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Vol. 7
Ruffin blasts mayor as ‘irresponsible,
hypocritical’ in reprimanding Lt. Johnson
Atty. John H. Ruffin
castigated Mayor Lewis A.
Newman for his reprimand of
Lt. Handsel E. Johnson who
accused the City of Augusta of
dragging its feet on the hiring
and promotion of Blacks in the
Augusta Police Department.
Ruffin wrote the mayor
saying he felt compelled to
respond because the mayor’s
letter to Johnson represents
“the nadir of hypocrisy,” and
added, “If the City
Administration were really
interested in a desegregated
police department, the
imposition of a quota would
never have been necessary.
Your irresponsibility led to
such an imposition.”
Counter suit
SIOO,OOO suit alleges Mclntyre used
Black festival funds to pay his debts
Richmond County Property
Owners Association President
Ira Davis filed a $ 100,000 class
action suit Tuesday against the
Richmond County Board of
Commissioners, County
Attorney Robert C. Daniel Jr.,
and U.S. Treasury Secretary W.
Michael Blumenthal.
The suit charged that the
$12,000 the commissioners
granted to the Augusta Black
Festival was really meant to be
a gift to Commissioner Edward
M. Mclntyre which was
approved by the commission
“in a backroom deal and
disguised as a gift to the
Can America’s cities
be born again?
For 10 years the great cities of the United States have been
dying, collapsing into a maelstrom of deepening poverty, daily
brutality, disintegrating public services--and now die nightmare of
mass looting in the wake of technological collapse.
Nearly everyone-from disillusioned hippies to the silkstocking
set-it has seemed, have decided that cities are not pleasant places
•tp live.
But in Washington, the artificial -city built of alabaster
monuments Potomac, there is a new ripple of hope for
the old of the country, a hope that some city
watcjiers a new government policy designed to
celebrate the richness of urban living.
“Our great cities are the gardens of .our.culture, and you and I
must be the gardeners,” Patricia Harris, secretary of Housing and
Urban Development, told a New York housing conference
recently.
As the nation’s foremost urban gardener, Secretary Harris’
statement reflects a new sentiment within several parts of the
Carter Administration-a sentiment backed by a series of gestures
designed to encourage hard-pressed local officials and community
groups.
Among the Carter moves:
♦HUD officials -have reformulated the Community
Development block grants directing more money to the declining
cities of the North and Midwest.
♦HUD has asked Congress for a three-year, $1.2 billion urban
“action grant” program. It will provide federal underwriting for
cities proposing concrete redevelopment plans to lure or retain
large private business installations.
♦The Commerce Department’s Economic Development
Administration (EDA), whose funds have traditionally been spent
in rural areas, has doubled its public works appropriations from
$2-4 billion and eased the big cities’ eligibility for the increased
funds.
♦The Federal Urban Homesteading program, which gives cities
old but salvageable housing to be sold at low cost to people able
and willing to “rehabilitate it,” has been expanded from 23 to 38
participating cities.
All of this, Carter loyalists argue, points to the emergence of a
new direction for urban policy, a significant departure from the
strategy of “benign neglect” followed under presidents Nixon and
Ford.
But though tile Administration’s new “activism” has stirred
some interest among partisans of the cities, the record so far has
raised an equal amount of skepticism.
“The consensus among people I know is that this is really a
continuation of things past,” says Rutgers urbanologist George
Stemlie b. “The White House has made no initiatives of any real
consequence yet. The new money is ‘keep busy’ money, not real
money.”
The Administration’s approach to the cities, some specialists
See “BORN AGAIN”
Page 6
Augusta’s leadership
“abounds with mediocrity,”
Ruffin said, noting that
Augusta is large enough to
cope with any problem and
small enough to make
meaningful progress in all areas
without destruction of good
will among it varied ethnic
groups.
He said the mayor knew the
court ordered quota would not
be reached when it was set.
