Newspaper Page Text
White mother
with black child
fights to keep son
Page 1
Augusta News - tßeinmi
Volume 11 Number 43
If Martin Luther King
Jr. could spend his 53rd
birthday with us, he
would be proud of the
accomplishments made
since his death. It would
do his heart good to wake
up on January 15th and
turn on his TV set and see
Bryant Gumbel an
choring the Today Show
with Jane Pauley.
It would do him even
more good to pick up the
morning newspaper in his
Atlanta home and find
that his friend and aide
Andy Young was mayor,
that he had served as
U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations, and
Maynard Jackson had
held the post for the two
preceding terms.
He would read that the
Braves Hank Aaron is
not only about to be in
ducted into the Hall of
fame, but that he is now
the all-time home run
king!
Mother with black child fights alone
for custody of white son
MILLEN—A 27-year-old
white divorcee, with a 7-month
old black child born out of
wedlock, is fighting to regain
custody of her 3-year-old white
son she has not seen since the
court took him from her June 25,
declaring that she was an unfit
mother.
Kathleen Blackburn asks why
is she unfit to be the mother for
her white child, yet fit for her
black child. Mrs. Blackburn, who
came to Millen from Minnesota
three years ago with her ex
husband, Mark, said Millen is
“100 years behind time. Someone
needs to stand up and make
Millen realize that this is today.”
She said she knows of two
other white girls who gave birth*
to black children. They were
harrassed and moved out of
town. Os one of them, she
recalled, “They tried to burn
down her grandmother’s trailer.
She moved to Statesboro
“I feel they are going to try to
make it as hard for me as they
can, but I don’t care how hard
they make it, I’m going to stay
here until I get my son, no matter
how long it takes.”
She said that it has always been
acceptable for a white man to
have a child by a black woman,
but not the reverse. “I know
people who run this town who
have done the same thing I’ve
done and nothing is said.
“But here is a white woman,
down here by myself, and it’s like
live committed a crime. They’ve
gat children walking around here
hali-and-half.
Dr. King would be proud
Oh, Dr. King would
have a ball catching up
on the news. He would be
so proud that his former
college president, Dr.
benjamin Mays, is not
only alive and well but
has served for a decade as
president of the school
board in Atlanta, and
that Dr. Mays’ picture
now hangs in the capitol
of his native South
Carolina next to the
Father of the Country,
George Washington.
It would be a literal
fulfillment of his dream
to find out that Ed Mcln
tyre is mayor of Augusta
and B.J. Johnson is
mayor of Wadley and
that Coleman Young is
mayor of Detroit, and
Richard Hatcher is
mayor in Garv. Indiana
and Kenneth Gibson is
mayor of Newark, and
that Tom Bradley is
mayor of Los Angeles
and is planning to run for
“A lot of the parents are upset
about the publicity and all, but if
they knew what their own
children were doing, they would
be shocked.
“They want to hush me up,”
she said, but “I don’t care what
they do. If they try to kill me, I
will still talk.”
Mrs. Blackburn said her
troubles began shortly after
coming to Millen. She and her
husband lived with his parents.
She said her husband could not
keep a job and was frequently in
trouble with the law.
She worked first as a dietitian
in the county hospital, and later
found work plucking chickens
for $3.40 an hour.
She and her husband fought.
The marriage ended in divorce in
1979.
She fell in love with another
man, Gene Wright, a nine-year
police veteran and the first black
on the city’s police force.
Wright twice arrested Mark
Blackburn, once for allegedly
stealing tires (no charges were
pressed), and once for aggravated
assault (he was fined $250 and
given a suspendedsentence).
The romance between Mrs.
Blackburn and Wright was
discrete but she got pregnant.
Then she learned that Wright was
married. He and his wife were
separated at the time.
“I have no regrets,” he said in
a recent interview, “But I’m back
with my wife and three children
now.
Mrs. Blackburn said she had
the baby because she does not
believe in abortion. Her black
friends have offered to adopt the
baby, but she refuses to part with
her daughter, Jennifer. "People
have asked me about giving up
my daughter for adoption. I’m as
proud of her as I am Nicholas
King set
American
agenda
Page 1
governor with a good
chance of winning.
He would be thrilled to
learn that Mervyn
Dymally has already been
elected lieutenant gover
nor of California and
George Brown was elec
ted lieutenant governor
of Colorado.
He would be so pleased
to hear of the progress of
his former Operation
Breadbasket director
Jesse Jackson’s
achievements with
Operation PUSH.
He would want to meet
Alex Hailey and to get a
copy of “Roots.” He
would learn of the
comeback and further
accomplishments of
Muhammad Ali and
Sugar Ray Leonard.
But more importantly
he would be glad to see
that the masses are to a
(her white son). She is part of me
“Last month a state court
judge awarded permanent
custody of her son to her former
in-laws. He let her keep her
daughter.
Superior court Judge W.C.
Hawkins insists race had nothing
to do with his ruling. “I looked
to the best interest of the child,”
he said. “If she’s consorting
around and having babies out of
wedlock, the grandparents are
better off taking care of
it...doesn’t matter what color the
second baby is.”
