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The Augusta News-Review - August 29, 1978
Clje ( Aixguota
Mallory K. Millender Editor-Publisher
J. Philip Waring Vice-President for Research and Development
Robert Darby Sales Representative
Michael Carr Photographer
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Box 953 - Augusta, Ga. - Phone 722-4555
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Citizens in political slavery
(NNPA
Several weeks ago this country
celebrated 202 years of glorious
freedom, and the preservation of
democracy for all those who yearn
for the fruits of liberty. We did not
fully share their sentiments of the
Fourth of July, because our minds
were fumed to the residents of
Washington, D.C. who do not enjoy
the full privileges of American
Independence.
The citizens of Washington, D.C.
live under the shadows of the great
halls and pillars of the international
symbols of participatory
government -- “by the people, of
the people, and for the people.”
Yet these citizens can’t elect
anyone to fully represent them in
the great halls. There is of course
Congressman Walter E. Fauntroy
from the District, but he’s only a
non-voting Delegate. He’s not
allowed to say yes or no on
legislation.
The citizens of Washington, D.C.,
the majority of whom are Black,
are expected to work, pay taxes,
and help defend us from all
enemies, foreign, or domestic, while
having no say about the laws and
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Good news for the nation and race
relations. President Carter has appointed
“Old Pro” Louis Martin as his White
House special assistant on race relations
to Black America. A warm salute to you
Louie. And, Mr. President, as one of your
long-time supporters, may I say as
previously upon selection of Robert
Straus and Ms. Anne Wexler to your staff,
“Well done!”
Now let’s look at Louie and his
impressive legendary background. While
virtually all national news media has
positively hailed his White House
appointment, Going Places would like to
make its own review. A Great Depression
(1934) graduate of the University of
Michigan, his career has been one of solid
success and high-level service in all parts
of the nation, in all kinds of situations,
with all kinds of people and institutions
over the past five decades.
During the last half of the 1930 s and
throughout World War 11, he was
publisher of the oustandingly influential
Michigan Chronicle, in Detroit... A first
taste of governance was on the local board
of supervisors... As a professional, he
viewed the World War II race riots in the
city and worked for overall
improvements.
Next came a call to Chicago as the
good right arm of Publisher John
Sengstacke. He was executive
editor-president of the Sengstacke
Publications, the far-flung and largest
Black news chain of its kind. He served a
dozen years which included tours there in
the fifties and the seventies... Later, the
Republic of Nigeria invited him over to
help organize its national
communications system... So he also has
African background and experience.
AIDED KENNEDY AND JOHNSON
A former president of NNPA, he has
been connected with the National Urban
League movement for over 30 years...
He was also a good right arm to Lester
Granger, Whitney Young and Vernon
Jordan. (Gosh, this guy was part and
parcel of change in American history!) He
has close connections with the NAACP,
UNCF, PUSH and virtually all of the
community and civil rights organizations
throughout the nation... Also as a
business executive, he sat on the boards
of some of the largest banks, savings and
loan associations and universities in the
nation. He is personally acquainted with
the Grass Roots and Captains of
Industry... During the civil rights era,
1961-69, he was the deputy staff vice
chairperson of the National Democratic
Party... In this important role, Louie was
invaluable to both Presidents Kennedy
and Johnson. Ix>uie knows Capitol Hill
and the White House inside and out and
was most helpful in getting through the
civil rights, anti-poverty and other human
rights laws... A skilled background
EDITORIAL)
regulations which they must obey.
A little over a century ago this
country told Dred Scott, a Missouri
slave, he was less than a whole
person. Unless our brothers and
sisters in Washington, D.C. can elect
their own Representatives and
Senators, then this country is
saying they are less than whole
persons.
The states can change that The
proposed constitutional
amendment which would give full
voting rights to the District has
passed the Senate and the House. It
is time for the winds of good will
and moral courage to move to on to
the states for ratification.
You can help. Write our state
legislators and bluntly tell them
Black America supports this
proposal and they should too. This
one is easy. It’s legal and morally
right And besides it is safe because
Republicans and Democrats have
both come out in support of the
amendment. Let’s stop making a
mockery of Independence Day;
let’s vote for complete voting rights
for the nation’s capital and end
modern day political slavery.
Going places
Louis Martin
returns to
White House
By Phil Waring
operator, he had a major responsibility in
the selection of our first Black cabinet
member, Supreme Court Justice and top
level appointees of c010r... He helped
organize and has been president of the
foundation-sponsored Joint Center for
Political Studies in Washington -- our first
Black “think tank” in political affairs...
