Newspaper Page Text
Slain deputy buried,
killer’s motives
still unclear
Page 1
Vol. 8, No. 39
CETA cuts cripple black agencies
By Mallory K. Millender
Staggered by cutbacks
announced last week in the
CETA program, Augusta’s
black community agency
directors spent the weekend
trying to find ways to keep
their workers employed and
their programs from being
destroyed.
Last year Richmond County
received $4 million in CETA
funds. This year it will receive
$1.9 million.
The cutbacks become
effective March 1, and officials
expressed hope that most of
the dismissed CETA workers
will be put on regular payrolls.
Mrs. Ruth Crawford,
volunteer administrator at the
Shiloh Comprehensive Center,
which serves young people and,
the aged said of the cutbacks,
“We’re about to be wiped out.
All of my workers (four) are
CETA employes. It’s not just
hitting me and the workers, it’s
hitting the black community.
When the only hot meal some
people are getting is from us,
how can I tell them I’m not
coming back.”>-
She was referring to the
center’s “Meal-on-Wheels”
program where the center takes
hot meals into the homes of
needy families. “I can’t smile.
If it hurts me I’m going to
Supporters of indicted
Atlanta City Councilman
Arthur Langford packed
Central United Methodist
Church Tuesday night and
collected $4,040 for his legal
defense while singing hymns
and denouncing a “conspiracy
to destroy black leadership.”
Talmadge is rated high
by ADA, Barnard lowest
(From the Atlanta Constitution)
WASHINGTON - The
liberal Americans for
Democratic Action has given a
suprisingly high score to Sen.
Herman Talmadge, D-Ga., who
is viewed generally as a
conservative.
Talmadge scored just a
couple of points below the
Senate average and
considerably higher than Sen.
Sam Nunn, D-Ga.
Half the Georgia House
Slain deputy buried,
motives still unclear
An overflow crowd fammed
Old Storm Baptist Church
Sunday to pay final tribute to
dieriff’s deputy Larry D.
Stevens, who was slain
Wednesday.
Stevens, 38, was shot and
killed on Second Avenue where
he was struck at least twice bv
a highpowered rifle. Sheriff
James G. Beck declined to give
a motive for the killing.
Bullet holes in the
windshield indicated that he
probably had been shot
without getting out of the
unmarked car, police said. He
was dead on arrival at
University Hospital.
Stevens and his partner, Lt.
W.L. Watkins Jr. were working
a stake-out operation on a
Augusta Npum-Kntjmt
cry,” she said, “but we’re going
to survive if I have to stop
' traffic and ask for nickles and
! dimes.”
! Bethlehem Community
Center will lose 22 of its 27
CETA workers. Director S.B.
1 Gandy said the center stands to
; lose some very important
administrative people. “We will
not be able to touch nearly as
. many people or render service
: to nearly as many people.”
Augusta Mini Theatre
founder and director Tyrone
; Butler expressed fear for his
program and his job Friday. He
; has six CETA employes and
has been asked to cut two of
, them or put them in
* permanent positions.
, “We will lose two key
i f . people. Then I don’t know
what will happen,” he said. “I
. may have to go and my
assistant may have to go.
They’re saying the ones hired
i'* first should go first. That
means me.”
Mrs. Mary Utley, director of
, the Hyde Park Community
t Center, located in one of the
poorest sections of Richmond
! County, has four CETA
workers and will be losing
i three. “It’s really going to hurt
us awfully bad. It is drastic. I
don’t know how in the world
i we’re going to make it.” She
Langford rally fired to revival pitch
Led by state Rep. Hosea
Williams, the meeting’s spirit
borrowed heavily from gospel
revivals and civil rights
campaigns. The turnout was
standing room only, despite a
steady rain outside. One
estimate put the crowd at 750.
“I want to say to you
delegation received scores
either equal to or lower than
that given Rep. Larry
McDonald, usually considered
an ultra-conservative.
The most liberal rating given
a Georgia congressman went to
Rep. Wyche Fowler, D-Atlanta,
although his liberal rating was
just a few points higher than
Talmadge’s score.
The ADA annually rates
congressmen and senators on a
scale of 0-100, with the top
burglary case when the
shooting occurred, according
to Beck.
. Watkins, who was in a
separate vehicle, discovered
Stevens still in his patrol car
immediately after the shooting,
police said.
Approximately 20 minutes
later, following a chase and
brief gunbattle, deputies shot
and wounded a man who has
been charged in the slaying.
He was identified as William
Kenny Stephenson, 30, of the
2500 block of Horshoe Drive
in Richmond County,
according to sheriff records.
Stevens joined the Sheriffs
Department in January of
1968.
