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The Augusta News-Review October 16,1982
The Augusta News-Review (usps 887 820)
Mallory K. MillenderEditor Publisher
Paul Walker Assistant to the Publisher
Barbara Gordon Advertising Dir/Gen. Manager
Wanda Johnson Administrative Assistant
Alfredia Rodd Sales Representative
Yvonne Dayßeporter
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. Ileen Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor
Roosevelt Green Columnist
Al IrbyColumnist
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
80x2123
Augusta, Ga. 30903-2123
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Voice From The Wilderness
Negro-nomics
by Marva Stewart
Many folk are preaching doomsday
nonsense. You would think
Reaganomics meant .
the end of Black
America. Now.O
on the other hand,
these folk who are S
crying about
Reaganomics are
promoting self
defeating prac
tices for blacks.
For instance, while I was un
naturally minding my business one
day, I saw the strangest headline on
the cover of a black publication. In
effect, this headline was praising a
black actor for being successful. And
sure enough, he was flashing all thiry
two and looking successful.
I don’t mean to belittle the man’s
success because I am sure he earned
it, and he deserved the right to be on
the cover of this publication.
HOWEVER, how can that
publication promote such
foolishness? “The man who knows
why-will ALWAYS control the man
who knows how.” This is what an en
terprising young black entrepreneur
told me one day.
I will be impressed with that “cover
boy” if he controls or owns the studio
or production company. But, if he,
along with black actresses and other
entertainers, ends up bankrupt in his
attempt to be a “cover boy,” then he
serves no purpose to the black com
munity. If he doesn’t use his millions
to create jobs for Black America, he
Going Places
Downtown war memorials
by Philip Waring
While this column gives warm
praise to the mayor, city • council,
Augusta Tomor
row and the &S
American Cities W
Corp, for thatr ** *
dynamic and con- A ®.
structive plan to ,
rebuild and BLt
upgrade Augusta,
my thrust today is SB W®
largely on another subject.
The development guide suggested
that citizens make additional
suggestions. Here’s mine: That we
build a consolidated war memorial of
statue in the downtown redevelop
ment area. It would not conflict but
advance the overall proposal.
Some 1,900 American communities
now have various types of war mem
orials designed to honor their
veterans who served to protect the
Republic. The suggested one in
Augusta might take any different
form, shape, or size. I would suggest,
however, that it b$ a consolidated war
memorial which would honor and
memoralize citizens who have served
in the Spanish-American War, World
Wars I and 11, the Korean War, and
the Viet Nam conflict.
Such a memorial would pay
homage to those who lost their lives,
honor and remember those who ser
ved in the Army, Navy, Air Force,
Marines, Coast Guard, Nurses Cor
ps, Reserves, etc., letting them know
that we appreciate their service; give a
sense of pride and history to
relatives, hopefully engender exam-
Page 4
serves no useful purpose. But, back
to the doomdayers.
These doomdayers wouldn’t be up
set and frustrated if they would
promote black economics and stop
crying about ReaganornicS. (Os cour
se, Reaganomics is real and it stings
severely) and if they would stop
overrating cover boys and cover girls.
To a certain extent we have black
economical resources; we just don’t
develop nor use them. For example,
how many of us patronize black
businesses. If we would ban together
and support our own from time to
time, then in turn these establishmen
ts could plow some of their profits
back into the black community. In
other words, they could provide
JOBS.
You say, that black businesses
charge too much or they overcharge.
Well, heck (I like that word), you pay
SSO for a pair of S2O jeans (plus, you
could sign your own name on the
back). Give part of that Mall Money
(oh, yes, I saw you there) to Barton’s
Music Emporium, Bernard Johnson
Realty Co., Ashley’s Printing Com
pany, Rose Plastic Cover Co.,
Green’s Florist, Blossom House
Florist, LaPapillan Night Club (for
merly Mandinka), Myles Electric
Co., Supreme Fashions just to name
a few. I forgot one: The Augusta
News-Review (I bet you subscribe to
the other papers).
