramatized the plight of blacks. Legislation was adopted to redress the major segregation problems. A continuing drama in the streets will produce a backlash, in much the same way student demonstrations elicited first sympathy, then boredom and eventually hostility.” Footnote: Thanks to all my friends for the cards and flowers. Page 4 t Speaking | - i From ‘ Athens | 1 BMLJ /I > X;!; • Roosevelt Green, Jr. Athens was hit once again by tornado destruction this year. Damage is running into the millions and one life was lost. One area was struck for the second time and the city has been hit twice this year. Houses have been demolished and large trees were uprooted by the storm. Viewing the area is quite depressing and it is a real miracle that more lives were not lost. A number of callers on a local radio station telephone call-in program blamed the torando destruction on God. They say this weather phenomenon “hit” Athens as a warning from God because of the sins of man. It is interesting to see God get theological credit for meterological activity. A number of Bibical Fundamentalists invariably blame God for most things like this and that is tragic. If tornadoes come as a result of sin then Augusta and Washington, D.C. are in trouble. It is simply unfair to blame God for tornadoes and hurricanes. It just goes to show the lack of sound teological teachings and understanding by people who reject or simply have not benefited from modern theological scholorship. The citizens of Athens voted in a referendum last week their approval for a public transportation system in Athens some years ago but it ceased operation after the advent of the civil rights movement. It will be good to see buses running again in this city thereby providing needed transportation for low income and other citizens. This kind of system is vital for a growing community that has heavy auto traffic congestion. The city and county annexation referendum was narrowly defeated. Some local politicians and others worked hard to keep county voters from accepting this needed annexation. County residents were frightened by threats of placing low income housing projects in excusive lily white suburbs. More will be mentioned about this referendum defeat later as more facts are uncovered. A look at the national scene is promising when one considers how Los Angeles, California has just elected its first Black mayor. Black city councilman Thomas Bradley was elected mayor in spite of the fact that this third largest city in this country is only seventeen percent Black. Congratulations to mayor elect Bradley who won in spite of his opponents’s efforts to appeal to the same white prejudice that caused this rising Black politician’s narrow defeat four years ago. While this country may not be what it ought to be, it is certainly better than most other countries for Blacks. It is always refreshing to see whites rising above their prejudices in favor of a true democracy. The Watergate conspiracy is causing more and more revelations about the police state activity of the Nixon administration. Recent developments with regard to the assassination of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the attempted assassination of Alabama Govenor George Wallace, the bugging of so-called Black and white “militants” by the C.I.A. and the F. 8.1., and Army intelligence, and the bugging of Democratic Party leaders is shocking to the American people. The tramping of constitutional rights by the Nixon administration zealots smacks of shades of Hitler. All of this craziness was done in the name of law and order with umistakeable approval from the president himself. This is the same group of court jesters that performed in King Richard Nixon’s name and anti-Black, anti-minorities, and anti-Welfare ballet. The limit of the Nixon administration democracy wrecking crew have not yet been seen. It must be remembered that the racist Amerikkan electorate sanctioned the behavior of this crew because the oppression of Blacks and the poor was promised and delivered. Perhaps this country will one day gasp the desirability of a sound democracy that couples justice with law and order tempered with mercy and compassion for all. Nixon should not resign unless “Terrible” Ted Agnew resigns also. The Nixon administration is still better than one Agnew would produce. It is better for President Nixon to remain in office than to have the vice president lead the country. One shudders and trembles with chills at the very thought of one day being able to say “President Agnew”. A back to, or forward to, Africa movement would definitely be in order at that point. Further, some whites would probably join us or charter flights to the moon and Mars with that ungodly eventually. It is therefore to be hoped that the president (Nixon) can rise above the Watergate and other scandals to become the great president that he professed wanting to become. The only thing wrong with falling in mud isto wallow in it rather than “straightening up and flying right”. Now is the time for Nixon to “pull off the doggone and put on the confound”. In