Newspaper Page Text
Families holding more reunions
By Luther P. Jackson Jr.
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Journalism
Columbia University
Though battered by
inflation and unemployment,
black families are criss-crossing
America in ever increasing
numbers in search of
“togetherness” as well as their
“roots.”
Robert B. Hill, research
director of the National Urban
League, recently said the
League’s “Black Pulse” poll
showed that nearly half (46
percent) of all black famflies
had engaged in family reunions
that were not connected with
weddings, graduations and
funerals.
Os these families, the poll
found, 70 percent had reunions
at least once a year. The poll
also showed that black families
of all income levels participate
in reunions, varying from 63
percent of those with incomes
of $20,000 or more to 38
percent of those with incomes
under $6,000.
These national estimates,
Hill said, are projected from a
December, 1980, sample of
3,000 families that were
chosen to reflect the social and
economic characteristics of all
black families.
At the end of the summer
vacation season, Hill said that
family reunions were still on
the upswing despite soaring
travel costs and the gloomy
economic picture. This suggests
that the economic pinch has
strengthened family ties
resulting in more sharing or
“mutual aid” among family
members. In a reference to the
African heritage, Hill said that
reunions demonstrated the
cohesion of black families that
are “extended” to include
cousins, aunts, uncles,
grand-parents - in fact, all
blood relatives and their
spouses.
Thus black family reunions
often number as many as 100
persons, and for families that
have been reuniting for five or
ten years, there may be many
more than that. Ernie Johnston
Jr., managing editor of the
New York Amsterdam News,
recently observed that family
reunions have been enlarged to
include networks of friends as
well as relatives on a town or
state-wide basis.
Johnston cited Meridian and
Greenville, Miss., Macon, Ga.,
and Lewisburg, N.C. as sites of
town reunions. He added that
the traditional “state” dances
sponsored by New York City
blacks hailing from the South
have been expanded to include
two or more activities.
Whether reunions are big or
small, the basic reason for
them is fun - fun without the
restraints of weddings,
graduations and - most of all -
funerals. Golden Capel Lee, a
Greensboro, N.C. teacher, said
that she went from a graveside
in Greensboro to help plan the
first of eight yearly reunions.
“We were determined that we
would not always meet at a
time of sickness or death,” she
said. Organized by her sister,
Alberta Capel Pearson, the
reunions have been held in
Martinsville, Va., Baltimore,
Southern Pines, N.C., New
York City and Detroit.
The Capels’ Detroit schedule
from July 3 to July 7 included
a disco, a barbecued chicken
dinner and shopping and
sight-seeing tours of Detroit
and nearby Windsor, Canada,
but having fun is rarely the
only purpose of black family
reunions. The Capels encourage
interest in voting and civic
participation by having a city’s
mayor or his deputy address
the group. The family
celebrated itself in Detroit by
giving awards and certificates
to the Man and Woman of the
Year, the Family of the Year
and for political achievement
and education. Using a family
tree as a theme, the young
Capels received awards for
singing, dancing and reading at
the closing banquet
Mallory K. Millender, editor
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FOUR-PART HARMONY: At a Denver reunion the
Edward F. Jacksons of Passaic, N.J. are joined by
saxophonist Brian Edward Arnold in a musical tribute
to the family's “Old Kentucky Home” at Lexington.
Michael Edward Jackson plays trombone and Rise J.
of the Augusta (Ga.)
News-Review, said that
meeting relatives for the first
time at the Stamps-Mallory
reunions in Talladega, Ala.,
Detroit and Knoxville, Tenn.,
had given him an “awareness of
my history in a living way.”
Millender went on to explain
that hearing relatives speak for
themselves was far better than
getting second-hand
information about them. “The
Mallory Family reunions made
me fully understand why my
first name is Mallory,” he said.
With a bow to Alex Haley’s
“Roots,” 86 Denver celebrants
chose a post-Reconstruction
Lexington, Ky., dairy farmer as
their “Kunta Kinte.”
