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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 Second Class Postage Paid Augusta, Ga. 30903 iwUIV AMALGAMATED X. PUBLISHERS, INC. NATIOHAI AOVLWTISIMO MPWCMNTATIVtS • NfW VCBK • CHICAGO 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. >aape ,H jdfWm tiH H ~ < KOREA yjfl’l 1 Ijl|l"||| l| II 7 '//Sj 3A I / Q /C x 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