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The Augusta News-Review February 18,1984
Mallory K. MillenderEditor-Publisher
Paul Walker Assistant to the Publisher
Wanda Johnson General Manager/Advertising bir.
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 Allen Columnist
Roosevelt Green Columnist
Al Irby.Columnist
Philip Waring Columnist
Marva Stewart Columnist
George Bailey....,Sports Writer
Carl McCoyEditorial Cartoonist
Olando HamlettPhotographer
Roscoe Williams Photographer
“THE AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW (USPSBB7 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,
f.Q. Box 2123, Augusta, Ga. 30903-2123.”
AMALGAMATED NattoMl AtortWat Repraeatatfre
PUBLISHERS. IMC. *
Time to reflect
Guest Column,
by Chaplain A.C. Redd
February is Black History Mon
th. It is time to take pause and
reflect upon our rich, varied and
troubled past. It is time to remem
ber past heroes and heroines such
as Frederick Douglass, Sorjouner
Truth, and Harriet Tubman. It is
time we re-examine the events
surrounding our enslavement as
well as those that led to the
abolishment of the institution.
What about some of the
tumultuous issues that have been a
part of recent Black History? We
have had to shake foundations
rooted in riotous issues unchanged
even with civil war and antebellum
reconstruction. Today, we still
need Frederick Douglass and the
‘‘deep well” pride of Booker T.
Washington.
We must remember those who
marched like Martin Luther King,
Jr. Those who wrote and preached
like Malcolm X. Those who
protested with Psalms like Rosa
Parks. Those who march to a dif
ferent drummer like Andrew
Young and M-hammad Ali must
also be remem oered. These people
have been able to focus attention
on Blacks in a nation where one
has to shake foundations in order
not to be ignored.
The 60s and 70s saw the
emergence of renewed racial pride.
We marched on Washington, we
also marched beyond the rise and
decline of the Black Panther Party,
and the Angela Davis trial.
These same years saw us migrate
The Mayor Comments
by Edward M. Mclntyre
Another outstanding Black
American is Carl Thomas Rowan,
a noted journalist, diplomat and
author.
Mr. Rowan served his country in
the US Navy during World War II
as a communications officer. He
completed his undergraduate
degree at Oberlin College and
received his M.A. in journalism at
the University of Minnesota.
He wrote several books, one of
which was Wait Till Next Year
(1960), a biography of Jackie
Robinson.
In 1961, he became the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for
Public Affairs under President
Kennedy. He was appointed am
bassador to Finland in 1963,
making him the second Black to
head an embassy in Europe. For a
while he served as the Director of
the United States Information
Agency (UAIA).
Speaking to the Maryland
Teachers Association in October
1965, Mr. Rowan discussed the
contemporary world and sought to
The NAACP hasn’t forgotten!
Don’t forget the NAACP! HELP US HELP OURSELVES.
NAACP
from the Northern cities to
Southern towns. The rise of “The
New South,” in Black-owned
businesses and the Black middle
class was hardly perceptible as we
worked together.
The tremendous impact of Alex
Haley’s “Roots”sent some of us
scurrying in search of our own
pasts.
The Superfly craze, Black ex
ploitation movies, the “New Jazz:
and our rediscovery of old greats
like Fats Waller, Eubie Blake and
Scott Joplin illustrates how our
commitment to the past merges
with our present and our present
with our future.
Yet, do not forget we are still
struggling in a world that becomes
more complicated by the hour. The
celebration of Black History must
be an on-going affair, a daily
presence in our lives, to spur us on
to greater achievements. The
possibilities for our growth as a
race are infinite; Miss America and
4 black astronauts.
We can be confident that those
who follow us four score and seven
years from now will be able to look
back on our times with wonder
ment and pride at our accom
plishments.
OH FREEDOM! OH FREEDOM!
Oh freedom, oh freedom!
Oh freedom over me!
And before I’d be a slave,
I’ll be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord
And be free.
Carl Rowan
answer when it actually began.
After several suggestions, Mr.
Rowan stated that he felt July 16,
1945 was the beginning of our con
temporary world. He selected that
day because he said it was the first
day in the history of mankind on
which, at dawn, two suns rose over
the horizon. One made by God and
one made by man. The man-made
sun was the full blaze of the atomic
bomb whose testing launched us
into the Atomic Age.
He saw this not as a warning or
threat, but as a challenge.