“You successfully got Judge
(Anthony) Alaimo to lower it
(the quota) from 50 to 40 per
cent, and the trend is to drag
the lawsuit through the court
for years until a more favorable
disposition can be made which
comports with your desires,”
is considered
Augusta Black Festival so that
Mclntyre could pay off a
personal debt.”
Mclntyre, Davis charged,
“set up the Revenue Sharing
Advisory Committee, placed
who he wanted on the
committee, and made a
political deal to become
chairman so he would have his
hands on the purse strings.”
At the time of the funding,
the Augusta Black Festival had
no legal standing, was an
invisible myth, the personal
project and dream of Mclntyre,
the suit said.
Davis said further that the
P.O. Box 95>
the letter to the mayor said.
Ruffin, who filed the suit
against the mayor the Civil
Service Commission and the
chief of police, said in no area
of the law, other than civil
rights. are court orders
disobeyed with such
“calculated abandon and with
impunity.”
Ruffin told the mayor,
“When you and the (Civil
Service) Commissioners are
before the court you exemplify
a meekness which tends to
make one believe that you are
the founder of this
phenomenon; and when you
are without those hallowed
walls of the judiciary your
laughter exceeds that of the
Property Owners investigation
which included a taped
conversation with the deputy
director of the CSRA
Employment Act and Training
Consortium showed that the
Consortium was “a sham,
under the dictatorial rule of
Mclntyre.”
The RCPOA president on
July 19 filed a $25,000 suit in
Richmond County Superior
Court alleging that the May
term grand jury was “duped”
into reporting that the $12,000
gift was legal and aboveboard.
Davis’ superior court
Haley to recieve Rosa Parks Award
Alex Haley, author of tlie
bestselling novel, “Roots,”
will receive the Rosa Parks
State has 1 Black doctor
for every 20,000 citizens
University System of
Georgia Regent Jesse Hill said
at the Medical College of
Georgia Friday night that while
Americans in general have
better health care than most
citizens in the world, the
“situation for the American
Black is not half as bright.”
Hill, who is president of the
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Photo by Mike Carr
Jesse Hill
Augusta, Georgia
entire hyena species.
“If you had any respect for
the lawful processes of the
judiciary, or any fear of its
contempt authority, you never
would have written such a
letter to Lt. Johnson.”
“Lt. Johnson cannot be
blamed for the low morale, the
turnover at the police
department, and the failure of
Blacks to remain there,”
Ruffin told the mayor. He said
the Augusta Police Department
“has never been conducive to
either morale or retention and
the prospects for such do not
appear to be promising. Even
now, unfair promotional
schemes are being resorted to
complaint asks that the grand
jury presentments regarding
Black Festival be stricken from
the court record.
Davis contends that Daniel’s
“attempt to give ‘color of law’
approval to a blatant illegal
act caused the plaintiff and
RCPOA, formed to promote
honesty in government because
of a long history of corruption
in Richmond County, to
launch a full scale citizens
investigation.”
According to the complaint,
Mclntyre “and others in
concert somehow gained
Award during the 20th
anniversary convention of the
Southern Christian Leadership
Atlanta Life Insurance Co. and
president-elect of the Atlanta
Chamber of Commerce, spoke
at a banquet honoring the
participants in the Health
Science Program for Minority
Group Students for 1977. He
stressed the importance of such
health projects in helping to
alleviate the “atrociously low
which have your white officers
complaining.”
Ruffin said the mayor has
“deceived Black political
leadership by your backroom
conferences wherein they think
they constitute a segment of
your coterie of advisors. You
and I both know differently,
and this is a fragile and
precarious alliance which serves
only your purposes and their
hopes.
“You have betrayed the
constituency to whom you owe
your election, your vision
suffers from an incurable
myopia, your inaction exceeds
that of Nero’s and your
accusations exhibit a type of
irresponsibility that is almost
control over the local
judiciary,” and have diverted
Black Festival funds and
money allotted under the
Comprehensive Employment
and Training Act (CETA) to
rally Black voting strength
behind Mclntyre.