I didn’t say support only black
businesses, but tithe a portion of your
dollars to YOURSELF: Help make us
people who know why and how.
ples of role models for our youth,
mesh in with Augusta’s great military
heritage in five wars, and highlight,
locally and to the nation, Augusta’s'
present important military status and
activities at Fort Gordon, Eisenhower
Hospital, Signal Corps, Reserves, etc.
Complements Upgrading Downtown *
Located in the heart of the proposed
redevelopment sector adjacent to the
Visitor’s Center or on lower Broad
Street, it would richly complement Fort
Augusta, the International Golf Ex
position and the many other wonderful
projects designed to bring in visitors,
tourists, conferences and conventions.
As an example, the war memorial
would again complement Fort Augusta
and its Revolutionary War themes of
200 years in the past with Augusta’s
military role in five wars to protect the
Republic. There are today millions of
individuals and families who’ve had
very close connections with our various
wars and are very much interested in
veteran and military affairs. It should
be of immense educational and
historical value and should richly
enhance Augusta’s image in this field.
Contact Mayor Mclntyre
Should this rough idea meet with
public approval, it may be further
studied and advanced via Mayor
Mclntyre appointing a broad
coalition or committee from the
many veteran’s organizations such as:
The American Legion, VFW, Am-'
vets, Disabled American War
Veterans, Veterans of Word War I,
and others. Tt should be noted that
this sector would then be more ac
see Going Places page 5-
TOO CANT SPEAK TO THE
PRESIDENT ABOUT YOUR
UNEMPLOYMENT ... HE’S
ON VACATION!
/ AGAIN?!
/wHMHK 5T,11! \
1181 Im InWHialb ■ tMWnjfßw HI ■MI ■ BjaekK,-’'*
Ina I fln*nl\
W* BLACK ce-srxjgces ING
To Be Equal
'.. . 'y- .zf+;p • .t."i . •**£
Great society or mean society?
by John E. Jacob
Whatever one’s opinion of
President Reagan’s political prowess
or his leadership
performance, his- I
tory doesn’t seem
to be his strong V
point. say that V
because in a ,<S
recent major ad- Wilplib)’
dress the 'J
President gave a HR Jp jB
history lesson on
the Great Society that was seriously
mistaken in its reading of the recent
past.
He suggested that progress for
blacks and poor people was being
made through 1964, after which the
costs of Great Society programs sent
the economy into a tailspin worsened
by inflation, which lowered the real
incomes of poor people.
That analysis suggests a lack of
familiarity with the Great Society
programs and with recent economic
history.
First, we should be very clear about
the results of those programs lumped
together as “Great Society”
programs. They worked. And they
worked well. They helped reduce the
numbers of those living in poverty by
improving education and providing
jobs and training opportunities.
And they did not cost much. The
programs targeted to the poor never
formed more than a very small part
of the federal budget.
Interestingly, it was the programs
that primarily benefited the non-poor
that escalated so sharply. The enor-
Walking With Dignity
Congressional Black Caucus sets goals
by Al Irby
The Caucus has outlined its
priorities for the 98th Congress. The
group’s 18 mem
bers are I
pathetically all
Democrats repre
senting urban I .
black com- I „
munities. These ■
civil rights-
Oriented political
leaders have often WHB
criticized the Reagan administration’s
economic program and its impact on
minority groups in these United
States. But as the economy has wor
sened, constituents back home have
been calling for alternatives to
Reaganomics, not just empty
.criticism. The Caucus’s basic aim for
the next session of Congress is to
promote programs that will upgrade
the economic status of black people,
including:*
• Minority business progress, with
support from both the private and
public sectors. This includes more
corporate involvement through con
tracts for goods and services
The Caucus also calls for continued
increases in federal contrac
ts—already showing an increase to
$4.5 billion in 1981 from $1 billion in
1977. The Caucus expressed concern
over new federal policy that upgraded
25 black and Hispanic firms from the
small business category, based on
mous amounts of the budget defined
as “social welfare expenditures” are
almost completely devoted to such
programs as social security and
Medicare, whose beneficiaries are
mostly non-poor elderly people.
