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The Augusta News-Review - January 19, 1978 I
Augusta
Mallory K. Millender Editor-Publisher
Frank Bowman General & Advertising Manager
Mary Gordon Circulation
Sharon C. Caldwell Reporter
Mailing Address
Box 953 - Augusta, Ga. Phone 722-4555
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Humphrey-King challenge
It seems ironic that while the
National Newspaper Publishers
(Association, the Black Press of
America, was presenting its
Humanitarian Award to Hubert
Humphrey (represented by his
friend Ofield Dukes), the Senator
died at that very moment.
It was equally ironic that as we
gathered to celebrate the birthday
of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
January 15, we also had to
‘celebrate” the life of Hubert Horatio
Humphrey.
It seems even more ironic that
while America went to great length
to extol the virtues of these men
upon their deaths, the majority of
Americans bitterly fought and
opposed them and what they stood
for while they lived.
There seems to be an ; ironic
contradiction in the American
psyche that makes it publicly
Prayers for Denise Tuten
Denise Tuten, the 16-month-old three months for checkups on the
girl for whom the Augusta kidney condition she was born
community raised thousands of with.
dollars in 1974 so she could get a She has been on a dialysis
kidney transplant, went to surgery machine since November - three
this morning. Her father is the times a week, three hours each
donor. time.
Denise has been going back and We solicit your prayers that the
forth to a Boston hospital every operation will be successful.
Walking with dignity
ft w*
The Eastern Establishment including
both Democrats and Republicans tried to
laugh President Carter right out on the
door step when he first inaugurated his
“Human Rights Doctrine”. But those
provincial skeptics aren’t “Hee-Hawing”
so vociferously anymore. Even Black
poverticians, headed by a former native
Atlantan Vernon Jordan, joined in the
hasslement of President Carter. Os course
most of the Black goadders are publicity
hounds, or prodded on by their white
benefactors. The entire world has sit up
and become cognizant that Georgia’s
Jimmy Carter is for real, a man of moral
destiny, inevitably on the go.
Mr. Carter’s Human Rights way of life
was widely criticized as an idealistic toy
which would better have kept in the
Plains Baptist Church down in Plains, Ga.
The critics said it certainly had no place
in today’s hard-boiled worid. It is evident
that the President’s emphasis on Human
Rights, as the inalienable possession of all
people is coming at the right time to do
the most good. Heretofore, the
President’s reasoning applied only to
Caucasians; but in this matter Mr. Carter
is bespeaking for all mankind, including
the lowly Bantus of South Africa. He is
making a reality of the Declaration of
Independence, which vows that “all men
are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.”
What has happened is that the year
1977 brought a real expansion of human
freedom in many parts of the world.
Because of President Carter, more than
a quarter of the human race had more
political and civil freedoms in 1977 than
the year before, according to the annual
survey by Freedom House, a
nongovernmental nonpartisan
organization devoted to strengthening
free institutions at home and abroad. Led
by India and Spain, which abolished past
repression gains were made in 26
countries, reversing a four-year downward
trend. Personal freedom declined last year
in nations with 123.8 million population.
John Richardson Jr., president of
Freedom House, rightly points out that
these significant gains coincide with
President Carters human rights
initiatives.
Richardson says, “the great attention
paid human rights by American leaders
Page 4
praise ideals that it privately finds
contemptible • Humphrey s death
will not change American attitudes
on the Humphrey-Hawkins Fair
Employment Bill as it was
originally written. The first bill he
introduced in the Senate proposed
free hospital care for the elderly
under Social Security. As early as
1949 he advocated national health
insurance whicy many Americans
still denounce as socialism.
While it may be difficult to
explain the contradictions of the
American mentality, it is plain that
we have lost two of the true giants
in the fight for social justice. And
replacements don’t come overnight.
That simple reality provides the
challenge to those of us who
support what these great men lived
and died for: to live in such away,
to continue the fight with such
vigor that they may rest in peace.
President Carter
and ‘Human rights’
By Al Irby
provided an unusually favorable
environment for freedom. The Freedom
House map looks brighter than at any
time since January, 1974. Despite strides
made this year, two-thirds of all people
still suffer political repression, cannot
expect relief from the courts, and are
denied free speech and access to free
news media.” The importance of
President Carter’s decision to make
Human Rights a major ingredient of
foreign policy is that it identifies the
United States with the most ardent
ambitions of many people in many
nations at the very time when they are
groping to find ways to break the
shackles of dictatorship.