The challenge: “Do we
Americans, who brought to birth
the Atomic Age, have the intellec
tual, moral, and ideological
resources necessary to be its
beneficiaries-or merely its vic
tims?”
Rowan remarked that among
the best defenses we have against a
dangerous future is the values we
instill within our children. It has
been almost 20 years since he made
that speech. How successful have
we been?
Page 4
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BLACK RESOURCES. IMC.
Walking With Dignity
by Al Irby
South Africa naturally
exonerates police, but shows need
to protect
retainees.
What came to
be seen as an
important test
case of human
rights vs. the
tough security j
laws of South |
Africa has en- ’
ded in a
miscarriage of human justice that
certainly will please the reactionary
government.
The celebrated case in question
was a lengthy inquest into the
cause of death of trade unionist
Dr. Neil Aggett, who was found
hanged in his cell earlier this year,
while being detained by South
African security police. A
magistrate ruled Dec. 21 that Dr.
Aggett committed suicide-a fact
not contested by Aggett family
and that the polcie had not driven
the white young medical doctor to
take his own life as his family had
vigorous claimed.
Still, if the verdict was not to the
liking of critics of this anti-black
country’s security practices, the
inquest provided one of the most
sweeping airings South Africa has
Dear Editor:
Thank you for publishing the ar
ticle “Black leaders cautioned on
criticism of Jackson.” I agree with
Minister Farrakhan that Rev.
Jackson’s campaign is “one of the
most far-reaching and significant
events of this century.” I am
disappointed in the attitudes of
some Black leaders toward his
cadidacy, especially Atlanta’s
Mayor Andrew Young.
I have always tnougnt that ne
understood the needs and concerns
of Blacks, Hispanics and poor
whites; and therefore, I find it dif
ficult to believe that he is among
those who profess that “now is not
the time for a Black president.”
I agree tht Ronald Reagan must
be beat, but we need more than
someone who can just beat Ronald
Reagan. We need someone with a
Open letter to Charles Walker, George Brown
Dear Editor:
This is an open letter to State
Rep. Charles W. Walker and State
Rep. George Brown. In remarks
that have appeared in the paper
concerning district-voting, as well
as g within the city,
South Africa always exonerates police
MMt
Disappointed in Andy Young
een of what goes on in the hated
detention cells, comparable to the
French’s “despired Devil Island.”
Lawyers representing the Aggett
family were allowed to call a num
ber of former security guards to
testify, and they told horrible
stories of torture and intimidation
by security police interrogators.
The allegations of maltreatment of
prisoners has gained such
credibility that South Africa’s
minister of law and order, Louis
LeGrange, recently drew up his
country’s first code of conduct for
how prisoners should be treated by
police.
Human-rights advocates were
not satisfied with the new code but
took some comfort in the gover
nment’s tacit admission that
security prisoners needed more
protection. It took a popular
young white medical man to make
the brutal South African gover
nment grudgingy admit that in
justice in its penal institutions are
horrendous.
Dr. Aggett was the 46th security
prisoner, but the first white, to die
while in South African police
custody. The young white medic
had been detained for his in
volvement with the outlawed black
African National Congress. The
inquest came down to the word of
Letter to the Editor
conscience, someone who will not
let America forget the homeless,
the jobless and the hungry, We
need a man of God in the White
House, a man who believes that all
life is precious and sacred, not just
the rich and powerful.
I become afraid everytime I hear
a “leader” say “now is not the
time for a Black president.” If not
now, when? Someone once said
now was not the time for Black
councilmen, mayors, state
representatives...to end slavery. If
we had waited until the right time,
we wouldn’t have any Black elec
ted officials. We would probably
still be sharecropping.
Minister Farrakhan said Rev.
Jackson’s candidacy will stimulate
and awaken the Black Church. It
will also stimulate and awaken
young Black children and adults
some deals have been spoken of
Any deals of any sort are not ac
ceptable to the Blacks that I have
talked to.
Instead we will go to the courts,
with the best lawyers available (as
the Blacks iaßurke County and
the security police vs. charges
made by Dr. Aggett himself before
his death that he had been tortured
by the police.
Os course this allegation of tor
ture was supported by testimony of
other prison detainees who
described similar treatment during
their incarcerations. Some of these
prisoners actually saw Aggett while
he was in prison and said his con
dition deteriorated noticeably just
before his death.