Many experts locate the cause of
the economic slide of the seventies in
the huge spending associated with the
war in Vietnam—spending that
pulled money out of investments and
consumer spending and dumped it in
to non-productive battlefields.
If the President would take another
look at his own budget problems, he
might see some similarities to the late
19605. It is the impact of another
huge arms buildup that is breaking
the budget, not the relatively modest
resources that help poor people sur
vive and invest in human resources.
From his speech, it appears the
President thinks the Great Society
programs dominated the seventies
and were responsible for the slight in
crease in the numbers of poor people
around 1980.
But again, programs targeted for
the poor throughout the seventies
were.never a budgetary burden—the
growth was in programs for the non
poor. Strange too, that his analysis of
rising poverty did not include the oil
price hikes of the 1970 s and the
decline of major industries in the face
of foreign competition. Incidentally,
those foreign firms operate in full
fledged welfare states that spend far
more of their budgets than we do on
social welfare, so it is hard to see the
connection between our economic
gross income.
Gross income as a measure is
deceiving, the Caucus says, because
the- 25 firms basically depend on
federal set-aside contracts for
minority firms. Caucus chairman
Walter Fauntroy has his own
program, the Black Family Plan, as
one method of boosting black-owned
businesses.
He recruited scores of people at the
Caucus’s recent legislative weekend
annual frolic held in Washington to
initiate the proposal for black people
(a $1 contribution from each black
American) to develop a $25 million
‘fuhd to help finance minority en
trepreneurs.
♦ Economic Development: This in
cludes the urban jobs and enterprise
zone concept, supported by President
Reagan, and implementation of the
Humphrey-Hawkins full emplyment
act. Also included are minority
ownership in the communications
field and reduction of crime in black
areas.
♦ Other goals. These include the
traditional aims of*the past; quality
integrated education, open housing,
civil rights, and quality health ser
vices. They also concern the elderly,
defense, energy, international affairs,
and science and technology.
The legislators were hesitant to
forecast the fate of their plans should
they be offered as legislation during
the next Congress. They encouraged
blacks to conduct voter registration
problems and federal social
programs.
And the Administration would be
ill-advised to claim credit for the
recent slowdown in inflation rates.
The drop in inflation was bought at
the cost of a general recession and the
highest unemployment in post-war
history.
It’s hard to accept the President’s
faith that all it takes for poverty to be
reduced is an economic recovery. The
black experience has been that even a
general recovery wilt leave the black
unemployment rate double the white
rate.
Meanwhile, the ranks of the poor
are growing with a large jump just in
the past two years. Clearly, the
federal budget cuts, concentrated on
those programs that benefited the
poor most, are in large part respon
sible for the growth in poverty.
The Great Society wasn’t just an
economic program. It raised moral
issues and rekindled America’s
idealistic spirit. It briefly mobilized
the nation behind concerns of fair
ness and compassion. It embodied
civil rights laws that are today being
undermined.
It is false to suppose that the
choice lies between a government that
spends on social programs and a
government that does not. That,
choice is really a moral one: between
choosing a path of cooperation and
compassion and one of privatism and
selfishness.
Basically, it comes down to
whether we want to be a Great
Society or a Mean Society.
‘drives, assess the, qualities of all can
didates for the upcoming elections,
vote for the “best” office seeker'
regardless qf party.
That’s a tiueQ in the right direction,
and jibes with this columnist’s letter
to the daily newspaper inviting talen
ted blacks to work for a two-party
system, even in the deep South.
