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Rape attempt is
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Milledgeville Road
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PERSON ()!•’ THE 'I EAR Mrs. Lena Thomas (I) accepts a plaque from E.G.
Long Sr. as the Thomson Progressive Civic Chib’s 1978 “Person of the Year’ at the
club's annual banquet last Monday night.
Woman is top honoree of
Progressive Civic Club
By Clara West
Thomson correspondent
THOMSON - History was
made when a woman was
selected as top honoree of the
Thomson Progressive Civic
Club last Monday night.
Mrs. Lena Thomas, a teacher
at the Norris Middle School,
was named “Person of the
Year” for 1978 at the annual
banquet held at the American
Legion Post 576. Previously
the award was presented to the
“Man of the Year.”
E.G. Long Sr. presented the
plaque for “outstanding,
dedicated and untiring
Register and Vote
Black publisher wins S.C.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim
French, editor-publisher of the
Charleston Chronicle, a black
weekly newspaper, won first
place honors for his column,
the “French Line,” at the
104th annual meeting of the
South Carolina Press
Association in March. He also
tied for third place for best
editorial writing. We are
reprinting his prize winning
column.
Jim French
Unashamedly this is a love poem to Charleston. It is on my
mind because insensitive officials and mindless bulldozers
contracted by money-hungry developers are threatening to take
over our lovely town to “dress it and keep it” for some shaky
version they’ve dubbed “revitalization.” I have over the years
known or flirted with many great cities of the world, yet
somehow I left this languous sister of the South long uncourted.
With a city such as Charleston, as with a woman, you can’t
hopeMo know much about it in a brief visit, even if you spend all
of e'Yti; day and most of every night seeking it out. My view of
downtown, with its low-dung, well-preserved figure, is
like that of a woman who passes in the night and simply
disappears. Now, our city fathers are hell-bent on placing a
concrete-maze of small shops and rooms for tourists, and like the
mysterious woman of the night, what we have for the next
generation will also disappear.
The trouble with many of our city planners is that they are
more obsessed in building a reputation than they are with what
makes a good life in a great city. What will it profit us if we build
a hotel-complex in that area, if it is going to create monster
traffic problems and turn White Point Gardens into another
ghetto?
Augusta Npnw-SSntjpui
community service.’
In accepting the award, Mrs.
Thomson was speechless for a
short while, after which she
said, “All I can say is thank
you. Whatever I do or whatever
I have done to deserve this
honor, I don't think that I’ve
done enough. I think there are
others who might be more
deserving. I love people, and 1
love working with people.”
The guest speaker was Cal
Thornton of Augusta, an
administrative aide to
Congressman Doug Barnard.
He used the color green, a sign
of life, with emphasis on the
need for people to contribute
fr'* ** <JI
S
Augusta man shot
to death on
Laney-Walker
Page 1
P.O. Box 953
and produce and "accentuate
the positive.”
Others appearing on the
program included George
Drake, who reviewed the
“Birth of an Idea” for the
Thomson Progressive Club on
Feb. 3, 1963, Mrs. Blondel
Lamar who read the peom “If
by Kipling, the recognition of
men who received the awards
1970-77, and appeal for new
members by Henderson
Roberson, Sr. Joseph Green
served as toastmaster for the
program. James Isom played a
selection of . popular tunes on
the piano.
What will it profit us if we build vertical garages to take cars
off our narrow streets, or vast highways to get them out of town,
if at the same time there are no places where we can truly enjoy
the quality of our precious downtown expanse. In Italy or Spain
the heart of the city is where you sit and converse or have a
drink, pass the time aimlessly, meet friends, flirt, write poetry,
carry on heated political arguments. To have such a core is to
develop a tempo of life that goes with it. That core is about to
become destroyed and we shouldn’t allow it.
My love poem to Charleston starts with Charles Towne
Landing, which is the right way to start because that’s how the
city itself started until it spilled over marshland and canal and
spread itself beyond its original bounds. During the day the
narrow streets of Ansonborough are silent and respectable as Paris
on a Sunday, and you walk lazily past rows of shop windows,
most of them antique shops, or you drive through block after
block of bewitching old houses off The Battery, with tall
shuttered windows and grilled ironworks and in inner courtyards
with the old slave quarters adjoining, which makes an architect’s
paradise.