spite of all the racism and oppression now existing in this country there is still hope for a bright tomorrow. Blacks and many Whites are increasingly seeing the need to work together for a better country. We must not let the present struggles cause us to be totally cynical and negative since there are many bright spots SEE ATHENS page 7 ji w I ITTT-rf Dear Editor: I am writing in behalf of Eta Theta Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., to express our thanks and appreciation for the excellent publicity published in your news papers on May 3, 1973 and May 24, 1973 toward the opening and operation of “Stork’s Nest”. Your copperation in this manner helped to make the event a successful one. Your interest in community activities is very obvious, and certainly is of great benefit to community projects. Sixteen members of the sorority staff the “Stork’s Nest”, a non-profit redistribution center for needy expectant mothers, sponsored by 818 (Better Infant Births) of the Augusta Area of the March of Dimes. Yours truly, Mrs. Ruby M. Wiley Publicity Chairman Eta Theta Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. THE AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY Mallory K. Miilender Editor and Publisher Mailing Address: Box 953 Augusta, Ga. Phone 722-4555 Second Class Postage Paid Augusta, Ga. 30901 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Payable in Advance One Year in Richmond Countyss.oo tax incl. 6 Monthss2.so tax incl. One Year elsewheres6.oo tax incl. ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT Classified Advertising Deadline 12 noon on Tuesday Display Advertising Deadline 12 noon On Tuesday News Items Printed Free SICKLE CELL ANEMIA TEST SICKLE CELL CENTER SCREENING CLINIC OPEN MONDAY - FRIDAY 8:00 A.M. - 6:00 P.M. SATURDAYS 9:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. 1526 GWINNETT STREET PHONE 724-0104 REGISTERED NURSE ON DUTY NO CHARGE - - - NO WAITING 11 T ° be I EQUAL By a/ ► Vernon E. Jonfam, Jr. J/ ft THE CRIME OF IMPRISONMENT by Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. You might think that the Watergate mess might dampen the ardor of the law and order crowd, but apparently it hasn’t. Although official statistics indicate a down-turn in the crime rate, public hysteria continues to grow. There is a new push for more prisons, tougher sentences, and the restoration of the death penalty -- none of which have deterred crime in the past. A kitty of over half-a-billion dollars has been proposed to build ten more federal maximum security prisons. A revision of the federal criminal code has been proposed that would set minimum sentences, and mandate long prison terms and even death for some crimes. And at least 13 states ahve taken advantage of the Supreme Court’s ruling that left the way open to reinstate the death penalty if it is applied uniformly, to reimpose that needless and brutal sentence. If the goal of all these steps is to cut crime, they make no sense at all. Their only result will be to blindly lash out at people convicted of crimes, while leaving the causes of crime and the inequities of the present criminal justice system intact. With probation and counseling services starved for funds, for example, it couldn’t be more wasteful than to build new maximum security jails. The record ofthe prison system is an almost unbroken tale of failure, of racism, of brutality, and of training for future crimes. Stiff sentences never deterred criminals in the past, even when pick-pockets were hung and thieves drawn and quartered. To suppose that long mandatory sentences, or even the death penalty, will cut crime now is a form of self-deception that only diverts attention from the real causes and cures of crime. A lot of research and thinking has gone into the problem of crime in recent years. A couple of Presidential commissions and professional associations have made some sensible observations and suggestions, but in the present climate they are going unheeded. A brief look at some facts is enough to show that the current proposals are taking us down a blind alley. : Sentences are already very high. The average federal prisoner is serving about six years, while in Europe sentences over five years are very rare. Far less than one percent of prisoners in Swedish jails are serving as much as four years. : Sentencing procedures are biased against the poor and the black. Defendants with private lawyers are sentenced half as severely as those who can’t afford them. Blacks nearly always get longer sentences than do whites for the same crimes. : “White-collar” crime goes largely unpunished. A theft of a few dollars can draw a six-month sentence, but a multi-million dollar stock fraud criminal can get off with a suspended sentence and go home to his house in the suburbs. : Nearly three-fourths of those convicted of auto theft went to jail for an average term of three years, but only fifteen percent of those convicted in stock frauds that undermine the economic system went to jail at all, and their average term was less than a year. It ought to be clear by now