Newspaper Page Text
The Augusta News-Review July 30,1983
Mallory K. MillenderEditor-Publisher
Paul Walker Assistant to the Publisher
Wanda Johnson General Manager/Advertising Dir.
Diane CarswellCirculation Manager
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. lleen Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor
Wilbert Allen Columnist
Roosevelt Green Columnist
Al IrbyColumnist
Philip Waring Columnist
Marva Stewart Columnist
George Bailey Sports Writer
Carl McCoyEditorial Cartoonist
Olando HamlettPhotographer
Roscoe Williams Photographer
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Terrible decision
We strongly agree with
Judge Albert Pickett’s sen
tencing a murderer to pay
financial support to the
family of the victim.
However, we disagree even
more strongly with the
judge’s ruling that the mur
derer must accompany the
children of the man he killed
to church on a regular basis.
We wonder what is to be
gained by this. Is it
reasonable that the children
will get to know their
father’s killer and come to
think of him as a friend?
Will the killer, assuming that
he grows to love the children,
guilty about the fatherless
children and become a better
person as a result?
Fair share
The NAACP has recently
reached a Fair Share
agreement with Kroger,
Brown and Williamson and
Burger King. These business
es have agreed to do a fair
share of their business with
the Black community.
This includes employment
at all levels, inclusion on
boards of directors, and buy
ing from Black businesses a
fair share of the services
Food For Thought
The seeds of excellence
by Paul D. Walker
As we observe our young—the
“minority” of tommorrow—pon
dering how they will fare, we must
recognize that how they fare will
be directly related to our en
dowments to them today.
That which we endow in their
minds today will be their fortunes
of tomorrow.
Oftentimes, it is the women or
mothers in children’s lives who
exert the most influence. As I look
back to eons ago, I see men in my
life who helped to mold my life’s
philosophy.
It was my father who taught me
(by his acts) that it is the strongest
man who can be gentle, and that
SUPPORT
THE
NAACP
Page 4
Is not church a place to
worship, rather than a place
to have your faith tested?
What happens to children
who hear a minister
preaching forgiveness and
they find that they cannot
forgive the person next to
them?
Why should they want to
go to church under such cir
cumstances? We believe that
they shouldn’t have to.
There are enough young
people already staying away
from churches. If these
children are inclined to go to
church and we hope that they
are, they shouldn’t have to
do so with their father’s
killer.
these corporations use.
Operation PUSH and
SCLC have reached similar
agreements with other cor
porations. Locally, the
NAACP has initiated its own
Fair Share program.
We urge full support of
this effort to get a fair share
of the money Blacks spend
returned to the Black com
munity.
unnecessary violence is reserved
for the weak.
It was my Uncle Wellington,
(who has now changed his name to
a more Afro-Muslim name that I
can never remember) who said:
“Read! It does not matter if it is
only a comic strip. Read, and you
will develop your mind!”
Another uncle, Roscoe, with
whom I secretly competed, became
my role model.
It was a seventh grade English
teacher who insisted that I learn
verbatim “Invictus” and “If.”
(To my eternal regret, I never
returned to thank him.
The lowland and easy roads are
simple to find and lead to dead
ends. Excellence must be cultivated
and not in all cases will there be
fruition. Little do we know where
our seeds of excellence will sprout,
yet they should be planted—daily.
OF COURSE WE GAn\
WE FIAX/E NO MONEY AFFORD TAX CREDITS
FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS’ W FOR PR NATE SCHOOLS’
3 n ”
/ V Y V J —V-J ;
jx ■ o
To Be Equal
Hunger in the cities
by John E. Jacob
The nation’s mayors met last
month and the theme of their
was
the spread of S ). i
hunger and w||
deprivation in
urban America. 1
While the
Administration
and the I
congress re- Jp JBgBK
lentlessly hack
away at programs that feed the
hungry, the volunteer soup kit
chens in city after city are unable
to cope with the demand from
hungry people with nowhere to
turn.
This is really a crisis situation, an
emergency that only the most hear
tless can dismiss.
The mayors report hunger in
cities in every region of the coun
try, from the unemployment belt
to the job belt. Denver, a city
whose jobless rate is under eight
percent feeds 1,000 people a day at
voluntary soup kitchens. Detroit,
where one of every five workers is
unemployed, estimates 50,000
people get surplus cheese and but
ter each month and thousands
more are in need of emergency
help.
