Newspaper Page Text
Voting:
the new
Black Power
Page 1
Stye Augusta New-Hteutew
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Volume 13 Number 35
Klansman, two others
attack Black officers,
get suspended sentence
'Pressure'
said to be
the reason
The manager of the Greyhound
bus station, who is Black, said that
he cried after a known member of
the Ku Klux Klan and two other
white men armed with .38
revolvers and brass knuckles at
tacked two Black Augusta police
officers and were given suspended
sentences Dec. 9 and fines
ranging from $250 to SSOO.
We regret very much the
action of four of the
members of the Richmond
County Board of Com
missioners in arbitrarily
creating a county police
force, and reducing the
authority and respon
sibility of the sheriff,
following the resignation
of Sheriff J.B. Dykes last
week.
The commissioners took
this action without any
public discussion, without
any public feedback, and
certainly without con
sideration for the will of
the people of Richmond
County. Once again we’re
being told, “You’re going
to have it whether you like
it or not.”
It’s time for the powers
that be to try to ram con-
By Paul Delaney,
assistant national editor
of the New York Times.
Part three of a series
The highly organized and effec
tive registration campaigns, con
ducted nationally and locally, hope
to produce more victories.
Operation Big Vote in Washington
oversees the national effort,
providing advice to local leaders
conducting registration drives. The
operation is nonpartisan and spon
sored by tghe National Coalition
on Black Voter Participation,
which comprises various national
and regional groups. The
Republican National Committee,
for example, and other groups
each pay an annual membership
fee of $250 to participate in the
coalition. Some Black Republicans
feel their party is cutting-its own
throat by helping to register a
group that is likely to vote over
whelmingly for Democrats.
The local campaigns appear tc
be attracting a good number of the
young as volunteers. They were
the foot soldiers of the re-election
campaigns in Augusta and Bir
mingham, where Richard
Arrington recently won a second
term as Mayor. Leaders, expecting
more to sign on next year, are
aiming programs expressly at the
“To say that there was a
miscarriage of justice is an under
statement,” said Jesse Attucks, the
first Black to head the Greyhound
station in Augusta. “Imagine what
would have happened if Blacks
had attacked white officers.
“I’ve seen people charged with
DUI (driving under influence) get a
S6OO fine. And these men attack
police officers and get $250 and
SSOO fines.”
The three men were employees
of the local Greyhound station.
Attucks said he fired all three of
them.
Recall appropriate
Editorial
solidation through again,
and last week’s action by
the county commission
was but a prelude of things
to come.
These same people will
be in the forefront of those
calling for consolidation
and talking about how
economical it is, and how
important it is to have a
unified government.
Then why are they
dividing the Sheriff’s
Department between a
county police chief and the
sheriff? Won’t they have
to pay two men where
they’ve previously just,
paid one? Won’t there be
two different sets of ad
ministrative personnel
where previously there
was one? And why are
some people being
Voting: The New Black Power
young, who have the worst votging
record of anyh segment of the elec
torate. The N.A.A.C.P. reported
that during a 360-mile
“overground railroad” march
from Covington, Ky., to Detroit
that it staged last summer, and
which was led by Executive Direc
tor, Benjamin L. Hooks, many of
the 5,000 new voters enlisted were
young people.
Recently, formal and informal
conferences on the local and
national level have helped rally
Blacks around the issues. The an
nual Congressional Black Caucus
Weekend last September and a
special meeting called last summer
by the National Black Conference
of Locally Elected Officials both
discussed broad political issues.
New Jersey Blacks held a similar
conference last summer. As part of
an effort to defeat Mayor Koch in
the next election, New York City
. Blacks have held conventions the
i last two summers. The Coalition
. so a Just New York has begun a
1 voter-registration drive whose
1 slogan is “Strive for 85.”
That the Democratic Party will
j be the beneficiary of most of the
Isley Brothers
make music
and money
Page 3
“When you approach a police,
officer in uniform and you ask an
officer,‘l understand you want to
kick my...,* you’re wrong.”
“When a city councilman can
apply pressure and get the charges
reduced, something is wrong with
the system.” City Councilman
Charles DeVaney reportedly put
pressure on members of the
Augusta Police Department to get
the Black officers to drop their
charges.
DeVaney denied having any in-
See DeVaney page 6
demoted and suffering loss
of wages because of this
change? Where’s the
economy? Where’s the ef
ficiency? Where is the
justification?
This country is sup
posed to be run by the
majority of the people, not
by the few and the powerful.
We believe that those
citizens who have initiated
a recall of participating
county commissioners
ought to be supported.
Elected officials who
ignore the will of the
people—who have in
dicated three times by their
votes that they do not
want their chief law enfor
cement official to be ap
pointed—have abused
their trust and ought to be
recalled.
registration and politicization ,is
almost universally accepted.
Blacks have been the party’s most
consistent constituency, casting 20
to 22 percent of the Democratic
vote total in the last four Presiden
tial elections— making them more
loyal than Jews, ethnic Catholics,
Hispanics or Southern whites.
“Two things Democratic can
didates must realize,” says
Williams of the Joint Center for
Political Studies. “They must
come by the Black community in
the primaries and again in the
general election, and the
Democrats can’t win without a
strong black vote.”
