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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 We cannot be responsible for unsolicited photos, manuscripts and other materials. Mailing Address Box 953 - Augusta, Ga. - Phone 722-4555 Second Class Postage Paid Augusta, Ga. 30903 ftUIY AMALBAMATO AH k H j£—PUBUBNKM, IHCt ran •CMCMIO Ai 11 11 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 fneuHr ' / r 'J k y 1 A % P > B » 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 BLACK CONVENTIONS (S _. 1 speno in excess or < Jv 3»,0O0,000"l>0lSARS ’J? ■ EACH VPM WITH NO CONV£NTIM k V. POLLAfi $ ( sea® y ft* t il Rai 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!!!!!!!!!!