Newspaper Page Text
Paine College Library
.<5- 1235 15th St.
Augusta, GA 30901
Augusta ■Nma-Srojait
Vol. 7, No. 21
Bible toting man
shot in Eastgate
A man was shot Sunday
after he stood with a Bible in
his hand shouting in the middle
of the parking lot of Eastgate
apartments.
According to Dolphis Cratic,
who witnessed the incident,
Willie Terry was standing in the
parking lot shouting, then, for
no apparent reason, went to
apartment B-l and struck the
occupant, Laverne Oliver
Jordan, dislodging his artificial
eye.
Jordan, the witness said,
reached into the house for a
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Claire Ford
Black queen wins
SIO,OOO cash prize
SANTA MONICA, CAlif.,
Sept. 10 (AP) - Claire Ford.
18-year-old sophomore English
major at Memphis State
University, sang Quincy Jones'
“Everything Must Change” on
her way to change her young
world.
The S-foot-10, 135-pound
aspiring corporation lawyer
won the enviable crown of Miss
Black America, Friday, in the
first television broadcast of the
Six generations of Raymond
Gunkelman’s family have
farmed the land of York
Township in Medina County,
Ohio, since his great-great
grandfather immigrated here
from East Prussia in 1838. But
the curtain is falling on the
family’s 150 years of agrarian
life.
Last summer, huge earth
movers rolled aown these
narrow, quiet country roads
and laid open the pastures and
the cornfields for a regional
sewer project. The result was a
row of new subdivision houses
a few miles from the
Gunkelman farmlands.
“There’s no foreseeable
revolver and fired one shot
striking Terry in the upper
right leg. Terry continued to
fight Jordan who ran into the
Parking lot, said Cratic who
said he stepped between the
two and was himself struck in
the face by Terry.
Officers arriving at the scene
said Terry “struck out” at
them when they tried to
apprehend him. He was
subdued and taken to the
Emergency Room at University
Hospital.
Miss Black America
competition.
The young Black Beauty
collected a S 10,000 cash prize
and got a screen test at
Universal Pictures and the
National Broadcasting Co.
Studios for a possible acting
career.
She is the youngest of three
children of Henry and Norma
Ford. Her father is an
undertaker, her mother a
sixth-grade teacher.
Urbanization is swallowing up U.S. farmland
future for agriculture in this
area,” says Gunkelman with a
mingling of sadness and
philosophical acceptance.
Once largely rural, Medina
County, squeezed between
Cleveland and Akron, jumped
in population from 65,000 in
1960 to nearly 100,000 in
1975 and is now
predominantly urban.
The same can be said about
many of the nation’s
endangered agricultural
communities.
The relentless erosion of
prime farmland by urban
development is not new
especially in the East and Far
P.O. Box 953
Ravmone Bain "■ s
Only Augustan at White House
works in Bert Lance ’s office
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HRC chief says y t -,
Racism ‘alive and well’ in Augusta,
white churches take a back seat
In assessing race
relations in Augusta-Richmond
County, Human Relations
Commission (HRC) Director
Charles Walker said between
1971 and 1974 overt racism
was on its death bed. But, he
added, “it has been revived and
it’s alive and well.”
Walker placed the
responsibility for the
resurgence of overt racism on
the churches that remain silent,
the colleges that don’t get
involved in the political
process, Blacks who won’t
speak out against “do-nothing”
Black leaders, and the
ineffectiveness of the Human
Relations Commission itself.
In an exclusive interview,
Walker told the News-Review
that the Human Relations
Commission was created
primarily as an agency to
“satisfy and bury” the
problems arising from the
Black community. “By its very
design it was created not to be
an effective agency, a toothless
tiger,” he said.
The Human Relations
Commission was created in
response to an Urban League
West. In California's Santa
Clara County, for instance,
concrete has replaced vast
groves of almond and citrus
crops. The county’s population
has doubled to its present 1.2
million since 1960, creating a
sprawling metropolis in a
formerly agricultural county.
The national farm
population has dropped 14 per
cent since 1970 to a new low
of 8.3 million. And each year,
about 2.2 million acres of U 5.
farmland is lost to
urbanization, highways,
airports, flood control and
recreation.
Some states have adopted
land-use zoning and tax
September 15, 197 T“
study and recommendation
following racial upheaval in
1970 when six Black men died
- shot in the back by local
police.
Walker was not shy in his
contempt for ’ the affirmative
action plans drawn up recently
by many companies. He said,
“Affirmative action is no more
than a useful delaying tactic.
We ought to eliminate those
plans. They need to take those
plans and ‘deep six’ them.”
Turning to politics. Walker
said Blacks must be more
selective when electing
minority candidates and judge
them on the same standard as
whites. “Blacks expect too
much from white candidates
and not enough from Blacks,’
he said. If a white politician is
elected with the help of the
Black vote, we expect him to
become an advocate
championing our cause.
“Blacks, who see nothing,
say nothing, and do nothing
are allowed to make us feel
guilty if anybody even
mentions running against them.
“The safest way for a Black
politician to keep his seat is to
preference laws to protect their
prime farmlands. But most of
tne laws have loopholes.
In Ohio, for example,
land-use zoning legislation nas
been on the books since 1947.
But the catch is that Ohio’s
rural zoning is not exclusively
agricultural. The Ohio law
could not protect total farm
acreage in Medina County
from dropping from 175,000
acres in 1960 to 125.000 in
1975. The number of dairy
cattle dropped from 18,000
head to less than 8,000 in the
same period.
