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__ ————————— ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Augusta, GA 30901
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Track star Threats against Benefit for Henry Daggett,
Jesse Owens Birmingham mayor C.L. Franklin the boys
dead at 66 prompts bodyguards tops SIOO,OOO Uncle Hank
Paeel Pagel Pa B e 3 ?
VoL9No. 46
Maynard Jackson
challenges Talmadge
to repudiate book
By Mallory K. Millender
Atlanta Mayor Maynard
Jackson Saturday called on
Sen. Herman Talmadge to
repudiate a book he wrote for
white Georgians giving detailed
instructions on how to avoid
integration.
The book, entitled “You
and Segregation,” has never
been repudiated by Talmadge, ‘
Jesse Owens
dead at 66
From Wire Reports
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Jesse
Owens, the black 1936
Olympic track star whose four
gold medal victories destroyed
Adolf Hitler’s theories of
Aryan superiority, died
Monday at a Tucson hospital,
authorities said.
Owens, 66, who had been
suffering from a lung infection
and inoperable lung cancer,
died at the University of
Arizona Health Sciences
Center, said hospital
spokesman Hal Marshall.
Owens first was hospitalized
Dec *l2 in Chicago where his
illness was diagnosed as
adenocarcinoma, a cancer
doctors said usually is
associated with heavy cigarette
smoking. Doctors said Owens
had smoked about a pack of
cigarettes a day for 35 years.
Owens had recently opposed
President Carter’s call for
boycotting the Moscow
Olympics, saying politics have
no place in the Games.
Such was the magnitude of
Owens’ Olympic feat in the
1936 Berlin Games that it
became a standard, a yardstick
by which cither accomplish
ments were measured.
When swimmer Mark Spitz
won an extraordinary seven
gold medals in the 1976
Summer Games in Munich, it
was compared to Owens
record. And when Eric Heiden
swept five gold medals in speed
skating events at the 1980
Bodyguards accompany B’ham mayor
following threats against his life
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -
Mayor Richard Arrington went
to Washington last Monday
with a police bodyguard at his
side amid reports that a
SIO,OOO contract had been put
out on the mayor’s life.
Arrington, a sharecropper’s
son who became the city’s first
black mayor last year, flew to
Washington to attend a
meeting of the Urban Land
Institute. He did not appear
disturbed about the death
threat reports.
“Do you think I’m worth
$10,000?’* he jokingly asked a
reporter before he left the city.
Augusta Nma-iUtijm
Jackson said, adding, “I
challenge him to repudiate it.”
Jackson took issue with the
notion that Talmadge has
“changed with the times.”
“1 am convinced that
Talmadge is one tiger who has
not changed his spots.” He said
that Talmadge voted against
the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
and he opposed the extension
of the Voting Rights Act in
Winter Games in Lake Placid,
N.Y., again it was Owens’ name
that surfaced for comparison.
Perhaps the best indication
of his greatness, though, was
that it took four decades
before the last of his 11 world
records in track and field
vanished from the record
books.
“I looked upon them as a
part of history,” he said in
1975, shortly after his name
disappeared from the list of
record-holders. “I was proud to
be involved in that
history-making process, but 1
have nothing but admiration of
the kids coming along today.”
Unlike today’s Olympians
who, with the help of
television and the mass media,
have the opportunity to
become instant superstars,
Owens found that he could not
star in the movies or another
sport, or become involved in
politics.
After the 1936 Olympics,
Owens’ performances became
anticlimatic but upon
retirement he kept his “world’s
fastest human” image alive by
racing against thoroughbred
horses. However, in 1956,
during a goodwill tour of India
for the State Department.
Owens gave two track clinics
and then agreed to run 100
yards to demonstrate his style.
At 43 years of age, he was
timed in 9.8 seconds.
“Sure, it bothered me,” he
once said of the fact that the
color of his skin took
Birmingham’s WAP I
television, quoting three police
sources, reported Sunday night
that the SIO,OOO contract
apparently stemmed from a
series of police raids on illegal
whiskey dealers. The television
station said the contract was
linked to some shothouse
operators, who illegally sell
whiskey and other alcohol in
homes.
