Newspaper Page Text
Another black
allegedly beaten
by deputy
Page 1
“'Augusta News -Seuteiu
Volume 12 Number 37
Blacks furious
Secret bill would abolish mayor’s job,
and consolidate without a referendum
Black leaders this week lashed out
at a secret plan initiated by the
Greater Augusta Chamber of Com
merce which would abolish the office
of the mayor and consolidate
Augusta and Richmond County
without a vote by the people.
The plan, the leaders said, has been
kept secret because proponents of the
consolidation plan wanted to avoid
public discussion of the issue.
City Councilman Willie Mays war
ned legislators at a hearing held in
city council chambers Tuesday night,
“You can sneak it by, but I’ll fight
you to Armageddon and back. If I
have to, I’ll fill every church bus and
pack the halls of the state capitol to
fight consolidation.” Mays called
the consolidation plan “the same old
prostitute in a new dress.”
Blacks were particularly critical of
the Augusta Chronicle and Herald,
Chamber music sours
City Councilman Willie
Mays called the Chamber of
Commerce-inspired secret
consolidation bill genocidal
and annihilative. It was. But
it was also disrespectful
of the people of Richmond
County.
It was an effort unworthy
of otherwise decent citizens.
When a few people seek to
impose their will on a whole
populous, without their
knowledge—even if they
■re ante to intimidate
enough members of the
Suspend deputies
We were saddened to learn
that Richmond County
Sheriff J.B. Dykes has rejec
ted a Human Relations
Commission recommen
dation that his department
re-open its investigation into
the Dec. 3 shooting of a
black man by a white deputy.
The sheriff department’s in
vestigation cleared the
deputies involved (one black
and one white) the day after
the shooting.
In falling to re-open the
investigation the sheriff only
increases the suspicion that
there is a cover-up. He
weakens his own credibility
and widens the gulf between
the black community and
law enforcement officials.
The refusal does the com
munity a disservice.
HRC Director Frank
Thomas told his board of
directors Tuesday he had in
terviewed 15 to 20 witnesses
and “every person I talked to
said the newspapers
(Chronicle and Herald) were
who not only knew about the plan,
and failed to publicize it, but flew
committee representatives, including
two blacks, to Washington to discuss
the plan with the Justice Department
on an airplane owned by the Augusta
Chronicle and the Augusta Herald.
The plan was developed by a com
mittee of 18 men and women, four of
them black. According to writers of
the plan, the committee is not a
committee of the chamber of com
merce. However, the idea for its for
mation came from chamber leader
ship and the chairman of the commit
tee is the current president of the
chamber, Robert P. Stuntz.
The plan, now being reviewed by
legislative counsel, is scheduled to be
introduced in the state legislature by
Sen. Thomas Allgood in February.
Black leaders said in a meeting At
St. Mary’s Parish House Monday
Editorial
legislative delegation to go
along with it—there is no way
to make that act honorable.
The media-business
coalition has three times
failed to get citizens to vote
for consolidation. This time
they said, “You’re going to
have it whether you want it
or not.”
This time we think they
will not only not get the
needed legislative backing to
pass the bill, but the chamber
will lose much of the public’s
respect, if not their own.
completely wrong” in their
accounts of the shooting.
While Internal Affairs Chief
Sid Hatfield said the papers
reported the sheriff depar
tment’s account accurately,
the point is that the account
is at odds with what
eye witnesses say they saw.
mat cans for further in
vestigation.
Witnesses told The News-
Review that there was “no
way” the shooting could
have been accidental. They
said both doors of the
deputies’ auto were open
while the officers were
beating Donald Wyman at
the front of the car. When
Willie Fludd approached
from the passenger side,
Deputy Frank Tiller had to
raise up and shoot over the
door in order to shoot Fludd.
They say he raised up aimed
an shot the man. We call on
the sheriff not only to re
open the investigation, but to
suspend the deputies until
the investigation is complete.
Goodlett writes on
PUSH-Bud weiser
boycott issue
Page 2
night that proponents of the plan see
this as a last chance to consolidate and
they plan to ram it past the people at
all cost. The new state Constitution
prohibits consolidation by referen
dum after July of 1983.
One of the black leaders called the
move “a serious move by a few
people to consolidate without a
referendum,” adding that con
solidation is an effort to diffuse black
political strength.
Atty. John Ruffin Jr. told the
legislators Tuesday night that any at
tempt to consolidate “will be looked
upon as a direct attack on the black
community.” He also challenged
“the secrecy which has engulfed the
whole thing,” and the plan’s benefit
to the black community. “If this is
good for the black community, tnen
why all the secrecy?” He said the plan
An Augusta man told the News-
Review that he was beaten without
provocation last week by a white
Richmond County Sheriffs Deputy.
Charles Scott Williams. 26, of 1122
Pine St. said a motorist backed into ms
car Dec. 10 as he was leaving the
parking lot of the Holiday Inn on the
Gordon Highway, causing $126 wor
th of damage.
rhe driver of the other vehicle was
from out of town and asked that the
incident not be reported to police
because the car did not belong to him.
Williams said he spotted a deputy and
called him anyway. The deputy asked
the two men to return to the scene of
the accident.