Hawaii passed a bill in 1961
which set aside 96 per cent of
keep his mouth shut. The more
active he is, the less he is
appreciated.”
Walker said that Blacks
would be better off with a
medicore white official who
has the courage of his
convictions than simply having
a Black with no opinion.
Instead of taking a
leadersnip role in race
relations, Walker said that
white churches in Augusta
have taken a back seat, and
their silence is interpreted as
acceptance.
“The church has been very
active against pornography and
violence on television, but it
ought to be more concerned
about the gross social,
economic and political in
equality and the lack of
spiritual values in our society.
If they would take on those
evils as aggressively and
vehemently as they’ve taken on
pornography and violence on
TV, I think this society would
be much better off,” he said.
He described the churches as
a place one can go on Sunday
and have his “soul cleansed”
and not be told about social
the land for agriculture or
conservation, with the
remainder zoned urban or
rural.
In New York state, a five
year effort by former Gov.
Nelson Rockefeller culminated
in legislation in 1971 enabling
farmers to establish agricultural
districts to protect their lands.
Agricultural districting has
the added advantage, in New
York’s case, that an
agricultural district nas clout
over state agencies planning
something like a highway or
sewer effecting the district.
Oregon joined the trend in
1973 with a bill to preserve
agriculture in the state by
by Philip & Marian Waring
Augusta should be proud of its native
daughter, Ms. Raymone K. Bain. She is
the only Augustan at the White House,
and as such, is the Augustan closest to
President Jimmy Carter.
Ms Bain is an assistant to the director
of Public Affairs in the Office of
Management and Budget (an arm of the
White House) headed by Bert Lance,
Georgia banker.
Member of a pioneer Augusta family,
her parents are Mrs. Rosena L. Bain and
the late Mr. Raymond Bain. Other
relatives include grandparents, Mr. and
Mrs. Fred Lamback. A member of
historic Springfield Baptist Church, she
credits guidance from it and her relatives
as helping in her development.
She attended the C.T. Walker School
and recalls the positive direction given by
both Dr. I.E. Washington and Earl
Thurmond. Ms. Bain attended Spelman
College and received a B.A. in political
science and mass communications. She is
a graduate of Aquinas High School.
CREDITS AUGUSTA TRAINING
She recalls with pride her first job
given by Charles Walker, executive
director of the Richmond
County-Augusta Human Relations
and economic deprivations that
are experienced by a large
segment of the community.
He said he sees
an“incomprehensible
paradox”, in that the persons
who are most adamantly
against or for social justice
normally have deep-rooted
religious convictions.
Walker said that if local
colleges had instilled social and
moral responsibility in their
graduates 10 years ago, today’s
graduates would have a sense
of social justice, noting that
Augusta is at a standstill in race
relations.
“The problem is they are so
wrapped in the academic
environment that they don’t
have the time to participate in
any meaningful way in the
political process in the
Augusta-Richmond County
community.”
In order to have equality in
social justice, the whole
question is a question of
economic and political
equality, Walker said, adding
“We must have participation in
See “RACISM”
Page 6
creating a land-use commission
authorized to make policy
decisions.
In California, where the
Sierra Club reports that
farmland is disappearing at the
rate of 350 acres a day, two
land-use bills were introduced
this year to replace previous
legislation which was
considered a failure. But
despite backing by Gov. Jerry
Brown, both bills are
foundering for lack of support.
A 1975 Senate report
concluded that eventually
national land-use planning
might be necessary to save
what is left of the nation’s
cropland.
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Charles Walker
Yet two comprehensive
farmland protection bills that
passed the U.S. Senate last year
both died in the House. They
were not even reintroduced
this year. Among the chief
reasons for the difficulty in
passing land-use laws, say the
experts, are:
* the lack of political clout
in the farm bloc, as compared
to urban voters and the
powerful real estate lobby;
* the growth of
agribusiness, which controls
one-third of the nation’s
farmland yet is not committed
to using that land permanently
for farming;
Commission, and guidance rendered by
Supervisor Ron Bonatabus when she was
a Counsellor with the Youth Service
Bureau. Ms. Bain pointed out that this
basic work training received in her native
Augusta helped lead upward towards a
White House position.
At Spelman College she was busily
engaged in extra-curricular and
community activities. She chose Delta
Sigma Theta Sorority, was inducted into
Pi Signa Alpha, an honorary Political
Science Society and was later listed in the
World's Who’s Who of Women. The
Augusta Lincoln League honored her on
January 1, 1977 as one of its “Citizens of
the Year”. She plans an eventual career in
law.
Ms. Bain plays the piano as a hobby.
She sends warm regards to Mrs. Rosa C.
Tutt, the legendary Augusta music
teacher, and her first piano instructor. In
her early life her parents arranged for her
to participate in the Augusta Civic Ballet.
An activist in human affairs, she joined
the Young Democrats of Georgia while in
college. During this period she also met
Governor and Mrs. Jimmy Carter. She
recalls that this was one of the most
important events in her career and she
recognized him as an outstanding leader
See “AUGUSTAN AT WHITE HOUSE”
Page 2
* and local governments,
which are not inclined to give
up their zoning powers to
federal or even regional
agencies.
Meanwhile farmers like
Gunkelman and his nephew
Roger Morelock contemplate
their uncertain future.
Morelock concedes the
inevitable. “You can’t stop it.
It’s coming.” “These people
moving in are creating what
tney’re running from.”
Prof. John B. Mitchell, a
rural sociologist at Ohio State
University, declares, “There
will be very little agricultural
land left to save in ten or 12
years.”