Talmadge gets
high marks from
ADA, Barnard low
Page 1
P.O. Box 953
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Thomas L Burts (left), executive director of Augusta’s HOPE, makes appeal to County Commission Chairman,
Frank Albert, as county Personnel Director S. Miller Meyer looks on.
said the cutbacks will interrupt
the center’s work with senior
citizens and with young
people.
tonight, I am an innocent
man,” an emotional Langford
told his supporters.
“...I’ve got a God who
promised me a long time ago
he’d never leave me alone.
“...You would never know
the experience I’ve been
through, and Lord knows I
score indicating the most
liberal. ADA picked 20 issues
for rating purposes.
Talmadge received a score of
40, while Nunn scored 25.
The overall Senate average
if 42.3
As for Georgians in the
House, Fowler, was rated at 45;
Bo Ginn and Elliott Levitas
. received 20.
Reps. Jack Brikley,
McDonald and Billy Lee Evans
received a rating of 15, and
Rep. Doug Barnard received a
score of 10.
The Georgia House
delegation average was 15.5,
considerably lower than the
overall House average of 38,
and even lower than the 28
average given Southern
Democrats.
Talmadge was on the side of
. the liberals on eight of the 20
'votes selected for rating:
Expansion of Redwood
National Park in California,
exemption of small businesses
from OSHA enforcement,
tuition tax credits for families
with children in private
schools, congressional
representation for the District
of Colmbua, tax deferral on
foreign-eamed income for
U.S.-controlled corporations,
an inflation reduction
amendment to the
Humphrey-Hawkins
full-employment bill, the
Panama Canal treaty, and sale
of arms to Mideast countries.
“We’re trying to keep them
(the youths) out of mischief
and off drugs. I know it’s going
to affect us real bad.”
needed this tonight,” the
29-year-old pastor said. “I
can’t talk too good tonight
because I’m trying to figure
this thing out.”
Langford was indicted last
Thursday on federal charges of
extortion, perjury and
obstruction of justice. He was
immediately suspended from
the city council pending
disposition of the case. U.S.
Magistrate Owen Forrester
allowed Langford to sign his
own $7,500 bond.
Rising to Langford’s defense
in the pulpit Tuesday night
By Thomas A. Johnson
(rrom the New York Times)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Despite
a statistical falloff in the
number of black-owned
newspapers in the United
States in recent years, scores of
black publishers declared here
Saturday that the condition of
their section of the industry
was stronger than ever and that
they faced a future of
significant and immediate
growth.
The publishers were
delegates to midwinter
workshop sessions of the
National Newspaper Publishers
Association-Black Press of
America, which ended a
three-day meeting in the Hyatt
Regency Hotel here Saturday.
Noting that a majority of
the almost 200 black-owned
newspapers, most of which are
weeklies, are small businesses
and have suffered from
Blacks rally b<
indicted Atlanta
city councilman
Page 1
February 3,1979
Paine College will lose 12 of
its 14 CETA workers,
according to Business Manager
Quincy Robertson. The college
were Joseph Lowery, president
of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, Fulton
County Commissioner A.
Reginald Eaves; former City
Solicitor Mary Welcome, now a
private attorney; and Atlanta
Councilman James Howard.
Some speakers lambasted
the FBI for escorting Langford
in handcuffs in front of the
press Thursday after the
indictment was handed down
“If they are talking about
fair play, how in the world can
a mobster like Thevis” show up
in news photos without
Black publishers say
papers are thriving
(inflation, the rising cost of
newsprint and drops in
circulation that have also hurt
the general newspaper field,
the publishers insisted that
there were factors inherent in
the black media that would
strengthen their publications.
They generally pointed to
“continuing racism” in white
institutions that they said
caused much of the media to
ignore or give short shrift to
black issues. They also said
that the drive of the black
media to provide black readers
with an interest, an
interpretation and an advocacy
that could not be found
elsewhere provided another
basis for their success.
GUS SAVAGE, the editor
and publisher of a
Chicago-based chain of three
weekly “citizen newspapers,”
contended, “The big cities are
Less than 75% Advertising
has been able to recruit
students over a wider area with
the use of CETA workers, he
said.
handcuffs while Langford
shows up with handcuffs,
Eaves shouted. The crowd,
rising to its feet, answered back
with an angry roar.
Eaves was referring to
murder suspect and convicted
pronographer Michael Thevis.*
Langford, chairman of the
council’s public safety
committee, was a strong
supporter of Eaves last year
before Eaves’ ouster as Atlanta
public safety commissioner.
“It’s not enough to put us in
jail,” said Ms. Welcome.