Assembling in Denver for a
July romp in the Rocky
Mountains, the descendants of
Edward and Delilah Jackson
included many strangers.
Edward Arnold of the host
family, however, greeted them
with name tags showing the
relationship between the
bearers and the Kentuckians’
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12 children - six boys, six girls.
Wearing pale blue tee shirts,
the Jackson caravan of 15 cars
took to the mountains with
huge reunion signs flapping in
the wind. After a round of
picnics, hikes and disco-ing, the
family was ready for the big
banquet.
The program spotlighted the
Kentucky farm family as a
shining example of how
families can share. With the
help of slides, narrations and a
computer’s data bank, Edward
and Robert W. Arnold and
their cousin, Michael Edward
Jackson, told of the sacrifices
that were made so that all of
the children could finish high
school and five could graduate
from college. The narrators
also told how “the big 12”
bought their widowed mother
a home in the 1920’s at 624
Garfield Avenue in Kansas
City, Kansas, signing all of
their names to the deed.
It turned out that 624
Garfield would be a home
away from home for any
Ritchie plays flute while Dad leads on the clarinet. Os
the 86 descendants of the late 19th century Kentucky
farmer who attended the reunion, 16 are named
“Edward” in his honor.
member of the family. Four
grandchildren of Edward and
Delilah stayed long enough to
graduate from the local
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Sumner High School. “It was a
real home,” Donald Jackson of
Wichita recalled. “It was a
place of love and laughter.”
Muskie told U.S. Africa
policy not good enough
Atlanta--Black leaders
recently told Secretary of State
Edmund Muskie that changes
in U.S. policy toward Africa
during the Carter
Administration have been
inadequate.
Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC)
President Dr. Joseph E.
Lowery acknowledged
improvement but summed up
the feelings of the black leaders
when he stated, “We are both
saddened and infuriated at
what we perceive as
indifferent, low priority,
noncompassionate U.S. policy
Black presidential choice
is focus of local forum
A “first of its kind” public
affairs forum, “Blacks and The
Two Party System” will be
presented tomorrow evening
(Sept. 25) at 7:30 p.m. in the
Parish House of St. Mary’s
Episcopal church, 1113 Pine
Street.
Sponsored by the Augusta
Black History Committee, it is
geared to highlight the
programs and policies of the
two major political parties and
their presidential candidates to
advance the status of Black
The Augusta News-Review September 27, 1980
toward the suffering of the
black majority in South Africa.
U.S. policy shows more
aggressiveness in its opposition
to Cuban troops in Angola
than to racist, rapists of the
human mind, body and spirit
in South Africa”, he said.
Lowery called for a new
offensive against the apartheid
system which shoots down
children and imprisons
dissidents. “Our position on
human rights demands a policy
of non-cooperation with evil,
including economic sanctions
and the divestiture on the part
of American corporations.”
Americans.
Panelists will be five black
Augustans who attended the
GOP convention in Detroit last
July and the Democratic
convention in New York City
last month. Representing the
Democrats are: Dr. Justine
Washington, who was a
delegate, and Edward
Mclntyre, an alternate
delegate, and Dr. I.E.
Washington, who was an
observer. The two Augustans at
Page 3
The black leaders called for
more blacks in senior officer
positions in the State
Department and for increased
aid to developing nations in
Africa and the Caribbean.
Lowery said that blacks would
intensify their efforts to help
shape the nation’s foreign
policy for both moral and
economic reasons.
Among those attending the
meeting were Mayor Richard
Hatcher, Mayor Maynard
Jackson, Dr. Kenneth Clark,
Mr. Randall Robinson and
AKA head Ms. Barbara Phillips.
Detroit were William Amos
Evans, an alternate delegate,
and Mrs. Constance Evans, an
observer.
They will be interviewed by
the Augusta media
representatives: John Sorrells,
Augusta Chronicle; Mallory K.
Millender, Augusta
News-Review, Ms. Joan Harrel
of Channel 6 and Tony Bell of
Channel 12. Philip Waring,
Augusta Black History
Committee, will moderate.