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The Augusta News-Review October 9,1982
The Augusta News-Review (usps 887 820)
Mallory K. MillendcrEditor Publisher
Paul Walker Assistant to the Publisher
Barbara Gordon Advertising Dir/Gen. Manager
Wanda Johnson Administrative Assistant
Alfredia Rodd Sales Representative
Yvonne Day Reporter
Rev. R.E. Donaldsonßeligion Editor
Mrs. Geneva Y. Gibson Church Coordinator
Charles Beale Jenkins County Correspondent
Mrs. Fannie Johnson Aiken County Correspondent
Mrs. Clara WestMcDuffie County Correspondent
Mrs. Been Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor
Roosevelt Green Columnist
Al BbyColumnist
Mrs. Marian Waring Columnist
Philip Waring Columnist
Marva Stewart.’Columnist
Wilbert Allen Columnist
Carl McCoyEditorial Cartoonist
David DupreeSports Editor
Robert Caldwell Sports Editor
Olando HamlettPhotographer
Roscoe Williams Photographer
Mailing Address
Box 2123
Augusta, Ga. 30903-2123
Second Class Postage Paid
Amalgamated Published Weekly
PUBUSHERS, INC. NMtowl Advert M-g *
Speaking Out
Hunger in America
by Roosevelt Green, Jr.
A recent news story in a Pittsburgh
newspaper scratches the surface on
hunger in
America. It also
pulls the covers
off the silk
stockings economic
policies or our
millionaire orien
ted presidential
administration.
A truck over
turned that was
SIOO,OOO load of groceries. It belongs
to a well-known national food chain.
The tractor-trailer’s load included
vegetables, fruit, eggs, and potatoes
that went flying along the highway.
And what do you think happened?
The Pittsburgh newspaper reports
cab drivers, guests in a local hotel,
drifters and passers-by rushed to the
scene, stuffing food in several con
tainers for their personal use. The
crowd grew to 125 with several fights
rising out of the struggle for food
items.
One woman saw the food as being
answered prayers since her personal
bills consumed her meager income. A
riot developed as people rushed to the
accident scene eager to get free food.
The state police stood by and watched
as swarms of people appeared to ob
tain the 29,000 pounds of needed
food.
A radio news report of the ac
cident and free food brought even
more people. Officials of the food
Tom Teepen
Civil Rights regression
1 don’t know quite what to make of
George Wallace’s pending return to
the Alabama governorship, but at
least I’m in good company. No one
else seems to know what to make of
it, either.
Is Wallace a misfit in time, or dies
he fit the times? He did not run a
racist campaign to win the
Democratic nomination, which is tan
tamount to election. But then, he
didn’t have to. His bona Tides are
well-established; indeed, notorious.
This time he sought, and won, sub
stantial black support. That marks
him off from a period whose public
demeanor is largely set by Ronald
Reagan, whose campaign for the
presidency was rank with sour dissent
from the nation’s efforts to secure
racial justice and whose ad
ministration has been the biggest set
back for racial progress since the
presidency of Woodrow Wilson,who
for all his idealism in other matters
was a drawing-room racist of the
most arch sort.
Is Wallace, then, actually ahead of
the times or does he simply trail the
pendulum once again, as he did when
he was a holdout segregationist? Is he
still out of phase, but this time
lagging behind the return to official
racism? Or is it Reagan who is out of
step, snapping the white backlash a
dozen years after most Americans
gave that up?
There will be a good deal of
publich handwringing, I suspect, in
much of the country about what the
Wallace phenomenon portends for
the South. My guess would be that it
portends little. The Wallace-Alabama
chemistry is far too eccentric to have
I W
loaded with a
Page 4
chain showed up at the scene and in
dicated people were welcomed to the
food.
The truck driver was reportedly
slightly hurt. Thank God! But, this
food free-for-all that finally required
state police intervention for order
sake, means there are hurting and
hungry people in the great city of Pit
tsburgh. Was it greed or hunger that
moved the poor and non-poor to see
this accident as an incident of mercy
in hard times?
In times of plenty, many of the
food seekers would have sped pass
this overturned Kroger food truck.
What does it say about our
politicians that the hunger pangs of
our people cannot be heard above the
roar of unnecessary defense spen
ding? Why should people have to
fight over food in one wealthiest
nations in the world.
