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The Augusta News-Review - Jan. 24,1981 - (Augusta (USPSBB7B2O) Mallory K. Millender Editor-Publisher Paul D. Walker Special Assistant to the Publisher Ms. Fannie Flono .. News-Editor Rev. R.E. Donaldson ... .Religion Editor Ms. Marye M. James■••••• Advertising Manager Harvey Sales Representative Mrs. Rhonda Brown Administrative Assistant Mrs. Mary Gordon Administrative Assistant Mrs. Geneva Y. Gibson Church Coordinator Mrs. Fannie Johnson Aiken County Correspondent Mrs. Clara West McDuffie County Correspondent David Dupree Sports Editor Mrs. Deen Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor Roosevelt Green .Columnist Al Irby.Columnist Mrs. Marian Waring Columnist Philip Waring. Columnist Grady Abrams Editorial Cartoonist, Columnist Roscoe Williams Photographer W« cannot be rcspondbie for uncoUeited photos, manuscript!, and other material*. Mailing Address Box 953 (USPS 887 820} - Augusta, G*. Phone (404) 722-4556 rgflX Second Oats Postage Paid Augusta, Go. 30903 JIB If jftj. AMALAAMAT— Published Weekly ntUSMM, MC. Given the enormous problems facing the nation, President Reagan may be strongly tempeted to let the plight of minorities and the poor take a back seat to reviving up the stagnant economy and shoring up our international position. In effect, that would be a revival of the old “benign neglect” approach of the early Nixon years. That approach was based on the supposition that blacks had made great progress and no longer needed special governmental efforts. A new benign neglect approach would probably be based on a different belief -- that by solving the nation’s economic dilemmas the Administration would at the same time solve the economic problems of blacks. Therefore, no special efforts need to be considered. The new benign neglect approach would be as mistaken as the old. In both instances, the neglect would not have a benign effect at all. Rather, it would inevitably lead to a deterioration of conditions for poor people while impeding solutions to problems of inflation and unemployment. One reason for this is that the free market approach favored by the Administration would -- even if it turns the economy around in the long run -- have serious negative short-term effects on the poor. Low income families, for example, feel the brunt of inflation in sharply rising food and energy costs that take a greater part of their budgets than better-off households, which spend greater parts of their income on non essentials. That means the poor depend on government props like food stamps, minimumwages, and unemployment benefits. Few of the poor actually get such assistance, just as few actually get welfare. But their availability is important for many low income families. If such income support were cut sharply or even, as some advocate, abandoned, those families would be in desperate straits. Even if, in the name of fighting inflation, eligibility standards are stiffened or public jobs programs cut, many inner city families would be shoved over the brink. Alabama Death Penalty Opposed By SCLC Leaders Montgomery, Ala.- The recent action of the Supreme court of the State of Alabama affirming the death penalty is disappointing and disconcerting. We condemn capital punishment. It is cruel and inhuman by nature; irreversible in implementing; and discriminates against the poor and non-white in administration. The legalized sanction of the killing of a Jwman being as a means resolving social problems sets an Page 4 To be equal Reagan Should Resist Benign Neglect By Vernon E. Jordan Theorists may claim that ultimately the lower federal spending and other measures will pay off in private sector job creation and lower inflation, but the reality is that the poor will suffer terribly until that happy day arrives. Further, there is little reason to believe that many poor people, who lack skills and other credentials sought by private employers, will share in the revived economy. Without federally assisted job training and job creation programs, millions of people will not be absorbed into the mainstream of our economy. Now that is not something people want to hear right now, in the heady flush of a new team in Washington spreading a new gospel. But it is a fact the new team must learn early in the game. It is all too easy to say government spending is out of control, blame social welfare programs for it, and then slam on the brakes. But the only way, and it cannot be stressed too strongly - the only way-- to limit federal social programs is to implement full employment with jobs for all who want to work. Those jobs should be productive, real jobs preferably in the private sector. And that inevitably means some form of federal spending or, more accurately, federal investment in developing our nation’s human resources. Whether through direct employment and training programs, federal subsidies, or through federal regulations on hiring the long-term unemployed, the federal role is essential and inescapable. To suppose that simply unshackling the private sector is going to create jobs for all is a myth. The federal government will still have to shape its tax and regulatory policies in away that encourages job creation where it is most needed, and not, as at present, in away that drains jobs from our industrial heartlands to other regions or other countries. A new policy of benign neglect is an invitation to further erosion of our cities, greater racial tensions in our society, and, ultimately, damage our nation’s ability to restore the economy and America’s place in the world. example of violence that has deadly reverberations throughout our imperiled civilization. The survival of the world is sorely threatened by violence, and unless we put an end to violence, violence will put an end to us. The death penalty