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The Augusta News-Review - April 10,1975
■Walking /||P|L B
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■ Dignity , ■
by Al Irby ®
THERE IS AN OLD SAYING TO THIS EFFECT: “IT’S A POOR
WIND THAT BLOWS NO GOOD.” IF THE BLACK
BOURGEOISIE IN AUGUSTA IS FIGHTING MAD THAT S
GOOD, AND IF I HAD A PART IN BRINGING ON THIS
SITUATION, THAT'S ALSO GOOD. IT IS TO BE HOPED
THAT THEY ARE MADE ENOUGH TO MAKE A BEE LINE
AND RENEW THEIR NAACP MEMBERSHIPS, AND JOIN UP
WITH THE SCLC. THAT WOULD MAKE THE COMMUNITY
BELIEVE THAT THEIR WILD VENOM WAS NOT BEAMED
AT PERSONALITIES THEY DID NOT LIKE.
THE NATION’S ACADEMIC COMMUNITY ALL AGLOW
AT PRESIDENT FORD NAMING EDWARD HIRSCH LEVI
YEARS OLD PRESIDENT OF FAMED CHICAGO
UNIVERSITY, AS HIS ATTORNEY GENERAL. JURIST LEVI
IS A TOUGH AND CLASSY ACADEMICIAN THAT STOOD LT
TO THE MILITANT STUDENT-THUGS IN THE 60 s, WHO
WERE OUT TO DESTROY THE NATION’S BASTIONS OF
LEARNING. HE CONCEDED, “THE HOUSES OF LEARNING
ARE INDEED PLACES FOR CONFRONTATION, BUT IT IS
THE CONFRONTATION OF THE MINDS IN WHICH NONE IS
VANQUISHED, FOR THE VICTORIES WILL BELONG TO
ALL.”
Many Americans have not ever heard of this great legal scholar.
Evidently the knowledgeable anchor man Walter Cronkite
pronounced his name wrong; his last name is not pronounced like
the jeans and slacks people, it sounds like the river levee.
Nominally, Mr. Levi is a Democrat, so he was bound to run into
some bitter opposition, especially in the Senate. Insultingly
speaking, Senator John Tower, the Texas Republican, made this
nasty remark: “President Ford went fishing in the sewer of New
Deal politics in coining up with Levi.” But many of his peers of
the legal profession say Levi will bring a much needed element of
legal integrity to the office of Attorney General.
One former high-ranking Justice official who has served in
Democratic and Republican administrations said: “Attorney Levi
will put the Attorney General’s office back to the tradition of
Justice, and not being engaged in politics.” That’s the way the
Justice Department should be, dedicated the the government and
justice In recent years, we have had too many Attorney Generals
advisers to the President. None of his friends can visualize Levi
misusing the investigative arms of the Justice Department for
political ends. When he was special assistant to the Attorney
General in 1940 to 45, he was referred to as “Mr. Clean”. He was
also the first assistant in the anti-trust division, because anti-trust
is his specialty. The subject of many of his speeches and articles
in various law reviews have dealt with anti-trust interest.
LEVI PERCEIVED A WEAKNESS IN THE NATION’S
ANTI-TRUST LAWS-ln one such article written in 1947 for the
Chicago Law Review, Mr. Levi predicted with notable prescience
that, “in tile future there may well be a recognition of the
instability of the assumed foundation for some major anti-trust
deoctrines. And this may lead to a re-evaluation of the scope and
function of the anti-trust laws.”
The Attorney General is not a show-off or flamboyant person;
some of his legal friends call him shy. Another Chicago-area
colleague describes him as “kind of icy and intolerant of
bubbleheads.” A former Justice Department official says “he
doesn’t rattle off the alternative phrases; he’s just a very solid,
constructive thinker.” He inherited the love for the “Black ghetto
South Side” when the dashing young intellectual, Dr. Robert M.
Hutchins, became president of the University of Chicago at 29
years of age. He pioneered the early-entrance and called the
nation’s attention to the University as an innovative school. Levi
is no less innovative. It was under his administration that the
school elected to stay in the midst of the Black Community and
be the leader in the redevelopment of the neighborhood.
DUB LEVI A CLASSICAL PATRICIAN WITH NO STOMACH
FOR MEDIOCRITY-The Chicago Reader, a self-styled
“alternative” weekly, staffed by a group of University of Chicago
graduates, scored Dr. Levi for conducting an “Imperial
Presidency”.
This newspaper also characterized Levi as a “classically
conservative libertarian in the area of civil liberties,” and
predicted that, as Attorney General, “Levi would probably shy
away from the limelight, because of a patrician distaste for
public scrutiny.”