“They’ve got to drag us
getting increasingly blacker,
and you’ll see black papers that
are relevant taking over from
white papers in the inner city.”
Likewise, the scholarly
Longworth Quinn, president of
the Detroit-based Michigan
Chronicle, maintained that the
black media’s stability was
based on its almost exclusive
involvement “with the black
churches, clubs and
community groups.”
And the publisher of the
Jackson (Miss.) Advocate,
Charles W. Tisdale, argued that
when a Black publication
proved itself within the
community, it could not find
allies there to help influence
white advertisers to use the
black media.
Tisdale, who bought the
paper a year ago and changed
its longtime conservative image
to one of militancy, sent a
letter to Mississippi businesses
101 A> Sample Copy CFS
say papers
are thriving
Pagel
The college book store staff
will have to be cut from five to
two workers, he added. “That
means that theft will go up.
They won’t have any persons
on the floor. The remaining
two persons won’t be able to
take inventory regularly.”
The registrars office will not
be able to process grades as
fast, and the financial aid
office will be hard hit,
Robertson said.
Augusta’s OIC lias 11 CETA
workers and will lose nine of
them. However, Executive
Director Gloria Butler said she
expects to be able to put three
of them on regular payroll.
Nevertheless, she said, “We are
possibly going to lose two
instructors. Some classes will
have to double up.”
Many of the agency heads
met with County Commission
Chairman Frank Albert
Saturday morning hoping for
some relief. Appointments were
scheduled a half hour apart up
to two o’clock.
Thomas Burts, director of
Augusta’s HOPE (Helping
Offenders, Parolees and
Ex-Offenders), stands to lose
all nine CETA workers
including his secretary and his
job.
Burts, who does not have
use of his legs, appealed for the
secretary’s job so that the
through the streets in
handcuffs... The fuse has
burned out and now we’re
ready to explode.”
The handcuffs were
tantamount to the FBI calling
the press and saying “Hey,
y’all, we’ve got a nigger,”’ Ms.
Welcome charged.
There are two kinds of black
leaders, Lowery told the
audience - those who are
designated by “the powerful,
not the community,” and
those who are not so
designated.
“There is very little
written by the Mississippi field
director of the NAACP,
Emmett C. Bums. The letter
said, “We are concerned that
though almost half of the
revenue of your stores is
derived from blacks, you have
not engaged in the kind of
reciprocity which is essential to
economic progress in the areas
of concern.”
ASSERTING THAT the
Advocate provided a needed
service to blacks, the letter said
the absence of advertising from
white companies in the
newspaper indicated “a lack of
perception of our need to
address situations which affect
our community through our
own perceptions.”
Black publishers here say
they receive less than one-half
of 1 percent of the money
spent nationally on newspaper
program can keep operating.
I’m going to keep that program
going one way or another, he
said, “but 1 need a secretary.”
Then he told Albert, “They say
CETA is for the hardcore
unemployed. Who is more
unemployable than the
handicapped? I’m a disabled
person trying to prove to other
disabled people that they can
have a meaningful life.
“I’ve bought a home in
Richmond County. I’ve
invested my life’s savings in
that home. I don’t want to lose
it.”
Albert said he was
“sympathetic” to Burts and
HOPE. “I admire you for what
you’re doing. I don’t want to
be the person to give you the
bad news. I haven’t been in
office long enough (since Jan.
1) to do this much damage.
Tire bottom dropped out and
we’ve just got a bad situation,”
he said.
Then he said of the
cutbacks: “We’re not dealing
with numbers, we’re dealing
with people. I’m not playing
God over here. I’ve tried to be
100 percent fair I’ve tried not
to put any agency out of
business that should not be out
See “CETA”
Page 6
persecution of the designated
leaders,” he said.
‘‘l’m tired of the
powers-that-be, conspiratorily
or non-conspiratorily...
destroying and weakening
black leadership.”
Lowery called the charges
against Langford “flimsy and
superficial.”
At one point between the
speeches, ushers brought in
green and blue metal folding
See “LANGFORD”
Page 6
advertising.
The need for advertising
revenues was the priority
consideration of the delegates
in workshops organized by
John H. Sengstacke, publisher
of The Chicago Defender who
is the association’s president,
and its vice president, John L.
Procope, publisher of The
Amsterdam News in New
York.
The delegates placed the
number of black weeklies at
more than 200, asserting that
many went uncounted because
they had not joined regional or
national associations.
They generally agreed with
Mallory K. Millender,
publisher of The Augusta (Go.)
News-Review, that, As long as
there is racism in America,
there will be a black press. I
guess that assures us of life
eternal.”
25’