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4 JAN.-3.1974 THE PEOPLE’S PAPER (* ,' NATIONAL BLACK NEWS SERVICE \ \\ J J member <.£„•' Vol. 3 PAINE COLLEGE ~ White Teachers At Josey Charge Discrimination-Call For Racial Balance The News-Review recently learned of a controversy at predominantly Black T.W. Josey High School wherein some white teachers wrote a letter to Richmond County School Superintendent Harvey Duncan complaining that they are discriminated against. The teachers charged that Black teachers get preferential treatment in transfer assignments, have lighter class loads, and called for racial balance among teachers at Josey if not among students. The call for racial balance is particularly striking since most whites have been fighting racial balance in public Jones Found Guilty Gets 2 Life Sentences And 27 Years In Assault - Kidnap Case By R.L. Oliver Seventeen year old Alfonzo Jones was found guilty of all charges against him and was sentenced to two life sentences and twenty-seven years late Tuesday afternoon. Richmond County District ' Attorney Richard Alien had requested the death penalty for Jones’part in the July 26th, armed robbery, shooting and kidnapping of Mrs. Diane Ramon the former owner, of the Kitten’s Corner Club. An all white all male jury by passed the death sentence and recommended the lesser of the two penalties. Jones was sentenced to life on the armed robbery charge, life on the Former WRDW DJ - Freddie Gavin - Seeks Equal Employment At MCG In mid-July, the Medical College added a new Assistant Personnel Director for Equal Employment Opportunity to its staff. Freddie Gavin fills the new position, coming to MCG after retiring from the Army. His job on campus will be implementing and overseeing the EEO policies. In an interview with MCG’s Intercom newspaper, Mr. Gavin talked about progress, plans and goals in the area of equal employment opportunity on campus: Intercom: Who exactly receives the assistance of the EEO officer? Gavin: Minorities and women are who I deal with mostly. In Augusta, minorities .mostly mean blacks. Intercom: How do you help these people? Gavin: My job is to make the hiring forces at MCG aware of the available working force who are black or female, and point out why any inconsistencies in their policies if they are not following the EEO guidelines. But more importantly, I will be working toward getting a good ‘affirmative action’policy going. Intercom: Could you explain ‘affirmative action’? Gavin: It deals with the attitudes of employers. You see, equal employment opportunities will not come about simply by following some set of government rules and regulations. It requires an affirmative attempt on the part of the hirer to give minorities the same opportunities for job kidnapping charge, ten years for the charge of aggravated assault, ten years for criminal attempt and seven years for motor vehicle theft. Mrs. Ramon was a former partner in the now defunct Kitten’s Komer, scene of the incident. On the stand for more than one hour, Mrs. Ramon said that after she gave the accused and his juvenile friend a drink of icewater, he shot her in the head, kicked her, robbed her of over SSOO, and forced her by gunpoint to accompany as he fled in her auto. “I was afraid he was going to openings as those in the ‘majority’. So, while I’m spending a lot of time finding out statistics and percentages of employees right now, my goal in affirmative action is to make the employer say: ‘Hey, there are a lot of blacks and women out there who are qualified, that I haven’t even talked to for this job’. Intercom: You mentioned working with figures a lot at present. What has been the bulk of your activities since coming here? Gavin: I’ve been compiling data that roughly illustrates the percentages of qualified minorities in he potential job forces, and the percentages of minorities now employed by MCG. What we would like ideally is to have those two percentages be the same. I’m also working with the Provost, Dr. Robert A. Liebelt, to set up an Affirmative Action Advisory Committee. There will be 18 members on the committee from all areas of the campus, and they will monitor the EEO program and recommend to the departments ways of solving deficiencies in their personnel management and hiring policies. I have also spent a good deal of time working on the internal advancement of employees; that is people who are in dead-end jobs and have been for a good while. We will try to form a means of educating people in certain types of jobs to enable them to move up. P.O. Box 953 W ARREN A. CANDLER schools. The letter written to Duncan was dated October 1 and read as follows: “Several concerned white teachers at T.W. Josey High School feel they have a good question for the Board of Education. Why have you stopped your recent effort to achieve racial balance among the teachers at Josey? We were elated to hear that Mrs. Mildred Handerson was to go to Sego, and Josey in return was to receive a white teacher in her place. Now a week has gone by since she kill me,” she said. Forced to her knees while leaning on the front seat of the passenger side of the auto, Mrs. Ramon said, “1 knew when we turned on Dean’s Bridge Road, I had to escape somehow, right away.” Edward Ramon, the victim’s husband, operates a business in the general area of K-mart where, according to Mrs. Ramon, she flung herself from the moving vehicle. Witnesses reported seeing the victim fall from the auto and rolling for several yards before she began screaming for her husband. Mrs. Ramon said, “I never lost consciousness, I was too afraid.” Late Monday afternoon. And we’re also trying to see that job openings are made known within the institution by posting them on bulletin boards around campus. Intercom: Would you like to see word-of-mouth job recruiting on campus ended then? Gavin: We don’t want to do away with word-of-mouth recruiting entirely, but as far as bringing minorities and blacky into higher job positions it is not working. Os course, we realize that if somebody wants to hire his buddy, he's going to hire his buddy no matter what we say. But, we are trying to put some realistic limits on how many of his buddies he can hire. Intercom: How will you enforce the limits? Gavin: This is where our advisory committee will come in. We will give recommendations to each department on campus about their deficiencies, if any. Then the departments will draw up goals and timetables that they ill follow in meeting the EEO recommendations. The committee will make sure that the departments are meeting the government standards, and will monitor the efficiency of the program. Enforcement will not be very strict, because here again we are dealing with attitudes to a certain extent and that makes for too many gray areas rather than simple black or white. Intercom: What will it take for EEO and affirmative action to become totally accepted at MCG? Gavin: Well.. Jt will take Jones took the stand in defense of his life and said, “I went to the club looking for a job and found her shot. She asked me to drive her to the hospital saying her boyfriend had shot her. On the way to the hospital, she fell O'»t of *he car.” An earlier witness, Gerald Curtis, of Augusta, testified he had taken Jones and his juvenile companion to the club on his way to work. He told the jury that he saw a lady come to the door and he drove away when the two youths entered the building. According to county deputy reports, Jones was picked up within minutes after the incident in a woodshed. Mrs. <1 j ‘ i - I >.I• : - - i w? w * • .