LEVI STOOD UP TO THE STUDENT HOODLUMS IN
1969-When the confrontation came at the University of Chicago
during a 1969 sit-in, Levi handled it firmly and, to most
observers, fairly. At the height of the sit-in Levi announced, “we
will not negotiate; I will talk to anybody.” Forty-three protesters
were thrown out of school and eighty-one were suspended. In a
collection of his speeches, Dr. Levi wrote: “Rational discussion
itself is fascinated with the manipulative techniques of
persuasion, coercion and power. The sense of justice, which all
must prize, is subject to manipulation. The devastating reality and
complexity of the problems to be faced, the unattainability of
goals made-all feed the sense of injustice.”
THE GREAT JURIST CRITICIZED GOVERNMENT
GRANTS WITH STRINGS ATTACHED-In an interview
published last year in the Midwest, the Sunday magazine of the
Chicago Sun-Times, the good legal scholar argued against “that
great celebration of mediocrity.” He criticized government grants
that come with strings attached that might compromise the
university’s autonomy.
THE AUGUSTANEWS-REVIEW ~ ~|
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY X
k Mallory K. Millenoer...Editor and Publisher I
KAudrey Frazier .Society Editor J
■James Stewart Circulation Manager: I
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*3' gecortd Ctess Postage I ’aid Augusta, Ga. 30901
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Ytair irt Richmond County $6.00 tax ind.
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K 3 Jp-T PUBUSMCBS, INC. iKIBIIWmT I
Page 4
In 1975, More Than Ever Before-
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PILGRIM HONORS ELDER
As Augusta’s oldest and largest Black business establishment,
Pilgrim Health and Life Insurance Company did itself and the
Augusta Community proud indeed with its recent salute to Lee
Elder, first Black to play in the famous Masters.
The affair wqs “big league” and was in keeping with Pilgrim’s
status as the eighth largest Black insurance firm. President W.S.
Hornsby and the Pilgrim Family came through in first class style
on an operation which will further project Pilgrim’s prestige
around the nation, and Augusta’s hospitality and fame as golf
capitol.
ed Mclntyre top public servant
The brain child of able Ed Mclntyre, the Richmond County
Commission chairman saw its long range potential for his firm
and community before a topflight audience of national figures
visiting during the Masters.
Able, forthright, well trained in communications and the art of
government, his public service has been sterling indeed.... He
spearheaded the Georgia Hall of Fame, the Coliseum-Civic Center
and other badly needed and overdue improvements.... He
organized and heads the Georgia Caucus of Black Elected
Officials, the Augusta Black Caucus, salute to Attorney Jack
Ruffin (one of the nation’s leading civil rights lawyers), and so
importantly, the successful “Build It Back” campaign to rebuild
Haygood Hall at Paine College (How often in God’s name has any
person raised SIOO,OOO in a Black Community whose income is
but half that of his white brother?)... Yes, in a few short years,
Ed through hard work, has attained status as a real public servant
and statesman while also helping expand the resources of Pilgrim
Life. Right On Ed!
HAPPY FOURTH BIRTHDAY NEWS-REVIEW
May all of die N-R Staff also join with our dynamic
editor-publisher in saying “Thanks” to subscribers, advertisers
and supporters. Without Mai Millender, however, there would be no
first class Black weekly here. He has given fully of himself
without pay in this quest on building a paper of which we can be
proud. And let’s not forget his lovely wife, Jackie, who has given
faithful and dedicated support to the paper.
QUEST FOR A FAIR SHARE
While I am delighted to learn all about new plans to expand
and develop the Richmond County-Augusta area coupled with
four giant newly arrived firms, etc., I am disappointed to note it
necessary for a number of our civic and civil rights groups to “go
public” in highlighting their quest for a fair share of jobs in the
public and private sector, better recreational facilities and the
long over due fairer shake: Black owned news media getting some
of the advertising dollar spent by thousands of Black citizens for
goods and services with local merchants. Our media gets less than
SIOO,OOO of the millions of dollars spent locally for press, radio
and television advertising. There will be more market surveys on
the buying power of local Blacks.
FIRST HONORS FOR BLACK HISTORIC SERIES
' My current trip to Augusta to assist the planning committee
resume Part II of the Blacks Who Helped Build Augusta
(BWHBA) series finds a forthcoming announcement of an award.
Good, because the BWHBA series is a “first” involving writing of
Black History.
ABOUT THE WALLACE BRANCH LIBRARY
As one who joined with L.B. Wallace, the late Joel Wallace,
Mrs. Rosa Tutt, William Brown, Dr. Ike Washington, the late Mrs.
Lilly B. Harris, Deacon H.B. Garvin and others who walked the
streets of Augusta soliciting books to start the first public library
service for Negroes in the pre-World War II era, I felt disappointed
indeed to hear about projected plans to dose the Wallace Branch.
This branch was successor to the Community Library founded by
the Community Forum in the old Gwinnett Street Fire House
(present library ate). I also remember during my boyhood days
of the grim refiisal to allow us to use the downtown facilities.
