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Augustan Allegedly Beaten By 7 Police Officers Page 1 Volume 11 Number 23 ' ’ **7 Joseph Jones Says City Backs HRC ' City Councilman Joseph C. Jones, tcid the Augusta Human Relations Commission last week that he disagreed with the county commission's decision to withhold funds from the HRC and he said that the agency should be getting more money, not less. "If anything, we should put more money into the Human Relations Commission, because we have been receiving more.” Jones said. The city is just as (financially) responsible as the county (for HRC funding) and if we thought Augusta Man Says He Was Fired For Involvement In Politics Larry Pettigrew, an employee of the Georgia Power Company told the News-Review he was fired last week because of his involvement in politics. Pettigrew, who worked in the campaigns of Gov. George Busbee and President Carter, is vice president of the Young Democrats of America. Los Angeles Mayor Will Bradley Run For Governor? With 1982 drawing closer and closer, the more certain it appears that Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley is going to make a run for the governor’s seat in California, one of the nation's most papulous and important states. While he has stopped shy of actually announcing his candidacy, his statements, like the following one seem to indicate where he proposes to go. “I have gone out to test the waters to see what the prospects are if I should run for Governor. Things look good.” Bradley can say that on the basis erf a recent poll of possible gubernatorial candidates which showed him winning an election in ’B2 by a large margin. However, there are several notes erf caution before Bradley calls in his tailor for his swearing-in-suit. The poll did not measure how well Bradley would do against the incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown, who at the time of its taking was widely believed to have his eyes Augusta Netua-ißeuteiu something was wrong we, would be in that kind of discussion (audit) too." Jones said the county commissioners want an agency that will talk about how good things are in Augusta and not deal with discrimination." The fourth ward councilman said he was "not too concerned” about the county withholding HRC funds because "enough business firms see the need for HRC and would support it.” Asked to what extent his views reflected the view of city council Jones said, “I believe a majority of the members of council support He said the company terminated him without giving a reason or a letter of notification. "I don’t know whether this is a trend for Black professionals' ’ hired by predominantly white companies..” but I do know that we are living in a time that if we as a Black race are to survive, we must join hand and hearts and get on on the seat of Republican Senator, S.I. Hayakawa. Since then, Brown has had several setbacks including the embarassment over the wrongful use of a state computer in fundraising efforts, and his less than sterling performance in dealing with the menance of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly. His stock is at such a low ebb, that it is not inconceivable that he might decide that he should run again for governor and forego the U.S. Senate. And too, early polls are deceptive, Ihose who look like winners months ahead of time. Often end up on the outside looking into the winner’s circle- much like a disappointed would-be bride. Finally, California is notorious for doing the unexpected. In any event, at this point, Bradley has to be considered the front runner based on the positive After losing to Mayor Sam Yorty in 1969 in an ugly racist campaign, Bradley won office in 1973. He was elected to his second term in 1977, Man Says He Was Fired For Involvement In Politics Page 1 the Human Relations Commission." Jones made his comments to the HRC after the agency voted to hire an attorney in an effort to secure the funds withheld by the County Commission in a called meeting. Moments earlier the county commission had refused a request by HRC Chairman Roscoe Williams to restore the funds based on information that had already been supplied to the county auditor. Williams told the HRC directors the agency is “an anathema" in the community. “We were . one accord," he said. Pettigrew joined Georgia Power in January of 1978. He was the first Black male employed in the company's Residential Energy Service Department in Augusta. Neil Gleason, a Georgia Power official said the company "did have reasons (for firing Pettigrew) and stated them winning the primary with 59 percent of the vote, and to his third term last April with 63.9 percent of the vote. Considering that Blacks make up only 17 percent of reaction he elicits from the voters of California, the vote in Los Angeles, Bradley has obviously made heavy inroads in the white and Hispanic vote - support which is critical in a statewide election. When race is raised as an issue, Bradley recalls that "in Los Angeles we settled that issue in 1973," referring to the race againty Yorty. The son of a sharecropper, Bradley grew up in Los Angeles. He attended the University of California, where he was a 440 yard dash runner, worked as a Los Angeles police office until he retired as a lieutenenat after 21 years, and was a city councilman. If he is successful in his quest for the office in Sacremento, he will do what no Black has ever done before. Become governor of a state. August 29,1981 created for the reason that people were being oppressed and discriminated against. So we are not going to be popular. But the 2,500 people who are the beneficiaries of HRC services are the ones who are being hurt." “One of the quietest secrets is that we service a substantial number of white females," Williams said. HRC board member Magnolia Donahue said the county auditor either “does not understand (the information made available to him) or has been instructed not to understand." LARRY PETTIGREW to him. He had prior notice and warning." Gleason said the warnings were verbal and he declined to give reasons for the warnings. In addition to his involvement with the Young Democrats, Pettigrew said he is secretary of the board of directors of the CSRA Economic opportunity authority and vice chairman of its personnel committee. He is a member of VOTE, a district 87 representative for the local Democratic Party and a trustee and New Zion Baptist Church. Three Officers Indicted In Deaths Os Blacks A state grand jury has indicted two deputies and a probation officer on charges of criminally negligent homicide in the drownings of three Black teenagers that sparked racial unrest. The youths, arrested on marijuna-possession charges June 19 during a celebration, drowned when a 14-foot boat the officers were using to ferry the youths to a command post across Lake Mexia capsized about 80 feet from shore. The three officers swam to safety. The celebration is called Juneteenth. It is' a state holiday marking the day Texas slaves learned of the Jan. 1. 