The crisis is escalating. Detroit
reports five times as many people
seeking emergency food help as in
1980; Denver reports a doubling
over 1981. So do Cleveland, New
Orleans, Rochester and many
other cities.
It is heartening to see the way
religious and community in
stitutions have responded to the
need. They’ve organized food
Walking With Dignity
NEA’s Black president
by Al Irby
Mary Futrell, the National
Education Association (NEA)
«■ s> -
My i j
***** t
leader, speaks
out for the
nation’s malign
ed teachers.
Remember
the teacher
who taught
you more than
ever thought
you’d learn?—Who, even though
you disliked the subject, made you
and every student in the class rise
to his goals? That special teacher,
who shared a smile or a laugh with
only you, so that if anyone made a
wisecrack about you in the hall,
well, he would have to eat those
words—or else?
The NEA just elected that
teacher its president. In Septem
ber, Mary Hatwood Futrell walks
to the head of the class of the
nation’s second largest union. And
she does just as the condition of
education and the 1.7 million
member NEA have become mat
ters of intense national debate.
In recent weeks President
Reagan has advocated a merit pay
system for teachers as a method of
holding and attracting good
teachers in public schools. In a
New York Amsterdam News inter
view, Mrs. Futrell told a group of
Black newsmen that some of the
president’s comments implied that
many teachers were not doing their
jobs, in effect trying to make them
depots, collected tinned food, and
distributed emergency supplies to
the neediest.
But the hungry keep on coming.
Whatever is being done does not
begin to meet the needs of the
destitute, whose numbers are
growing. The hungry used to be
drifters, the impoverished elderly,
and individuals unable to cope
with life’s problems. Now they are
younger people; workers long on
the streets without hope of finding
a job, families with children.
The government’s warehouses
are graning with stockpiled surplus
cheese and butter, but ad
ministrative red tape keeps much
of it out of the hands of the
hungry, while the costs of
distribution prevent many cities
from efficiently getting that food
to the hungry.
This is a situation that causes
many Americans embarrassment.
Hunger is no longer a problem for
countries like Bangladesh; it’s a
deep problem for the United
States, the world’s richest nation
where unimaginable luxury rubs
elbows with the most abject pover
ty.
Such a situation is morally
wrong. It is especially wrong
because the intense human suf
fering we are seeing is a direct
result of conscious
policies—policies to dump people
off welfare rolls, policies that
restrict eligiblity for food stamps,
policies that slash food aid for
pregnant women, nursing mothers,
and infants.
Those policies were demanded
by the administration and endor
sed by the Congress. Sure,
scapegoats for problems in the
nation’s schools.
“No one denies that there are
teachers who aren’t qualified to
teach,” she says. “We teachers
should be blamed for not making
our case more strongly for all the
responsibility society puts on us,
said the new Black feminine
president.
Mary Alice, as she was known,
grew up in Lynchburg, Va., atten
ding segregated elementary and
secondary schools. She graduated
from all-Black Virginia State
College in Petersburg and received
her master’s degree from George
Washington University in the
nation’s capital. That was the first
time in her life she had set foot in
an integrated classroom.
When she was five, her father, a
construction worker, passed on,
leaving her mother, a domestic
worker, to raise her and her older
sister. But it wasn’t until she began
teaching business education at a
high school attended by children of
lower-income families that she
realized what her mother had done
for her.
“I couldn’t get the parents to
come to school and take an interest
in what their children were doing.”
Her mother had worked three
jobs, yet would still come by
school on the way from one job to
another to see how her daughters
were doing.
A major turning point for her
Congress restored some small
amounts in some programs. But
that’s hardly any reason for back
patting.
While poor people were being
driven deeper into poverty, that
same Congress was dumping
billions into tax breaks for the af
fluent and into wild spending on
unusable military weapons
systems.
A measure of how far removed
Washington’s law-makers are
from reality is the debate over ex
panding the government surplus
cheese and butter program. The
Administration says everything is
fine since it is now distributing
more of the food. But many
congressmen want to authorize
higher levels of distribution and to
put up more money for local
volunteer groups and cities,
enabling them to accept and
distribute the donations.
That’s fine as far as it goes, but
it’s still a debate about demeaning
charity, about having scraps of
food to give to destitute people
coming hat in hand for it.
The debate ought to be about
the right of every American to eat.
