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The Augusta News-Review September 25,1982 The Augusta News-Review Mallory K. MillenderEditor Publisher Paul Walker Assistant to the Publisher Barbara Gordon Advertising Dir/Gen. Manager Yvonne Dayßeporter Rev. R.E. Donaldson Religion Editor Mrs. Geneva Y. Gibson Church Coordinator Charles Beale Jenkins County Correspondent Mrs. Fannie Johnson Aiken County Correspondent Geraldine Wilson Aiken County Correspondent Mrs. Clara West.. McDuffie County Correspondent Mrs. Been Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor Roosevelt Green Columnist Al IrbyColumnist Barbara MotonColumnist Mrs. Marian Waring Columnist Philip Waring Columnist Marva Stewart Columnist Wilbert Allen Columnist Carl McCoyEditorial Cartoonist David DupreeSports Editor Robert Caldwell Sports Editor Olando Hamlett Photographer Roscoe Williams Photographer Mailing Address Box 953 (USPS 887 820)-Augusta, Ga. Phone (404) 722-4555 Second Class Postage Paid Augusta. Ga. 30903 AMALGAMATED Published Weekly PUBLISHERS, INC. * National Advertising Representative db Civil Rights Journal Let there be music by Charles E. Cobb The arrival of summer has naturally increased the number of people on our cities’ streets. Yet, amid the cacophany of converstions and the blare of horns, rises the sound of music. If one is perceptive enough to iden tify the direction from which this music is emanating and then follow the stream of notes and voices to their source, we will very likely come upon a compact electronic mobile unit, Yiew From Capitol Hill CBC workshop studies enterprise zone bills by Gus Savage As noted last week, in President Reagan’s Enterprise Zone bill sub- mitted in Congress by Republicans, Sen. John Chafee and Rep. Barber Conable, various types of tax credits to businesses in the designated zones represent the main federal incentive to the economic revitalization of especially distressed neighborhoods. However, tax credits mean little to those marginal businesses, par ticularly minority owned firms, which earn small or no profits on which to apply all the types of credits the bill makes available. Yet, these are the very businesses which could be most easily persuaded to serve the purpose Ginn victim of statewide racism HOLD IT! Before Bo Ginn goes back to his cotton gin and Marvin Arrington goes back to Andy Young’s “Political Plantation”, I’ve got to get in my cell and expound some “prison wisdom.” Racism is still as much a part of Georgia’s statewide politics as apple pie and ice cream are American. How did Rep. Joe Frank Harris defeat Congressman Bo Ginn? He didn’t —but Atlanta’s black City Council Pres. Marvin Arrington, Mational SCLC’s Pres. Joseph Lowery; Senator Julian Bond; Rep. William (Billy) Randall; and most of all, Congressman Bo Ginn, defeated Bo Ginn. There are some things that you must never mix in Georgia’s statewide politics, any more than you would mix Begin of Israel with Arafat of the PLO. If you are running ofr a statewide political office in Georgia and expect to win there’s one thing you just don’t do—admit during the campaign that you are going to “try to treat black citizens fairly.” In the 1970 Democratic Primary, then-Senator Jimmy Carter did not, defeat Georgia’s ex-Govemor Carl Sanders in his bid to again become Georgia’s governor. Instead, black State Sen. Leroy Johnson; black civil rights leader Billy Randall of Macon, and ex-Governor Carl Sanders defeated Carl Sanders. Georgia’s racist political history repeated itself in 1980, when Atlanta’s Mayor Maynard Jackson; Senator Julian Bond; and Lt. Gov. Zell Miller; defeated Lt. Gov. Zell Miller in his bid to unseat U.S. Senator Herman Talmadge. When will they learn? As large and powerful as the black vote is in the emanating a sound previously thought to be produced only by the most sophisticated stereo component system. But the age of modern electronics coupled with an unparalleled demand for music has brought about the creation of a vast variety of portable music systems. I have seen the most frail persons carrying music systems see Music page 5- of Enterprise Zone bills, if it were made profitable for them to do so. When Enterprise Zones are even tually designated, if Reagan’s bill is passes in its present form, no doubt most businesses already located in the zones will be found to be marginal. Moreover, tax credits for invest ments in plant and machinery is of lit tle significance to the labor intensive type of small businesses usually located in especially distressed neigh borhoods. Also, industrial revenue bonds for small businesses have not proved sufficiently attractive to in stitutional lenders that ordinarily are big purchasers of such bonds. Another problem with President Reagan’s Enterprise Zone bill is its requirement that a business locate within a zone to qualify for assistan ce. This seems to focus more on geography than on unemployment, supposedly the main purpose of his at! State of Georgia and even being the balance of statewide political power, if not properly articulated, it is still the “kiss of death” for any politician running for a statewide office. Check it out; it certainly was not the black vote that defeated Congressman Ginn. Oh, he got more than his share of that, but it was the amount of white vote that went to Representative Harris as a result of Congressman Ginn’s closeness to blacks that defeated him. You see, Mr. Ginn had made the unforgiveable political mistake of allowing himself to become over identified with the “equal treatment of black citizens.” Congressman Ginn had this Democratic Primary won by a coun try mile... Representative Joe Frank Harris didn’t have as much chance to win as a known PLO terrorist would have had in a Israeli military demolition unit. The first major un forgiveable mistake Congressman Ginn made was to