Newspaper Page Text
The Augusta News-Review December 10,1983
Mallory Ki MilleitderEditor-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. Ileen Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor
Wilbert AllenColumnisJ
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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Civil Rights Journal
The Day After
by Dr. Charles E. Cobb
The nation has been
anesthesized by the recent viewing
r '.
“Day After,”
a dramatic
presentation de
picting the ef
fects of nuclear
war.
Intense emo
tions ranging
from fear to
anger to con-
fusion dominated the minds of all
Americans. This was one of the
most graphic illustrations of the
annihilation of human life we have
witnessed as a nation. The topic of
nuclear disarmament was being
discussed in homes, classrooms,
offices and even the halls of
Congress.
Nuclear disarmament and.
nuclear war are issues that the
majority of Americans have either
consciously or unconsciously
decided to ignore. However, after
viewing “The Day After” it will
become increasingly more difficult
to ignore what some have termed a
paper tiger.
The film contained many
dramatic points which will not
soon be forgotten but if we are to
prevent the ultimate holocaust, we
as a nation must take this fictional
episode as a warning. We must use
this as a pretext for mounting a
clear and convincing peace
movement.
Just imagine in less than one
hour the entire world could be en
veloped in a ball of flames and
saturated in such immense den
sities of radioactivity that all life
~ The Mayor Comments
Lily Tulip move
an economic boom
by Edward M. Mclntyre
Our downtown revitalization ef
forts received a tremendous boost
with the
unanimous vote
by Gty Coun
cil to ap
propriate fun
ds to be used to
entice a com
pany into
locating its
corporate head-
quarters in downtown Augusta. If
our efforts are successful, and we
believe they will be, the benefits to
our community can be far reaching
and our money will have been well
spent.
First, we will have the immediate
impact of employment oppor
tunities for 40-50 of our citizens
SUPPORT
THE
NAACP
Page 4
would be stilled within one week.
This is not the kind of power to be
resident in the hands of men, who
are drunk with power.
Europeans are more ap
preciative of the threat of nuclear
war. They have been the victims of
bombs and direct attacks
Americans have only heard and
read of such, and the majority of
Americans have not experienced
the fear associated with invasion.
For these reasons, perhaps, the
only way to touch the souls of
America is thru the media. The
tragedies of much of the world are
only tales of despair in this country
of abundance.
Many of the political commen
tators followed the viewing with
either caustic remarks telling of the
film writers propaganda motive or
of its unrealistic nature.
Still others said the realities are
that we must maintain a nuclear
arsenal sufficient to deter the
Soviet Union from aggressive ac
tion.
Now, if the Soviets maintain a
similar attitude, then where do we
stand? Have we positioned our
selves into a posture of inevitable
doom? What are we to do, wait
until Murphy’s Law takes effect?
Now is the time to stop. Stop the
spiralling madness of production
and proliferation of nuclear
weapons before we have no more
todays or tomorrows.
We must not allow the facts that
this drama attempted to demon
strate to fall into the crevices of
our minds. Because as was made
crystal clear, in the event of a
nuclear attack or mistake, business
will not go on as usual.
and for 200-300 more over the next
few years. At the same time the
city’s tax base will increase. An in
crease in our city’s tax base will
benefit all citizens.
We have hopes that this move
will be the beginning of others to
our great city. Our city needs to at
tract more companies in order to
continue our redevelopment and
economic growth.
We should always welcome the
addition of a financially sound and
prudently managed company to
our community.
I would like to commend our
council for their courageous step
and thank the many private in
dividuals who have worked so
diligently on this effort on behalf
of our city. Our community and its
citizens will be the recipients of the
rewards.
l Luffing
H J /tTi I I
I < A/
I
■ -..J- " ' I
I I I
sebor/
|BLACK RESOURCES IMG.
To Be Eyual_
The economic recovery
by John E. Jacob
The conomy appears to be
moving out of the depths of
depression, and.
virtually all
commentators
are heralding
the return of
good times.
But such op- I
timism is un
warranted,
warranted.
MM
-I ]|
■■FTMI i’
That’s because a cyclical
recovery from a deep ecnomic slide
doesn’t address the structural
problems in the economy that con
tinue to be troubling.
Another important reason is
that a broad, overall recovery may
mean an improvement in some key
economic indicators but it masks
the fact that many millions,
especially Blacks and browns,
don’t participate in the recovery.
In fact, the best that can be said
is that if the recovery continues the
depression in the minority com
munity will only improve to
recession levels.
After the deep recession of the
mid-seventies it took a long time
for Blacks to recover, and even
then Black employment and pover
ty figures remained at historically
high levels.