His weekly news column gives
information and guidance to millions of
people and has done so for years.
MARTIN GEORGIA CONNECTIONS
I first met Louie in the early fifties in
Milwaukee at a NUL conference... His
face lit up when 1 told him of my
Augusta, Ga. background and relationship
to Lucius Harper... (he was the brother of
Mrs. Laura Harper, member of a pioneer
Augusta family and the long-time
executive editor of the Chicago Defender
35 years ago)... Louie said that as a young
journalist Mr. Harper had been his friend
and counsellor... Mr. Martin’s father was a
Savannah physician and the family once
lived there. So there’s your “Georgia
Connection”... Also his sister attended
Fisk along with Liz Ryan and Eleanor
Yerby of Augusta.
One of the national weekly news
magazines hailed Louie’s appointment as
“A Black Bob Straus”... I’ll have to
disagree with this. Louis Martin is a
legend in his own time, a special kind of
institution in American life... So, Mr.
President, all of us hope that you and
your fine and dedicated staff will use his
great skills, contacts, etc., to advance
your administration... He’s a team player
and should be no threat... Louis will tell
you what you should hear about Black
America, not merely what sounds g00d...
Millions of us out here, Mr. President, are
sure he’ll help advance your needed
programs.
THE POLITICAL POT BOILS
Again, well done Harvey Johnson! As
aforementioned your previous proposal
to the Board of Education on including a
25 percent “setaside” for minority
contractors in their soon to be voted on tax
referendum was sound indeed.. Last week
at your CSRA Business League political
forum it made possible for the mayoral
candidates to go on record on this and
more... Candidate C.S. Hamilton was out
of town at this time... More on his
candidacy forthcoming... Ed Mclntyre is
campaigning like a champion as his
opponent refuses to meet him in the
public arena in events sponsored by our
Chamber of Commerce and Business
League... Orchids to business executive
John Swint and his group for coming over
for Mclntyre... Really we should have
more than one seat on the five-member
commission... But to lose the one lone
“Black Seat” would be a disaster indeed...
For God’s sake let’s get the vote out on
August 29.
Page 2
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ARE WE TOO EAGER FOR PRESTIGE ?
Walking with dignity
-
The nation’s largest and oldest civil
rights group has initiated a coast to coast
campaign to undergird affirmative action
in college, industry, government and
housing throughout the so-called “land of
the free and the brave.” A first step in
this battle for freedom and justice was
taken July 29, at a seminar convened by
the NAACP’s West Coast regional branch
in Los Angeles. More than 100 southern
California civil rights and NAACP leaders
pledged their support to the Detroit
Manifesto, a document drawn up at a
July 21 and 22 national NAACP
symposium on the Supreme Court’s
recent Bakke ruling.
GIVING A LONG AND HARD LOOK
Area NAACP units agreed to monitor
affirmative action and to support
organizing efforts,especially on campuses.
Similar meetings are to be held in cities
throughout the nation. There is a move to
beef-up the NAACP legal apparatus, and
team with sympathetic organizations to
develop expertise in cases similar to
Bakke, a thrust to solicit support from
President Carter, Congress and
governmental agencies. The NAACP will
ask President Carter “to convene a White
House conference on affirmative action.”
MONEY, MONEY, AND MORE MONEY
H. Claude Hudson, veteran Los Angeles
NAACP leader and national board
member, explained that “money is the
bottom line of this effort.” To get more
money the NAACP needs more members.
The West Coast, and especially Los
Angeles, has slipped in membership. “We
cannot carry out this ambitious program
without an adequate budget,” he said.
The veteran civil rights leader continued:
“The NAACP did not begin to win civil
rights battles until we raised our own
lawyers and our own money. We must do
likewise in the wake of the Bakke
infamy.”
DR. H. CLAUDE HUDSON,
THE VOICE OF THE FAR WEST
The NAACP cannot permit the Bakke
decision, which the United States
Supreme Court upheld a lower court
decision ordering the University of
California, at Davis, medical school to
admit a white student on the basis of
ailedged “reverse discrimination,” to
serve as an excuse for dropping
affirmative action programs, Dr. Hudson
says.
GET PAID TO LEARN A SKILL
The Army Reserve will pay you to learn a skill and give you
a good part-time job, too. Call your local unit for details. It’s listed
in the white pages of the phone book under “U.S. Government?