Butt the Magistrate naturally
granted more credibility to the
testimony of the white security
police, who always corroborated
each other, than to the detainees,
who were mostly Black, which he
said contained contradictions. Os
course the police denied
mistreating Dr. Aggett.
South Africa’s security laws
allow for indefinite detention and
deny security prisoners any rights
to legal representation or even to
visits by family members. The
government is now in a position to
point to the Aggett inquest as
proof its security police are
operating correctly-despite the
growing number of prisoners who
die while in their custody. Black
prisoners continue to die enmasse
in South Africa’s “Hell Holes”
jails and detainees pens.
who are watching this race closely
and frowning at leaders who are
not supportive. For the first time
in the history of this country young
Black children can begin to think
about running for the President of
the United States. They know they
can run because Jesse is running!
“Run, Jesse, Run” is what we
should ALL be chanting, for to
run is to win. He wins everytime
someone registers to vote because
of his candidacy. He wins
everytime a five-year-old
recognizes him on TV. He wins
everytime he reminds America that
the defense budget is not our only
concern. The only time he loses is
when a Black leader says “now is
not the time.”
Cecilia Johnson
2818 Nighthawk Dr.
other counties in South Georgia
have done), and let the county and
city pay the price. And deal with
the dealers at the polls when the
time come. No deals at any price.
Rev. Charlie Moore
Crawford Baptist Church
To Be Equal
by John E. Jacob
All the discussion about the
Administration’s proposed 1935
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revolves around 1
the huge
deficit, and the
continuing defi
cits of un
precedented |
size that are
projected far
into the future.
There’s no question that such
large deficits are going to spell
trouble sooner or hrta. For the
present, the helped fuel
the recovery and will most likely
keep it alive for some time.
But the debate about the deficit
is pre-emptihg the debate that
ought to be taking place about the
budget itself. A federal budget is
supposed to be more than just an
account book—it is the means
through which the government
meets the nation’s needs and sets
priorities.
Given the failure of this budget
to meet national needs and to set
reasonable national priorities, the
debate ought to be shifted back to
the essentials. If we do
that—restructuring spending
priorities and raising the revenues
to meet them—the deficit will
largely take care of itself.
Although David Stockman, the
director of the Office of
Management and Budget, recently
admitted in an interview that social
programs had already been cut to
the bone and that little remains to
be cut, this budget aims to reduce
appropriations for survival
programs.
For example, even though a
presidential commission recently
urged a rise in outlays of food
programs, the budget would cut
food stamps by S4OO million. It
also wants to cut welfare by over
S6OO million. So there’s about $1
million coming out of two basic
programs that allow the poor
people a bare survival existence.
For all programs for the
poor—that is, means-tested
programs open only to those
making less than the inadequate
poverty-line level that actually
measures extreme
deprivation—the budget would cut
almost $3 billion.
Let’s not forget that this is on
massive cuts made over
the past three years—cuts that
eliminated some vital programs
such as public service jobs and
crippled others, such as legal ser
vices, while stripping surviving
programs to the bone.
So these fresh cuts can’t be seen
in isolation—they are too often
painted as “small” or “minor”
but unconscionable after cuts that
have already taken sllO billion out
of food, welfare, job and other key
programs over the past three years.
They are even harder to swallow
when the programs for the poor
are about the only ones slated for
cutting, and when the Pentagon is
asking for $33 billion more than it
got last year—an astounding 14.5
percent jump.
In fact, the budget’s increase for
military spending in 1985 is larger
than the total spending for food,
welfare and jobs programs.
Now that suggests upside-down
priorities. A bloated Pentagon is
vacuuming in federal resources at
an unprecedented rate, resulting in
cuts elsewhere that harm the
economy and increase the suf
ferings of poor people.
The MX missile is a good exam
ple—the budget asks for $5 billion
to buy 40 of them. Think about
it—the Administration wants to
spend more on a useless nuclear
weapon than it will on all federal
job training programs put
together.
The much-criticized B-l bomber
is another. The Air Force wants
$8.2 billion to buy 34 planes, or
more than the total cost of the
federal welfare program for the
poorest of the poor.
The increase in the budget for
the B-l this year is $1.3 billion over
1984’s budget. That is more than
the total cuts asked for in food,
welfare and job programs. In ef
fect, the hungry and the poor are
asked to make up the increase in
spending for the bomber.
So let’s hear less about the
monetary deficit in this budget and
more about the moral deficit that
occurs when federal priorities
sabotage the vitality of the
economy and the needs of its
neediest.