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The Augusta News-Review - June 12, 1975 -
181 /W:
The American Indians are low-keying their protests across the
US. The Wounded Knee and Alcatraz type of confrontation is
diminishing. These original Americans are emulating the
American Blacks by turning to the courts of law. So far they are
winning.
It is a long-range process, but eventually all minority groups
that are fighting for the centripetal place in American life will be
heard and respected if they have the fortitude to utilize the sure
legal trials. The Black militants of the 1960 s phased themselves
out of the legitimate civil rights movement because of their
violence. But inspite of this turning to the law, the majority of
Indians give their respect and praise to the militants for helping
their cause, and bringing the Indian problems to the attention of
the American public. The many demonstrations are held dear, not
only for making the nation aware of very old grievances, but for
prodding many hesitant older Indians into action on the total
behalf of the entire Indian nation.
The new breed of pragmatic young Indians believe it is the
activities of the legally oriented groups such as the
Washington-based Institute for the Development of Indian Law
that will bear the most fruit. This body is composed mainly of
cool level-headed young Indian attorneys who will carry the
battle for the tribes on a variety of legal battle fronts.
Some Indian organizations have become active in backing tribal
demands for more control over water and land-use rights.
Congress has accepted Indian proposals for more voice in
directing education and other services. These first Americans are
prone to make changes in the Government bureaucracy that deals
with Indian grievances; the Justice Department is coming around
to assigning more legal talent to handle Indian cases. The main
reason for this new legal strategy, according to Indian leaders, is
that the old tactics of confrontation by militant tribesmen in
recent years have exacted a high price from Indians themselves.
Like the Blacks in the 60’s, who had to pay a terrific penalty for
burning down their communities much of the damage remains as
a lesson in racial stupidity, burning down homes and businesses
where their own people resided.
The Indians in the past have made some wild tactless moves.
For example a once busy electronic plant on the Navajo
Reservation in New Mexico is now closed after seizure by militant
HBk 'ft.
The housing crunch has been one of the most serious results of
this Depression. Housing starts are at about half the level needed,
and the price of homes has sky-rocketed beyond the reach of
most families.
With interest rates holding steady now, and new savings
flowing into banks and savings institutions, industry spokesmen
are predicting the housing situation will improve. But not for
lower-income families and minorities.
In large part, that’s because of the widespread practice of
“redlining,” a process by which lenders refuse to make mortgages
and loans in a neighborhood. There was a time when “redlined”
areas were all Black and poor, but now the practice has extended
to many center-city neighborhoods, even middle class ones.
With mortgage money dying up in the cities, stable
neighborhoods are condemned to fast decline as homeowners
can’t borrow to improve their buildings and can’t refinance
existing mortgages.
Back in 1973 the National Urban League documented the
practice of redlining and of savings institutions exporting local
savings to other areas deemed offering higher and safer returns on
their investment. The League analyzed a dozen financial
institutions in Bronx County, New York, and found that most
were deeply into a process of disinvestment, channeling funds out
of the Bronx.
Now, the issue has heated up again and some reforms may be
in the offering. A few recent developments include>
: A study by the Federal Reserve Board revealed that mortgage
lenders turn down almost twice as many home loan applications
from minorities as they do from whites.
: A Washington report documents that major lending
institutions put many millions of dollars into the suburbs and
very little into center-city mortgages, although the bulk of their
funds come from city residents.
: New York State, in response to similar practices and to the
banks’ reluctance to finance a state housing development agency,
Letters To
The Editor
To the Editor:
I just want to tell you how
much I enjoy the
News-Review. It has so much
news of people and places I
remember.
I was bom and raised in
Augusta. I attended Miss Lucy
Laney’s school. I shall never
forget what a great lady she
was and how she inspired her
students to go on to college
despite poverty. I finished in
the class of 1916 and went on
THE AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW
Mallory K. MillenderEditor-Publisher
Frank Bowman Advertising Manager
Robert L. Moore Managing Editor
Audrey Frazier Editor At Large
Mike Carr Photographer
Stan Raines ■ Circulation Manager
Mailing Address: Box 953 Augusta, Ga. Phone 722-4555
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Page 4
Indians Follow Black Example
Walking With Dignity
by A] Irby
Banks And The Housing Crisis
TO BE EQUAL
BY VERNON E. JORDAN, JR.
to Lincoln for my A.B. and
Howard for dentistry. I owe
Miss Laney alot.
Although I am a long way
from Augusta and have been
away a long time, I am still
interested in what goes on
there. That is why 1 subscribe
to your paper. Next to talking
to people from Augusta, your
paper is my link to the old
hometown.
Sincerely
Samuel Armstead Lindsay
P.S. In Augusta I was known
by my middle name Armstead.