Most Black leaders agree. Black
numerical strength is apparent
throughout the country, par
ticularly in the key industrial states
of New York, New Jersey, Illinois,
Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
According to a Joint Center study
analyzing the Black vote, “No
presidential candidate since
Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 has
won the Presidency wsitghout
winning at least three of these six
Cross I
. 330 0<
mcandi
a j AUGUST I ,
front
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December 16,1983
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jug 11 : .1
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STREET PAVING —Mayor Edward M. Mclntyre points to sidewalk and paving on Ander
son Avenue. He said the street was recently paved for the first time in more than 50 years.
Mayor Edward M. Mclntyre has
not announced whether he intends
to seek re-election next year, but he
talks like a man already on the
campaign trail.
In a recent interview, the mayor
said that he “initiated every project
in my platform during the first six
months in office, and more.”
On Wednesday, he announced
that Lily Tulip Company reportedly
Cross burned
in candidate ’s
front yard
Elmer R. Singley, an announced
candidate for sheriff of Richmond
County, told the News-Review
Saturday evening that a cross had
been burned in the yard of his
Moncrief Avenue home about 8:15
See Cross page 3
states. In a closely contested elec
tion, a chhesive Black vote can
easily be decisive in all of them.”
“The 1982 election was the first
post-Reagan election and was a
good example of the power of the
Black vote,” comments Eddie
Williams. “Blacks elected four
new Black members of the House;
they were the determiningjactor in
several state elections, including
the gubernatorial races in New
York and Texas; they defeated
three conservative Republican
Congressmen, and helped several
moderate Congressmen retain their
seats.”
The center’s study concluded
that the off-year election was, in
effect, a referendum on President
Reagan. Polls, including one by
The New York Times/CBS News,
also showed that Blacks were less
willing than whites to be patient
with the Administratrion and give
its programs a chance.
“Because many whites were
sympathetic to Reagan’s stated
goals in the abstract, but were
troubled by the concrete evidence
that his policies were producing
economic hardship,” wrote
Mclntyre ready
for campaign trail
Less than 75 percent Advertising
one of the nation’s four largest
privately owned companies, will
move its national headquarters to
Augusta. However, he cannot
savor his accomplishments for
long. He knows that everyday will
bring new challenges.
The name most frequently men
tioned as a likely opponent in
Mclntyre’s re-election bid is
businessman Bernie Silverstein.
Asked why he expects Silverstein
to oppose him, he said, “Through
the years, he’s been wanting to run
for something. You’ll remember
they had his picture in the paper
before the last county commission
race. He was going to run for the
county commission. He’s been
talking about running for public
office for 10 years.
I don’t know that it is so much
that he is against me as it is his
having this great desire to run for
public office. There will be some
other people running. But our plan
Thomas E. Cavanagh, a research
associate at the Joint Center and
the author of tghe study, “many
whites appear to have reserved
judgment on Reagan’s policies and
cast their votes primarily on other
grounds, while Blacks considered
both themselves and the country in
jeopardy from Reagan’s policies,
and therefore voted Democratic.
“with over seven million voting
age Blacks remaining unregistered,
the addition of up to two million
additional Black voters to the
registration rolls would appear to
be a realistic possibility.”
The target next year is not only
President Reagan, but a number of
Senate Republicans, including
Thurmond, Jesse Helms of North
Carolina and Thad Cochran of
Mississippi. Blacks also hope to
play a leading role in determining
the outcome in Senate races in
Tennessee and Texas, where
Senate Majority Leader Howard
H.Baker Jr. and John Tower,
respectively, are retiring. Other
Republicans, like Senator Charles
Percy of Illinois, who other wise
have good civil-rights records,
might be victims of the anti-
Recall
83
3R4ry lent
ied
Page 1
will be to win.”
The mayor points proudly to
having given city employees “the
highest raise in history of the city
in a single year and, in the same
year, reduced the millage rate by
2.5 mills.”
He also notes that during his
administration the city got its first
Urban Development Action Grant.
“I’m committed to putting
single-family residence homes on
the last Urban Renewal land in the
Laney-Walker area. We’re going
to update housing in the inner
city.”
Complementing that is
Operation Paint Brush program
where low income residents are
given free paint, and the facade
grant program where the city will
restore the fronts of old buddings
and homes as long as the owners
See Mclntyre page 3
Reagan sentiment.
Fingering his glass of Scotch in
tghe Palm Tavern, Conrad
Worrill, a history professor at
Northeastern University’s Center
for Inner Cities Studies,
reminisced about his participation
in Harold Washington’s. Chicago
mayoral campaign. He and the
tavern’s owner, Gerri Oliver,
recalled the brief moment of
renewed glory the campaign
brought East 47tgh Street, a
thoroughfare of dilapidated
buildings separating the well
ordered lawns of Hyde Park from
some of Chicago’s worst slums.
The tavern, across the street from
the somber brick building that was
Washington’s campaign headquar
ters, served as the watering hole
for workers and the place to
celebrate the upset victory last
April.
For Worrill, a militant, the ex
citement of the last campaign is
gone, and Washington is now
several miles away in City Hall,
where he has become embroiled in
a power struggle with the City
See Black Power
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