Although Mrs. Blackburn and
her lawyers don’t understand
why Hawkins didn’t take her
black child after he declared her
unfit to care for her white child,
the judge said “Georgia law says
the illegitimate child belongs to
the mother,” Hawkins said. She
can do what she wants with it.”
Mrs. Blackburn said she has
not seen her son since June when
Sheriff L.C. Williams came to
her house with a court order
granting temporary custody of
her son to her former mother-in
laws, following a petition from
Mrs. Nancv Blackburn.
In the petition, the young
woman was charged with giving
birth to an illegitimate, racially
mixed child, being a lewd woman
and failing to set a moral example
or to provide a stable home life
for the child.
After the temporary custody
was awarded to the former
mother-in-law, Nancy Blackburn
claimed that Kathleen Blackburn
was planning to leave the state
and Circuit Judge Faye Martin
ordered her to post a $5,000
bond if she wanted to see her son.
She said she had just filed a very
affadavit with the court, she had
no money, and never got to see
him.
Tom Bradley:
Black politician
on the go
Page 4
January 16,1982
Editorial
greater extent beginning
to enjoy the fruits of his
labor. He would be very
pleased to see the
desegregation that has
taken place in the
classrooms across the
nation, and particularly
in the South.
He would be glad to
know that northern
blacks are now moving
back South, bringing with
them their skills and the
political clout of their
numbers.
Perhaps more than any
other state, he would be
proud of Mississippi,
which in now near the top
in black elected officials.
With all of that good
news, he would be
sobered, however, by
learning of the social
degeneracy, of the
Reagan administration.
It would tear his heart
The Rev. Roosevelt Green Jr.
will be the speaker at the
NAACP’s Annual Freedom
Banquet commemorating the bir
thday of Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. Jan. 15, at 7:30 p.m. at T.W.
Josey School.
A native of Athens, the Rev.
Green graduated from Paine
College in 1962. He received a
master of divinity degree from
the Interdenominational
Theological Center in 1965 and
the masters in social work from
the University of Georgia in
1969.
He is presently pursuing his
Ph.D. at Penn State University.
He is also employed by the
Paine College President Julius
S. Scott Jr. said Sunday that if
they a nation had embraced the
philosophy of Martin Luther
King Jr., we would not be in the
mess we’re in today.”
King set the agenda for
America, he said. Dr. Scott was
the speaker for the college’s ob
servance of the 53rd anniversary
of the birth of the slain civil
rights leader.
King, he said, was the outstan
ding American of this era, and
that he gave a “new vitality and a
new chrystalization” to the
aspirations of the poor, blacks
and women.
Dr. Scott, who marched and
Green is NAA CP speaker
Scott says King set the agenda
out to see what is being
done to the social
programs started by the
Johnson ad-
ministration —to see that
the war on poverty has
been called off, that there
is no longer compassion
for the needy, the elderly,
and certainly not the
black.
He would find it hard
to believe that efforts are
being made to prevent the
extension of the Voting
Rights Act or that people
would be opposing giving
women equal rights.
He would be very
disturbed to learn that
the Reagan Ad
ministration is now
seeking to give tax exem
ption to private schools
that practice racial
discrimination, which is
tantamount to approving
racial discrimination and
segregation as national
policy. He would be sad
dened, though not really
Roosevelt Green
went to jail with Dr. King, and
later served as the first executive
director of the Martin Luther
King Center for Social Change,
said Dr. King “forged a
movement which gained his a
place in history.”
But, he cautioned the audience
at the Gilbert Lamth Chapel, that
if the dream is to be fulfilled, ef
forts in that direction must be put
forth by us.”
Dr. Scott said that Dr. King
“agonized” for the nation that
made a sham of its declaration of
equality and justice for all
people.
One of Dr. King’s outstanding
‘Another one
bites the
dust’
Page 4
i
surprised, that the
President of the United
States is doing all he can
to maintain racist and
oppressive regimes such
as South Africa.
He would not be sur
prised because he devoted
his whole adult life to
pointing up the im
morality of our national,
local and state gover
nment policies.
He repeatedly said
during his lifetime that
his life and death were
committed to saving the
soul of this nation. He
never expected an instant
conversion, but he did
predict that we, as a
people, would get to the
Promise Land. And that
is why he would be so
happy if he could visit
with us on January 15.
He would realize what
many of us do not—that
we are already beginning
to reach the Promised
Land.
university as assistant to the Dean
of the Graduate School (for
minority affairs).
He has responsibility for
developing programs, coor
dinating services and recruiting
minority graduate students.
The Annual Memorial Banquet
has two main objectives: To
focus attention on Dr. King’s
contribution to achieve racial
harmony through his non-violent
philosophy and to support the ef
forts to have Congress declare
January 15 as a National
Holiday. Donations are $lO and
patrons are $2.00. Call Charles
H. Williams or Otis A. Smith for
more information.
qualities was the ability to take
philosophers’ complex concepts
and restate them in plain terms.
Dr. King, he said, translated
Immanuel Kant’s categorical im
perative into the simple
statement, “I ain’t going to let
nobody turn me around,” and
everybody understood it.
But most of all, he said, Dr.
King gave us hope. He made us
feel that with all that was going
on that things would be better.
He preached that “one day we
shall all be free, and often said
that we must “hew out of the
mountain of despair the stone of
hope... “We shall overcome. We
must live with hope.”
25C