Davis’ suit asks the court to
divest the five-member county
commission of its authority
and to appoint a federal
receiver to run Richmond
County until the matter can be
settled.
The plaintiff also seeks:
* Jurisdiction preventing
Conference.
Haley, whose book also
became the award-winning
number of minority persons in
the health services field on
both a state and national
scale.”
Hill said twice as many
Blacks suffer from heart
attacks as whites. Three times
as many Black youngsters die
in childbirth as whites, and of
those Americans who earn less
than $7,000 annually, 37 per
cent of those surveyed had not
seen a dentist within a year and
21 per cent had never seen one,
he said.
Health care causes the Black
who takes ill to miss seven days
per incident of illness while the
white counterpart loses five
days under similar conditions,
he added.
Hill, who is also the
publisher of the Atlanta
Inquirer newspaper, said that
statistics revealine the relative
ratios of Black physicians are
appalling. “On a national scale
there is one physician for every
600 citizens. In the state of
Georgia, there is one Black
physician for every 20,000
citizens. Os the 50,000 dentists
in the United States, 3.000 are
Black. Three of every 40 nurses
are Black, according to the
Lincoln University graduate.
Hill admitted that the future
is a bit brighter due to the
efforts of projects similar to
the one undertaken by the
students at the Medical College
of Georgia this summer.
He also noted that more
doctors, nurses and dentists are
gradually moving from the
medical schools across the
country and settling in wider
areas.
August 11, 1977
unparalleled in city
government.
Ruffin said in the early
stages of the litigation he made
the mistake of taking the
mayor seriously reeardine his
intention to desegregate the
police department. “I assumed
that you could be taken at
your word to rectify the
matter as Chief Executive of
the City. It soon became
apparent that your intentions
were governed by what is
politically feasible.
The mayor ignored changes
Ruffin had suggested to
improve the conditions in the
See’’RUFFIN”
Page 6
commissioners from acting on
matters involving federal
revenue sharing money and
preventing Mclntyre from
serving as a commissioner until
he returns the $12,000.
* A court-appointed auditor
to examine the county books;
* To have the CETA act of
1973 declared unconsti
tutional;
* Appointment of a special
prosecutor to determine
whether criminal acts occurred
and die extent of the
defendants’ “dominance” over
the county’s judiciary.
television series, is scheduled to
receive the award at the special
awards banquet during the
convention. The Rosa Parks
Award will be presented to
Haley by SCLC Acting-Presid
ent and Chairman of the Board
Joseph E. Lowery.
The award is the oldest and
most cherished award of SCLC.
It was created in 1962 under
the presidency of SCLC
founder, the late Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. It is presented
each year to the individual who
has done the most in the
struggle to help the suffering
poor and the struggle for equal
justice.
The banquet will be held at
the Sheraton-Biltmore Hotel at
7:30 p.m. on Wednesday
August 17. Tickets for the
occasion are S2O. Co-chairmen
for the banquet are Georgia
State Rep. Lottie Watkins of
Atlanta and Gerri Elser chief of
staff for Atlanta Mayor
Maynard Jackson.
Speakers for the banquet are
Washington, D. C.
Congressman Walter Fauntroy
and Maryland Congressman
Parren Mitchell, who is
chairman of the Congressional
Black Caucus.
In addition to the Rosa
Parks Award, SCLC Acting
President Lowery will present
this year’s Martin Luther King
Jr. Award to the Children of
Soweto in South Africa.
“The Martin Luther King Jr.
Award is given to the person or
group implementing the
nonviolent philosophy, Lowery
said. “The Children of Soweto
have contributed to the
nonviolent philosophy at the
risk of their lives.”
The theme for the 20th
anniversary convention is
“Achieving Human Rights: The
Priority of Our Time.”
Sessions for the four-day
convention, beginning August
16 through August 19, will be
held at the Ebenezer Baptist
Church and the Atlanta
American HoteL
Hr - •>”»— ABBBhst.