But the deputy, he said, refused to
take any action and let the man get
away without getting his name or
license plate number.
Williams said he protested and told
the deputy, “(Mayor) Ed Mclntyre
will hear about this.”
The deputy he said, “kept telling
me ‘Why don’t you forget about it?’ I
said, ‘I won’t forget about it because
if I don’t report it, the insurance
won’t pay.’ I started getting the licen
se plate myself and he started hitting
me with his night stick for no reason
at all.’ ’ Williams said he did not get
the deputy’s name, but said he looked
Spanish.
Williams, a car washer for the
Augusta Police Department, said he
was arrested and charged with simple
battery. He also said he offered no
resistence and did not try to struggle
or strike back.
“What I don’t understand is that I
went and got the police because
somebody hit my car, and I was
charged and beaten up. There was no
reason for this. I didn’t do nothing to
disrespect him.”
He was taken to University
Hospital after his brother got him out
of jail. He said he filed a complaint at
the hospital.
University Hospital confirmed
Another black allegedly beaten
by another white deputy
December 18,1982
had received no input from the black
community and that blacks had no
say in choosing which blacks served
on the chamber committee.
“There is an anger and an anguish
that pervades the black community
that you don’t understand,” Ruffin
concluded, urging the legislators to
seek more broadly based input from
the black community.
Allgood said he will release the bill
the day he 'gets it from legislative
counsel. “Any bill (to consolidate)
must be approved by the Justice
Department, he said, adding that “it
is not my intention to do away with
any legislative office.”
Allgood said he is persuaded that
the bill would be in the bes r interest
“of the community as a whole” and
would insure the rights of minority,
“1 \ see Augusta sepi rat y
the of our community. I
* *
Charles Williams
that he was treated for face
lacerations, but would give no further
information.
Williams said that a young woman,
Dianne Hulbert, witnessed the in
cident. He said she, too, was ap
prehended by police, and he believed
that she had been taken to the Youth
Development Center. “If she had not
been holling and crying, he probably
would have beaten me to death.”
The Records Bureau of the
sheriffs department had no record of
the incident. Internal Affairs Chief
Sid Hatfield was out of the office on
Wednesday and could not be reached
for comment.
Investigator Ronnie Strength said
he was unaware of the incident.
NAACP
to elect
new officers
Page 3
Less than 75 percent Advertising
don’t think minorities want that either.
News-Review Editor-Publisher
Mallory K. Millender took issue with
the plan’s insuring the rights of
minorities and said consolidation
would take blacks out of the main
stream of Augusta politics.
Millender noted that under a con
solidated government the 53.4 per
cent representation blacks now have
in the city population would be
reduced to 30.9 percent under con
solidation. “It would put us in a per
manent position of having to beg
others for what we want,” he said.
The best insurance of minority
rights, he continued, is the present
city-county governments, with of
ficials elected by wards instead of the
present at-large system.
In order for the proposed bill to
become law, it will need the vote of two
senators and four representatives.
Kendrick elected
vice chairman
James 1. Kendrick was elected
Tuesday vice chairman of the Rich
mond County Human Relations
Commission.
The vacancy was created when the
former vice chairman, Henry
Howard, resigned from the com
mission to run for public office.
Kendrick, the owner and operator
jf Augusta Blueprint and Microfilm,
Inc., is a member of the National
Executive Board of Directors of Op
portunities Industrialization Centers
if America.
He is also a member of the board
of directors of the Department of
Family and Children Services, the
Girl Scout Council and the Advisory
Council of Region IV —SmaP
Business Association.
He is a member of Williams
Memorial C.M.E. Church.
News deadline
Wednesdays, please
Patients show appreciation
for Dr. William L. Griffin
Some Augustans have passed by
Dr. W.L. Griffin’s office on 12th
Street and witnessed patients lined up
outside, with others sitting on cars
waiting to see him, and wondered
why.
His patients and former patients
will honor him Thursday night with
an Appreciation Program at Williams
Memorial C.M.E. Church. And they
will tell him why.
Diavn v..arch
to open new
university
Page 5
The plan
The Consolidation olan calls for
• Annexation of all ot the
county into the City of
Augusta.
• Reducing the size of the City
Council from sixteen to nine
and increasing the size of the
County Commission from
five to nine.
• Persons elected to serve in
local government would be
elected to serve both as a
member of council and the
County Commission. Thus
the nine City Councilmen
would be the same nine per
sons as the County Com
missioners.
• The member of the Council/
Commission would be elected
from single member districts
and three paired districts.
The districts would be
arranged so as to insure that
three of the nine members
would be elected by
predominantly black distric
ts.
• The office of the mayor
would be abolished, and a
new mayor/chairman would
be selected by the nine mem
bers from among themselves.
• Local law enforcement would
become the responsibility of
the city police department,
and the elected sheriff would
be responsible for his con
stitutional duties of serving
the courts and operating the
county jail.
:.. JE-t* -w Sr
James L. Kendrick
He said he was shocked when he
learned what they had in mind. Asked
what he did differently from othei
doctors, he said, “What may hav<
endeared me to a lot of people is no;
trying to make each patient pay for a
medical education.”
He said some doctors try to charg<
$25 to SIOO per visit. “I would rathei
see Griffin Day page 3