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The Augusta News-Review - December 2, 1978
Augusta
Mallory K. Millender Editor-Publisher
J. Philip Waring Vice President for Research and Development
Paul D Walker Special Assistant to the Publisher
Robert L. Darby Advertising Manager
Mrs. Brenda Hamilton Administrative Assistant
Mary Gordon Administrative Assistant
Mrs. Geneva Y. Gibson Church Coordinator
Ms. Barbara Gordonßurke County Corresponden
Mrs Clara West McDuffie County Correspondent
Roosevelt Green Columnist
Al IrbyColumnjst
Columnist
Michael Carr Chief Photographer
Sterling WimberlyPho ographe
Roscoe Williams Photographer
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Mailing Address
Box 953 - Augusta, Ga. - Phone 722-4555
Second Class Postage Paid Augusta, Ga. 30903
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Annexation will
dilute Black vote
The voters in the proposed
annexation areas will vote next
week on whether tney want to
become a part of tne city of
Augusta. We have only one
objection to the annexation. We do
not see how it can be done without
diluting the Black voting potential
tlsat exists under the present city
limits.
A look at a map of the proposed
areas to be annexed snows a large
section of west Augusta which is
almost all white. The areas in east
and south Augusta to be annexed
contain Blacks and a very
substantia] number of whites. It is
Walking with dignity
■HF>
-Jom> Kenyatta proved it could be
done -- that a white-controlled African
colony could become a Black-controlled
African nation without eliminating the
whites or turning into tyranny. Kenya’s
degree of success gives hope that even the
tough transition period in southern Africa
can have an outcome without the
predicted continuing strife. It will require
a renewed dedication to the idea of
“Harambee” (“let’s ail pull together”),
which the passing of President Kenyatta
has recalled as the climatic appeal in so
many of his speeches.
KENYA SET A RACIAL PRECEDENT
Earlier last month it was encouraging
to get a report from Zambia that
Namibian revolutionary forces were
already seeking to include whites in plans
for moderation in Namibia (Southwest
Africa) when the independence process is
completed. An official of SW APO
(South-West Africa People’s
Organization) said, “If we win power, our
first interest will be to keep commerce
and industry functioning.” An expected
appeal to whites in the first election
campaign would be: “You are welcome in
the new state. We want and need you if
you are prepared to share our
aspirations.”
TRIBAL ANIMOSITIES SUBSIDED
President Kenyatta’s Kenya showed
that such working with whites was
possible. There are said to be twice as
many whites in Kenya now as there were
at the time of independence. Not only
racial but tribal hatreds appeared to have
been muted in a functioning mixed
society. Not that Kenya no longer has its
problems to solve. A ‘neocolonial ” Black
ielite has risen paralleling the white elite.
Economic growth has not been matched
by genuine national development There
is maldistribution of resources. Charges of
corruption and repression keep coming
up.
HARAMBEE BECAME WAY OF LIFE
A test of how soundly Kenyatta built
will be how well the country proceeds
without him. But the fact remains that,
after the bloody independence struggles
in which Kenyatta was allegedly involved,
a degeneration into chaos was avoided. In
the Rhodesian turmoil now there are
reports of the Black nationalist guerrilla
forces in conflict with each other. There
are predictions of power struggles among
Blaclc factions. Many whites are giving up
and leaving the country. The memorials
to Mr. Kenyatta recall that he was
confronted with parties in conflict in the
early days of independence. But he
combined with severity a .willingness to
Page 4
virtually impossible to approximate
the 50-50 racial composition that
now exists in the Gty of Augusta.
Thus the net effect, in our
judgment, will be to dilute the
Black vote.
To the extent that the Black
voting potential is diluted, we
oppose the annexation proposal.
We fail to see why when ever
anything "progressive” is proposed,
Black people have to lose in the
process. We don’t think that it has
to be that way. And we will be
unwaivering in our opposition until
a better way is found.
The Kenyatta
legacy
By Al Irby
forgive and forget, to form coalitions, to
stress the pulling together signified by
“Harambee. ” Os course, each region, each
country, of Africa has its particular
combination of challenges. Otherwise
more of the 1960 s wave of independent
nations would be more stable and
successful in the Kenya sense. But the
Kenyatta contributions cannot be
ignored. The newly independent lands -
and those where freedom is now so
prominent on the horizon - would do
well to learn more from him than from
the “Mobutus or, worse, the Amins.
ZAIRE’S MOBUTU SPENDTHRIFT
In a blow to the economic plans of
Zaire President Mobutu Sese Seko, his
Western creditors have refusedto grant
him further short-term aid until he
reforms his nation’s economic system.
The decision came at a meeting in
Brussels Nov. 9 and 10, six months after
French and Belgian troops, using
American airplanes and support
personnel, successfully repelled a guerrilla
invasion of Shaba Province in southern
Zaire. Western diplomatic sources say
that they are pleased with Mr. Mobutu s
quick improvement of relations with
Angola, his Marxist neighbor to the
south, which was the base for the
invasions by armed refugees in both 1977
and 1978. But the Western nations are
not satisfied with the Zaire leader’s moves
to clean up corruption, rationalize
economic management, and distribute
political power to others besides himself.