Ironically, theae Caucus members
often found themselves tom between
lambasting the Reagan ad
ministration and Reaganomics as a
whole or openly admitting that they
Civil Rights Journal
Massacre
The tragedy of Beirut has once
again captured world attention. Oyer
300 Palestinian 7 M
civilians and
maybe many more
have been mur
dered in the Wg
refugee camps of ■
Sabra and Shatila.
This massacre of
women a n d
children is the greatest horror yet to
occur in this war torn nation.
Blame for this holocaust goes not
to the question of whom, but to the
question, why? Israeli troops have an
undesirable duty, as trustees of the
View From Capitol Hill
Blacks in
Congress
by Gus Savage
Congress adjourned las! week to
allow its' members time to campaign
for re-election.
Hence, this is my ■ :
last column until MR /
the third week in
November. RR
Black voters
have a great op
portunity on Nov. jK ■
2 to correct the ■RII'M
course of our Ship of State. We con
stitute more than 20 percent of the
population in 86 of the 435
congressional districts from which
national representatives will be elec
ted.
Moreover, in 6 of these districts we
can elect additional Blacks to
Congress, bringing the present 18-
member Black Cauqus in the U.S.
House of Representative to 24. As
almost 12 percent of America’s
population, rightfully we should hold
52 seats in the House and 12 in the
U.S. Senate.
The 6 opportunities are represented
by Robert Clark in Mississippi’s 2nd
district, around Jackson; Katie Hall
in Gary, Indiana; Ken Moseley
around Orangeburg, South Carolina;
Lucille Patterson in Dallas, Texas;
Edolphus Towns in Brooklyn, New
York’s 11th district; and Alan Wheat
in Kansas City, Missouri.
All are Democratic nominees in
majority Democratic districts, except
Patterson, a Republican. Owens and
Towns are certain to win because
their districts are overwhelmingly
black. However, Wheat’s sth district
has only 17 percent black voter
.registration, though reportedly he
has wide appeal among white voters.
Mosley is in a predominantly white
district and Clark’s, though 54 per
cent black in population, is majority
white in registration.
Os the black incumbents, all
Democrats, only Shirley Chisholm is
not standing for re-election. To
replace her in Brooklyn’s 12th
district, a progressive black state
senator, Major Owens, won the
Democratic primary week before last.
I had the pleasure of campaigning
for him in the streets of New York,
along with Detroits outstanding
Congressman John Conyers. Conyers
and Congressional Black Caucus
members—Ronald Dellums, of
California, Parren Mitchell, of
Baltimore, Md., and others—also
helped save the two Caucus members
who faced the severest primary elec
tion challenges resulting from unfair
redistricting: William Clay, of St.
Louis, and myself, of Chicago.
So, until we meet again in 6 weeks,
via this column, be sure to vote. The
vote is your voice!
Don’t just complain from the
sidelines about unemployment and
Reaganomics, 364 days a year. On
November 2nd, you can do
something concrete to create jobs and
curb that congressional majority
which empowers the “reverse-Robiri
Hood” who occupies the White
tyouse.
support some of the President’s
proposals, such as the urban job and
enterprise zones. This is proof that
some thoughtful blacks are turning
their eyes'toward Republicanism.
Papa Dent. They eulogized R.A.
Dent last Wednesday, and boy, did
they eulogize him! I sat there and
wondered how so many b elected of
ficials could love Dent so, and hate
Dr. Martin Luther King so
venomously. Is it really true that we
love who we want to love?
in Beirut
peace, to protect all Lebanese
civilians. The spectre of these
massacres is a clear breach of this
duty. Having provided arms to the
Christian Phalangists for many
years, surely Prime Minister
Menachem Begin was aware of the
exnlosive atomsphere that existed
between the Phalangists and the so
called left wing militia. The stage was
set for this holocaust when Israeli
troops broke the peace agreement and
entered West Beirut against the
urginvs of the United States.
We are now witnessing calls for the
return of U.S. troops along with U.S.
see Massacre page 5