Newspaper Page Text
Local NAACP
backs Black
Dollar Days
Page J
31 ’ c Augusta Jfewa-ißEUteiu
Volume 13 Number 20
Thomson educator collapses,
dies giving eulogy for past
THOMSON A Thomson
woman suffered a ruptured blood
vessel while eulogizing her pastor
last Friday. She died Sunday
without regaining consciousness.
Mrs. James (Biondell Saxon)
Lamar, who was director of
Christian Education at
Springfield Baptist Church was
reading the poem “Tribute,”
which she had written to
memorialize the Rev. J.H. West,
who pastored the church for 45
years, and who died last Tuesday.
She read the first five verses of
the poem and the first five word
of the last verse: “And when -he
shall die,” then collapsed.
Former Columbia County
school superintendent John P.
Blanchard, who followed her on
the program, finished reading the
poem.
Mrs. Lamar was taken to the
McDuffie County Hospital and
later transferred to Univeristy
Hospital in Augusta where she
died.
She reportedly was clinically
dead on Friday but was kept alive
by use of life support systems.
Mrs. Lamar was the director of
curriculum for the McDuffie
County Board of Education.
Johnny Harris, principal of
Thomson Elementary School,
said Mrs. Lamar was “all over
the school system” Friday mor
ning and was “happy as a Lark.”
She was eulogized Wed. by the
Rev. Winthrop Hope, pastor of
Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta, who also delivered the
eulogy for the Rev. West.
In addition to her husband,
Mrs. Lamar is survived by a
daughter, Patricia Grant; four
sisters and two brothers.
The Rev. West, who was also
an educator, was moderator of
Earl Thurmond to enter city council race
Richmond County educator Earl
H. Thurmond said this week that
he plans to be a candidate for the
Eighth Ward City Council seat
held by George Sancken in the Oct.
12 councilmanic elections.
Sancken is completing his
second term and is ineligible to
seek re-election.
Attorney Gerald Woods is also
seeking that post.
Thurmond, who is an advisory
specialist for the Richmond County
Board of Education, served as
principal of John M. Tutt Elemen
tary and C.T. Walker Elementary
School. In 1978, he was elected
president of the Georgia
Association of Elementary School
principals.
He is a member of the Executive
Board of the YMCA, a member
of the Richmond County Board of
Zoning appeals, a member of the
Fair Employment Practices Ad
visory Board for the State of
Georgia and Leadership Augusta.
He has been named Man of the
Year by the Augusta Lincoln
League, and the Psi Omega Chap
ter of the Omega Psi Phi Frater
nity. He is also the recipient of the
Humanitarian Award from the
Augusta Chapter of the SCLC.
Seventh Ward Councilman S.
Herbert Elliot announced this
week that he will re-election to a
third consecutive term.
City Councilman William A.
Augustan’s
death is
ruled suicide
Mrs. Biondell Lamar
y <
Wr- /
Rev. J.H. West
the Fourth Shiloh Association.
He was a member of the McDuf
fie County Ministerial
Hg "U • ** JBr
Earl Thurmond
Baxter, former council member
B.L. Dent and retired meatcutter
George Melies were among seven
people who qualified Monday as
candidates.
Baxter, 72, is seeking re-election
to his 2nd Ward seat; Dent, 71, is
running for the 4th Ward seat held
by I.E. Washington, who is not
eligible to seek re-election because
he has served three consecutive
three-year terms; and Melies, 67, is
seeking the sth Ward seat held by
Loyal G. Hutto, who has not an
nounced his intentions.
The others who qualified Mon
day were incumbents W. Oscar
Baker and Charles A. DeVaney
Tribute
by Mrs. Biondell Lamar
There are those moments in time and space when
we are priviledged, as occupants of this planet,
to have extraordinary people walk among us. They
exact an impact of immeasurable influence and
force, often changing the environs they encounter.
Their coming begins as every other creature’s does,
but as they grow they start a gyre, which widens
and encompasses as it stretches an inexplicable
stimulation of life.
They are the pathfinders, the builders of bridges,
the beings who see the impossible as possible.
And if an extraordinary amount of good fortune is
on your side, your life is touched by one of
these gifts to humanity. Thus it was with
Rev. John Henry West.
The circle of love he had so lovingly formed
with his wife and children, steadily grew like the
ever widening gyre. And why not? Rev. West
had a reservoir of love to sharp, and because God
was in the midst of all he endeavored, its quality
was pure and abundant.
The heavens wept for us, for they knew how great
our loss would be. But oh the welcome that awaits
him there is certain.
“And when he shall die, we shall take him and form
him into little stars. And he will make the face of
heaven so fine, that all the world will be in love
with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.”
Association, the General
Missonary Baptist Convention of
Georgia Inc., and was chaplain
for the McDuffie County
Hospital.
Survivors include his wife,
William Baxter
and newcomers Margaret C. Ar
mstrong and Gerald W. Woods.
Baxter, a retiree and former
chairman of the Augusta Civil Ser
vice Commission, paid his S9O
qualifying fee shortly after an
nouncing he would seek re-election
at a press conference held in the
council chambers.
“One of the city’s most impor
tant priorities is to expand on its
tax base in order that the city may
have relief from high taxes,” he
said.
Emphasizing the need to
revitalize downtown Augusta,
Baxter said he will work to help
develop the riverfront, and he
Flowers stc ,o n |
from ceme
church
Page 3 |
August 27, 1983
Clara Williams West; a son,
William Edward West, Oakland,
Calif.; a daughter, Doris Smith,
Decatur; an adopted daughter,
Alice Wells, Augusta; and a half
brother, Neal Watson, Augusta.
