Newspaper Page Text
The Augusta News-Review November 26,1983
Mallory K. MillenderEditor-Publisher
Paul Walker Assistant to the Publisher
Wanda Johnson General Manager/Advertising Dir.
Diane CarswellCirculation Manager
Yvonne Day Reporter
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. Ileen 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 THE AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW,
P.O. Box 2123, Augusta, Ga. 30903-2123.”
AMALGAMATED Nitioaal Advertiriag Repnaeatatfre
PUBLISHERS, INC. db
Civil Rights Journal
Philly, Boston contrast
by Charles E. Cobb
The election of Wilson Goode as
Philadelphia’s first Black mayor
should be a
clear '
dication of the
power of
was brought ™
about by the >
combined es- - 11
forts of a
dedicated Black and minority
community along with progressive
whites. Qualifications of the can
didate and positions on the issues
were the overriding concerns of the
Philadelphia electorate. Race and
ethnicity were placed on the back
burner. Mr. Goode and his sup
porters refused to let the real issues
affecting the people of
Philadelphia become submerged in
racial epithets and yellow jour
nalism.
The character of the
Philadelphia election was in
marked contrast to what was oc
curring some five hundred miles
north in Boston. This city also had
the opportunity to elect its first
Black mayor, former state
legislator Melvin King.
However, noted for its clear
lines of racial division, the Boston
electorate did not meet the test.
The Mayor Comments
Let’s beat crime
by Edward M. Mclntyre
Most of us have heard the old
saying, “an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound ,
of cure.” That ’ wk
thought can be j
applied to an
area which we
all have concern
about and that
is the area of A
crime prevent- IjjjpF J*
We all share the desire for a safe
community in which our families
can live, play and work. We also
want to be able to assure visitors to
our great city that we have a safe
community for them to visit.
In the city of Augusta and
Richmond County, we have
private citizens and law enfor
cement officials working with
determination and dedication as
they fight crime in our community.
Already there are programs
which have been set up to help pre
vent crime. They are Neigh
borhood Watch Program, Target
Hardening and Opportunity
Reduction (THOR) and the
Operation Identification Program.
I encourage you to contact your
police department to learn about
these programs. Your police de
partment can show you ways of
Support
The
NAACP
Page 4
Race was the underlying issue and
this became exceedingly clear on
election eve when Mr. King’s elec
tion headquarters was fired upon
by a group of roving white
marauders.
Boston is a city that exposed its
racism a decade or more ago when
busing was mandated as the most
efficient means of integrating the
nation’s segregated school system.
During that episode of Boston’s
history, we witnessed the most
vicious racial attacks only com
parable to the events of the 50s and
60s in Mississippi and Alabama.
Mr. King did not win the elec
tion, but he won a major battle in
the struggle for political em
powerment in this city charac
terized by its racial demography.
He was the first Black to qualify for
a Boston mayoral final in the city’s
353 year history.
Melvin King took a bold decisive
and courageous step, for the King
campaign undoubtedly raised the
political consciousness of Blacks in
Boston and the entire New
England area, which will manifest
itself in next year’s vital presiden
tial election.
Both Wilson Goode and Melvin
King deserve their respective
congratulations—Goode for a
decisive victory, and King for a job
well done.
protecting your families, your pro
perty and yourselves against crime.
Along with your law enforce
ment officials, I am responsible for
keeping our community safe as
possible. I think that police
visibility in any area acts as a deter
rent to crime and that prevention
does have its rewards. Just recently
the FBI Uniforms Crime Report
indicated that we have less crime
in our downtown area than in
some other cities of comparable
size. We can all be proud of these
figures and of the efforts which
our police department makes daily
toward crime prevention.
In keeping with our preventive
measures, on Nov. 10, our police
department established two ad
ditional foot patrols in residential
areas. We think this will enhance
police protection of the downtown
merchants and shoppers, and give
us added protection against home
robberies and burglaries.
We must all work together to
prevent crime and keep our com
munity safe. It is a big job but not
one that’s too big for a united
community effort to accomplish.
Let us take steps individually and
together to learn all we can about
crime prevention and then let’s
act prudently upon that
knowledge.
> J j
BRMDCxA aR,
BIAG< RESDUgCcS lUC.
