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The Augusta News-Review November 6,1982
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 Day Reporter
Rev. R.E. Donaldson Religion 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
A] i r byColumnist
Mrs. Marian Waring Columnist
Philip Waring Columnist
Marva Stewart Columnist
Wilbert Allen Columnist
Carl McCoyEditorial Cartoonist
David Dupree Sports Editor
Robert Caldwell Sports Editor
Olando Hamlett Photographer
Roscoe Williams Photographer
Mailing Address
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Augusta, Ga. 30903-2123
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Reagan owes explanation
(From the Atlanta Constitution)
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission,
the agency charged with protecting
the basic constitutional rights of
American citizens, has asked
President Reagan and the Justice
Department for “clarification” of
administration policies. Has there
been a realignment of priorities?
CRC chief Clarence Pendleton wants
to know.
Other minority advocates have not
been so polite, blasting the White
House for “gutting” 20 years of
progress in the area of civil rights. So,
far Reagan’s only response has been
to dismiss the criticism as “baloney,”
and attack the policies of his
predecessors.
But his record in office does
suggest a disturbing tendency to
reject, “reinterpret” and retreat from
the unambiguous policies of
Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and
Carter.
During Reagan s first 33 months in
office, his administration has:
• Fired Arhtur Fleming, the respec
ted and conscientious Republican
who had chaired the Civil Rights
Commission since 1974.
• Delayed testimony on, and then
given only lukewarm support to, ex
tension of the Voting Rights Act of
1965.
• Canceled an administrative rule
denying tax exemptions to private
schools that discriminate.
• Nominated a patently unqualified
man, who had himself been employed
only sporadically, to head the Equal
Employment Opportunity Com
mission.
• Ordered a “regulatory relief
review of enforcement of laws
requiring equal opportunity in
education.
• Ruled that “intent” (notoriously
unprovable) rather than results
should be used to show whether
school segregation is deliberate.
• Reinterpreted laws that prohibit
discrimination in any federally finan
ced programs or activities, so as to
View From Capitol Hill
U.S. complicity in Lebanon
by Gus Savage
In response to the massacre of
more than 1,000 defenseless
Palestinians in the
refugee camps at
Sabra and
Chatila, on the
outskirts of
Beirut, President
Reagan ordered
U.S. troops to
return to Beirut,
with French and
Italian peacekeeping soldiers, to en
courage the Israeli army to withdraw.
According to generally accepted
reports, Israelis invaded the West sec
tion of this capital city of Lebanon,
contrary to its agreement which
secured the witnarawal of Flu for
ces, and with Cabinet approval per
mitted Israeli equipped and trained
“Lebanese militiamen” to travel the
some 35 miles from the Lebanese-
Israeli border and enter the camps
with knowledge of their intent for a
murderous rampage which lasted
more than 36 hours.
According to a Los Angeles Times
report, Israeli soldiers “ringed the
camps with armour and sealed off all
escape routes. The uninformed
(Lebanese) militiamen wore Israeli
free those receiving “indirect” U.S.
aid from compliance with provisions
of the Civil Rights Act.
* Maintained that judges should
not remedy proven discrimination by
buying, numerical goals and
timetables or continuing review.
* Asked a court to stop mandatory
busing in St. Louis.
’ Switched sides in a Washington
state case, telling the Supreme Court
that the federal government no longer
believed that a state anti-busing law
was unconstitutional.
* Declined to pursue a cross-district
school busing case in Houston.
* Attempted to overthrow a school
desegregation busing plan in Baton
Rouge, La.
* Approved a school desegregation
plan for Chicago that it had rejected a
month earlier as incomplete.
• Eliminated what it called “quota
requirements” in a Carter ad
ministration consent agreement on
federal hiring pracitces.
* Left the post of director of the
Labor Department Women’s Bureau
vacant for months, because it
couldn’t find a qualified female
executive who would oppose the
Equal Rights Amendment.