publicly accuse Representative Harris (in an all black meeting) of being the candidate of the KKK. If Representative Harris . had been politically astute, instead of getting upset, he should have paid Congressman Ginn. You see; everybody knew Congressman Ginn was mainly doing that to get black votes; and even though the average white Georgian will not join the i KKK. Congressman Ginn’s second major unforgiveable mistake during his run -1 off election campaign was to publicly announce that if elected he would 1 support a minority “set-a-side” 1 program, which would assure black businesses in Georgia (33 percent of ' the population) approximately 10 ■ percent of the State’s business. Page 4 I I V “O I I I I I bill. Immigrants early in this century were greatly helped by the relatively high wages plus low skill and education requirements of heavy in dustry, but there is no way for steel mills, for example, to move from the banks of waterways into depressed inner-city neighborhoods. Yet, properly guided government stimulation of heavy industry, such as steel and auto, regardless of their plant locations with a concerned city, could mean more jobs at higher pay for residents of that city’s enter prise zone than would government encouraged relocation into such neighborhoods of retail stores and service businesses. Employees of heavy industry, however, may never regain their im portance in the American workforce due to increasing use of robots and the rising manufacturing skills of Thirdly, Congressman Ginn publicly announced that when elected he was going to appoint more black citizens to high state positions; another unforgiveable mistake (hot dang, President Arrington may never become a State Court Judge now). The fourth major mistake Congressman Ginn made was just to overly identify himself with Atlanta and its black leadership. Why didn’t his black supporters advise him like I advised Senator Carter when he won the Governorship? They should have advised him to just stop publicly an nouncing what he was going to do for blacks when elected, just get elected and do it. And, now let’s take a look at poor Lt. Gov. Zell Miller. If the former Mayor Maynard Jackson and Senator Julian Bond (his main black advisors) didn’t kill his chance to become Georgia’s U.S. Senator in 1980, Judge Richard Bell is in love with me. He would have beaten Mack Mat tingly and made Georgia a great U.S. Senator. I really wanted to see ole Zell win, but when they approached me to campaign for Zell (particularly in South Georgia) I refused. I informed them that any blacks I could get to vote for the lieutenant governor out side the larger cities were going to vote for him anyway; but, if I were to go down there in South Georgia cam paigning for the lieutenant governor many, many whites who might vote for him would change their minds and vote for Senator Talmadge. That’s exactly what happened when Mayor Jackson and Senator Bond paraded in the rural areas throughout South Georgia campaigning for the lieutenant governor’s election against other nations. High technology and information are the areas currently providing greater new employee op portunities. Hence, any program to provide substantial help for the unemployed should include government en couraged training in these areas. Another problem with the Reagan plan is that it could lead to firms sim ply closing-down and reincorporating in order to qualify for tax gains as a new company with all “new” em ployees. A commendable feature of Reagan’s plan is that, contrasting with the liberal Model Cities program of the 1960’5, in the President’s Enterprise Zone Tax Act the negative cost of lost revenues to government is estimated to be far less than the cost of positive federal subsidies for direct community services projects. Os course, there is much ground to Senator Talmadge.... To be very honest about it, racism in Georgia politics is not just con fined to whites. When it comes to politics, blacks are iust about as racist as white tolks. However, me cause ot that racism is entirely different, because blacks have become racist in response to white racism. In other words, blacks are fighting “fire with fire”, which is totally in opposition to the principles the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us. In Atlanta’s 1981 mayoral race, ex- United States Ambassador Andrew Young felt more than sure he would carry over 25 percent of the white vote against his liberal Jewish op ponent, Representative Sydney Mar cus. To his surprise, Young was only able to muster a mere 7/2 percent of the white vote. I informed Mayor Young’s opponent (Representative Marcus) to please not let Represen tatives Billy McKinney, Douglas Dean and other black advisers fool him into expending any large amount of money and resources courting the black vote, because, politically speaking, race relations in Atlanta had retrogressed to the point of blacks voting for black candidates and whites voting for white can didates. My friend, Mr. Marcus, ignored my counsel, and after he had spent gobs of money and a slew of time courting the black vote he only received some five percent of it. Will Julian Bond defeat white liberal Congressman Wyche Fowler? Just as sure as the Heavens are above, if black folk go out and vote in the election (which 1 doubt will happen this go’round). It’s a crying shame and a mockery of democracy that in the nation’s so-called “multi-racial question whether approaching the problem through taxes is sufficiently relevant to the magnitude and com plexity of the problem: growing unemployment and business failures, plus reductions in public services and deterioration of urban infrastruc tures. Nevertheless, Reagan’s approach should be seriously discussed rather than summarily dismissed, no matter how inadequate may be its proposed breadth and depth or questionable