denies the sacredness of human life, while offering no proven deterrence to crime. We find especially disappointing, the opinion of Justice Adams that we must no longer fear racial discrimination in the imposition of the death penalty. We strongly refute such an assertion. While we find it somewhat painful to repudiate the opinion of one we love and respect and who has attained a high office he deserves, nevertheless, our responsibility to conscience, and our calling as advocates of the poor and as lovers of justice demand that we cry out against that which denies the moral imperatives of our faith and ignores the lessons of history. The indisputable fact Crime A Pressing Problem In Black Communit ARE WE GOING TO SIT AND LET BLACK COM MUNITIES CRUMBLE AROUND US? GRASSROOTS, COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, MUST EMERGE TO FORGE A UNITED EFFORT AGAINST CRIME, NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING, BLIGHT AND DECAY. , Most, 1 l3Ww “The African Dream: Martin R. Delany and the Emergence of Pan- African Thought,” is a very powerful book by Dr. Cyril E. Griffith. The book, published by the Pennsylvania State University Press in 1975, is invaluable in presenting a clear picture of a period in African-American (Black) History. Knowing that many blacks are like myself in sharing a hunger for knowledge of our heritage and people, it seems useful to call attention to this well written and scholarly book of an able black history scholar. This book was the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Griffith who received his Ph.D. in history from Michigan State University, it is an easy reading work that I could not put aside until I had finished reading from cover to cover. Martin Delany is regarded by many scholars as the father of Black Nationalism. He was born in Charleston, West Virginia on May 6, 1812 and died in 1885. He was very definitely not the kind of “safe” Black leaders that most white Americans would praise and promote. Dr. Griffith describes how Delany, as a result of incidents with white racists, developed a Back to Africa movement in the 19th century, and how that movement eventually failed. Martin Delany’s life influenced. “The crucial 19th century events in his own country-- the Abolition Movement (of slavery), the Civil War and Reconstruction,” says Dr. Griffith. Permit me to share several interesting things I read in the book. Delany was an early believer in Black self-determination, urged Blacks not to become so comfortable with the Christian religion that they should fail to deal with their social problems, and he fought with white and Black abolition of slavery leaders since he taught Blacks should struggle primarily for themselves. He co-edited the North Star, a Black owned pro-abolition newspaper with Frederick Douglass. He consulted with that great anti-slavery white leader, John Brown over the common struggle. From 1840 until he died he was ahead of his time in his work and thought in advancing Black nationalism and Pan-Africism. He had a great love for Africa, the Motherland and worked with the idea of building powerful modem states in Africa with Blacks in this country and Africa living in Africa. Such an undertaking would therefore cause white men to respect Black men, or so he thought. is that in Alabama the decision to seek the death penalty in criminal cases is still (as always) an all white decision. The district attorneys who make the decision, in all 38 judicial circuits in alabama are white* The indisputable fact is that while Blacks comprise approximately 25 percent Speaking out The African Dream By Roosevelt Green, Jr. Delany was denied entry to the Berkshire Medical School in Pittsfield Massachussett because he wanted to practice medicine in America. The school would only accept those blacks, sponsored by a white colonization society and who would then practice medicine in Africa. He was asked to leave the Harvard University Medical School after one term as a result of protests by the majority of white medical students. He rejected white American and European notions that blacks contributed nothing to civilization. Delany pointed out that civilization began in Africa with Blacks being the original men. Blacks were builders of ancient Egypt with its great culture and white civiliations stole many of those contributions. Black Africans were the most humane people and gave to the world the noble belief in humanism. Students of African history today also know that the early Greek and Roman civilizations stole significant achievements of Black Africans and claimed them for their own less developed cultures. I join Delany in the belief that once blacks learn the truth about our history we will not need to feel inferior to whites. We do not need propaganada but the truth which will help us set ourselves free. Knowledge is indeed power for blacks as well as whites who are mostly ignorant of the black past. A final note on an issue of importance undoubtedly needs to be stated. These are those who want to claim the thinking and action of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King due primarily to his study of Mohandus K. Ghandi and white philosopphers and theologians. King’s thinking and actions flowed from a black protest tradition of black ministers and leaders like Delany. How well do you as a black person really know your wonderful history? Do you know about other Pan-African leaders such as Paul Cuffe, Edward Wilmont Blyden, Alexander Crumwell and Henry McNeal Turner. A predominately Black high school in Atlanta was named in honor and respect for Turner. I hope I have stirred your desire to read good Black history books by such black scholars as Dr. Griffith. I accept more readily Black history books written by blacks in most cases. Was Martin R. Delany right