A leisurely stroll through the Market Square and the silent
assortment of items in the windows have away of blessing a day
in this city. I notice the garnish paint covering the ancient bricks
in the remodeled section of the market place and it jars you
awake. The loud and shattering color of the paint is enough to
bring out all the preservationists who want that section of our town
to remain as it is.
Real estate men meet every day in off-Broad Street offices and
plot towering skyscrapers around which so much of the business
life of Charleston swirls and clusters. It is natural for them to be
concerned about the ills that beset Charleston’s growing and the
bottlenecks that hem it in. They are worried about traffic, the
suburbs and taxes. The suburbs draw people out of the inner-city
yet pour them back every day to work and play; thus they glut
the city while draining its capacity to pay its way-which means
higher taxes for those who remain.
I don’t mean this is the only Charleston. At noon in the
downtown business office the streets swarm with clerks and
On unemployment
Black Press asks
President to hold
new Camp David
WASHINGTON - The Black
Press called on President Carter
during a White House meeting
recently to hold a Camp David
conference to deal with
unemployment and other
problems confronting blacks.
The meeting with die
President highlighted Black
Press Week, marking the 152nd
anniversary of the founding of
the first black newspaper in the
United States -- Freedom’s
Journal -- established in New
York City by Rev. Samuel E.
Cornish and John B. Russwurm
in 1827.
“We have a long way to go
in our country to overcome the
historic discrimination that
White Press leaving social justice void,
creates opportunity for Black Press
WASHINGTON - Speaking
before a standing-room-only
luncheon at the National Press
Club here recently in
observance of Black Press
Week, John H. Sengstacke,
editor-publisher, Chicago Daily
Defender, challenged black
publishers to fill the social
justice void left by white
editors.
Taking as his subject “A
National Dilemma,”
Sengstacke, who is also
president of the National
Newspaper Publishers
Association, traced the
achievements of the Black
Black publisher
wins S.C. Press
Association honors
. A - Page 1
April 7,1979
exists against our black
citizens,” said President Carter,
in answer to criticisms
regarding high unemployment
among black youth and adults
made by William O. Walker,
editor-publisher of the
Cleveland Call & Post, and
spokesman for the group.
Carter locked and unlocked
his fingers for a moment, looking
first at Walker and across the
Cabinet table and then at
National Newspaper Publishers
Association President John H.
Sengstacke at his side. Then he
continued, “I hope 1 can be a
part of the alleviation of your
burden that is borne by people
who are least able to bear it.”
Press, from getting black
officers into World War I and
subsequent elimination of
segregation in the armed forces
to getting Jackie Robinson into
baseball and housing covenants
abolished.
The NNPA head indicated
that until a few years ago, the
Black Press had an ally in the
white press which also
shouted: “...down with
segregation, down with police
brutality, and down with
discrimination in
employment.” But now this
voice is “conspicuously silent,”
he said.
Press Association honors
businessmen and the secretaries in their dresses. They act like
foals out in the pasture. They nibble at cold lunchmeats and wash
it down with Coke or beer. The whole of the city becomes an
astounding collaboration for pouring repeated doses of liquid into
dehydrated bodies.
It will be said that Charleston is wholly built up with its share
of historical dwellings, and that it is no longer possible or
profitable to retain many of the lovely old homes in the black
community. I disagree. Anyone who has wandered around the
Eastside has seen block after block of run-down tenaments,
rat-infested, rickety, where life no longer has any dignity. Using
its powers of condemnation, the city can tear those down beyond
redemption and with aid from the private sector put up housing
that will include cores for a meaningful group life. The old homes
could be restored to their original charm and elegance, much as
the ante-bellum quarters in the Ansonborough community are
maintained. If we did more of this, we might have less social
problems; for social ills flourish were people with empty lives are
willing to put up with it.
But it is late in the afternoon that I like Charleston best. Those
who plan to desert it have done so, driving out to the islands and
the country. The street wears a serene, stripped look as the quiet
shadows start to fall. It’s good to walk or drive in the city then,
or meet someone at a bar, and then let the evening peel away
aimlessly as you might peel some promising fruit you are in no
hurry to eat.
Night in the city of Charleston is something never to forget.
Coolness comes with darkness. With the falling of darkness the
city takes on a mysterious quality that strengthens the feeling of
being a part of something beautiful. The whole pace of living
slows down. This is the time when a quietness hangs over the
future, obscuring hurt and obstacle and heartbreak, and
everything seems possible, and the long dreams are dreamt.