To Be Equal
New partnership for jobs
by John E. Jacob
A new federally financed job
training program went into effect,
and private in
dustry’s large |
role in shaping ®
and implement- |
ing it provides I
a fresh test of B . I
the viability of
public-private
partnerships in * *
creating jobs for the disadvantaged.
The new program, the Job
Training Partnership Act, replaced
the old CETA program, but there
are major differences. CETA em
phasized public service jobs, but
JTPA does away with them com
pletely, stressing training instead.
Past experience shows that train
ing doesn’t guarantee jobs/but the
new industry involvement is sup
posed to ensure that the disad
vantaged are trained in skills for
which there is a demand. How suc
cessful that will be at a time of high
unemployment is open to question.
CETA, for all of its faults, did
provide people with jobs and pay
checks while supplying important
public services.
The new program has some
built-in barriers that are troubling.
The biggest of those barriers is the
cut in funding. Its budget will be
barely half of the old CETA pro
gram, and the money will be
spread much more thinly.
Also, there is no provision for
stipends for trainees. That means
disadvantaged people who want
training will have to have some
Going Places
‘Chiefs ’ should win awards
by Philip Waring
May I urge all who viewed and
enjoyed “Chiefs” to write CBS
Television in
New York.
They should be gy"* ‘J
applauded for
this three-part it
series dealing
race
relations in a
small south Georgia town in the
post-world War II era. This
historical drama should certainly
win Oscars fr both Billy Dee
Williams and Charlton Heston
coupled with major television
awards for this CBS program.
Briefly it was the story of how a
retired army major, Billy Dee
Williams, came into this police
corrupt town and as chief of police
helped clean it up.
Salutes to Dr. Mary Francis
Berry and her associates for laun
ching a legal challenge to the
Reagan administration and its
quest to scuttle the U.S. Civil
Rights Commission.
The favorable decision from a
federal court spurred both the
means of support while they are in
training. In effect, that limits the
program to the least disadvantaged
and the most highly motivated.
The result is likely to look good
in terms of statistics showing
higher percentages of trainees
staying with the program and fin
ding permanent jobs. But such
figures will hide the fact that many
would have found jobs on their
own, and that many others most in
need of training were not helped.
That was the experience of the
Private Sector Initiative program
of a few years ago that was part of
CETA. Also geared toward
business participation, it had a
fairly good record. But experts
said the program skimmed the
most employable people while
ignoring those most in need.
Now that the government has
put all of its job and job training
eggs in that private sector basket, it
will be up to the business com
munity to prove that it can do the
job.
Many business leaders were cool
to CETA, saying the private sector
could do it better. They said
bureaucracy and red tape
discouraged whole-hearted business
participation. They fully support
the new Job Training Partnership
program.
But with that support comes
responsibility, and many business
leaders are very aware of that. The
chairman of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce told executives that if
JTPA fails, “we will have no one
to blame but ourselves.”
House and Senate to enact a new
law creating a new and enlarged
body. Many good things are bound
to come to advance the career of
Ms. Berry, formerly assistant
secretary of HEW in the Carter
administration and now professor
of law at Howard University.
Rocks Just Laying Around
There’s a form of self-help
which must be used much more by
Black Americans. This comes from
a speaker at the August March On
Washington, 11. He points to the
unused voting power as “rocks
justy laying around.”
He noted that Reagan won the
national election in 1980 with a
reserve coalition of the rich and the
unregistered, rocks just laying
around. Reagan won in
Massachuettes by 2,500 votes with
64,000 unregistered Blacks, just
rocks laying around.
He won in Illinois by 37,000
votes with 600,000 Blacks not on
the voting rolls, just rocks laying
around.
Mr. Reagan won in Delaware
with a 5,000 vote margin. Yet,
Another top corporate leader
said the new program “offers us
the opportunity to do the job the
way we felt it ought to be done.”
And he added, “it also may be the
last chance as we 11... if we fail with
this program does anyone believe
we will be given another chance?”
So corporate America’s
reputation is on the line. Business
men have been eloquent in op
posing CETA and in arguing for a
leading role in job training for the
private sector. Now they have the
chance to deliver—and that means
delivering jobs and training to the
most disadvantaged, as well as to
those who can make it on their
own.
But others are on the line
too—the unemployed disadvan
taged. They have suffered from
underfunded, half-hearted federal
programs that changed shape every
couple of years, and from
programs that promised more than
they delivered.
