Newspaper Page Text
Group may
sue to keep
schools open
Page 1
Volume 11 Number 38
CSRA Business League
seeks funds to survive
The CSRA Business,
League will hold a
telethon an a radiothon as
desperation efforts to
keep the agency alive
following federal cutbacks
which may force the'
league to close its doors.
Executive director Har
vey Johnson said the
league’s staff, which has*
had as many as 13 em-'
ployees, is now down to
three. “Everything is still,
being done on a limited
basis,” he said.
The league normally'
operates on a $150,000 to
$200,000 budget, but is
Augustan returns home as
commercial artist, teacher
During the last 10 years
many Augustans, who
moved away,(have retur
ned to live and share their
talents with their home
town. So it is with Edwin
“Tee” Tompkins.
A commercial artist and
teacher, Tompkins was
away from Augusta for 16
years, 12 of them in the
Air Force. His travels
took him to Europe, the
Orient, the Caribean and
Canada.
He studied art in New
Orleans and presented a
“One Man Art Exhibit”
at the Treme Street
Academy, and the Urban
League Academy in New
Orleans, and the South
Park Mall in Shreveport.
He also worked as a
portrait artist in the Fren
ch Quarters.
He has exhibited in the
Augusta Black Festival
.Art Show, Regencv Mall
Show, the Augusta
Hilton, the Medical
College of Georgia, Youth
Development Center and
the Augusta Library. He
received his commercial
arts diploma from Com
mercial College in
Shreveport, La. and a fine
Vemell Nelson, director of the
Institution of Youth Awareness,
said this week that if his group is
unsuccessful in blocking the
propbsed closingof six
schools—all headed by black
principals—his group would
likely take legal action.
School superintendent William
'Oellerich has said that the schools
are under-enrolled and that
closing and consolidating the
schools could save hundreds of
thousands of dollars. He men
tioned Ursula Collins, James L.
Augiwta JfewH-ißeuiEUi
Harvey Johnson
£
y *
■I
■
Edwin “Tee” Thompkins
arts diploma from the Art
Institute in New Orleans.
Thomkins is employed
Group may use courts
to keep schools open
Fleming, Clara E. Jenkins, Mon
te Sano, William Robinson and
Sand Bar Ferry elementary
schools.
Five of the six schools have a
majority black enrollment. Only
Robinson is predominantly
white.
While Ollerich has insisted
the proposed closings are not
racial and that the schools will be
closed ‘‘where it best serves the
school system,” Nelson
disagreed.
‘‘He’s overlooking the fact
Jazz singer
found beheaded
in Eastside flat
Pagel
December 12,1981
trying to survive on $5,000
grant from the city.
Johnson said board
members are trying to
raise $50,000.
He said board-member
Henry Howard proposed
the telethon and
radiothon, reasoning that
“a lot of people might
come to our rescue if they
knew our situation.”
The radiothon will be
held Saturday from 7 a.m.
to 5 p.m. on WTHB. The
telethon will be on Chan
nel 6 from 9 a.m. to 11:30
a.m. Persons wishing to
make contributions
should call 724-0994.
in the Art Department at
the Augusta Chronicle
and Herald.
Ed Mclntyre
ATLANTA—Recent federal
indictments of four men on
charges of enslaving eight
migrant farm workers in North
Carolina apparently has drawn
attention to what appears to be a
broader problem of involuntary
servitude in the fields of the
Southeast.
Two brothers and two other
members of a black group of
migrant labor contractors have
been accused of enticing workers
with promises of drink and
marijuana and holding the
workers against their will.
Lawyers for the men have
denied the charges.
The Justice Department, which
monitors such situations, con
tend this kind of incident is a
serious and continuing problem
in the region. Daniel Rinzel, chief
of the civil rights division’s
Beheaded singer found in Eastside flat
NEW YORK CITY—A 35-
year-old jazz singer was found
with her head almost severed at
that certain schools have certain
special significance. Jenkins is
isolated and is the only form of
government in Hyde Park. Sand
Bar Ferry Elementary test scores
have come up tremendously in
recently years and its P.T.A. is
one of the best in the county,” he
said.
He said his group has gotten
more than 800 signatures on a
petition objecting to closing the
schools. “If all fails, we’ll inform
the community, then we’ll likely
take legal action.”
• Mayor-elect Edward M. Mcln
tyre said this week he does npt
believe the city should participate
.in the funding of the Human
Relations Commission, recently
. established by the county after
-the county withdrew funding
from the old HRC earlier this
.year.
In an interview with the News-
Review, Mclntyre said, “I
-haven’t taken a position on it,
but it looks to me rather awk
wt ward s a businessman and as a
politician—for one government
to establish the HRC by ordinan
ce of their own thinking, to
determine the budget, establish
the salary of the director, hire the
director, determine how many
people will serve, determine how
many black and how many will
be white, and select those in
dividuals and put into operation
HRC, then come ask the city to
now financially participate.
