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Jesse Jackson says Democrats discriminate
From page 1
challenge to party rules on racial
grounds and to use that issue to
energize his campaign as the only
Black among the eight announced
candidates for the Democratic
Presidential nomination.
“We did not want to give
Jackson a chance to run against
the party,” a party official said.
> But Mr. Jackson’s move today in
dicated that the Black civil rights
leader would challenge the rules
without waiting for an opening.
In an interview, Mr. Jackson
outlined four major areas in which
•he would call for “remedies” to
party rules that he said were unfair
to his candidacy and to Blacks.
, Hispanic Americans and women
who want to be delegates to the
national convention.
, Mr. Jackson said that the
problems arise from the rules draf-
Myers completes ROTC training
Yewston N. Myers 111,
son of Yewston N. and
’ Agnes E. Myers of 3164
Truxton Road has com
pleted training in fun
( damental military skills at
the Army ROTC basic
camp at Fort Knox, Ky.
1 The basic camp is
designed to give junior
New Black Power
From page 1
Atlanta, a city with a
history of Black political
participation and
strength. The city’s
liberal tradition has
helped develop a
sophisticated Black
political system not
duplicated elsewhere in
the South, and few places
in the North. Although
an alliance of Black
Democrats and
Republicans once guided
the political fortunes of
Black Atlantans, the city
is now run by the
Democrats.
The registration cam
paign in Atlanta main
tains a semblance of
bipartisanship, but the
anti-Reagan fervor
among Blacks is a con
stant that Democrats
have a hard time con
taining. The local
NAACP runs the cam
paign from its new single
story off ice building on
Fairburn Road in a queit
wooded section. One of
its small rooms has the
character of a war room,
as, indeed, it is—in a war
against the Reagan Ad
ministration.
Os the 283,884 residen
ts registered in Fulton
County, 122,408 are
Black, leaving 78,972
Blacks unregistered. “We
want to get 50,000 of the
unregistered on the rolls
by next year,” says Jon
delle Johnson, NAACP
branch executive direc
tor.
Mrs. Johnson is a for-,
mer journalist and a
community activist with a
reputation as an excellent
organizer. Twenty years
ago, she helped found the
Atlanta Inquirer as an
alternative to the Atlanta
Daily World, a conser
vative local Black daily
hat was opposed to the
:ivil-rights movement.
“We’ve registered
0,000 people since June
she says. “We’re the
“We’ve registered
0,000 people since June
I /’ she says. “We con-
I uct a drive year round,
| ot just on special oc
lasions. We’re the um
■ rella organization under
| hich other groups
| ork.” Other groups in
-1 blved are fraternal
Societies, block
f ssociations and chur
-1 les.
ted by the Hunt commission in
1981 to revise Democratic
nomination rules. The com
mission, named for its chairman,
Gov. James B. Hunt of North
Carolina, was dominated by
representatives of Mr. Mondale
and Senator Edward M. Kennedy
of Massachusetts to tilt the
nominating process toward well
known candidates favored by par
ty leaders.
“That stacks the cards very
much toward the establishment
center and away from what they
would call a wildcard candidate,”
Mr. Jackson said, adding that, as a
result, the rules contain a “com
bination of gerrymandering and
at-large schemes” to dilute the
minority vote in next year’s
Democratic primaries.
Mr. Jackson said he would call
on the party to abolish the “win-
college graduates and
college sophomores who
have not taken ROTC
courses the chance to en
ter the program. The
camp also qualifies high
school graduates for the
ROTC program at any of
the nation’s six military
junior colleges.
During the encam-
She switched on the
lights in the room to
reveal an elaborate
neighborhood canvassing
system that uses maps of
Atlanta and Fulton
County, charts and
graphs and rosters of
names. On one wall, pins
flagged with the number
of voters registered dot
ted a map outlining cen
sus tracts. Armed with
these tracts, 900 block
captains canvass their
neighborhoods, giving
residents registration kits,
telling them where they
can vote and driving them
to the polls if necessary.
Georgia changed its law
to allow registration at
such places as K-Mart,
Food Giant and Majik
Market.
“Our plan is to find
those unregistered people
and get them on the
rolls,” says Mrs. John
son. “There are three
phases of our drive: an
intensive campaign that
goes till Dec. 31; another
one in the spring for the
primary, and then for the
general election next
November.”
The NAACP’s cam
paign includes outdoor
billboards and posters on
buses and trains. Con
stant reminders on Black
radio stations also get the
word out, and emphasize
the importance of this
medium in the Black
community. Radio was
given special credit for
the success in Chicago of
Harold Washington,
who, unlike former
Mayor Jane Byrne and
others, could not afford
an expensive television
blitz.
