Newspaper Page Text
Tests on former
chemical workers
allegedly squashed
Pagel
Angus ta NeujH-ißEuteuj
Volume 12 Number 43
Black history speaker
Students urged to have
education, not excuses
A Federal Communications
Commission attorney received a
standing ovation in the middle of
her speech at Paine College
Tuesday as she told of the kind of
leaders students there must
become. “We’re looking for
those who not only will get the
title, we’re looking for those who
won’t forget the task. We’re
looking for those who will rise to
the position, but who won’t forget
the condition of our people.”
Patricia A. Russell, who is the
chief of the FCC Complaints and
Compliance Division of the
Bureau in Washington,
[D.C., was the kickoff speaker at
JPaine College’s celebration of
lAfro-American history.
| She called on the students to
'become responsive and responsible
I leaders. “We don’t need you to
I become so far removed from the
■ problem that there is no longer a
I problem. We need you to teach
I and touch and show us the way.
|| We need to be stronger and wiser
and better because you passed this
■ .vay,” she said in the speech entitled
■ |‘No Deposit, No Return.”
■l' “The whole world is waiting on
■|/ou,” she continued. “Black
■ people in particular are waiting for
■ /ou to rise as a cadre of the
B tapable, the competent and the
I prepared. You are the resource we
B ire waiting for in the main arena.
■ Phe whole world is waiting on you
■ o make a deposit.”
■ i Ms. Russell, who is national
* Augusta Chemical workers
. Thurmond, conservatives allegedly
aid in squashing test report
Efforts are being made by Sen.
rom Thurmond and other con
•rvative senators to suppress the
hdings of the Center for Disease
bntrol in its testing of more than
bOO former employees of the
hgusta Chemical Co., according
1 Wilbert Allen, co-chairman of
e Committee of Concerned
Itizens. An organization was
irmed to assist the ex-employees
!ho were exposed over a long
; riod of time to a known cancer
fusing agent. Almost all of the
'posure victims were black.
'Allen said an internal source at
b National Institute of Oc
pational Safety and Health
IIOSH) “had the guts to call us
Series salutes black World War llpilots
■This story begins with a middle-
Kd man, quietly weeping at the
Elack Wings” exhibition in
■ ishington, D.C. at the
Kithsonian Institute.
■ nearby, a little girl notices and
Es her mother: “Why is that
■ n crying?”
■ ler mother replies, “Perhaps,
■ s a Tuskegee Airman.” The
■' glances from the man to her
■ ther, “What’s a Tuskegee
■man?”
■‘That name applies to all of the
Patricia A. Russell
parliamentarian for the Alpha
Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.,
cautioned that black people must
not deal with “fringes.” “We
think that we’re included when
we’re actually excluded because we
dealt with fringes and not facts.
We must not only play the game,
but learn the games that people
Play.”
The demand now, she said, is
not for people to come with an ex
planation, but with an education.
“Education is like a Slow Poke
sucker—it lasts a long, long time.”
A graduate of black colleges,
Kentucky State and the Howard
University Law School, Ms.
Russell said that for students who
»
and tell us what was going on,”
but the source asked not to be
identified, Allen said.
The test findings should have
been released in December, but an
Augusta Chemical Co. attorney
had filed a Freedom of Infor
mation request and asked that all
the information be withheld from
the public until all the documents
are received, Allen said.
Allen said that conservative
senators, including Thurmond,
have been getting calls from
businesses and industries. “They
don’t want the information
released to the public. We feel that
genocide has been committed
against black people in Augusta
black men and women who were
part of an experiment during
World War II to test the ability of
black people to fight as combat
pilots,” explains the mother.
Amazed, the young child
responds, “You mean there were
black pilots during World War
II?” and asks out loud: “I won
der why I never learned that in
school?”
“The Tuskegee Airmen Ex
periment has been a missing page
from our history books for more
Court rebuffs
Anti-busing
plan in Tenn.
Page 3
want to make a difference, the best
place to start is Paine College.
“If you think education is ex
pensive, try ignorance,” she ad
ded.
She also urged the students to
become testimonies to the imnor
tance of black colleges. “You must
rise up as never before and tell the
story of the black college. These
schools were the ones that took us
from the Muscle Shoals of
Alabama and the cotton and
strawberry fields of Tennessee and
the peach and peanut fields of
Georgia and the Tobbacco fields
of Kentucky and the central cities
of the north.
“These were the schools that
went on to life’s what-not shelf
and picked us up and dusted us off
because they realized that we were
diamonds in the rough.”
Giving her own testimony, she
pointed out that over 80 percent of
the black federal judges are
graduates of black colleges as are
over 95 percent of black elected of
ficials in the South; and over 75
percent of all black Ph. D’s and
doctors and lawyers, “over 44 per
cent of the black Congressmen,
and over 75 percent of all black of
ficials of the armed services are
graduates of black colleges.
“And although the list is endless,
my time is not, so I’ll just close this
section by saying etcetera, etcetera,
etcetera.” She received another
standing ovation at the end of the
speech.
and now they want to cover it up.”
“This thing is going to turn
nasty,” Allen warned. “We’d like
to see the information the federal
government paid for be released.
The public has a right to know the
impact those chemicals had on
those people.”
He said the Concerned Citizens
Committee will ask all churches to
send letters to NIOSH and the Center
for Disease Control demanding the
release of the information.
J. Donald Millair, the director
of the Center for Disease Control,
was said to have been in a meeting
when The News-Review
telephoned. The call had not been
returned at press time.
than 40 years. It is certainly the
story of a dramatic and visible vic
tory over segregation—still not
documented m most history
books,” answers Tony Brown in
the opening scenes on “Clipped
Wings,” Part I of “The Black
Eagles,” a four-part public
television series on Tony Brown’s
Journal.