“I would think that if I were
mayor, I would want to par
ticipate in the establishing of an
4 black migrant-worker bosses indicted
Slavery still lives on southern farms
4 indicted in
migrant camp
enslavement
Pagel
cool on
city funding new HRC
criminal section, and Richard
Roberts, Involuntary Servitude
coordinator, both have said it is
unclear whether the incidence of
enslavement and peonage was on
the increase or whether more ac
tive social and legal services were
-producing more complaints.
A spokesman for the Farm
Workers Migrant Services, in
Newton Grove N.C., said in
voluntary servitude and peonage
were expanding occurences in the
’Florida to New York migrant
stream. He said hundreds,
perhaps into the low thousands
»• •
of intinerant workers and at least
15 labor contractors in North
Carolina are affected.
Lamar Armstrong, a lawyer
for Dennis and Richard Warren
in the North Carolina case, said
his clients have been falsely ac
cused.
the singer’s Upper Eastside apar
tment, according to police.
Martha Pearl Mitchell Sim
mons, who sang under the name
Martha Mitchell, apparently was
stabbed once in the chest and
strangled with an air conditioning
cord, police said.
“She was one of the really
good jazz singers around,” Bar
ney Josephson, owner of The
Cookery—a Greenwich Village
jazz club, said. “She was a very
Deadline Wednesday, sp.m.
S.C. State
Bull dogs reach
semi-finals
Page 3
HRC rather than coming in after
somebody else had laid all the
ground rules then ask me to give
some money to support it. I don’t
know what my position would
be, but I’m not excited about
coming in on the end of
something that has already been
established.”
Mclntyre said he did not
believe the city would create a
similar agency. “I think the
county ought to amend its or
dinance since the citizens of the
city of Augusta also pay county
taxes—now they have it restric
ted to the unincorporated
area—to amend the ordinance to
serve HRC with all the people of
Richmond County, including
those in the city and Hephzibah,
and that it be a county operated
HRC, funded with county fun
ds.”
In preparation for taking of
fice „in January, Mclntyre has
been attending conferences for
mayors around the country. Last
week he was in Detroit attending
“They do not kidnap people or
shanghai them, nor do they abuse
them or cheat them or steal from
them,” he said. “And if the
worker wants to walk away from
the camp, nobody stops him.”
Forty-six complaints of worker
abuse have been investigated by
the Justice Department nation
wide since Jan. 1, 1980, under the
Farm Labor Contractors
Registration Act.
The Justice Department has
received nine complaints from
North Carolina, six from South
Carolina, four from Florida and
two complaints from as far north
as New York state.
Under the federal antislavery
statutes, involuntary servitude
occurs when a worker is com
pelled to keep a job he does not
want. If a worker is prevented
from leaving a job because of a
sweet person. I’d never known
anyone in this business so gentle
and kind in my life,” he said.
Ms. Mitchell’s body was
discovered, at 161 E. 96th St., at
about 1:50 p.m., by police acting
on information supplied by her
brother, Masden said.
Police said the woman had
been dead for about a week to 10
days.
No sign of forced entry was
found at the apartment, and
the League of Cities meeting, and
was one of three mayors inter
viewed by the New York Times,
the Washington Post and the
Wall Street Journal. This week he
will travel to New Orleans for a
conference on Urban Develop
ment Action Grants and
economic development.
One of his primary concerns is
learning better ways to develop
Augusta’s riverfront. ‘‘l’m
currently studying a proposal
made by one major company that
I plan to recommend to council
to hire such a group to do an
overall development plan an set
short and long range goals to ac
complish the development of the
riverfront and the revitalization
of downtown Augusta.”
While Mclntyre has been
moving around, considerable at
tention has been given to his
moving his residence into Coun
try Club Hills. He explained: “In
order to serve all the people, it is
necessary to be accessible to all
the people.”
debt owed to his employer has
not been repaid, the offense is
peonage.
The kidnapping, slavery and
peonage cases along the migrant
stream involve more blacks and
whites than Hispanics. More of
ten than not, they involve black
crew leaders who persecute black
farm workers in more than one
place.
For example, the four men
charged in North Carolina also
are under investigation by state
and federal officials in at least six
Eastern states.
According to those who are
familiar with the procurement of
workers, recruiting trips often
take a swing through major cities
such as New York and Atlanta,
with labor contractors visiting
halfway houses and missions
shelters seeking men who are
lown and out.
police are expected to question a
man, with whom Ms. Mitchell
had reportedly been living with.
One of Ms. Mithcell’s neigh
bors said she had not seen the
singer for several weeks and a lot
of mail was jammed in the dead
woman’s mailbox.
Ms. Mitchell, a native of Den
ver, CO, was highly regarded in
jazz cirlces as an accomplished
and well-rounded performer. She
had toured the country in various
musical revues in the past.
25C