may be its direction—for, in some form, this approach well could become law. It should be fairly evaluated for what it proposes to do rather than simply rejected for what it does not propose to do. This is basically a tax modification plan, an economic proposal rather than a sociological experiment, which at least focuses on a crucial problem. Mecca,”; a city that’s known as “too busy to hate,” in the great State of Georgia; a city defined as one of the fastest growing economic areas in our nation that, racially and politically speaking, we have reached our pin nacle (which falls far short of the Southland the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visualized in his historic “I Have A Dream” speech. In away, it’s sickening that not only is there no progress being made in this particular are, but we’re actually retrogressing. As much as I detest the injustice, I don’t hate Judge Richard Bell in anyway, I pity him. Judge Bell was politically right—send Hosea Williams to jail (justly or unjustly, legally or illegally) and you will guarantee yourself as Georgia’s next Supreme Court Justice. Judge Bell meditated and agonized over how his court could best use my case to get himself elected. Even the great, liberal Atlanta newspapers, keep talking about the judicial-astuteness of illegal indictment and then sat on the bench and gave me five yeafs after his court illegally indicted me for a felony. Proof? Oh yes! The conviction was overruled and thrown out by the lowest Appellate Court in the State of Georgia, and then Bell sent me to prison for one year (the maximum sentence for a mere traffic violation, that normally carries a sentence of from thirty to sixty days or a $250.00 fine). Why did Judge Bell do all of this? He, too, realizes that racism is deeply embedded in the soul of Georgia politics. Will it ever change? It hasn’t up until now, and a lot of sacrifices and suffering have been given in ex change. Walking With Dignity Marva Collins genius of hoax by Al Irby She’s as calm and cool as the eye of a storm. She is dressed to the teeth in billowry, white linen. That’s the way white newsmen described her recently at a news conference in Chicago. Ms. Collins talks a mile a minute, and to ■--a 1 a n a many people she is the eye of an educational controversy swirling up and out of Chicago and intriguing the entire nation for nearly half of a decade. Marva Collins, ex-public schoolteacher, now headmistress and founder of Chicago’s private West side Preparatory School,** has won national attention with her ability to teach supposedly unteachable children—those students crowded in to inner-city schools, who year after year fall significantly below national educational standards. These are the ones upon whom Mrs. Collins has etched her mark as an super educator. Just Seven Years Ago Seven short years ago, in the top floor of her inner-city brownstone, this little brown-skin lady took 18 neighborhood children who were failing in the public schools or sup posedly had learning disabilities and transformed them into students of Tolstoy, Shakespeare and Plato. Using an unorthodox blend of no nonsense discipline and abundant praise—“ Good morning, I love you,” she says to her classes —Mrs. Collins worked the same “miracle” each year. She is the driver of classical education into the ghetto children who had failed in the public schools. And the media just loved it. When the national press took hold of the ‘Great Lady’ back in 1977, they dubbed her a “miracle teacher,” who worked ‘blackboard magic.’” Fell From Grace In February of this year, a group of Chicago public schoolteachers openly attacked the alleged super teacher. In a two-part copyrighted article, the teachers called Ms. Collins a “hoax” who was “crippling public education.” The teachers said that Ms. Collins misrepresented her credentials. They charged her with plagiarizing ideas. They also criticized her for carefully selecting pupils rather than accepting true public-school dropouts. And those angry teachers charged that Collins had taken $70,000 in federal money, despite her repeated disdain for public education loot. But most significantly, the fighting mad, teachers challenged Collins to document her, until-then-undisputed successes with an independent testing group. To date, said the teachers, no test results had ever been made public to substantiate reports of the so called “miracle improvements” in student reading abilities. Friends Support Ms. Collins Well-known Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote an article criticizing the sloppy reporting of the super-teacher’s detractors. The venerable Wall Street Journal ran a supportive opinion column ap plauding her achievements, which had come “with little and without the red tape bureaucracy.” The National Education Association has defended her as a “master teacher” who is no sub stitute for or a threat to the public school system. And institutions from the American Academy of Achievement to the Urban League continue tc bestow their honors upon the talentec Ms. Collins. From this column, to the dynamic lady super pedagogue “Right On.” What A Lady The articulate lady was far toe busy catching up on her summei reading(“reading books has taken m< through some rough times”) anc assembling half-inch-thicl photocopies of John Milton’s “Areopagitica” for use in he classrooms this fall. She is not easib deterred from her mission. This is he working creed: The courage to thin and act for oneself, despite pee pressure, despite cultural, economic and ethnic disadvantages is wha motivates this pedagogical wonder. Now that they know “Georgia’! gospel political truth’’, Bo Ginn can go back to his cotton gin and Attorl ney Arrington can go on back to An! dy Young’s political plantation! ’ State Representative Hosea L. Williams. Dekalb County Jail I