In fact, an Urban League study
at the time indicated that Black
men had not returned to their pre
recession employment levels in
private industry, even at a time
when the recovery had entered its
peak phase.
Investments in apartheid forbidden
The House of Representatives
has passed a precedent setting
initiative prohibiting new invest
ments in South Africa. For more
than two years, with the support of
my colleagues of the Congressional
Black Caucus I have worked to
gain passage of legislation to end
United States economic support
for the South African apartheid
system.
This is a major victory for Black
America because this is the first
time in the history of the United
States that the U.S. House of
Representatives has taken such
direct action aimed at correcting
the inequities in the political, social
and economic life of South Africa.
My amendment directs the
President to develop regulations
prohibiting all new investments in
South Africa. These economic
sanctions will be lifted when both
the President and the Congress
determine that South Africa has
made substantial progress toward
eliminating their apartheid system.
The overwhelming support by
the Members of the U.S. House of
Representatives was indicative of
the fact that the current Ad
ministration’s policy of “construc
tive engagement” is not working,
and that direct action must be
taken by the United States to send
a signal to the South African
government that our government
will no longer provide the
economic underpinning for the
repressive government of South
Africa.
My amendment seeks to end new
economic support of apartheid in
a moderate way, while the same
time not interfering with the $7-
sl4 billion export-import trade
While the decline in the unem
ployment rate is long overdue and
to be welcomed, we still have to
understand that statistics don’t
always reflect reality.
For example, although the
overall unemployment rate is down
that doesn’t mean there is less
unemployment. The unem
ployment rate measures
joblessness among people in the
labor force. The government coun
ts as employed many millions who
work part-time when they really
want full-time jobs. And
discouraged workers who have
given up hope of finding jobs are
not counted as being in the labor
force.
So when the unemployment rate
goes down, it often simply means
that many people have dropped
out of the labor force. The recent
drop in the unemployment rate in
dicates that some new jobs have
become available, but it also tells
us that many people whose exten
ded unemployment benefits have
run out and many who have drop
ped out of the job market are no
longer being counted.
It is dangerous for policy
makers to become fixated on the
flawed unemployment rate
statistic, for it does not really
measure total unemployment. In
the course of a year there will be
well over twice as many people ex
periencing some jobless spell as
there are unemployed people in
any given month.
Last year, while the monthly
figures were telling us that eleven
between the United States and
South Africa. Nor does it require
any American corporation presen
tly in South Africa to divest their
operation and leave the country.
Nor does it prevent the reinvest
ment of profits earned by those
firms in South Africa who are U.S.
owned subsidiaries.
During the 97th Congress, two
Subcommittees of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee—the
Subcommittee on International
Economic Policy and Trade and
the Subcommittee on Africa ap
proved the intent of my amen
dment when they approved H.R.
3597, both I might add by large
majorities.
My amendment was essentially
the same as H.R. 3597, which I fir
st introduced in the 97th Congress
and reintroduced this year as H.R.
1392.
The need for congressional ac
tion to halt new investment in
South Africa has grown more
acute since the bill was first in
troduced in May 1981. South
African repression has become
more harsh for the 80-percent
majority including those who labor
in American subsidiaries in that
country.
South Africa is the only country
in the free world which practices
legally mandated racial segregation
and oppression, resulting in semi
slave status for 80 percent of its
population; the jailing, torture,
and death of nearly one-third of its
Black labor leaders; the assign
ment of the 70-percent Black
majority to an impoverished 13-
percent of the land, and the
establishment of a military council
whose sole purpose is to insure that
million people were unemployed,
the total of those who were jobless
for some time during the year was
well over 26 million. And that’s
using the official labor force
definition, not including the
millions of uncounted unem
ployed.
Also troubling is the Black-white
differential in employment. In a
recovery, white unemployment
goes down fairly quickly while
Black unemployment, after a
period of stability, begins to drift
down slowly.
This is an example of the way
each successive recession leaves
Blacks further behind. It’s hard to
get enthusiastic about an economic
recovery that does not touch the
people most in need of recovery.
At the height of the recovery
period, smokestack industries that
had been shutting plants down
usually begin rehiring workers.
That may happen again, but at the
same time those industries are in
vesting heavily in labor-saving
technology.
That suggests their work force
levels will not return to pre
recession levels, even if business
picks up. It alsoi suggests that
Black workers, disproportionately
concentrated in those industries,
will continue to be jobless, whether
counted as such or not.
All of this is not to write off the
significance of the recovery. It is
good to have higher gross national
product, higher profits, and higher
see Economic, page 7
the apartheid systems remain intact.