* Killed a federal ban on hair and
dress codes that have been used by
some schools tq discourage attendan
ce by blacks.
* Proposed to strip the Education
Department of all civil rights enfor
cement powers and ban the Justice
Department from seeking to impose
racial quotas on colleges accused of
discrimination.
This list is by no means complete,
but you get the idea.
A clarification from President
Reagan is not merely advisable. It’s
long overdue. The American people
want to know whether these shifts
were instigated by their president—or
by a bureaucracy left leaderless and
out of control, in which case Reagan
has an obligation to take control and
restore order.
helmets, were armed with Israeli guns
and were taking orders from the
Israelis... Entire families were slain...
Mothers died clutching their babies...
All men appeared to be shot in the
back... Israeli soldiers stationed less
than 100 yards away did not respond
to the sound of constant gunfire or
the sight of truck loads of bodies
being taken away from the camps.”
The assassinated Lebanese
President-elect Bashir Gemayel and
Israeli Defense Mininster Ariel
Sharon had previously indicated their
intent to “eliminate” the remaining
PLO supporters.
An on-the scene UPI report
moaned, “Some looked no older than
6 or 7... They were murdered...
Everyone who was in the camp when
the killers moved through was simply
mowed down... in civilian clothes...
They were victims of pure hatred.”
This is one time that I substantially
agree with the Reagan Ad
ministration’s reaction. However, it
should have been taken as part of a
United Nations force in order to
reduce its risks, to increase its
stability, and in respect for existing
2ast-West world differences.
Indeed, our government should
see Capitol Hill page 5
• jHBk MH
W'-rl’l
Page 4
WILL YOU TEACH
ME HOM) TO
"GET DOWN"?
BRANDOIJ. JR.
| n—RESOURCES INC.
To Be Equal_
Which way for the economy?
by John E. Jacob
The Chairman of the Federal
Reserve, Paul A. Volcker, recently
Eli
announced a shift
in the Fed’s policy
that many believe
means an end to
the tight money
policy that has
strangled the
economy.
The Fed can
loosen the strings
now, Volcker said, because the back
of inflation has been broken. I
suspect there is another reason. The
tight money noose may have helped
cut the inflation rate but it has also
inflicted such terrible damage on the
economy that policymakers decided
to change course before disaster
overwhelms us.
Everyone knows how bad inflation
is; there has been no way to escape
the sermons on its evils for years. It is
true that inflation was ruining the
economy and eroding working
people’s incomes. And it is true that a
large part of our current problems
can be traced to the high inflation
rates of the 1970 s and early 1980 s.
But sometimes the medicine is
more dangerous than the disease.
That’s certainly the case with the tight
money medicine. The prescription of
high unemployment for an inflation
ridden economy promises a different
kind of illness, not a cure.
Exchanging double-digit unem
ployment for double-digit inflation is
no bargain. In fact, it is even worse
for the economy.
Walking With Dignity
Attorney opposes Bob Jones University
by Al Irby
The United States Supreme Court,
which has shown itself in recent years
to be as liberal on
First Amendment
questions as it is
conservative on
criminal issues,
opened its 1982-83
term last month.
The already
crowded argu
mentative scheduled
which faces the
justices with a batch of tough ones. It
will contain a large number of cases
in two areas of the law, providing the
court ample opportunity to continue
or reverse its recent trends.
Over the last dozen years, the
Burger court has enlarged the First
Amendment’s protection of free
speech, a free press, and freedom of
religion in a number of different
directions.
The First Amendment guarantee of
freedom of expression now includes a
candidate’s right to spend freely to
win election, the right of citizens and
newsmen to attend criminal trials,
etc. An unusual pair of cases that in
terest blacks and other minorities
leads the list of First Amendment
issues before the court this term.
On Tuesday Oct. 12, the court
heard arguments in Bob Jones
Inflation could have been curbed
without throwing us into a
Depression. It may have taken
longer, but the cost would have been
more manageable.