Samuel Armstead Lindsay
750 Arnett Blvd.
Rochester, N.Y. 14619
Indians. Hundreds of Navajos were put out of work as a result.
There was also a big squabble among The Menominee Tribe over
leadership and goals related to the occupation of a religious order
on a nearby estate by a group of dissidents. Os course there will
be other ugly bursts of violence by minor hot-heads, but the real
battles, in the long run, will be fought by skilled, well-trained
Indian lawyers and astute lobbyists, in county seats, State capitals
and in Washington. Already the vanguard of these educated
Indians are beginning to move, and the results of their skillsand
efforts are making wise Washington Indian observers take notice.
The Indian and Black plunge toward the American main-stream is
what makes this nation great in always coming around to give
its minorities a place in the political and legal sun. The
advancement of some ethnic groups may be slow, but it is sure.
THE FIRST AMERICANS ARE ORGANIZING HARD AND
FAST-About 14,000 Indian students are now on scholarships
from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Twenty times the number
a decade ago. Under a new law 60 million dollars was made
available for loans to Indian enterprises.
Senator James Abourezk (Dem.) of South Dakota is heading a
new Commission known as the American Indian Policy Review.
This new organization is recommending sweeping changes in
federal relations with Indians. The Commission is composed of
six members of Congress and five Indians. The Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA) is described as being more responsive to local
demands-especially after its Washington headquarters was
occupied by militant Indians in 1972. More than half the agency s
employes are now Indians, including the top commissioner,
Morris Thompson, a full-bloodied Athabascan Indian from
Alaska.
Some organizations have become increasingly active in backing
tribal demands for more control over water and land-use rights.
One landmark case that interests many Indian groups is the
Montana renegotiation for coal-mining by the Northern Cheyenne
Tribe, but some tribes argue that their lands on the Rocky
Mountain plains would be ravaged by the operations. Another
case involving the united efforts of many Indian organizations,
who not long ago were squabbling among themselves, was the
celebrated battle for passage of the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act.
is considering establishment of a state bank.
: New attention is being given to North Dakota’s experience
with running a state-owned bank, now the biggest in the state,
which has been a factor in the state’s development.
: Senate hearings have been held on the proposal that would
force lending institutions to disclose when they get their deposits
and where they are making their mortgage loans. The idea here
would be to break the wall of silence surrounding banking
procedures and make public data that will either support or
disprove bankers’ claims that they use their deposits for the
benefit of their communities.
It would be simplistic to assume that a disclosure law or even a
state-operated bank would automatically end redlining practices,
or even replace the private lender.
Disclosure would go a long way however, to making public
information now hidden by an iron curtain of silence. Not only
are banks not saying where they get their money from and where
they are lending it, but state and federal agencies to whom they
must report such information consistently stonewall community
groups hying to get the facts.
No state bank can even begin to replace the huge private
lending institutions which will always dwarf it. In fact, there is a
danger that a state bank might be mousetrapped into handling
only the riskier mortgages, leaving the private sector free to elude
its responsibilities to center cities from which they obtain much
of their funds.
A state bank might work though, if it used its resources not to
make direct loans, but to channel funds into investment pools or
other devices that would help finance housing development in
currently redlines areas.
While the private sector has reacted defensively to suggestions
for disclosure laws and state banks, it must also recognize that
discriminatory practices by lenders can only result in these and
perhaps even more stringent steps, and it should direct its energies
to working with government officials to insure that the flow of
savings and investment funds is used for the benefit of all our
citizens on a on-discriminatory basis.
Dear Editor:
During the 60’s when this
writer was stationed in New
Mexico, I had the occasion to
go to the Post Library and ask
for Hooding Carter’s, AN
EPITAH FOR DIXIE. I was
told it could be found under
fiction.
The News-Review’s front
page sets me wondering if I
should write a book to be
named An Epitah For Blacks.
In my views, the News-Review,
along wih the other Black
newspaper and the
Black-owned radio station
perform too valuable a service
for its staff not to be
compensated. If increased
advertising revenues will afford
a salary to the staff of the
News-Review, then the Black
community should proceed
forthwith in a plan to attract
increased advertising in the
newspaper.
Advertising has many
objectives and if 1 may. let me
list a few to increase the
number of units purchased, to
introduce new products, to
conteract competition, to build
a positive business image, and
to foster goodwill.
It is the latter two that
attention should be focused. In
the first place, if a business
refuses advertising in a
newspaper such as the
News-Review, with a
substantial Black readership, it
is saying it does not care about
its image, and does not desire
to have goodwill in the Black
community. Such business
institutions should be
boycotted. Would you believe
a picket line is still effective in
1974?