That’s where the United States belongs
in the forefront of the cost of
government by the consent of the
governed on the basis of the individual
rights which may such government
possible. During the remainder of this
century and beyond there will be
governments on every continent which
will be in the process of deciding whether
they shall govern in freedom or in
dictatorship. It is well that the United
States should be the active and visible ally
of freedom. Support for Human Rights is
not an intervention into the internal
affairs of other nations. Nearly every
nation has now signed international
agreements forbidding a wide range of
repressive acts. These mclude the Charter
of the United Nations, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the
Helsinki Final Act, the Declaration
Against Torture. No nation can today
hide torture, apartheid, arbitrary
imprisonment, censorship and other such
violations of Human Rights behind
assertions of sovereignty. The violation of
internationally recognized Human Rights
and fundamental freedom is today a
matter of international law.
Four countries have recently agreed to
permit the Red Cross to inspect their
jails. In two countries, trails of political
prisoners were opened for the first time.
In several countries, including Panama,
Amnesty International and the
International Commission of Jurists have
been given access to study the Human
Rights situation and recommend
improvements. The health of Human
Rights is becoming contagious, all
because a good man from Plains Georgia
is residing in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
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1978 BLACK MEDIA INC.
Senator Hubert H. Humphrey is dead.
He needs no physical memorial because
his outstanding and effective fight in
bringing about constructive change in
Civil Rights, Human Dignity and
Betterment will in themselves live for a
long time.
The late and beloved Dr. Channing H.
Tobias first introduced me to him many
years ago. Our paths did not cross
personally for many years. Really, until
his gallant battle against Richard
Milhouse Nixon for the presidency.
Humphrey first gained fame at the
1948 Democratic Convention in
Philadelphia, Pa. He merely advocated for
the platform a simple, basic adherence to
social justice and racial opportunity
guaranteed by the Declaration of
Independence, U.S. Constitution and its
13, 14 and 15 Amendments coupled with
numerous Federal Supreme Court
decisions, etc.
Acceptance of these basic American
principles was just too much for a group
of conversative Southerners and a few
reactionary law-makers from the Far
West. They walked out of the convention.
This gave rise to the 1948 Dixiecrat
Party. Good Old Harry Truman, however,
confounded them and won back the
presidency. It was Senator S. Thurman
who led the walk out and was the
Dixiecrat nominee of that year.
Senator Humphrey deserves the love
and remembrance of all of us. Please send
a card, note or telegram to The
Humphrey family, State Capitol
Building, St. Paul, Minnesota.
The follwoing editorial column is from
that of Bryant Rollins, executive editor
of the New York Amsterdam News and
reads as follows:
The forgotten Legacy
of M.L. King
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. bequeathed
to us three legacies. Two of those legacies
we are familiar with; tlie third we are not.
That third legacy is the most important
to know about in these trying times.
Dr. King’s first legacy was the spiritual
and religious one - his conviction that
ultimately love and goodwill toward one’s
fellow human beings would triumph over
evil. It is the traditional Christian
doctrine that all people can be saved.
He held to this belief throughout - even
for Blacks who bitterly denounced and
abandoned him in 1967 and 1968 when
he came out against the War in Vietnam;
even for white racists in the South who
clubbed and beat him and threw him into
jail. He continued to believe that love and
nonviolence ultimately would prevail;
that the human spirit would overcome;
that spiritual “truth crushed to earth
world rise again.”
The second legacy
Dr. King’s second legacy was his social
and political doctrine. He believed that
the need to struggle and agitate against
injustice and oppression were
requirements of the Christian faith. He
taught that those who fail to struggle
against evil are unwitting participants in
evil.
Dr. King’s third legacy is not spiritual,
nor social, it is not political or religious.
It is in the power of economics. He
advocated Black economic boycotts
against oppressive whites and their
organizations.
Black people’s eyes start to glaze over
when we begin to discuss economics any
deeper than the level of how to get a job
or the high price and low quality of meat
CRIME WAVE
Going places
Hubert Humphrey
champion
of civil rights
By Philip Waring
in the local grocery.
But Dr. King understood, and
attempted to teach us, the need to attack
the American economic system to force
radical reform and to bring about the
social and political justice that he
advocated.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1958
was an economic boycott. The buses of
Montgomery, Alabama became
desegregated because the bus company
had only one choice: desegregate or be
put out of business.