THE ARMY RESERVE.
PART OF WHAT YOU EARN IS PRIDE.
Blacks take a
hard long look
By Al Irby
THE DETROIT MANIFESTO
The Detroit Manifesto emphasized
these points in an attempt to ward off
reactionary forces. The NAACP will seek
commitments to affirmative action from
business, labor, and government leaders.
This effort will culminate in full page
advertisements in major papers. Local,
state, and regional NAACP units will
organize projects to monitor affirmative
action programs in their communities, in
education, government, and in private
industry; they will report their
observations to the national office Oct. 1.
IS THIS ANOTHER BAKKE?
Remember Allan Bakke; well, you will
be hearing about another case headed to
the Supreme Court. And that case will be
known as the Brian Weber case. He has
also brought an anti-discrimination suit
and he has won in the lower courts-a
ruling which reaffirms that it is as illegal
to discriminate against whites as it is
against Blacks. This 2-to-l decision by the
Court of Appeals in Louisiana is throwing
the federal Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which
enforces the “affirmative action”
programs, into some dismay. This column
thinks this legal nonsense is unnecessary.
Let’s look at the facts in the case. Brian
Weber is a white Louisiana factory
worker who sought to advance himself
with the Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical
Company. The company was seeking to
lift substantially the number of its Black
skilled employees, now Mr. Weber had
unlimited resources to by-pass all Black
employees, and reach the top in every
department in the plant. But contrarily,
Weber elected to disrupt the program for
Blacks by insisting on entering this
particular program set aside for them.
A PECULIAR PREDICTMENT
The officials of the EEOC feel that this
verdict is a dangerous precedent because
it rests on the premise that a company
which has never discriminated against
Blacks can’t legally discriminate in favor
of Blacks. Well, on the surface one would
say, what’s wrong with that? When any
company has a record of no violation of
the principle and the practice of equal
opportunity, why should it have to be
proclaimed a bad citizen and required to
change its policy of equal opportunity?
You had better keep your eyes on this
case, because Brian Weber is seeking to
become another Allan Bakke.
■IF« *
Throughout our history, Americans
have been known for their optimism,
their generosity of spirit and their
willingness to make sacrifices for the
greater good. Those attributes were the
ones that struck such foreign observers as
de Tocqueville, who saw in America the
wave of the future.
But today’s America seems gripped by
pessimism, selfishness, and a toleration of
the sufferings of minorities. This mood is
typified by a reactionary counter •
revolution against the economic and
social advances of the 19605. I call it the
“New Negativism.”
The New Negativism says no to effective
government. No to full employment, No
to affirmative action, and No to efforts to
revive our failing cities. It stand against
measures to help the poor. It justifies
itself through myths about big
government, cheating and laziness on the
part of poor people, and supposed reverse
discrimination that favors minorities.
The real effort to transform our
society and make it more equitable has
soured into a mood of general nastiness,
and the issues championed by the New
Negativism reflect this.
The so-called tax revolt, for example,
doesn’t focus on making the tax system
more equitable. Its real intent is to cut
down the size of government, while the
tax breaks for the affluent are expanded.
Moderate income working people will
be hit with a massive rise in social
security taxes after next January 1, but
Congress’ response to the tax revolt is to
cut capital gains taxes, which already get
favorable treatment. The beneficaries
would be few - and well-off.
The New Negativism wants to fight
inflation by letting unemployment rise, a
practice that is questionable economics
and of dubious morality. Not only would
higher unemployment be ineffective in
curbing inflation, but poor people would
be placed in a double-bind. Since prices
for food and other basic essentials are
rising at double the overall inflation rate,
poor people would be subjeted both to
higher inflation and to higher joblessness.
The reverse discrimination issue is the
real phony of the lot. With Black
\ ii/
It finally happened! Philadelphia
police, at the instigation of Mayor
Frank Rizzo and an insensitive police
commissioner, forced a violent
confrontation with the predominantly
Black “radical” group called MOVE.
The August 8 shootout between
MOVE and Philadelphia police could have
been avoided if cooler heads had
prevailed. The mayor and police have
shown some restraint during the past year
of tension primarily because of Black and
white civic and religious leaders becoming
involved in the situation.
The shootout left one policeman dead,
several critically wounded, and some
members of MOVE were also injured. The
death of the policeman was unnecessary
and could have been avoided if Mayor
Rizzo had handled the affair more
sensibly through negotiation with firm
fairness. Was the policeman shot by a
fellow trigger happy officer?