The promises are very much in
evidence again, in this new
program. If it fails, their hopes will
be victimized and their fading trust
in both government and the private
sector will vanish.
The program just started, so the
jury will have to be out for a while.
But a responsible business com
munity has been given the oppor
tunity it has long demanded and if
it fights for expanded federal fun
ding and extends its partnership to
community based groups and the
disadvantaged, it may just be able
to deliver on its promises.
there were 20,000 unregistered
Blacks, just rocks laying
around.
While there were some 150,000
unregistered Blacks, Reagan won
Mississippi by a margin of 11,000,
rocks just laying around.
He won eight Southern states bv
170,000. Yet our Joint Center for
Political Studies and other reliable
sources tell us that there were over
three million unregistered Blacks
who could have registered and
voted, just rocks laying around.
It was an old Baptist preacher
who said that when it comes to
registration and voting, our heads
are often as hard as rocks.
The year 1984 should present it
self as an interesting year. With a
non-white population of nearly 40
percent in Richmond County, will
we be able to finally get one of the
five commission slots? And the
same goes for the Board of
Education where we have only
four. And let’s not forget the city
council in a city over 54 percent
Black with only four out of 16.
Will our heads still be as hard as
rocks?
Walking With Dignity ■
Payton values!
sciences and 1
humanities ’
by Al Irby
Dr. Benjamin F. Payton, stands
six feet three inches tall. The
_p, . solidly built
educator is,
quite literally,
a towering in
tellectual.
After grad
uating with
« B . D. from
Harvard, an
M.A. from Columbia University,
and a Ph.D. from Yale, he moved
on to become president of Benedict
College in Columbia, S.C., in
1967. From Benedict he joined the
Ford Foundation, where he spent
nine years before being wooed
away by famed Tuskegee Institute.
Dr. Payton sees a critical need for
skilled, high-tech workers whose
vision extends beyond the edge of
their computer screen.
The pedagogue is a leading
spokesman for high-quality science
and math teaching at all levels of
public schooling. In 1979, as a
program officer at the Ford Foun
dation, he and several colleagues
were among the first to warn that
the United States could fall behind
in the race for technological
leadership.
He is a member of the National
Science Board Commission on
Pre-college Education in
mathematics, science, and
technology, whose long-awaited
report on improving science and
math teaching in the United States
was released in September.
Although Tuskegee’s curriculum
is weighted heavily in favor of the
applied sciences, the pithy doctor
is a strong believer in an education
that touches all aspects of a
student’s development.
“Scientists and people who are
involved in new technological
developments face critical
humanistic and value-laden issues
so as to be able to function well as
a complete, educated person. One
also has to have the capacity to
make not only technological
judgments, but to make those kind
of value judgments that are em
bedded, inherent in the work that
they have chosen as their life’s
work.
“This calls for people who have
some training in philosophical and
moral reasoning, and who have
some appreciation for vehicles of
human expression that show us the
kind of complex beings we are.”
The great educator believes that
one of the basic problems that
students have with understanding
science is a comprehension of the
concept and the methods of scien
ce, which assumes a capacity to
read. To really handle math
programs in any kind of design or
experiment, he contends, one must
be able to express oneself clearly.
“When one talks about science
and math, one is not just talking
about developing narrow
technicians, you are talking about
people who have a reading com
prehension, who can write clearly
and these are all fundamental
elements to being able to think
rationally and clearly about the
modern world.”
Dr. Payton’s hesitAcy to
promote science and math instruc
tion independent of a broader
education extends to the computer
and the trend in education to flood
the classroom with technological
hardware.
Many people get misled by the
computer. The computer is just the
symbol of the age. Many young
potential scientific technicians
speak on college campuses and
scare the daylights out of the
student body of preaching the ab
solutism of the computer in
modem education.
This column absolutely agreed
with Dr. Payton’s logic: improve
your arithmetic by all means, but
don’t forget the importance of the
humanities.
The learned Dr. Payton con
tinues his common sense discourse:
“But more fundamental than the
computer is an understanding of
the processes of orderly and
disciplined inquiry, and if anybody
thinks computers alone, without
human beings, will be able to han
dle the more complex issues, many
of which are laden with all kind of
ethical questions, then I think that
person is mistaken.”
Dr. Payton’s concern is for the
entire spectrum of education, not
only to the scientifically and
mathematically gifted, but to all
people.