Operation Breadbasket was becoming
Dr. King’s main preoccupation when he
was assassinated, and Breadbasket was a
project based on the strength of the
economic boycott.
Why is it that this aspect of Dr. King’s
legacy is not well known?
The American mass media, - TV, daily
newspapers, wire services - have hidden
from us the economic aspects of Dr.
King’s legacy because King’s emphasis on
withdrawing our economic support from
this society was by far his most
“dangerous” teaching.
The “Mountaintop Speech”
Dr. King’s prophetic “Mountaintop
speech” given in Memphis the night
before he was assassinated is a perfect
example of how the white-dominated
press has distorted the King teachings.
While most of the press’ attention has
focused on the inspirational aspects of
the speech (“I’ve been to the
Mountaintop and I’ve seen the promised
land. I may not get there with you. But I
want you to know, tonight, that we as a
people will get to the promised land,”)
most of the speech was about a planned
economic boycott of major businesses
based in Memphis.
The Memphis Sanitation Workers
strike, which SCLC was backing, had
bogged down and Dr. King had decided
that if Blacks withdrew their financial
support, the white leaders of industry in
Memphis would pressure the white
leaders of government to meet the
Sanitation Workers’ demands.
Consider this brief excerpt from that
“Mountaintop” speech:
Power of economic boycott
“Now the other thing well have to do
is this: Always anchor our external direct
action with the power of economic
withdrawal. Now, we are poor people,
individually, we are poor when you
compare us with white society... Never
stop and forget that collectively, we are
richer than all the nations of the world
with the exception of nine... We have an
annual income of more than S3O billion a
year... That’s power right there, if we
know how to pool it...
“We don’t have to argue with anybody.
We don’t have to curse and go around
acting bad with our words... We just need
to go around to these stores and to these
massive industries in our country and say:
‘God sent me by here, to say to you that
you’re not treating his children right...
Now, if you are not prepared to (treat his
children right) we... must withdraw
economic support from you.’
“And so, as a result of this, we are
asking you tonight, to go out and tell
your neighbors not to buy Coca Cola in
Memphis... Not to buy Sealtest Milk...
Not to buy Wonder Bread....
“These are some practical things we
can do.”
That is not very “inspirational” talk,
but it is plain, practical strategy for
success.
■Msafe. MEI.
1 > |
The compromise Humphrey-Hawkins
Bill goes to the Congress with
considerably less enthusiasm among
fighters for full employment that it
should have.
Its critics don’t like the removal of
such features of earlier versions of the Bill
as the establishment of a legally
enforceable right to a job. Nor do they
like the fact that the Bill contains no
specific job-creation provisions. And
many quibble about this or that part of
the Bill.
Such yearning for absolute perfection
does credit to the critics’ idealism, but it
severely hampers the effort to pass the
Humphrey-Hawkins Bill intact. And it
seriously underrates the value of an
important Bill which, for the first time in
history mandates federal full employment
policies.
As it now stands, the
Humphrey-Hawkins Bill represents an
indispensable first step toward a full
employment economy and anything less
than an all-out effort in support of the
Bill would be a tragic mistake.
Critics on the right are under no
delusions about the potential of
Humphrey-Hawkins. A determined effort
is being mounted to sink it in Congress. If
the Bill is really as weak as some people
say it is, why are the enemies of full
employment fighting it so hard?
The Bill mandates the federal
government to pursue policies leading to
a three percent unemployment rate for
adults and an overall four percent
unemployment rate within five years.
From the standpoint of real full
employment, especially in providing jobs
for subgroups like Blacks and minorities,
this seems modest for a national goal.
But with current joblessness at seven
percent according to official figures, these
targets are reasonable approximations of
what can be accomplished in a five year
span. Adult unemployment would be cut
sharply while the overall four percent rate
could not be achieved without massive
reductions in youth and female
unemployment rates.
The Bill’s four percent jobless goal is
an interim one, and it refocuses public
policy discussion, which had been stuck
with a general consensus that 5 or 6
percent unemployment was acceptable.
