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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 "THE AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW (USPS 887 820) is published weekly for sll per year in the county and sl2 per year out of the county. Second-class postage paid at Augusta, Ga. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 77/£ AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW, P.Q. Box 2123, Augusta, Ga. 30903-2123.” AMALGAMATED National Advertising Representative PUBLISHERS, INC. 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