For one thing, the costs could have
been spread more equitably. Since
everyone was hurt by inflation,
everyone would have been asked to
make sacrifices.
By choosing the high unem
ployment route out of inflation, the
burdens weren’t shared. They were
concentrated among certain sectors
of the economy. Industries like
housing and autos were put through
the cruncher.
Worse, it was the most vulnerable
individuals and families—minorities,
unskilled workers, young
people—who paid the highest price.
They were singled out for high unem
ployment while others reaped the
benefits of lower inflation.
Construction workers and blue
collar workers had double-digit
unemployment long before more af
fluent occupations felt the pinch.
And black joblessness was in the
double-digit range for many years
without anyone showing much con
cern.
And whatever harm inflation
caused the total economy, high
unemployment means over S3OO
billion a year is lost in goods and ser
vices that might otherwise have been
produced.
That’s quite a bill, and it will be
paid far into the future since we have
shrunk our economic base by that
University v. United States and Gold
sboro Christian Schools v. United
States. Os course the latter statements
are glaring misnomers, because the
Justice Department is on the side of
these two schools. The High Court
went outside and hired a top-notch
black attorney to argue the invisible
government’s side.
These schools argue that by
denying them tax-exempt status,
which most schools enjoy, the gover
nment has unconstitutionally
penalized them for following their
religious beliefs. Both schools
discriminate against blacks, arguing
that this policy is dictated by their
religious beliefs.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
based its denial of tax-favored status
on this policy, which runs counter to
the national policy disfavoring such
discrimination. The Reagan
administration abandoned the IRS,
stating that unless Congress
authorized the IRS to deny tax
exempt status for these cases the IRS
was not authorized to refuse it to
otherwise qualified schools.
Since the Reagan administration
would no longer defend the IRS
policy, the justices took the unusual
step in appointing a nongovernment
lawyer to argue the IRS case.
Black William T. Coleman, for-
amount. The lost jobs, lost oppor
tunities, and our weakened position
in foreign markets amount to a per
manent wound inflicted by a
mistaken policy.
Now, with lower interest rates,
there is some hope for recovery. But
that recovery will be short-lived and
feeble unless we develop a full
employment economy.
And that means a Universal Em
ployment and Training system that
gives everyone a real job and real
skills training opportunities. We have
to face the fact that many jobs lost in
the last decade will never come
back—they are victims of
technological change.
We have to concentrate on creating
the jobs of the future and giving
people the skills to hold them. And
that won’t happen through reliance
on the free market or pushing for
balanced budgets by cutting human
resource investments.
The way to balance the budget is to
put people to work. By ending unem
ployment eleven million people move
off the unemployment rolls and onto
the tax rolls.
So while the inflation-fighters beat
a retreat over a road littered with
casualties from their tight-money
policy, the next phase will be crucial.
All signs point to a feeble economic
recovery, when what Americans and
a recession-ridden world need is a
strong, sustained period of growth.
And the way to inaugurate that is
through a job and training system
that gets people working and
producing again.
■ merly transportation secretary m the
I Ford cabinet and one of the nation’s
i leading attorneys, will argue that the
: justices should uphold as appropriate
’ the IRS denial of tax-exempt status to
t these schools. To do otherwise, he
i wrote in his brief to the High Court,
• “would be utterly inconsistent with
federal law and fundamental national
r policy condemning racial
discrimination in public and private
’ education.”
r Coleman’s legal expertise made a
. favorable impression upon many of
. the justices.
Justice Powell pushed Coleman for
I clear guidelines. “Could the IRS
make the same determination with
respect to sex discrimination?” he
* asked. “That would be more dis
-1 ficult,” Coleman replied, adding,
' that he abhorred gender bias.
1 “Why?” persisted Powell. “We
1 didn’t fight a civil war over sex
discrimination, snapped Coleman.
1 This was just an example of Attorney
Coleman’s acumen. Coleman urged
’ the justices to go beyond the language
1 of the law to find its actual meaning.