In the several different cities in the nation on Urban League
assignments, I’ve always found problems of weak library
circulation in the Black communities. Any informed and trained
educator, library worker or social worker will give you the facts
Vie Must Help Each Other
"GOING
PLACES”
With Philip Waring
k
of life about the cultural deprivation and disadvantaged status of
the great majority of our people. They include: (1) In the Life
style of these good people, victims often of poor education, there
is little family tradition of reading or going to the library (2) ine
branch library is often located in the heart of the Black ghetto,
serves as a solid cultural light house, and is a great distance from
the downtown branch, (3) mere circulation figures are
/
meaningless when one looks at how a branch library can help the
cultural, educational and psychological development of poor
Black children who need an opportunity, and finally (4) Our
public schools, churches, civic groups, etc must join hands in
supporting and helping enrich the Wallace Branch program
services. So let’s get the notion of closing the Wallace Branch out
once and for all!
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M® iHk A
Abraham Lincoln, the greatest of our states
men-presidents and the most immortalized of our
nations orators was weaned, nourished and matured
educationally on the best-read literature of the
Jewish people. Mr. Lincoln’s ethical indoctrination,
his sense of history and his vision of greatness were
all attributed to his continued almost daily study
and research as a youngster and adult in the library
which for years, was the only one available to him,
the books of the Old and New Testaments, collec
tively known as the Bible.
Recognized as the most extensive written
body of ethical insight inherited from the ancient
world, this same collection of books seiyed as the
literary model not only for Abraham Lincoln but
also for countless other orators and statesmen of
our modern world. Regardless of the translations
the biblical literature has been consistent with the
dictum of Phillips Brooks that the clarity and beauty
of expression should always befit the excellence of
God’s word. It is for this reason that generations
which have been reared upon this most widely read
literature in the world have produced our most
memorable poets, orators and sages.
With only this simple background in mind, it
would seem reasonable that all of our young people
today should be introduced to and immeshed in this
material most basic to the Hebrew-Christian heritage
and which gives central shaping at least to our
idealized way of life.
We wonder today why we have so many
defections from respect for the best values which we
have known, as evidenced from our White House to
our scandalously over crowded jails. Yet we
continue to isolate whole generations from the
ethical roots of what some would call our European-
American civilization. One of the most striking
differences between the two Republican presidents,
Abraham Lincoln and Richard M. Nixon, is in the
degree to which their lives were absorbed in and fed
by both the biblical ethical teachings and the biblical
capacity to lift'its reader’s mind and imagination to
what the Hebrew patriarch Abraham regarded as an
ideal human community “whose builder and maker
is God.”
If Watergate teaches the legal, religious, civic
and educational establishment one overriding lesson,
perhaps it should be this: That a people set
adrift too far from their familiar shores may
perish. Or, to put''it another way, a tree or a vine
long removed from the sustaining nourishment of
its roots will wither and decay.
There is no good reason why the biblical
literature should not and could not be taught in all
WBIEN
on Wheels
| HELPFUL SAFETY TIPS~|
by Elizabeth Stimley
Plymouth Safety Writer
S’WJfi
® —7/157 in
6KOJ?:
TIRE CARE TIPS
The salesman was amazed
when I told him the exact size
and type of new tires I wanted.
He thought women only knew
when it was time to buy gas.
If I had told him that I also
knew when to rotate the tires
and how to read the tire wear
gauge indica-
have probably
gone into
shock.
WOW Deciding
what type of
Ml tire to buy for
the car is like deciding what to
wear. You won't wear sneakers
with a cocktail dress. And you
shouldn’t mix the types of tires
(cross bias, bias belted, radiaD.
Most manufacturers recom
mend that you buy the same
type of tire that came with the
car. However, a reputable
dealer will be able to’recom
mend other types such as
radials, if your driving routine
demands them.
The owner’s manual is still
the best reference source for in
formation on tire buying and
care.
But there are simple tests you
can give the tires periodically.
Such as checking the tires for
uneven wear before driving.
This will indicate whether the
tires are in balance or if you
need an alignment job.
Every third gas stop, check
the tires' air pressure. Kicking
the tires is as undependable as
thumping a watermelon.
Remember, your car rides on
only four small patches of rub
ber in contact with the road, so
give them the care they need
and deserve.
Black Enqanwcmcnl
! By Dr. Nathaniel Wrighi, Jr.
human rights activist
RE-LEARNING OUR HERITAGE
TO BE
equm inu
BY VERNON E. JORDAN, JR. K
THEBLACICECONOMIC depression
Statisticians have discovered a remarkable way to move people
in and out of the labor force. They call it “seasonal adjustment”.
And one way to make the unemployment figures lower is not to
count people as unemployed if they’ve given up looking for work
in a job market where no employment opportunities exist.