VALUABLE COBALT IN THE PICTURE
Zaire is particularly important to the
big white Western powers because it is by
far the world’s leading exporter of the
strategic metal cobalt, and also a leading
copper exporter. The United States gets
more than two-thirds of its cobalt from
Zaire. Publicly, Zairian officials insist
they would have no trouble satisfying the
Western governments by reaching an
agreement with the International
Monetary Fund (MF) before the next
meeting, scheduled for next March in our
national campital. Privately, however,
they reportedly complained that the
Western nations were only prepared to
help when Zaire was threatened by war.
FURTHER IN DEBT
The immediate problem is that Zaire
now is more than $3 billion in debt to the
IMF, the World Bank, private banks, and
Western governments. Nevertheless,
Western diplomatic people believe that
Mr. Mobutu’s regime is now, in the words
of one top money manager, “No more
and no less spendthrist than-any other
African government”
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Augusta Chronicle map by Gerry Brown
Map shows present city boundaries, proposed annexation areas and areas dropped from previous annexation plans
Black folk in American civilization
Between 1800 and the coming of the
American Civil War, only three major
slave conspiracies occurred in the United
States. This might prematurely lead one
to conclude that most of the American
slaves must have been satisfied with their
condition of bondage. However, when
one examines the laws on the books and
the types of punishment meted out to
slaves accused of insurrectionary
activities, one might find certain
indications as to why such few
pronounced slave insurrections occurred
in the United States as compared with the
relatively large number of Black plots in
the Caribbeans and South America. For
example, after one aborted slave revolt in
Louisiana, Black people were decapitated
and their heads were placed on posts
along the banks of the Mississippi River
to serve notice to other would be
evolutionists as to what would be their
fate if caught.
Perhaps the expert in history on this
issue of slave uprisings is Herbert
Aptheker. Another interested historian
has been Kenneth Stampp who used the
expression “sudden sabotage’’to show
Blacks used ingenuity to show their
■pr 'WBOB
The 1978 election shows that, seen in
the long perspective of history, much has
changed. In 1963, Medgar Evers was
murdered in Mississippi. In 1978, his
brother won a fourth of the state’s vote
for the Senate seat held by an old-line
segregationist
In 1963, Strom Thurmond was riding
high as the champion of Dixie racism. In
1978, he was an equal opportunity
employer and he was kissing Black babies
and campaigning in Black districts for
votes.
But Black voting power is still more of
a potential weapon then a real one. The
Black vote elected Jimmy Carter in 1976,
but in 1978 it demonstrated its
effectiveness in only several contests.
It is absolutely imperative to maximize
Black political participation. Low voter
turnouts deprive us of one of our basic
weapons of self-defense.
At the same time, candidates who lost
because they expected Black votes to
help them should not complain about low
voter turnout. In many cases, they did
very little to excite the Black community,
to campaign in it, or to make a real effort
to get out the Black vote.
Too often liberal candidates refused to
go after the Black vote for fear of
alienating more conservative white
districts, and the inevitable result was
that Black voters could not believe that
the professed liberal who ignored them in
the campaign would suddenly become
interested in their problems after the
election.
Where Blacks had a major stake in the
outcome of the election, they voted
heavily, as in Philadelphia where they
were instrumental in destroying Mayor
Rizzo’s plans for a third term.
Black voters again demonstrated that
Prominent 19th century U.S. slave uprisings
resentment for the “peculiar institution”
when more overt activities such as open
revolt was totally impractical. The slaves
were so “stupid” until they would break
all of the hoes and other implements
causing a delay in work and stretched he
nerves of the masters to a breaking point.
Leading the first of the major
nineteenth century slave insurrectionary
attempts was Gabriel Prosser of Henrico
County, Virigina. August 30, 1800, was
settled upon as the ‘ day of reckoning.”
Unfortunately for Gabriel and his
followers like Jack Bowler, Nancy Prosser
(Gabriel’s wife), and Solomon and Martin
Prosser (Gabriel’s brothers), a torrential
downpouring of rain came on that fateful
day causing them to postpone their plans.
Already Governor James Monroe of
Virginia (later to become President
Monroe of the United States) knew of the
plot. Among the informers were two
slaves, Tom and Pharoah. Even in the face
of the odds, about 1,008 slaves had
assembled for action on August 30, 1800,
only to be turned back by the elements
of nature. The day following the
unsuccessful attempt, the slavcocracy
took control. At least thirty-six Black
To be equal
1978 election
drift to the right
By Vernon E. Jordan
they are not wedded to a single party.
They demonstrated that the Democratic
Party could not count on their votes
when the Democratic candidate was
perceived as being against Black interests
or when the Republican candidate had a
track record of fighting for civil rights.