Does democracy prevail when ef
forts to balance budgets are more im
portant than balanced meals? Battle
ships are not more important than
bread, submarines are not more im
portant than soup, and people are
more important than politics and
political parties.
Meanwhile, it is sad that an over
turned truck, surplus cheese, and
political ideology, take the place of
humane policies for the non-wealthy.
Even harder times are ahead as some
national politicians prefer that we
bite bullets rather then bread. What?
Is that an overturned food truck?
Gangway!
much tensile strength. You can’t hang
a lot on it.
In any event, it will ill-behove a
nation that elected Reagan to worry
about racism in the South.
You remember Wallace’s infamous
white-backlash campaigns for the
presidency in 1968 and ’72. His racist
platform is now federal policy, via
Reagan. There was not a single
position in Wallace’s racist politics
that Reagan has not picked up or that
the president is not trying to carry
out. The difference is that Reagan
grins, where Wallace ranted.
The nation does not have to worry
about the pending return of George
Wallace. It already has the same
things to worry about in the presence
of Ronald Reagan, whose enfor
cement of civil-rights laws has been
lax, who is undermining affirmative
action, who is working for the
resegregation of schools.
No, I’m not exaggerating. Reagan
has set his Justice Department poin
tedly about the job of dismantling
busing plans. In the absence of other
means to sustain school integration,
rolling back busing means
resegregation. Period.
The president was asked about that
in his Tuesday night press conference,
as the returns were being counted in
Alabama. He said that in a number of
cases the black community itself is
trying to end busing.
Maybe, but I can’t find out where.
I called the White House yesterday
and it said it doesn’t know what cases
the president was talking about.
Lawyers at teh NAACP Legal
Dsefense Fund, who track this issue
closely, know of no such cases. The
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To Be Equal
What’s behind New Federalism
by John E. Jacobs
The Administration’s push for its
“New Federalism’’ continues.
Having modified
its original
proposal to meet
some of the
misgivings of the
governors, it is
pushing ahead
with its plan to
turn federal
programs over to the states.
Despite the jockeying on issues
such as medical costs and welfare, the
real guts of the “New Federalism” lie
in turning more mundane programs
to state control, programs like job
training, transportation aid, and
many others.
This would be accomplished in two
steps. First, the programs would be
taken over by the states but financed
by Washington initially. Then the
federal money would be phased out
and the states would have to finance
those programs—or simply drop
them.
It doesn’t take much imagination
to figure out what will happen. Some
states will try to carry essential
programs; others will be only too
happy to end them and let their
beneficiaries—typically the poorest
citizens—fend for themselves.
The ideological underpinnings of
the “New Federalism” include a
belief that the national government
should play a far smaller role. This is
often cloaked in the fiction that when
decisions and programs are confined
Going Places
Farewell ‘Papa’ Dent
by Phil Waring
This is a brief review and farewell
to the late and beloved State Rep.
MH wMB-
R. A. “Papa’ ’
Dent,, with a quick
look at some ofi
his public servicej
and civil rights ac-i
tivities.
First, he was a]
Christian gen-!
tieman, who at-1
tended Tabernacle Baptist Church for
over 65 year.
A believer in the American Free
Enterprise System, he helped advance
the economic base in Georgia and the
Richmond County area. He was a
Democrat and followed the
philosophy of FDR, LBJ and John
Kennedy with care and interest for all
the American people.
Richard dearly loved his wife,
Jerryin, the Dent Family, his brother,
B.L. Dent, who was also a close
business associate; his protoge,
Mayor Ed Mclntyre; and the person
justice Department said it knows of
some, but won’t say where they are or
what their nature is.
Maybe someone told the president
that black Americans are trying to
end busing so that he would feel good
about resegregation. Maybe he was
passing that on so that other whites
could feel OK about it, too. Maybe
someone told him polls show that 6
many blacks dislike busing, which is
so, but didn’t tell him black
Americans dislike Jim Crow more.
Reagan soaks up half-facts like a
sponge.
In any event, we were treated in a
see Civil Rights page 5
to the local level, citizen participation
is greatest.
That is a fiction because the real
world outside the old civics books
just does not work that way.