1863, Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery. The drownings outraged the Black community, which claimed the youths’ arrests were racially motivated. The J ustice Department said in June it was investigating the incident at the request of the National Association 3 Officers Indicted In Deaths Os Blacks Page 1 BrrW fl ■T///Wil I Hk-Ji I ? PEACHES & HERB HIT THE SOAPS - Recording artists Peaches & Herb, whose brand-nw single, “Freeway,” is always climbing the R & B charts in anticipation of their new album, Sayin’ Something, recently made a cameo appearance on the popular ABC TV soap opera, The Edge of Night. Man Says He . Was Beaten By Seven Policemen James Norman, 1209 Holden St., filed a complaint with the local NAACP last week, charging that he was beaten by seven police officers August 16. Norman said he was walking on O’Keefe Lane when he saw police officers arrest a group of men and put them in a squad car. One of the men in the car called him, Norman said, and asked him to “come and get them out of jail.” One officer asked him to get away from the car, and as he started to do so, another office said, “Put for the Advancement of Colored People. A caravan of cars, vans. pickups and motorcycles rolled into town last Saturday for a rally protesting the drownings of three Black youths. Almost 40 vehicles made the 90-minute trip from Dallas to Lake Mexia where Carl Baker. 19; Steven Booker. 19; and Anthony Freeman, 18; drowned in shallow water during Juneteenth, a June 19 celebration commemorating the day Texas Blacks learned of their civil war emancipation. An estimated 400 people, most from Mexia but many from Dallas. Austin and Houston who came in the caravan, participated in the rally. The drownings occurred at an area called Comanche Crossing, and many of the caravan participants Saturday carried banners say, “Remember the his.... in the car," according to norman. Then an officer Norman identified as Ivery grabbed his arm and hit him in the chest and head. "I hit him back. I was then attacked by seven policemen, handcuffed and kicked and punched whiled I was on the ground, then taken to jail. “I was hurt and they refuse to take me to the hosptial. I went on my own and I am still under the doctor’s care,” Norman said in the complaint. He said he asked for a polygraph test but was refused. Commanche 3.” “We want to be respected by the system and protected by the system, but we don't want to be neglected by the system." said Rep. Al Edwards. D-Houston, in a brief address to the crowd. Coroners’ reports already have indicated two of the victims had no marijuana in their blood at the time of their deaths. Attorney Pat Simmons said grand jurors would be given a 500-page transcript from a board of inquiry hearing that determined there was no criminal intent in the drownings of the three men on June 19. The officers were ferrving them to the other side of Lake Mexia when the boat overturned. The three Black men died and the officials survived. Black witnesses have said the men were handcuffed and did not have lifejackets in the boat. Deputies say there were no Will Tom Bradley Become First Black Governor? Page 1 The doo played themselves in a night-club scene where they sang their hit song, “I Pledge My Love.” Pictured with Peaches A Herb on the set is Irving A. Lee (far left), who plays Detective Calvin Stoner on the show. Don’t Be Fooled By The Augusta Chronicle Editorial We hope that no Black person will be foolish enough to join in the effort of the county commission and the Augusta Chronicle and Augusta Herald in their attempts to get rid of Charles Walker and the Human Relations Commission. We hope that Black people will realize that it is not Charles Walker and the Human Relations Commission that are being attacked. It is the victims of discrimination that are under attack. And in America, more than anybody else, that means us. The audit is not the issue. The issue is racism and racist efforts to keep it alive. Charles Walker was absolutely correct when he told the County Commissioners that they have been “hiding behind the forest of an audit” to continue their racist assault on the Human Relations Commission. What is often ignored is that Charles Walker can’t act alone. He is responsible to a board of directors. And that board and its chairman have backed Walker throughout this controversy. Walker was correct again when his said that if the HRC had done something wrong, the county commission would have made that known and taken action long ago. No one should be surprised that The Chronicle-Herald has called for Walker to resign. And we hope that no Black or intelligent white will support such a request. No one should be surprised that the Chronicle and Herald are asking the county commission to “rescind its ordinance creating the HRC,” thereby doing away with the agency. Blacks have repeatedly warned that this whole effort has been to control if not destroy the Human Relations Commission. If the county commission is foolish enough to follow the Chronicle- Herald’s advice and abolish the HRC, then replace it with another agency, we hope that Black people will have the good sense to refuse to serve on such a board. We hope that Black people will refuse to participate in their own destruction. We think that the Human Relations Commission, its chairman, Roscoe Williams, and its director, Charles Walker, should be supported by the Black community as never before. Remember, they are not the issue. We, Black people, are. 25C