Garbage cleanup
USE project
results immediate
By SHARON CALDWELL
Some Augusta residents
living amidst mounds of
unattended garbage have
already witnessed the
effectiveness of the Bethlehem
Center’s USE Corps
(Understanding Stimulation
Education).
USE officials led a tour with
city leaders, health and
sanitation officials of some of
the most dilapidated areas
three weeks ago. Many of these
areas have been significantly
cleaned of garbage, one USE
official said.
Streets around and including
Laney-Walker Boulevard,
Wrightsboro Road,
Milledgeville Road and Piquets
Avenue were some of the first
to be cleaned up. the official
said.
“Progress is coming along
much better than we expected.
City officials have been very
cooperative, but the sanitation
department has been excellent
with its assistance,” USE
project coordinator Easter
Tubman said.
Local job consortium
gets $1.7 million grant
The CSRA Employment and
Training Consortium has
received a grant in the amount
of $1,716,235.00 from the
U.S. Department of Labor,
Consortium Chairman Edward
M. Mclntyre announced.
The grant will allow the
operation of a public
employment program under
Title II of the Comprehensive
Employment and Training Act.
Designated to assist the
economically disadvantaged,
the unemployed and the
underemployed to obtain
permanent employment, the
public service jobs will be
operated in 13 counties
comprising the CSRA
Why U.S. business
needs illegal aliens
By MARTIN BROWN
PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
Manuel Rojas strolled down
to his local tavern in San
Francisco's Mission District last
nigi.t to celebrate his new
quasi-legal status.
As a “temporary alien,”
Rojas (not his real name) may
soon be legally entitled to
remain in the U.S. for at least
five years and-more
important- to seek work in the
above-ground labor market.
“Os course,” said Rojas,
lifting a glass of beer, “this is a
great relief.”
Yet Rojas, who slipped
across tlie U.S.-Mexican border
in 1973-and has been back and
forth a lialf-dozen times
since—also had qualms.
What would happen to him
at the end of five years? Will he
again be subject to
No. 16
Supervisor of Sanitation
Thomas E. Hodo said, “I
appreciate all the help the
Bethlehem Center has done
for my department. Many of
these problems were unknown
to us.”
Hodo said he sent trucks and
seven sanitation workers to
Boyd’s Lane, Swann’s Lane,
Florence and Chestnut streets
for three days last week.
The supervisor also said that
preventive measures to keep
these problems from reoccuring
are that residents be made
more knowledgeable as to
when and where trash pick ups
are made in their areas.
Garbage pick-ups are made
twice a week and residents
should call the sanitation office
for other specific information.
“There are also laws,” Hodo
added, “stressing that home
and land owners of vacant
property keep these places
clean.”
This week USE surveyed the
garbage problems on Carpenter,
Lucky, Dewitt, Douglas,
Meadow, Kent. Turpin,
Goodwin and R oselle streets.
Employment and Training
Consortium.
The funds will increase the
present enrollment of
positions from 86 to 177
through September 1978.
Persons interested in
applying for a CETA position
should contact the
Employment Office, 425 9th
St. or telephone 828-3131.
People living in counties other
than Richmond should contact
their clerk of county
commissioners.
Those desiring to review the
plan in its entirety may contact
Mr. Aven King at the 500
Building, Suite 326, Greene St.
between 8:30 a.m. and 5 pan.
Monday-Friday.
deportation, or will he be given
permanent alien status? No one
knows.
And, though he will be
required to pay regular payroll
taxes while employed, he will
not be entitled to any of the
social services those taxes pay
for, such as Medicaid, food
stamps or federal welfare.
In the end, Rojas, and
millions of others like him,
may well conclude that the
Administration’s “solution” to
illegal aliens is a very mixed
blessing, offering no
fundamental change but rather
a veneer of legality over a still
troublesome situation.
In fact, many economists
agree that illegal immigrant
labor has been good for
See “ILLEGAL ALIENS”
Page 6