From 1950-1981, U.S. direct in
vestments in South Africa grew
from $l4O million to $2.6 billion,
while during the same time, the in
sidious grip of apartheid expan
ded. These investments have
provided the economic underpin
ning upon which apartheid has
flourished and every new U.S. in
vestment has helped to continue
and strengthen that apartheid.
Passage of my amendment
clearly shows that the United
States, the champion of democracy
and human rights in the free world
can no longer continue to do
busine'ss as usual with South
Africa. And adoption of my
amendment represents a moderate,
yet direct approach, which must be
taken if our fundamental
economic and political interests on
the continent of Africa are not to
suffer-especially in the wake of
continued polarization and violen
ce in South Africa.
Passage of this amendment
definitively states, as we did in the
past when we applied sanctions to
over 18 other nations—ranging
from Poland to Uganda—what
our great Nation’s values are and
that we are willing to act against
oppression wherever it exists.
Now the question is whether the
U.S. Senate, and the President will
hear the voices of those in the
United States opposed to apartheid
in South Africa. Enactment of this
legislation into law will not bring
an immediate end to apartheid, but
it will clearly demonstrate that the
United States will no longer con
tinue to provide economic support
for apartheid through new invest
ments.
Walking With Dignity
Mandela
unifies
Blacks
by Al Irby
Do not be misled by the bursting
of bombs. World attention may be
back to Black movements based
inside the country.
This assessment comes from
Winnie Mandela, one of South
Africa’s most prominent Black ac
tivists.
Mrs. Mandela is a stalwart sup
porter of the aims of the African
National Congress (ANC), the
group that is the source of rising
sabotage in the land of Black
hatred.
But she is delighted with the
trend toward strengthened Black
politics by other groups in the
country. She thinks a new phase of
internal Black activism is dawning
that is carrying on in the tradition
of the ANC. She sees this
development as complimentary,
rather than at odds with whatever
tactics the outlawed ANC is using
from the outside.
But Mrs. Mandela also believes
some of the emerging Black ac
tivists are naive. It is naive for
proponents of the resurgent
“Black consciousness” movement
to exclude whites since one cannot
simply wish away the whites in
South Africa, she feels.
Such a view is extremist, she
thinks. To her, the non-racialism
long preached by the ANC is the
only answer. Mrs. Mandela’s
husband, ANC leader Nelson
Mandela, is serving a life sentence
for attempting to overthrow the
government.
Every attempt has been made to
send Mrs. Mandela into political
oblivion, too. She has been banned
for 22 years, and exiled for the last
seven in the remote farm town
where Blacks live out of sight,
emerging only to work for the
white community.
Mrs. Mandela’s banning order
prevents her from being quoted,
but the views outlined here come
from a lengthy interview with her,
and from conversations with Black
New York newspapermen, and
slipped out of the country. Friends
say Mrs. Mandela does not lament
about her life far away from
Soweto, the Black township near
Johannesburg where she was a key
political leader. A trained social
worker, she is immersed in com
munity work in rural Brandfort.
She is organizing a mobile clinic
for first aid, and helping to set up
soup kitchens for hungry Blacks,
hard-hit severe drought.
Rather than taking Mrs. Man
dela off the political map, the
government has in fact put tiny
Brandfort on the road map of in
fluential visitors to this rustic
town.
In addition, up to 75 letters a
day arrive pledging support from
all comers of the world. What one
learns on a visit to Mrs. Mandela’s
three-room home—friends say she
calls it “three cells put
together”—is not comforting.
Those close to her say she con
siders it inevitiable that a violent
end will come to South Africa’s
ruling white-minority government.
Asking what the government can
do to gain some good will from the
Black majority is dealing in
hypotheticals, Mrs. Mandela is
said to believe. She sees the gover
nment pressing ahead undaunted
with its apartheid, a policy it
knows is rejected by the Black
majority.
Close associates say Mrs. Man
dela regards the new constitution
the government has drawn up in
the name of so-call “reform” as
“the worst of all the apartheid
measures,” enacted-by the ruling
white Afrikaners.
The recently new constitution
will bring Coloreds (persons of
mixed race descent) and Indians in
to Parliament as junior partners.
But it will still exclude the 72 per
cent of South Africa’s population
that is Black.
Friends say Mrs. Mandela sees
the passing of this flakey con
stitution as “the best recipe for the
worst violence, the worst possible
confrontation between Blacks and
whites.”
focused on
rising sabotage
sponsored by a
group outside
South Africa,
but the real
initiative in
Black politics
is a winging