It ought to be about enforcing
policies that ensure enouh income
and food stamps for the poor. It
ought to be about redressing the
growing inequality that keeps
millions of Americans hungry
while others enjoy tax cuts and
hidden subsidies.
Maybe we need a Washington
Hunger Day—a day in which
congressman and federal
policymakers are forbidden to eat
unless they line up at the nearest
soup kitchen to break bread with
the people their policies hurt most.
professionally was when a white
child from a ghetto school asked,
“Why are you trying so hard to get
us to learn, don’t you know kids
from our neighborhood can’t
learn?”
She draws on this experience
when she hears people complain
about all the problems with federal
funding of education. “Look at
the other side of the coin. If there
were no funding, what would hap
pen to these kids?” Ms. Futrell’s
new post pays $71,263 annually.
For the last three years NEA duties
have kept her out of the classroom,
and though “I miss the daily con
tact .with students, I also know I’ll
be back in the classroom,” says the
NEA’s top lady.
In her presidential acceptance
speech at the NEA national con
vention, Mrs. Futrell left little
doubt as to what her new “class”
would cover during her two-year
term of office. She intends to do
what she can to deliver the NEA
vote —to a candidate with national
education policies the NEA sup
ports.
“I am determined,” she said,
“that all political leaders shall be
held responsible for their rhetoric,
their response and their reaction to
the needs of America’s public
schools. And should there by any
doubt in your minds, I am deter
mined that the president of the
United States shall be held ac
countable for his actions as fully as
he holds us accountable for ours.”
Civil Rights Journal
Vengeance is
mine, sayeth
the Lord
by Dr. Charles E. Cobb
The Supreme Court has chosen
expediency over justice in the most
important legal
question facing
society, the
administration of
the death
penalty. When
a court of law
has determined
that a person is
to receive
capital punish-
y ——W|
irzfc
ment their case should be given the
closest scrutiny and careful
examination.
In its most recent decision
regarding the death penalty the
court held that the use of an ex
pedited procedure in reviewing a
Texas capital case by a federal
court of appeals was “tolerable”
but should not be “accepted as the
norm or as the preferred
procedure.”
The case before the court in
volved a Texas defendant who
sought relief from the federal ap
pellate court arising from a Habeas
Corpus petition.
The defendant had applied for a
stay of execution from the sth Cir
cuit Court of Appeals, which also
had the obligation of ruling on the
merits of his appeal. The Court of
Appeals denied the application for
a stay of execution, however,
without formally treating the ap
plication for a stay as the actual
appeal.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in
effect allows federal appellate
courts to collapse the arguments
for a stay and the actual appeal in
to one proceeding.
Thus, allowing the federal cour
ts to decide both the appeal and
stay, in one opinion. The ad
ministration of the death penalty is
not an area for the court to create
legal shortcuts.
There is no criminal justice issue
of greater importance than capital
punishment. Aside from the
cruelty of this form of punishment
this decision by the court suggests
that judicial economy supercedes
efficient procedure.
This latest decision by the
nation’s highest court coupled with
the action by some states to ad
minister death by lethal injection
clearly reflects an attitude of a
diminished value of human life.
see Vengeance, page 5
Letters To The Editor
Offer free
dental screening
Dear Editor:
August 27 through September
is Georgia Dental Associatio.
Week. During this week, our offic
will offer a cost-free dente
screening.
There will be absolutely no co:
for the screening. Upon con
pletion of the examination, it wi
be explained to each patiei
generally what dental needs he c
she appears to have.
This cost-free dental screening
extended to all who are in need ■
having dental work done. We on
ask that all children and senij
citizens be accompanied by I
responsible adult.
Interested persons should c:
and make an appointment f
either of the following dates a J
time: August 27, 9 a.m.-I p.i
August 29, 3 p.m.-7 p.m. St I
tember 2,2 p.m.-6 p.m.
W.J. Walker Jr., D.M.D.
Eddie Johnson 111, D.M.D.
Barbara Spearman D.M.D.
Finds column inspiration
Dear Editor:
I would like to congratulate y j
on receiving the Emory O. Jacks I
Award in the National Newspa I
Publishers Association’s IS I
Merit Award Contest.
Your winning column, ' I
Thought For Busy Fathers” wa I
very honest and sensitive piect I
am certain your column was |
spirational to families who
casionally have to be reminded- J
give a little time to their love on' |
Gloria J. Butler
Executive Director
Augusta Opportunities
Industrialization Center I