about the value of Blacks knowing their history? of the population, 60 percent of the inmates on death row are Black. The indisputable fact is that the presiding officer in each case to be tried under the death penalty structure in Alabama, will be white- Every circuit judge who tries criminal cases in Alabama is white. (And always has been). There is only one circuit judge in Alabama who is Black and he tries only cases related to domestic affairs. In virtually every case in Alabama involving a black defendant (and a white alleged victim), the district attorney Walking With Dignity Struggle of The Black Press Two senior black journalists have been banned as black paper owners fight to regain printing licenses. Black journalism in white-ruled South Africa is receiving hard knocks, as many small blacks papers are doing in America. The country’s biggest daily newspaper for blacksis likely to be off the streets for at least three months as a result of a Supreme Court ruling on its “license to print.” And two senior black journalists, one of them the head of the National Trade Union for black journalists and others news media workers, have received banning orders that restrict them to various limited areas and forbid them even to enter newspaper offices. HARASSING BLACK NEWSPEOPLE ....The newspaper affected mostly is the Post Transvaal, which succeeded the world newspaper, the daily the government banned outright in October 1977. The editor of the World, Percy Qoboza, was jailed for several months without trial of any kind. Mr. Qoboza now is editor of Post Transvaal, which circulates mainly in Soweto, the giant black residential township near Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city. Post Transvaal has been off the streets for more than two months because of a strike by black journalists who demanded better pay and working conditions. But it seemed everything was over a few days past. The owners of the paper, the giant Argus Printing and Publishing Company, and respresentatives of the strikers finally settled on various compromises, and the journalists went back to work. Move To Destroy Black Press ... .Then the government stepped in, Secruity Police served a warrant on Qoboza, telling him that Post Transvaal had forfeited its right to publish because its government registration certificate had lapsed. That, in turn, was because the paper had not been published for more than 60 /'ays during the strike. The government said it would be necessary for the paper to reapply for a registration certificate. By law this process must take at least 30 days from the time application is made and could drag on for much longer. The “strikes” the available" Blacks from jury service. When Tommie Lee Hines was tried rece-itly in Birmingham (where Mr. Adams was Hines’ attorney), the DA used every single challenge afforded him by law to “strike” blacks from the jury. As a result, only one black juror served on the case in spite of the fact that one of three residents in the community is black. The total lack of Black district attorneys and criminal court judges, and the pattern of racial discrimination in this state soundly refute any claim that justice is now color blind in Alabama. We applaud the appointment of Mr. Adams to the Supreme Subscribe To Augusta-Review Al Irby Argus Company immediately went to the Supreme Court attempting to have the government warrant declared null and void and to have the registration certificate restored. It pointed out in its pleading that the Post Transvaal had printed two token issues during the strike period which were sent to various state libraries and other ins tutu tions. Black Press Acted Courageously ... .But the judge ruled Dec. 29 that this was not sufficient. So the Argus Company has had to reapply for registration. It also has applied to the Minister of Internal Affairs J. Chris Heunis had to intervene to restore the paper’s registration license immediately, without insisting on the whole long bureaucratic process. But it seems unlikely that Mr. Heunis will do this. Indeed, many believe some members of the government are delighted at this opportunity to discipline the Post Transvaal, which consistently is highly critical of government policy and which some government supporters consider “inflammatory.” Two other newspapers, all part of the Post family, have been affected the same way as the Post Transvaal. They are the weekly Sunday Post and another local Soweto paper, the Sowetan. It could cost the Argus Company a substantial amount to get them all registered again. If, for example, the government decides that any of the papers might “at any time,” among other things, express views or convey any information that might be calculated to “endanger the security of the state...or the maintenance of public order,” it is entitled to levy a deposit of up to $15,000. And if the government later decides to close any of the newspapers down, it simply keeps the money. The black journalists who have been banned are Zwelakhe Sisulu, head of the black media workers’ union and news editor of the Sunday Post and Murimuthu Subramoney, who has been a correspondent in South ca Africa for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Court of Alabama as a step in the right direction, but stand in stout denial that this one step in the right direction wipes out all the inequities of history or closes the gap existing between justice and injustice for black and poor people in this state. The criminal justice system in Alabama remains repressive for black and poor people* We support the Black elected officials in the state how have consistently opposed the death penalty. Capital punishment is still for people who have no capital. The affirmation of the death penalty is a step backward in man’s journey toward human ness and justices