When darkness falls the life of the black community stirs.
Children play basketball by moonlight, young men in
peacock-colored clothes make plans for the evening’s conquest,
beautiful black sisters with shapely figures prance and tease the
girl-watchers, while the boozers seek out a night’s supply that
tells their bodies all will be peaceful.
Enumerating the goals of his
office as he looked around the
table where 14 representatives
of the Black Press sat, the
President listed an increase of
$4 billion this year for the
poor and another $4 billion in
1980: S4OO million for
hard-pressed communities;
summer jobs for all youth
15-years and older needing
work; and $3 billion in
purchases by federal agencies
from min ori ty-owned
•enterprises.
Further, Carter added: “1
See “BLACK PRESS”
Page 3
Sengstacke declared, “Their
desertion of the cause affords
the Black Press a golden
opportunity to reassert itself.”
As part of the national
dilemma, Sengstacke pointed
to the University of California
developing a special admission
program for under-privileged
black students, only to have it
abolished by the Supreme
Court’s Bakke decision which
“tends to erode the grounds on
which rests the whole concept
of affirmative action.”
At the close of his speech,
three late distinguished
editor-publishers were unveiled
Paine College Library
1235 15th St.
Augusta, GA 30901 L (1T)le C OP.V
macK r estival to
kickoff Saturday
see schedule
Page 2
Less than 75% Advertising
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MISS BLACK TEENAGE WORLD - President
Jimmy Carter plants a kiss on the cheek of Miss Black
Teenage World, Deborah Jones, of Altadena, Calif.,
during a courtesy call to the nation's chief executive at
the White House. The 16-year-old Miss Jones, along with
two other contestants, was in Washington to meet with
Presidential aide Louis Martin before meeting Carter.
Miss Jones is a senior at Glendale Academy in Altadena
and plans to enter Hampton Institute this fall on a
$13,000 scholarship she received from the Miss Black
Teenage World Pageant. (White House Photograph)
for enshrinement in the Black
Press Gallery at Howard
University.
The three were: Robert S.
Abbott, who founded the
Chicago Defender in 1905 and
edited it until his death in
1940; Robert L. Vann, who
took over the struggling
Pittsburgh Courier in 1910 and
developed it into a major
newspaper by the time of his
death in 1940; and Plummer
B. Young Sr., who purchased
the Norfolk Journal & Guide in
1910 and edited it until his
death in 1962.
Replicas of the
But eventually, as daylight closes in, even the night people get
a bit tired, including me. The joints have folded too, and the
couples who have huddled around the bars all evening weave
unsteadily towards their destination to face whatever they are
going to face. I sit for a while and wait for the sun to come up
and bathe with warmth the little houses and narrow streets in a
city easy to love.
Rape attempt thwarted
An apparent rape attempt
was thwarted early Saturday
morning on Milledgeville Road
when residents responded to a
woman’s screams. The woman
told police she was walking
home on the 1700 block of
Milledgeville Road when a man
“stepped out of nowhere” and
attempted to drag her between
Augusta man murdered
An Augusta man was shot to
death early Monday morning
on Laney-Walker Boulevard.
William Harper, 21, of 838
15th Ave., was getting a cold
drink from a vending machine
in front of 939 Laney-Walker
Blvd., when an unknown man
walked up to the victim and
started shooting, witnesses told
police.
Harper was shot three times
enshrinement plaques were
presented to the heirs of the
honorees. Sengstacke received
an Abbott plaque; Virginia
Union and the Pittsburgh
Courier, one of Vann; and Mrs.
Plummer B. Young Sr., one of
her late husband.
William O. Walker,
editor-publisher of the
Cleveland Call & Post and dean
of the Black Press, and Dr.
Michael R. Winston, director of
the M oorland-Spingarn
Research Center at Howard
where the Gallery is located,
conducted the enshrinement
and presentations.
houses along the street.
The man was scared away
when area residents came to
their doors.
The woman said, during the
struggle, she was kicked in the
stomach several times and
dragged on the ground. She
said the man tried to remove
her clothing.
with a small caliber gun. The
fatal shot struck him in the
center* of the upper chest,
other shots struck him in the
left arm.
Police arrived at the scene at
12:25 a.m. Harper was
pronounced dead at 1:02 aan.
at University Hospital. The
body was turned over to
Blount’s Funeral Home.