-Mr s w .Mr i H mF £ Jaß Jr / FREDDIE GAVIN cooperation from he top, more than anything else. And agreement with the principles of the program. We have here a Augusta, Georgia was informed of this change and she is still at Josey. Why are the blacks too good to be transferred? Many years ago when integration was just beginning white teachers as well as black were forced to leave schools they had served for many years. They accepted the change and made he best of it. Please explain why the blacks at Josey are given special treatment concerning being transferred. White teachers and parents feel the least you can do is achieve racial balance among our teachers if you are not going to do it among students. Ramon’s auto was. later recovered in a ditch. Allen said of Jones’ testimony, “This is not consistent with the testimony given in an earlier hearing.” In a surprise move during the trial of Alfonzo Jones, defense attorney Albert Ingram asked that the jury be removed and from the court room. Then he asked for dismissal of all charges against his client. Following removal of the jury, Ingram told Judge Edwin Fulcher, “Your honor, in going down my list, I have just discovered that the juror selected to this jury by the name Arthur Balk, Jr., is the same Arthur Balk, Jr. who situation similar to many institutions over the country, that is, a pyramidal relationship of minorities-- served on the same Grand Jury that indicted this defendant. This man has already expressed an opinion against the defendant, he voted for a true bill.” Richard Allen, district attorney, charged that Ingram could have turned the juror * down, that he could only motion for a mistrial not dismissal. Ingram refused, “1 am saying that this jury cannot try this defendant.” “I am moving for a dismissal of all charges against my client,” he argued. Ingram was overruled. Jones is charged with several felonies including armed robbery and kidnapping of a white night club owner, Diane Ramon. -blacks and women-with white males. At the bottom of the employment ladder there are a majority of blacks, as in December 13, 1973 No. 39 “The majority of the black teachers at Josey have only four classes, some only three. Many of the blacks do not have a homeroom, nor are they assigned special duty like detention hall. The reason for this is the fact that these blacks have been together for ‘X’ number of years and have formed a group which puts the teaching load on the white teachers. We feel you are not aware of this because we have felt that anything that goes to the Board concerning teacher load is ‘padded'. “Please help the white teacher and white pupil at Josey. Please visit our school and interview white teachers who aren’t afraid of telling the truth. We seek your help to develop a better school.” Sincerely yours, Concerned White Teachers at Josey. Duncan told the News-Review that he had received the letter and “the situation is being investigated” and that an additional assistant principal has been assigned to the school to look into the problem. Duncan said the charges were vague and the letter was unsigned. He did say though that the class loads could have been balanced better in certain instances. Racial balance, he said, was never ordered for Josey. Some of the Black students in that area were assigned to Butler and some whites were assigned to Josey. But racial balance was never ordered. He said he plans to meet with the Josey faculty this week. Asked if the meeting stems from the letter, he said, “We try to make ourselves available to all kculiks. This office is always open to hear any complaint. So far we don’t know who is making the charges.” lie added that the persons making the charges should have been willing to sign the letter. Jt\ * • Wk The Richmond County Barber’s Association presented its annual Christmas donation to the Shiloh Orphanage Sunday. Mrs. Ollie Brown, (director of the orphanage) accepts the check troni the association’s president Verdery Tutt (L)and L. McNeely, secretary. The orphanage’s slogan is, “Because you give, we live.” Seminar Held On Reality Therapy A two-day Seminar on Reality Therapy was held at the Performing Arts Theatre at Augusta College last Friday and Saturday. The Seminar was conducted by Dr. William Glasser Founder and President of the Institute For Reality Therapy in California. Over 600 people from the Southeast region attended the seminar. These included: clergymen, educators, counselors, doctors, nurses, social workers, mental health workers, studets and other interested persons. Dr. Glasser stated that the manual labor, and women in secretarial jobs. The higher you get, the more the ratio swings around, until you get to the top and you find very few women or blacks. And at the top is where cooperation is most necessary. It also requires a communication system linking the bottom with the top, to make the system work well. That certainly is a 50-50 proposition, but I think if communication is started from the top, it generally is more purpose of psychotherapy is to help people choose some kind of acceptable behavior as an alternative to behavior defined as unsatisfactory by society. Among those attending the seminar from the Veterans Administration—Lenwood Division were: Mrs. Margaret Beard, Instructor of Nursing; Mrs. Jacqueline Millender, Social Worker; Mrs. Pearline Moton, Social Worker; Mrs. Wildred Williams, R.N.; Mr. Floyd Wimberly, Jr.. Nursing Service; and Ms. Gwendolyn Coleman, Social work student. efficient and effective. As everybody knows, when problems arise in institutions these days, nine times out of ten the cause is a breakdown in communications. Intercom: Are you optimistic about the program here? Gavin: Very. We have already seen examples of people going all out to make our program work. And, with Dr. Liebelt and the other members of the committee, I feel that the EEO program here will become very successful.