About 80 people were
arrested in shothouse raids last
month.
Arrington was assigned three
tactical squad officers for
24-hour protection last week
1970 and 1975.
The mayor said one of his
former staffers was outraged
and wrote a letter to letter to
Talmadge about it. Jackson
said he? has seem tlfe letter in
which Talmadge responded
saying ftp would oppose the
Voting Rights Act as long as hi
lives.
The tw*o-term Atlarjta mayor
said that Talmadge is calling in
Jesse Owens
precedence over everything else
once the Olympics were over.
“But you have to remember
there is a vast difference
between my time and today’s
time.”
In the 19305, an era of fierce
nationalism, few things united
the United States against
Nazism as dramatically as
Hitler’s so-called snub of
Owens after Jesse had captured
gold medals by winning the
100- and 200-meter dashes and
the long jump and by
anchoring the victorious
American 400-meter relay
team.
In fact, there was no snub,
as such. After the opening day
of competition, the winners
were escorted to the German
dictator’s box to be
and one of those bodyguards
went with him to the nation s
capital.
“I’m surprised. I don’t know
where the information comes
from,” Arrington said. “I don’t
know of any specific contract.
I know our police chief, B.R.
Myers, had intelligence through
his department that made him
feel that he should provide me
with some officers.
Last Friday, Arrington said
Police Chief Bill Myers "said he
needed to beef it (security) up
because he picked up some
information about some
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GRAND MARSHAL of the Augusta Black Festival Parade, Atlanta Mayor
Maynard Jackson, waves to parade watchers. James Riles is the driver. See related
photos on page 2.
every favor he’s ever done. “He
Jiasn’t done any favors for
black folk. He has only done
what a senator is supposed to
do, which some blacks
interpret as favors.”
Talmadge, Jackson
continued, is not for the small
farmer, black or white. “He is
congratulated. Then the
president of the International
Olympic Committee, Count
Henri de Baillet-Latour of
Belgium, told Hitler he had no
business congratulating the
competitors. From then on,
Hitler left the stadium each
day without congratulating
anyone - Owens or any of the
other gold medals, including
the 38 Germans.
“When I came back, after all
the stories about Hitler and his
snub, I came back to my native
country and I couldn’t ride in
the front of the bus,” he said.
“I had to go to the back
door. I couldn’t live where I
See “OWENS”
Page 10
threats on my life. That’s it in
a nutshell. No threat has been
made to me directly.
“There are some police
officers outside my home right
now. They’re with me 24
hours, around-the-clock.”
Arrington was first placed
under heavy security while
attending a meeting at a
Birmingham hotel last
Thursday night. A day later,
two tactical squad officers
were assigned to act as the
mayor’s bodyguard on a
full-time basis and a third
tactical officer was put on
part-time bodyguard duty.
April 5,1980
in the pocket of, and has lined
the pocket of big business and
big far interests. Yet he should
not be taken for granted, said
Jackson who has endorsed Lt.
Gov. Zell Miller after flirting
with running for Talmadge’s
seat himself.
Miller’s record, he said, “is
The boys’ Uncle Hank
Taught youths to walk
‘the straight and narrow'
Saturday, March 29, was
Henry Daggett Day in Augusta.
The mayor awarded him a Key
to the City and former
athletes, colleagues, friends and
relatives from as far away as
California attended a banquet
at T.W. Josey High School to
honor the “boys’ uncle Hank.”
Daggett retired as head
football coach at T.W. Josey
High School at the end of the
football season, but he will
continue to serve as athletic
director and to do the job that
which he has done for more
than 31 years -- serve as a
father figure for hundreds of
young people in Richmond
County.
He gained the name Uncle
Hank when Josey opened in
1964. Students at the school
noticed how he provided for
the needs of one of his football
players, Andre Robinson. And
they started to call him
Andre’s uncle Hank.
It didn’t take long for them
to fjnd that he provided for all
of his players and students the
same way, and the name was
expanded to the boys’ uncle
Hank. The name stuck.
It was in recognition of
Daggett as a father-figure that
Tyrone Butler, who played
football for Daggett in 1967
and later founded the Augusta
Mini Theatre, drew such strong
applause when he said to
Daggett at the banquet,
“You’re still my father away
from my father.”