The Labor Department’s February unemployment figures
showed a rate of 8.2 percent, or about 7.5 million people out of
work. Those are seasonally adjusted figures, theoretical constructs
to account for shifts in work patterns that occur from month to
month.
But when real people are counted - bodies, not theoretical
constructs - the picture changes somewhat. Then we have an
unemployment rate of 9.1 percent and 8.3 million workers - real
people with bills to pay and families to feed - out of work.
And even these figures are grossly misleading. In February,
some 580,000 workers gave up looking for jobs. So long as they
registered each week that they were actively looking for work,
they were counted as unemployed. In February, after weeks of
fruitless job-hunting and no leads or interview possibilities they
gave up the search. They thus became, in the official statistics,
non-persons, no longer part of the labor force and no longer
counted as unemployed.
Seen from the vantage point of a person who wants to work in
a society that has no work for him, these statistical exercises
become a sort of shell-game deceiving the public, legislators and
the Administration about the seriousness of the Depression.
I’m not calling it a recession any more, because we are
currently living through an economic Depression. For Black
people, there isn’t the faintest doubt about this.
One of the biggest barriers to getting the kind of federal action
to end this Depression is the public’s ignorance of the seriousness
of the situation. The National Urban League’s Research
Department just released its quarterly economic report on the
Black worker, and, along with up-dating to cover the last month
or so, it presents a devastating picture of the Black economic
Depression.
It estimates true Black unemployment including those out of
work, working part-time when they want full-time work, and
those who have given up trying to find jobs, at about 25 percent,
one out of every four Black workers!
For Black teenagers, the official rate is over 40 percent. In
some urban ghettos, up to half the people are without full-time
jobs they want.
And that’s not all. There are as many Blacks out of work today
as in the darkest days of the Great Depression. About a quarter of
the Black unemployed have been out of work for at least four
months. About 700,000 of the Black unemployed are not eligible
for unemployment compensation benefits, because their
unemployment did not result from direct job lay-offs, a
requirement for such benefits.
And on striking finding is that Blacks, who comprise 12
percent of local government employes, make up almost half of all
local government workers who were employed, offering striking
testimony to the disproportionate lay-offs of Blacks by local
governments, demonstrating lessened commitment to affirmative
action. , ,
Some people, noticing the concentration of Black workers m
the laggard auto industry, think that alone accounts for high
Black jobless rates. Not true. Far more Blacks have lost jobs in
the construction and food processing industries.
And this Depression is not confined to Blacks, it cuts across
the board. High white unemployment is also hidden by the
official numbers game. In addition to the 6.9 million white
workers officially counted as unemployed in February, add
another 6.9 million discouraged workers, and people in part-time
jobs who want full-time work and you’ve got a grand total of
close to 14 million white people out of work today.
No amount of fudging can hide the fact that this nation is in a
real Depression. It’s time to stop haggling over what to call it and
get to the business of ending it.
of our elementary and secondary schools, whether
public or private. Indeed the reason for its establish
ment in every curriculism as a fundamental part
of our priceless heritage are overwhelming.
Perhaps the most serious practical problem
rests with our religious organizations which jealously
and selfishly claim that this incomparable historical
literature is sacred to them alone Such thinking is
sheer nonsense! It is also grossly self-defeating.
Many secular on non-rcligious universities have
taught for years courses on “The Bible as Literature.”
This probably could also be done, without breaking
any existing laws, in most of our public schools.
What is more important, however, is that the
ethical moorings of our way of life have no
business being locked up today in our presently half
empty synagouges and churches. The biblical
teachings are the priceless foundational inheritance
of all for whom we have the responsibility of
molding into able and thoughtful citizens, into
family-makers and into the architects of the future
shape of our society.
The biblical literature is not doctrinnaire. ,
It is the incomparable story of an incessant search
for truth and ultimate meaning by people represent
ing the twin fountains of our society Hebrew-
Christian sources. It is a body of literature which
is at once radically revolutionary and superlatively
conservative. It is at the same time practical and
contemplative, philosophical and detailed. Some
have found, and will doubtless continue to find,
in it profound religious meanings for their lives.
There is no crime in this.
Still it may be, whether criminal or not, no
less than suicide for our increasingly imperilled way
of life for millions of our young people to be
brought up almost, totally ignorant of the greatest
“best seller” which the world has ever known.
For any society of people to endure and
prosper, they must see, acknowledge and share
some common roots. Such non-controversial, and
secular oriented new books similar to Walter Russell
Bowie’s old classic, The Story of the Bible, published
more than a generation ago, need to be prepared to
assist classrooms today to claim the most essential
and most literally neglected vehicle for human
growth which should be available to every citizen in
our society. This ancient story of the struggles of
the Hebrew people to find the best society which
life might afford must, in some way, become once
more the common civic and ethical heritage of us all.