that prisons are only factories of bitterness, mass-producing angry, frustrated individuals with a grudge against society. Caging a man up, stripping him of his freedom, his family, his self-respect, his mental and physical needs, is not going to rehabilitate him. The criminal justice system is a failure, not because there aren’t enough jails, not because judges are “soft-headed”, not because “criminals” have too many rights, but because it is shot through with discrimination against the poor and the black, with capriciousness that over-punishes some crimes while letting others escape the law, with a lack of humanity, with no realistic means of encouraging people convicted of crimes to become contributing members of he community and because it stresses blind vengeance at the expense of rehabilitation. This results in great personal tragedies, but perhaps more important, it undermines the whole structure of law and society. MAXWELL HOUSE PHARMACY —OPEN ALL DAY SEVEN DAYS PER WEEK— -1002 GREENE ST. 722-4695722-7088 CITIZENS , OAN COMPANY. INC. >412 NINTH STREET S.GNATURE - AUTO - LOANS FURNITURE - COME IN OR PHONE TODAY - IF YOU NEED CASH Phone 724-7457 | SUBSCRIBE | TODAY ™ e augusta news-review ■rJ P.O. BOX 953 AUGITSTA, GEORGIA 30903 NAME ■T ADDRESS RjJ, CITY One year (in county)ss.oo I One year (out of county) $6.00 f a 5 years (in County)s2o.oo |||| 5 years (out of county) ... v .. . $25.00 I GO,NG Oft i I PLACES I I l ' I PHILIP WARING WB f ■ THE FBI TAP ON DR. MARTIN L. KING Some years ago many of my friends cautioned me when 1 used “Going Places” to oppose J. Edgar Hoover and defend the late Dr. M.L. King when the FBI wrongly highlighted many matters of the slain civil rights leader’s personal life. Now a former FBI agent gives the full truth on how Hoover tried to “get” Dr. King, and even tried to get white leaders of Atlanta not to attend the dinner in his honor after winning the Nobel Award. May I share two editorials from the Amsterdam News. The first on Dr. King and the second is on how Attorney William H. Brown is making the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission work despite federal cutbacks. GUEST EDITORIAL Our guest editorial this week is provided by Newsman Simeon Booker, Black commentator for the Westinghouse “Big W” radio chain, who said in a recent commentary: “It is with a great degree of jubilance, and new self confidence, that members of the nation’s press take credit for exposing the Watergate bugging case with the unsavory connections reaching into the White House. Two Washington Post reporters were named to receive a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished service in journalism. “But for members of the nation’s largest minority, the Blacks, the issue at point is why the nation’s press was not so vigilant in the 60s in tackling the bugging case of the late Dr. Martin Luther King.” Here was a national spokesman, a Black man who won a Nobel Peace Prize, a man who was not a convict or an advocate of violence, but yet a leader, who in his country, was dogged by FBI wiretapping and surveillance. “Few newspaper editors considered the King bugging as immoral or illegal. Some reporters in Washington even attended sessions in which FBI tapes were replayed. “No one talks about the shameful persecution of Dr. King during the Kennedy and Johnson years. “But if the nation’s press had been as concerned about the invasion of Dr. King’s privacy, perhaps, there would not have been a Watergate affair. “Such tactics would have been long outlawed and publicly frowned on. So the unchallenged bugging of Dr. King hangs like a cloud over a press, which celebrates its role in exposing the Watergate affair.” RIGHT ON, MR. BROWN! In recent weeks the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice have filed twice as many legal suits charging private firms and labor unions with discrimination than were filed in all of last year. In the Watergate mess that is in Washington, this is oneofthe coolest, most heart warming breezes blowing across the Potomac River in a long time. And we would like to commend the EEOC Chairman William H. Brown, 111 and his commission for the work that it is doing. Mr. Brown says that his agency’s efforts are backed by the president himself and he points to the fact that his agency is getting the people and the money to do its job. Whether Mr. Noxon is backing this or not, the important point is that so far this year 58 cases have been filed by EEOC and according to Brown 100 or more will be in the courts by the end of July. This compares with 16 cases filed in all of last year by the Justice Department with its 42 lawyers working in the field of job discrimination. One thing is certain, Mr. Brown is going after the big ones that is where the large numbers of jobs are and no matter who is doing it, it argues well for he fact of minority groups. Thus far among the EEOC defendants are such corporations as General Motors, General Electric, the International Long Shoreman’s Association, and the United Steel Workers of America. We happily say to Mr. Brown, “Right On”.