Actually, Daggett’s potential
for guiding young men was
recognized while he was a
student at Paine College in the
late 40s. There he played
quarterback, end, and tackle
while weighing only 139 lbs.
But by his senior year, the
college had hired him as an
assistant in athletics and the
next year as freshman coach.
Among his fond memories
of those days was a
championship track team
anchored by his “county
boys.” They were - Daggett
called them “barefoot wonders”
- Willie Clyde Williams and
Alandus Johnson.
“I bought track shoes for
them but they wouldn’t wear
Less Than 75% Advertising
one that 1 can support
strongly. He is closest to
representing working
Georgian’s small farmers, urban
dwellers, and one whose public
record cuts across racial lines.
He has tried to be fair to all
people since becoming an
elected official.”
shoes. But they’d win,”
Daggett said in an interview.
Williams and Johnson are
still on the same team at Miles
College. Williams is president
of the college and Johnson is
vice president. The late Rudy
Patterson, who earned a Ph.D.
and taught Chemistry at
Albany State College, was tire
only “city-boy” on that track
team.
Another of the athletes at
Paine College at that time was
Dr. Elias Blake. He is now
president of Clark College.
Daggett’s own ambitions
were not small. When he
graduated from Paine he
wanted to enter medical
school. But he got married, sired
a child, and had to meet family
responsibilities. His twin
brother, Eugene, is a
pharmacist in Los Angeles.
Daggett said that while at
coaching at Paine he decided
that he could be of greater
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BROTHERS OF HELP - /Ml former football players at T.W. Josey High School
under Henry Daggett - salute Daggett at banquet. A non profit service dub. the
Brothers of Help try to perpetuate the ideals Daggett instilled in them. From le < are
Willie Yarborough. Daggett. Walter Johnson. James Morris. Jerry F'H- n. ?• bx
and Henry Johnson.
* > 1
- i
James Brown’s
station sold at
public auction
WRDW Radio Station will
be sold at public auction
Tuesday because of a bank
loan default, according to
information in a legal
advertisement.
The station, owned by singer
James Brown, and 8.26 acres
on Eisenhower Drive, will be
sold to the highest bidder at
the Augusta-Richmond County
Municipal Building.
National Bank of Georgia
foreclosed on the station
because of default on a
$268,025 loan. The bank was
allowed to foreclose when it
value to students in the
secondary schools. I told my
wife and Paine Coach James
Brown: “The way some
students are coming to college,
1 believe I could help him out
at the secondary school level.’
When students got to college
they were pretty well molded,
he said.
In 1956, he began coaching
at A.R. Johnson Junior High
School. At that time, it was the
only junior high school tor
blacks in Richmond County.
There Daggett won the
principal’s approval to use his
planning period to take his car
- and use his own gas -- to go
and get students staying out of
school and bring them back to
class. “Mr. John M. Tutt
helped me when 1 was a
student. And 1 try to help
others to walk the ‘straight and
narrow.’”
Daggett’s abilities were
25 c
was granted relief on March 13
from an automatic stay of
bankruptcy earlier tiled by tire
station.
James D. Walker Jr. was
appointed receiver of the
property by the courts.
Brown filed a petition for
financial relief under Chapter
11 of the federal bankruptcy
laws in March 1979. Chapter
11 allows a corporation time to
straighten out its financial
problems without being forced
to immediately pay creditors.
The station was purchased in
1969 for about $270,000.
further recognized by Johnson
principal L.K. Reese. When Mr.
Reese was hospitalized for an
extended illness. Daggett was
left in charge of the school.
According to some sources,
Daggett was doing such a good
job that Mi. Reese had to
hurry out of the hospital to
keep Daggett from taking his
job. Daggett tells the story
differently: “That’s not true,
and you can quote me: Mr.
Reese had done such a good
job that all I had to do was to
follow the guidelines.”
In any event, when Reese
was named principal of T.W.
Josey High School in 1964, he
asked Daggett to join him as
assistant principal. Daggett said
he responded: “I’m in
athletics. I like coaching.” Yet
he says he wishes every teacher
See “UNCLE HANK”
Page 10