Federal programs mandate citizen
participation, allow for wide
discussion of proposed regulations,
and are subject to oversight by
Congress and the executive branch.
They have proved more responsive to
public needs than locally-run
programs typically have been.
Rather than having wider citizen
participation, local programs
generally are controlled by narrow
and powerful local interest groups.
While on the national level such
powerful blocs often cancel each
other out, on the local level the group
with the greatest financial and
political clout dominates.
That means poor people and cities
often wind up with the short end of
the stick when states run programs in
stead of the federal government. And
even on the city government level, in
most cases funds and programs are
managed for the benefit of just about
everyone except the poor.
So the rhetoric about strengthening
local democracy has very little to do
with the real world where poor neigh
borhoods don’t get the police protec
tion, the transportation facilities, or
the health care facilities enjoyed by
more affluent areas.
The presence of federally-financed
and controlled programs help redress
the balance. The New Federalism
would reverse that and lodge all
power with the state and local elites
Won L
nel at his business firm.
With 1,200 people present at the
big April 24 farewell, hedescribed the
Georgia General Assembly as one of
the greatest legislative bodies in the
nation, and urged that progress in the
state be continued. He hoped for
closer cooperation, understanding,
and relationships between Georgia
blacks and whites “so our state can
move even further ahead.”
What was his track record on
human rights? As chair (first black)
of the House Committee on Human
Rights and Aging, he made it possible
for the committee hearing on ERA
(woman’s rights) to be open and fair,
and to succeed in getting it voted out
of Committee for full House
discussion. He was a strong supporter
for ERA.
Because of his patience and ability
to mesh together opposite views, he
remained chair of the Richmond
County Legislative Delegation for
almost a decade. A strong bond of
friendship developed among all of
these men, and this in turn resulted in
great progress for the Richmond
County area. He was especially fond
of Rep. Jack Connell, Senator Tom
Allgood, as well as Gov. Busbee and
Speaker Murphy.
Thanks to his eloquent oratory he
persuaded the House to change and
vote $850,000 for Grady Hospital and
$425,000 for other state hospitals in
cluding MCG.
How did Papa Dent stand on race
relations? He was a long-time suppor
ter of the Augusta NAACP. He
backed the state FEPC office and ad
vocated its extension to cover the
private sector “like other cities and
states.”
The state educational television
system featured his striking plea to
that have always sacrificed the poor
to other interests.
The New Federalism is really about
the elimination of programs in tran
sportation, health, job training, and
many other areas, not just the tran
sfer of those programs to state con
trol. Its authors are fully aware that
many states will simply drop those
programs when the federal funds
disappear.
The New Federalism then, virtually
invites the states to compete with each
other to pressure the poor to migrate
to the few remaining states likely to
attempt to preserve some sort of
civilized standards of aid to the poor.
It is strange that this “New
Federalism” should emerge at a time
when it has never been more clear
that our major national problems
ranscend localities and regions.
Poverty is not an Atlanta problem,
transportation is not a Los Angeles
'problem, job training, not a Boston
problem—they are all national
problems transcending specific cities
and regions.
To substitute fifty state policies,
standards and bureaucracies for
single, unified national programs
seems to be the opposite of
enlightened conservatism.
Make no mistake about it—the
“New Federalism” is no abstract
reshuffling of authority between the
states and Washington. It is a
disastrous new phase of a war on the
poor and a new means of dividing a
nation that should be striving for
greater unity and common purpose.
his peers to enact a set-aside law “so
black Georgians who number almost
thirty percent would have the oppor
tunity to get a piece of the pie from
the almost half billion dollar state
allocation for goods and services.”
He worked hard, but unsuccessfully,
for the appointment of a highly
qualified local black lawyer as a
federal judge and later to the state
Supreme Court. He often spoke of
the need for utilization of the Voting
Rights Act “to help attain better
racial balance in state and local public
bodies.”
His crowning glory, however, was
overcoming the many barriers and
getting passed a second local majority
black legislative district because
“Richmond County is almost 40 per
cent” and “Let’s Stop Savannah,
Macon, Columbus and Atlanta
(which had better representation;
from laughing at us”.