It is a Black History Month
tribute to America’s only Black
Air Force.
Series recognizes
black pilots in
World War II
Page 1
February 5,1983
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ALPHA President Henry Brigham adusts crown of Henrietta Langford, Miss Black and
Gold.
Miss Langford Black and Gold queen
Miss Henrietta Langford was re
cently crowned Miss Black and Gold
for 1983 at the Annual Alpha Phi
Alpha Black and Gold Dance held at
the Richmond County Civic Center.
Miss Langford, a resident of
North Augusta, is the daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Ted Langford of
Aiken, S.C. She is currently em-
Jesse Jackson
Busch as emasculates
King ‘Dream’ speech
CHlCAGO—Anheuser-Busch is
attempting to emasculate Dr. Mar
tin Luther King Jr.’s dream, the
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, national
president of Operation PUSH,
told the more than 2,000 persons in
attendance at its Weekly Com
munity Forum at PUSH headquar
ters in Chicago.
Jackson referred to the
newspaper advertisements Busch
placed in the black press across the
country quoting only a portion of
Dr. King’s famous “I Have A
Dream” speech, which he
delivered August 28, 1963 at the
March on Washington.
Jackson accused Anheuser-
Busch of putting “the superficial
over substance, of projecting an
image of Dr. King that is merely
sweet and loving rather than one
that demands fairness, jobs and
justice.”
Jackson said the first three
quarters of the speech deals with
economic reciprocity; the last four
th with an inspirational message,
“I Have A Dream.”
“The Aneuser-Busch ad ac
curately symbolizes “their”
relationship with the black com
munity,” Jackson stated. “They
have substituted superficiality for
substance. They started and ended
with Dr. King’s rhythmic
climax—his rhythm, his rhetoric,
his rhyme, but they deliberately
left out the part of his speech that
deals with his economic dream.
Tony Brown’s Journal is the
nation’s longest-running, black
affairs television series and has
been sponsored by Pepsi-Cola
Company for eight consecutive
years. Televised nationally on
public television (PBS), the
program will be seen in this area
on WCES-20 Feb. 6 at 5 p.m.
The background for Part I is a
segregated society with Jim Crow
laws on the books. A 1925 War
College Report openly classified
blacks as a cowardly subspecies,
Less than 75 percent Advertising
ployed at WBBQ Radio.
The Alpha Phi Alpha Frater
nity, which Miss Langford
represents, was founded in
December, 1906 at Cornell Univer
sity. It is the oldest of all black
Greek Letter Organzations. The
Alpha Chi Lambda Augusta Chap
ter was founded in 1935.
Talk about emasculating a dream!
Anheuser-Busch does not want to
deal with Dr. King’s economic
dream. That’s the part they’re
making a nightmare of!”
In the first part of his speech,
Dr. King said:
“...We have come to our nation’s
capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our Republic wrote
the magnificent words of the Con
stitution and the Declaration of
Independence, they were signing a
promissory note to which every
American was to fall heir.
“This note was a promise that
all men would be guaranteed the
unalienable rights of life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. It is
obvious today that America has
defaulted on this promissory note
insofar as her citizens of color are
concerned.
“Instead of honoring this
sacred obligation, America has
given the Negro people a bad
check; a check which has come
back marked ‘insufficient funds.’
But we refuse to believe that there
are insufficient funds in the great
vaults of opportunity of this
nation.
“So we have come to cash this
check—a check that will give us
upon demand the riches of
freedom apd the security of
justice.”
“What would Dr. King be doing
right now if our staff told him that
we have found out that blacks are
unfit for combat or leadership
roles.
Even after political pressure in
the 1940 elections from the black
press, civil rights organizations
and black leaders, the government
and the War Department
begrudingly accepted Afro-
Americans into the Civilian Pilot
Training Program (CPTP), and
subsequently conducted an ex
periment to find out if blacks
could fly as combat pilots.
Through the eyes of the
says Dr. ». 's
dream emasculated
Page 1
Alpha Phi Alpha is currently in
volved in a one million dollar fund
drive for the NAACP, the
National Urban League, and the
United Negro College Fund.
Proceeds from the dance will go
towards a scholarship fund which
the local chapter awards to area
high school seniors each year.
10 percent of Anheuser-Busch’s
over-all business—higher than that
in the top 50 markets—and 25 per
cent of the black beer market?
What would he say if they also told
him that Anheuser-Busch has 950
Budweiser and Michelob
distributors, one black; 86 top of
ficers, two black; that in their 10
breweries, of the top 250
workers—2s in each brewery—we
could find only two black; that of
a $254 million advertsing budget,
less than two percent went to the
black press; and that of a $2 billion
construction plan over the next
four years, they want to give only
one percent to black contractors.
“What would Dr. King say if we
walked up to him today and said
that last year Budweiser earned
$217 million in profits and paid
zero dollars in federal taxes? What
would he say if we told him that
this summer they want to use black
entertainers to appeal to black
children to drink their products
and won’t even use black
promoters for the Bud Fest.
“The Dr. King I know,”
Jackson declared, “would not sing
a sad song. The Dr. King I know
would sing: ‘Bud is a Dud! Dump
Those Suds in the Mud! Demon
stration without hesitation! Jail
without bail!’ The Dr. King I know
was a mightly emancipator!”
Operation PUSH has called for
a national boycott of Anheuser-
Bush products.
Tuskegee Airmen, the program
takes the viewer through that dark
period of racial relations in
American history up to the
establishment of the 99th Fighter
Squadron and the 332nd Fighter
Group.
Part I ends with the
acknowledged fact that blacks can
fly airplanes. But can they per
form as fighter pilots? They leave
for combat overseas to find out.
Next week: “The Enemy
Within.”
30C