A jamboree of jazz and
popular music planned
for December is expected
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ner-take-all” rule that prevails in
many of the 86 Congressional
districts that have Black
populations of 20 percent or more.
This rule gives all the delegates in
the district to the top vote-getter.
Mr. Jackson wants the rule
replaced by a proportional
representation rule that would
allot delegates to candidates ac
cording to their share of the vote.
Secondly, he said that in districts
that already have such propor
tional rules, he wanted to eliminate
the “threshold,” normally about
20 percent of the total vote, that a
candidate must reach to qualify for
his proportional share.
Mr. Jackson also said he wanted
changes in the rules under which
568 efected officials and party
leaders were assured automatic
delegates seats, contending that
such officials were “mostly white
male.” He said he wanted similar
revisions in rules that allow for the
pment, cadets received
training in basic rifle
marksmanship, military
drill and ceremonies,
communications and in
dividual and small unit
tactics.
Myers plans to enter
the ROTC program at
Fort Valley State College.
to attract young Atlan
tans, who must show
proof of registration to
gain admission.
Registration also will be
conducted on the spot,
says Mrs. Johnson.
The elements of the in
creasingly intensive cam
paign going on in Atlanta
and elsewhere are varied.
In many places, voter
registration and
education campaigns are
tied to electing Black
candidates to high
visibility offices. Before
Edward M. Mclntyre en
tered the race for Mayor
of Augusta four years
ago, he told Black
residents they would have
to register if they wanted
him to run. They did, and
elected him the city’s first
Black Mayor. The
registraton campaign in
Charlotte, N.C., suc
ceeded in making Harvey
Gantt that city’s first
Black Mayor.
In Miami this month,
bloc voting by Blacks was
siad to have been one
major element in the elc
tion of Maurice A. Ferre,
a moderate Democrat, to
a sixth term as Mayor. In
Boston, Black par
ticipation did not appear
to be a main factor in the
record-level turnout at
the mayoral elections, but.
Melvin King garnered an
estimated 20 percent of
the white vote. In the af
termath, his white op
ponent, Raymond L.
Flynn, donned a rainbow
coalition button at vic
tory ceremonies. J.D.
Nelson, King’s campaign
chairman, commented:
“We’ve accomplished a
lot in Boston. A minority
candidate will always be
taken seriously in this city
from now on.”
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appointment of additional
delegates by state party chairmen.
As a fourth step, Mr. Jackson
said, adjustments should be made
for the census undercount,” that,
in his view, skews the party’s
calcualtions on minority represen
tation.
Without’ these changes, Mr.
Jackson said, the Democratic
nominating process can be con
trolled by “party bosses on behalf
of who they think the best nominee
would be against the
Republicans,” and added: “That
is a judgment the people should
make. McGovern and Carter
would not have been nominated
under these rules.”
Mrs. Tate said Mr. Jackson’s
chief advisers, Arnold Pinckey, the
campaign director, and Preston
Love, the deputy, had outlined a
three-point plan to carry out Mr.
Jackson’s demands.
The Augusta News-Review December 10,1983
The first step would be direct
meetings with Southern state
chairmen such as the one already
scheduled between Mr. Jackson
and Bert Lance of Georgia, who
served as budget director in the
Carter Administration. She said
similar meetings might be set up
with party officials in states in
other parts of the country that
have Congressional districts with
large Black populations, such as
those targeted by Mr. Jackson in
New York and Illinois.
if such meetings failed to
produce changes by the states in
the delegate-selection plans that
the states submit to the Democratic
National Committee’s Compliance
Review Commission, the Jackson
campaign would then file
challenges to the state plans with
the national committee, Mrs. Tate
said.
As a third step, Mrs. Tate said,
the plan calls for the Jackson cam-
paign to challenge the seating of
delegations from states with big
minority populations at next year’s
national convention in San Fran
cisco on the ground that “they
were illegally arrived at.”
As a fourth, unifying point, she
said, the plan includes a call for the
“renogtiation of the covenant with
the Democratic Party” under the
theme “unity with justice.”
Investigation of Jackson Ends
WASHINGTON The Justice
Department plans to drop its in
vestigation of Mr. Jackson’s
dealings with Libya, a department
source says.
The inquiry began three years
ago, after a newspaper report that
Libya’s chief diplomat in the
United States contributed SIO,OOO
to Operation PUSH, a Chicago
based civil rights organization then
headed by Mr. Jackson. The
department official said Friday he
found no evidence that Mr.
Jackson “acted on behalf of the
Libyan Government” and should
have registered as a foreign agent.
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