He was a proud pioneer member ot
both GABEO and the state
Legislative Black Caucus, and this
splendid corps of men and women
returned same with high respect and
affection. The first GABEO
“Richard Dent Leadership Award”
was presented to former Mayor
Maynard Jackson at its August
meeting in Augusta.
He often spoke fondly of Cal
Smyre and Al Thompson of Colum
bus, Billy Randall of Macon, Julian
Bond, Billy McKinney and others of
Atlanta. He was a natural political
animal. t
Solid Friend of News-Review
Pointing to his own boyhood days
of the early 1920 s when he sold the
Atlanta Informer, Courier, Defender
and the NAACP’s Crisis, he became
an early and solid supporter of the
Walking With Dignity
Talented young
blacks heading
back South
by Al Irby
For the first time in 100 years, the
South is not losing blacks. In fact
'J
from 1975 to
| 1980, the region
' actually gained
'200,000 blacks,
i age five and older,
i partly because
fewer left.
There has been
a migration of
young educated,
skilled blacks heading South, looking
for better job opportunities. The
traditional ‘big push’ to the North
has ebbed. During the last decade, the
number of jobs in the South has in
creased at twice the national rate.
“Its a terribly important event in
black history,” says Larry Long of
the Center for Demographic Studies
in Washington, D.C.
“It means that a 100-year
migration pattern has reversed itself.
And migration streams don’t often
change like that.” According to a
government survey of blacks who
migrated South from 1970-75, 58 per
cent were employed, 43 percent had
attended college, and 38 percent were
25 to 44 years-old.
Typical is Leon Williams, 31, who
moved two-years ago from
Washington to Lubbock, Texas to
study for a masters in psychology
from Texas Technical University. His
wife, Elise, has since gotten a top
management job with the State
Health Department. That would have
been a political appointment in
Washington, Mr. Williams says.
Tom Burrell just wanted to come
home. He moved from Detroit to
Memphis in 1980, leaving a comfor
table corporate job to be a farmer. “I
used to be ashamed that I was born
and raised on a farm. He now
operates a-2,000 acre farm, with three
other migrants from Detroit. “I
realized the same energy I used to
refute my heritage, I could use to
dignify it. “And the important thing
is I love the South, the weather and
the people. I wouldn’t move back to
Michigan, if they made me gover
nor.”
The Beirut Massacre
American blacks are more than
acquainted with injustice, and the
Palestinian people have their sym
pathy in this current ordeal. No
government likes to expose its failings
or misdeeds. There is particular reluc
tance to do so when a government
feels on the defensive, as the gover
nment of Israel must surely feel in the
wake of the atrocities in the
Palestinian camps. Yet any
democratic nation knows that its
strength lies in the openness and in
tegrity of its institutions and its
capacity for honest self-examination.
This is no less true of Israel than of
the United States, which has had to
deal with its own aberrant acts at
home and abroad. If the Begin
government refuses to appoint a
judicial panel to look into the Shaba
and Shatila refugee camps, it will do
the Jewish nation much harm.
Toying With Apocalypse
History abounds with unsuccessful
predictions of earthly doom—many
based on interpretations of biblical
prophecy. If there is any one moral to
be gleaned from the volumes of
forgotten forecasts, it is that
apocalyptic prediction is a very
precarious enterprise.
It gets even more precarious when
biblical prophecies are applied
literally to modern events. Yet
apocalytic speculation again is rife,
particularly among a rash of TV
evangelists. And that worries a
growing number of mainline church
men and serious Bible scholars.
Today’s apocalypticism is giving
gullible people a fanciful worldview
in the style of a movie extravaganza.
Augusta News-Review. He often
boasted of having the longest con
tinous advertising arrangement (over
11 years). Last March when we (Joe
Goudy, Hubert Wilson and Art Craf
ton) visited on his last days in the
legislature, he accepted honorary
chairmanship of a new group,
“Augusta Friends of the Black Press
of America.” He lent splendid sup
port to this writer in the drafting of
the forthcoming “Blacks Who
Helped Build The Augusta Area—A
Resource Handbook.” He rendered
close cooperation to Paine College
(which he attended for two years) the
CSRA Business League, Pilgrim
Health and life Insurance Company
and “Friends of Ed Mclntyre.” So
Cong, Richard, you made your mark.