He argued that in writing the tax
code, Congress had adopted the
; traditional view of charitable trusts,
that has existed since 17th-century
England, namely that all recognized
charities must advance the common
good of all people.
Going Places
New black
Senators
by Philip Waring
The elections earlier this week
highlights thrust of the quarterly
meeting of the|
Georgia Associa-!
tion of Blackl
Elected Officials!
(GABEO) sched-i
uled for Macon’sl
Hilton Hotel this!
weekend. Let’s*
hope we’ll have
\'W lr
& &it
on hand at least two new state
senators—former Rep. Al Scott of
Savannah and former Rep. David
Scott of the Atlanta area —to join in
with Senators Julian Bond and
Horace Tate.
This would be the largest
delegation within that 56-member
body since Reconstruction. May I ask
black history buffs what happened to
our black senators and state represen
tatives in Georgia all at once during
the late 1868 era?
Redistricting has helped somewhat,
but not enough. Thanks to the late
and beloved Rep. R.A. Dent, we now
have our second legislative district,
and will be sending two of our own
up to Atlanta in 1983.
GABEO is composed of a fine cor
ps of men and women who have to
put aside their business, professional
and civic duties to serve as elective or
appointed public officials. Their in
terest is enriching good governance in
Georgia, with a special target on
achieving long overdue fairness and
equal opportunities on many fronts
for black Georgians.
As an example records of the U.S.
Census reveal that there are some 29
rural Georgia counties with majority
black populations but containing a
very small handful of black county
commissioners. Case histories show
that many real barriers still exist. So
there’s still need for GABEO,
NAACP, ACUL, Voter Education
Project, federal courts, SCLC, and
white people of good will.
Paine at its zenith
While I’ve witnessed and par
ticipated in numerous academic con
vocations, graduations and formal
programs, few can rival the year-long
1981-82 Paine Centennial. Although
there were five major weekend
programs during this period, it all en
ded with the tremendous inauguration
of Dr. William H. Harris. And what
a ceremony.
“Pomp and Circumstance’’ was at
its zenith with representatives from
some 60 different institutions, in
cluding Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Columbia, Hampton, Clark, and
Morehouse, present in colorful
academic garb. “A Celebration for
Black Colleges’’ was the title of the
inauguration section. Scholarly scien
tist, Dr. Homer Nash, told of the
need for minority experts in the
physical sciences. Dr. Christopher
Edley, head of the UNCF, in his ex
cellent “Springboard for the Future
of Black Colleges”, reported how
these institutions had greatly suc
ceeded despite critics and numerous
barriers.
They were able to provide remidial
training and then graduate students
who were able to subsequently enter
top flight graduate schools and
various professions. He praised the
accomplishments made at Paine
College.
Bishop Joseph Coles chronicled the
role given by Bishop Lucius Holsey
and the CME church 100 years ago.
Former president E.C. Calhoun then
presented Dr. Harris to trustee chair
Dr. Dan Collins for induction.
This was a most moving ceremony
which had the 1,200 present standing
in warm ovation. Dr. Harris accep
ted, and challenged all present to
assist in moving Paine to greater
heights.
He described the long and close
bond between Paine College and
Augusta-Richmond County. He fur
ther highlighted the college trained
hundreds’ of graduates now serving
as local educators, ministers, and in
other careers. He has some solid
projections for the 1980 s.
Many different persons served on
various sectors of the Centennial
committee. May I just mention two?
One is the Rev. Luther Neal, trustee,
honor graduate, retired Richmond
public school teacher, former pastor
of Trinity CME Church and now an
eminent presiding elder for the
Augusta district of the CME Church.
He’s helped link the past and present.
The other is a person Dr. Julius Scott,
describe Charles Bellman as “one of
the most efficient professional heads
of any Chamber of Commerce in this
nation.” He calls Bellman “a true
see Going Places page 6