This was most obvious in
Massac hussetts, where Black voters
supported Republican Senator Edward
Brooke’s losing effort to keep his seat and
also voted in laige numbers for a liberal
Republican running against a conservative
Democrat. And in Illinois, Republican
Senator Charles Percy was re-elected with
the help of many Black votes the
Democrats counted on.
Elsewhere in the nation, Black either
voted for Republican candidates
perceived as being more favorable to their
interests, or simply abstained from voting
for Democrats who refused to actively
seek their ballots.
The most disturbing thing about the
election of 1978 was that the political
center of gravity appears to have shifted
slightly to the right, a shift that was
evident not only in the results of the
election, but in tne campaign itself.
The boundaries of the electoral debate
were set by those who want to cut taxes,
cut government, cut social programs that
help the poor, and cut programs that
enhance equal opportunities.
Supporters of an activist, socially
responsive government were on the
defensive. Most of them muted their
liberalissm. They accepted the wrong
ground rules, and joined in the attack on
government spending and inflation
without also stressing the need for full
employment and for urban revitalization.
As a result, the 96th Congress is likely
to be as negative as the dismal 95th
Congress it succeeds.
people were hanged, including Gabriel,
who had been earlier interrogated by
Monroe, but had refused to talk.
Our new day begun
J BS
In recent years, reports the National
Advisory Committee on Black Higher
Education, Black college attendance has
been outstanding. The committee,
however, at the same time warned that
this progress has been “insufficient” and
“fragile. ’
For those who have been abreast of
civil rights progress over the years, from
time to time, received information about
the increasing number of Blacks in higher
education. Indeed, we have also been
aware that even before Allan Bakke’s
challenge to the special admissions
program at the University of California,
Davis Medical School, a decline had
already started in the number of Blacks in
such programs as medicine and law at
white institutions.
This observation, of course, is not in
any way meant to diminish the
importance of the work that has been
started under the chairmanship of Dr.
Elias Blake Jr., the highly respected
president of Clark College. On the
contrary, the commission’s first annual
report which was prepared for the
Federal Office of Education signifies the
beginning of a long overdue, detailed
analysis of Black achievement and the
immense hurdles that are yet to be
overcome in Black higher education.
One reality that the report helps to
make clearer is tha ambysmal gap that
exists in the participation of Blacks in
technical and.natural science fields. This
is a problem that every Black
organization and institution must keep to
address immediately.
In a highly technological society such
as ours, no group of people can
QUESTIONS MH
ABOUT
CANCER |g|J|
By LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., M.D.
Dr. Leffall is Professor and Chairman of the
Department of Surgery, Howard University,
Washington, D.C. He has received many awards
and citations in the field of cancer research and
treatment, and has published numerous articles
related to cancer. In addition Dr. Leffall is
cuirently National Vice President and
President-Elect of the American Cancer
Society.
The identification of substances that
cause or contribute to the development
of the more than 100 types of cancer in
humans poses many problems. One of the
problems is time. In some cases, 20, 30,
or even 40 years may elapse between
exposure- to a cancer-causing agent and
Supposedly Gabriel might have escaped
if two other slaves had not informed on
him. (to be continued)
Black education
progresses
By Benjamin Hooka
reasonably expect to progress without a
serious involvement in these areas. Such
an involvement must include not only the
teaching of science related disciplines but
also professional pursuit of careers in
such areas as computer sciences,
aerospace, electrical, petrochemical
engineering, biology, chemistry and
mathematics.
Even among technicians, however, we
find an absence of Blacks. Yet, these are
areas where large numbers of jobs are to
be found, even in this day of high Black
unemployment.
The committee underlines the
historical reality of Black higher
education: “There is little diversity in the
majors selected by Black students.” In
1974, for example, 19 percent of
undergraduates and 50 percent of
graduate students chose education as
their major fields of study. What has been
happening is that an unusually large
portion of these students, upon
competing undergraduate studies, have
been switching over for varying reasons
from such fields as business management
and the hard sciences to education.
Although the report does not make
this point, we have known all along that
many graduates of Black colleges have
had difficulty gaining acceptance outside
of these institutions on the graduate level.
So, in reality, they have been pushed into
education.
But, given the nation’s declining
birthrate and the increasing competition
for teaching jobs, espcially in the large
urban centers, education would seem to
be one of the few areas in which an
enterprising student would want to
specialize at this time.
the onset of disease. After such a time, it
is difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint
the responsible agent
Another difficulty is that a specific
substance may not act alone to cause
cancer. Many scientists believe that at
least some types of human cancer may be
caused by the interaction of one
substance with .others. For example,
cigarette smokers run a particularly high
risk of cancer of the esophagus (the tube
connecting the throat with the stomach)
if they also are heavy drinkers of
alcoholic beverages. Asbestos workers
greatly increase their risk of getting lung
cancer if they also smoke.