To be sure, the MOVE group violated
health and sanitation codes of the city in
a very extreme manner. MOVE only
obtained weapons after several violent
incidents caused by the zealous behavior
of some policemen. However, no group
has the right to endanger the life and
health of other citizens.
To make bad matters worse, several
white policement were caught kicking
and beating one of the MOVE leaders by
newspaper photographers and television
cameramen. This incident happened after
the leader bad come out of the MOVE
house unarmed and surrendered. The
interesting thing is that the news media
received hundreds of call from citizens
protesting the showing of the police
brutality.
No mention was made of the fact that
white policemen should not have
attacked that Black man after he
surrendered. This seems to be the kind of
racist attitude that prevails in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania not in
Philadelphia, Mississippi. Those
policemen obviously felt they had the
license to commit such acts after listening
to the racist speeches of Mayor Rizzo
who was given an award by the Ku Klux
Klan.
The MOVE houte was attacked by a
To be equal
The
new
negativism
By Vernon E. Jordan
joblessness well over double white rates,
and declining numbers of Blacks getting
into schools and universities, where is this
reverse discrimination? Affirmative action
programs are under massive attack in the
wake of the Bakke case, and the New
Negativism wants to eliminate all special
efforts to make up for past
discrimination.
So there’s a streak of racism running
through the New Negativism, a streak
that can also be found in the refusal to
help the cities. Today’s conventional
wisdom has it that cities can only be
saved by inducing the middle class to
return from the suburbs.
In other words, save the cities by
changing their populations Since
urbanites are disproportionately
minorities, the racism becomes clear.
Surely cities need a strong middle class,
but the way to get it is by providing the
jobs, education, housing, health and other
opportunities that move poor people out
of poverty and into the middle class.
There can be honest differences of
opinion about these and other issues, but
what marks the New Negativism is its
consistency of saying No to anything that
might benefit minorities. Although it
often claims to be pupulist or even
conservative it is neither. It is reactionary.
Vindictiveness and nastiness are not
the basis for a rational approach to
national problems. Fear of change and
resistnace to fulfilling the needs of others
is destructive of the threads that bind
society.
So the New Negativism is a serious
threat, not only to minorities, not only to
the poor, but to all of us. It is subversive
of America’s ideals and her traditional
role as a beacon for the oppressed. The
New Negativism is a reflection of anger
on the part of many people who have the
least to be angry about.
Poor people, people who face
discrimination, people denied the
opportunities of our society, are the ones
with a case for grievance. But those who
own homes, have good jobs and decent
salaries, and own businesses are the ones
in the forefront of the New Negativism
lashing out against the less fortunate.
Speaking Out
It
finally
happened
By Roosevelt Green Jr.
bulldozer and firemen who filled the
basement with water. Women and
children were in the house while 300
Philadelphia policemen were shooting
into the house. This would not have
happened if white women and children
had been in the house which was later
destroyed. We must remember that
policemen are only willing tools of the
oppressors in the local power structure.
The plcae where the MOVE house was
located is now a vacant lot after the
police destruction of the property. The
MOVE members occupying the house are
now in jail while the children have been
placed in the custody of welfare officials.
Bitter feelings and racial division now
exist in a city that is falsely entitled “the
city of Brotherly Love.” I am sure that
Mayor Rizzo and his henchmen regret
their unwise behavior. He is running for
re-election by changing the city charter
which limits his time in office and his
term is due to expire this year.
Philadelphia must now choose its
destiny by electing leaders who can
wisely cope with racial and other
problems. That northern city hangs its
head in shame after engaging in needless
violence and oppression.
The future of MOVE is somewhat
uncertain but it will not disappear. It may
even grow to larger membership after the
notoriety and fame bestowed upon it by
the mayor. MOVE should now know that,,
violence is not a good strategy in copying
with complex social problems since the
oppressor always relishes the use of
violence.
The non-violence strategy of the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a better
alternative for some problem-solving.
Blacks, of all people, must hold human
life to be invaluable and sacred. No one
has the right to take the life of a
policeman or anyone else.
The other lesson in this tragedy is that
Philadelphia and America needs more
wise politicans who are humane and
sensitive to the plight of all citizens.
Blacks and whites are in this country
together for the better or worse. We must
see the need not just for good politicians
but for statesmen.
HARAMBEE!!!!!!!!!!