■ ..niuii.l. I ———
*
wk ■'
B.L. Dent
voiced support for Operation
Paintbrush as a program that has
“turned many drab and dull
buildings into a shiny, beautiful
thing again.”
He also expressed support for
the city’s efforts to build a
hydroelectric power plant on the
Augusta Canal and to increase the
salaries of municipal employees.
Baxter said he would support the
establishment of new programs
only if the funds for them become
available. Asked if there were any
particular programs he would like
to see implemented, Baxter
replied, “No, I don’t make long-
|Oglesby-Burton
> reunion
;usta
Less than 75 percent Advertising
The man who gave
Dr, King his start
to miss Aug, 27 march
On the second Sunday in August
in 1955, E.D. Nixon, one of the
most militant Blacks in Mon
tgomery, Ala., heard Martin
Luther King speak at an NAACP
meeting.
“I told a gentleman sitting next
to men...‘You know, that guy
made a heck of a good talk,’” said
Nixon.
Nixon, who initiated the bus
boycott in Montgomery that year,
helped pluck King, then a 26-year-
Old Baptist minister, out of ob
scurity.
“I started the boycott,” Nixon,
now 84, recalled last week. “I
selected Rev. King.”
King went on to give speeches to
inspire, including his classic I Have
a Dream speech from the steps of
the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington.
This weekend, an estimated
250,000 people will gather to
commemorate that march on
Washington.
“I believed in marching when we
didn’t have any laws on the
book,” said Nixon in his Mon
tgomery office.
A former officer in the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Por
ters, Nixon now believes “we
ought to be talking or going to
court.
“And I don’t think anybody in
this town would call me a
coward,” he said.
“The first march was during the
bus boycott period. We started to
walking everywhere. We walked
March to climax convention
In its 26th Annual Convention,
Aug. 24-27 in Washington, D.C.,
the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference will call the nation’s
attention to crucial economic,
political and peace related issues.
Highlighting the convention
range plans.”
Baxter is a native of Aiken,
S.C., and has resided at 825 D’An
tignac St. for the past 15 years.
Dent, who was the first Black to
serve on council since Reconstruc
tion, was a member of the gover
ning body for 15 Vi years but was
ineligible to run in 1981 because of
the three-term limit.
He was present when Baxter an
nounced his candidacy but chose
not to make a speech. He did say in
response to questions that he is in
terested in the revitalization of
downtown Augusta and feels the
city could do more to achieve this
goal.
“We’ve missed the boat because
we haven’t taken advantage of the
enterprise zones” concept in
troduced by the Reagan ad
ministration to promote
revitalization by providing tax in
centives and regulatory relief to
businesses locating in areas of high
unemployment and physical decay.
These zones are needed down
town in some of Augusta’s
deteriorating neighborhoods “to
provide retraining for some of
these people who are unemployed
and to enhance the value of
property,” Dent said.
A resident of 26 Gregg St., and
the owner of B.L. Dent Furniture
Co., Dent said he has remained
busy despite his absence from
council.
381 days, but we didn’t have any
laws on the books. There wasn’t
anything else we could do,” he
recalled.
“What we need to do is work
together and we need to use all our
resources regardless of academic
training.”
Despite his age, Nixon, the
father of one son, stays active. He
is proud of his ability to see any
public official without an apppoin
tment and to raise money for
projects such as his Summer
Olympics program for disadvan
taged Black children.
He says Blacks need jobs but
also need to be told how to deter
mine their futures.
“With my little schooling, (16
months) 1 could have stayed in the
ghetto,” Nixon said.
“I could have kept my little
money in my pocket and been
broke every night. I could have
stayed in a rented house and could
have rode the city bus line to town.
But instead, I decided that I’d
refused to be handicapped because
of the lack of formal school
training.”
Nixon started the bus boycott in
early December following the
arrest of seamstress Rosa Parks for
not giving up her seat to a white
man.
Nixon “pointed to the buses as
the worst example of racial insult
to Black folks,” says Stephen B.
Oates’ biography of King, Let the
Trumpet Sound.
agenda is deliberation on the
development of the People’s Plat
form for the 1984 elections.
The convention activity will
culminate in the 20th Anniversary
of the March on Washington,
Aug. 27.
“People still worry you. You’re
serving without pay, because
they’re going to come to you, and
you’ve got to serve them,” he said.
Dent, who for years held a seat
from the 2nd Ward, is running in
the 4th Ward because of redistric
ting.
Melies, who ran unsuccessfully
for a sth Ward seat in 1982, said
Augusta needs to grow and have a
low tax rate.
“I’m capable of being the sth
Ward councilman,” he said. “I’m a
businessman, and I know all about
it. I’m for the people of the city of
Augusta—the people’s choice.”
A U.S. Navy veteran who served
during the Korean War, Melies is a
native of Charleston, S.C. He has
resided in Augusta for more than
50 years, and he and his wife,
Martha, have lived at 1668 Brinson
St. for the past nine years.
“I want to see Augusta grow
and get all the streets fixed and
everything,” he said, adding that
he believes it is futile to attempt to
relocate the railroad tracks in the
downtown area. He also said he
does not know at this point what
steps should be taken to promote
growth in Augusta.
Earlier this year, Melies was
named by Gov. Joe Frank Harris
as a lieutenant colonel aide-de
camp to the governor’s staff.
30c