While it is true that a
substantial number of the
readers of this paper also read
the Chronicle and the Herald,
it is not enough for the
advertising in these papers to
be said it is directed at Blacks.
No newspaper can survive
without advertising, and
neither can a business, as
witness the Chysler demise a
decade ago when it decided to
forego advertising. All students
of marketing are familiar with
this story. I am sure.
1 would advocate an
advertising syndicate composed
of the News-Review, the
Mirror, and WRDW. This
syndicate should hire a
profession with a staff to go
out and bring in the advertising
for all its members. Its not a
matter of begging, its a matter
of rightful entitlement as seen
by this writer.
Black dollars are needed in
Augusta by the downtown
merchants, including all of
them. A withholding ot
patronage should follow
non-advertising in the
instrumentalities of the Black
community. I call upon the
CSRA Black community not to
be the resource material for the
book. An Epitah For Blacks.
We owe more to ourselves and
our children.
Prentiss Ivon Davis
2080 Hillsinger
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Now They Are Ready!!! Now What?
I Feeding
Hungry
mW’l Nations
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By Dr. Nathaniel Wright, Jr.
Black Americans often find themselves in an awkward situation
when asked to help out in programs for feeding-people in the
“hungry nations” of the world. All of us are doubtless deeply
concerned with the problem of world hunger and of growing mass
starvation. But our own food needs must be met. Then, too, how
can we help in the most realistic way when our garbage cans seem
to make more certain or dependable deliveries than some
collection boxes simply marked “food for the hungry nations.”
The background to our dilemma must be looked at and
thought through carefully, it is the background of our quandary
which is the real crux or heart of our problem. For every
American, perhaps foremost, there is the question, “Why do we
eat?” It is in the answers to this question that our most important
clues as to our relationship to world hunger are found. All people
eat to survive and to grow. This is basic for life. Without eating in
one form or another, we simply shrivel up and die. Beyond this,
our answers become widely divergent. While all Americans tend
to over consume, there are different reasons for the rich and for
the poor. Black Americans consume far more than their fair share
of the earth’s foods-especially “greeens”, ribs, pig’s feet, chicken
and exotic and fatty meat parts that the more affluent people
overlook-largely to compensate for other rights, dignities and
on
your
National Black
Network Station.
National Black Network
Div ston ot Unity Broadcasting Network Inc J
1 350 Avenue Ot the Americas Nez-Y.irk NY ’ 0019
Black news is good news
pleasures which they have been denied.
Middle and upper middle class organizations who seek to
encourage less American over consumption often fail to take into
consideration that food and sex are the only two basic pleasures
which many poor people feel that they have to enjoy.
Coupled with the availability especially of the undesirable parts
of the undesirable parts of meat and meat products, is the fact
that over eating, much like alcohol or some drugs, helpsone to
forget the woes and miseries of the world outside one’s door.
Hence, one of the major ways of cutting down on
over-consumption of food among the poor, including most Black
Americans, is to assure a far greater sense of dignity and
opportunity. Indeed, eating and having babies even among the
hungry nations would be smaller “problems” if these same needs
for human dignity and of “having a chance” were met.
Among affluent Americans, the reasons for eating are largely
the tragically white American sense of proprietorship over and
control of everything. White Americans, to a by and larger greater
extent than any other of the earth’s peoples, have lost the sense
that “The earth is the Lord’s and all the fullness of it.” We have
not only a sense of divine right but also of divinity. World leaders
of social and ethical thought often speak of the “white idolatry
which is so highly developed in America.
Now this does not say that we are the most racist nation.
South Africa is considerably more than our match. But precisely
because we exploit and have just a wee sense of guilt about it, we
tend to eat more. Guilty people tend to cover their guilt by an
over-indulgence in, among other “good things”, food.
Hence, unless “justice flows downs like water and
righteousness as a mighty stream”, Americans will have a sorely
difficult time giving up the three-fourths of their food that they
consume beyond their basic needs for nourishment.
Things You
Should Know
Hmshepsut
15 00 BC
The greatest female ruler of all )
TIME, SHE RULED FOR THIRTY THREE YEARS I
ISO YEARS BEFORE KING TUT SHE GAINED PCM-
ER THRU'SLY INTRIGUE,OUSTING HER HALF-
BROTHER THOTMES M . COUNTLESS PLOTS FO- ’
MENTED AGAINST HER BUT SHE VANQUISHED f
ALL ENEMIES < TO FIGHT MALE PREJUDICE SHE
MASQUERADED AS A MAN,CHANGING HER NAME
ANO DECLARING THAT SHE WAS THE SON OFGOO/
SHE REIGNED UNCHALLENGED UNTIL HER DEATH /
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