The Bill lets the President come up
with his own mix of programs to bring
Letters to The Editor
Questions African trip
Dear Editor:
Your article entitled Mclntyre On
Africa: ‘l’ll never be the same’ caused me
to touch on a £ouple of key issues. For
example, the Commissioner states that
the Africans were impressed by the fact
that the all-Black entourage was
composed of officials holding offices that
were denied them only a relatively short
while ago. How can one be impressed by
TOKEN representation? Black officials
only account for six-tenths of one
percent of all elected officials here in the
United States. One can hardly consider
that true representation of the 50 million
plus Blacks in this country. To say that
someone is IMPRESSED with our
political situation in this country is to
insult his or her intelligence and at best
misinterpret reality. Politically Blacks in
this country are in the same boat we were
in a hundred years ago, lack of political
influence. Sure we can get some streets
paved, and we sometimes get a few folks
elected to office but when it comes to
making decisions about real political
issues (e.g. what’s to be taught in
elementary and secondary schools, or
structuring programs to deal with various
defiencies in the Black community or
dealing with dope which for some reason
only plaques the Black community)
Blacks don’t make those decisions.
The Commissioner and other officials
traveled under the auspices of the State
Department until they made their rest
stops, one being in South Africa. The trip
Expresses appreciation
Dear Editor
I wish to express my appreciation to
the citizens of the CSRA who
participated in the Appreciation Day for
my husband, Ed Mclntyre. I want to
further thank them for providing money
for my air flight to accompany my
Support our advertisers
To be equal
Humphrey-Hawkins
Bill underrated
By Vernon E. Jordan Jr.
the jobless rate down to the goal, but it
does provide that if traditional means
don’t do the job, then enough public
service jobs should be created to reach
the goal of four percent.
The Bill really puts the President on
the spot. Traditionally, Presidents make
noises about how they will try to
encourage full employment, and then
casually accept high jobless rates. No
more.
Now the President will have to make
annual projections of joblessness tied to
the Bill’s goals. He’ll have to publicly say
what policies he will follow to cut
joblessness. Even the Federal Reserve will
have to report to the Congress on its
policies as they relate to jobs. And if the
President doesn’t meet the Bill’s goals,
he’ll have to say why.
Politically, that’s quite a burden for a
President to bear. If Congress mandates a
full employment policy and the White
House has to gear its annual economic
policies to meet full employment goals,
it’s going to be politically disastrous fora
President to say he flubbed it and
couldn’t get joblessness down to four
percent.
Congress too, would be put on the spot
and would face tremendous pressure to
implement the Bill’s goal with specific
programs to create jobs.
Above all, passage of
Humphrey-Hawkins would change the
nature of the national debate about jobs.
Too many people still harbor the
outmoded belief that if you have low
unemployment you must have high
inflation. That’s been disproved by the
past several years’ economic experience,
in which both unemployment and
inflation have been high.
Humphrey-Hawkins would focus
public policy on jobs for all, with no
excuses. It would establish - in law - the
priority and the principle of full
employment. It would concentrate
federal energies on the goals and
timetables required for full employment.
And it would be the springboard for
specific measures to finally assure every
American of a decent job at a decent
wage.
Withholding support for the Bill, oc
even just lukewarm support for it, plays
into the hands of those who don’t mind
the terrible joblessness that’s ravaging
poor and minority families.
then became “unofficial”. It had to
become “unofficial”! South Africa has a
policy of requiring that Blacks who enter
the country accept the status of
“temporary white” while there. The U.S.
State Department has no control over
that policy ncr does any other branch of
this government. So the State
Department apparently “abandoned” the
entourage during that rest stop. How can
good-will be established when this
country allows its “citizens (second-class
or not) to be subjected to that kind of
nonsense.” Or is it only the TALK of
good-will that’s important?
Finally, we’ve been HAD for too long!
Either we (Black people) make up our
minds to solve OUR problems or we
resolve to sit back like knots on a log and
watch the world pass us by. It should be
obvious that our “elected officials” at
best can accomplish only limited
objectives. What we need is a group of
dedicated, hardworking individuals
committed to the idea of making life
better for Black people wherever we are.
And, when we’ve rolled up our sleeves
and done the necessary work, maybe at
the end of it all we’ll have an
Appreciation Day and funds raised will go
toward meeting the needs of all our
people and not just the needs of our
elected officials.
Working for the Race,
Aminifu Askari
3435 Pine Hill Rd.
husband to Africa.
The trip to Africa was an experience
which I will cherish for the rest of my
life. Again thanks.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ed Mclntyre