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Hosea Williams Civil rights leader Parren Mitchell 11 Chemical company
won’t seek Clarence Mitchell won’t su]
re-election dies at 73 Jesse Jac group
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Augusta Nnus-fßeuieui
VOLUME 19 NUMBER 48
Dr. Ben E. Mays dies
Funeral services for the Dr. Ben
jamin Elijah Mays, president
emeritus of Morehouse College,
will be held Saturday at 1 p.m. in
the chapel of Morehouse College.
Dr. Samuel Dußois Cooke,
president of Dillard University,
who was a classmate of Dr. Martin
Luther King at Morehouse, will
deliver the eulogy
Dr. Mays died Wednesday in an
Atlanta Hospital. He was 89.
Morehouse graduates in
Augusta generally found it dif
ficult to measure the ultimate im
pact of his life. Attorney John H.
Ruffin Jr. said, “It is impossible to
assess the impact of a man of his
statue. He exerted great influence
not only on his students and
colleagues, but on humanity. His
contributions are legend and in
capable of assessment.
“Os the almost 50 honorary
degrees he received, I doubt that
you will find 10 men with as many.
That’s important because it shows
how people in his field feel about
him. It had reached the point
where the people awarding the
degrees were honored to give him
the degree, rather than him being
honored to receive it.”
Ruffin said that outside of his
family, Dr. Mays was “the person
who made the greatest impact on
my life.”
Dr. Roger Williams, dean for
Academic Affairs at Paine
Concerned Citizens reject
chemical company proposal
by Theresa Minor
The Concerned Citizens Com
mittee has flatly rejected a
proposed screening program set up
to monitor workers of the Augusta
Chemical Company, intended to
identify those workers who may
have contracted cancer as a result
of their employment with the plant.
A class-action suit was filed
against Synalloy Corp., parent
company of the Augsta Chemical
Company, in 1981 by seven former
employees of the plant. The suit
charged that the Spartanburg,
South Carolina based company
was negligent, in not telling em
ployees that they were handling a
chemical —betanapthlamine
(BNA) —known to cause cancer in
laboratory animals.
The proposed screening
program is one of the results of the
suit, geared toward workers of the
company from 1949 to 1972 when
the use of BNA was banned by
the federal agency OSHA (Oc
cupational Safety Hazard Agen
cy).
Though the Concerned Citizens
Committee has been pushing for
the screening program for nearly
four years, it nevertheless turned
down the Synalloy proposal largely
because it would be controled by
the corporation.
The proposal would also entitle
a chemical worker up to SIO,OOO in
medical expenses should cancer be
diagnosed.
James Sturgis, a former
chemical worker, was sharply
critical of the plan, stating,
“Before they (Synalloy) give you
the money you’re going to be on
, welfare. I’ll never sign it (screening
proposal) You’ll be dead before
I they give you the money.”
f J
I
■t
Dr. Benjamin Mays
College, lived in Dr. Mays’ home
during his freshman and
sophomore years at Morehouse
(1962-64).
Williams said, “When a man
has made that much impact it is
both easy and difficult. He went
on presidential missions. He was
outstanding in religion, civil rights
and particularly in education. His
presence meant an awful lot.
“I remember fondly the
Tuesday chapel programs,”
Williams recalled. “At that time
Morehouse had chapel every day,
but Tuesday was his day. He
would tell us ‘never allow yourself
to be put in a compromising
position. Live so you won’t have to
compromise for any reason.”
Sturgis has had to have an
operation stemming from bladder
cancer diagnosed after he quit the
Augusta Chemical Company. He
also handled BNA (used in making
*dye) while employed with the E.I.
Dupon de Nemours and Co. He
states that he as reached an
agreement with Dupont which will
“pay me yearly, and take care of
me for life.”
The former chemical worker
also revealed personal tragedies
which he links directly to the
chemical controversy.
“My son became sick while em
ployed with Augusta Chemical
Company. He was sick April 11,
1971 and died April 14,1971.
“Two of my friends died this
year from cancer. I’ll never go
back to the gate,” he said.
Wilbert Allen, Concerned
Citizens Committee member, said
90-percent of the plant’s em
ployees are Black, adding, “The
political structure’s reaction would
have been different if'9o-percent
were white.”
Allen went on to say that a more
acceptable plan would be for the
screening program to be handled
by a panel consisting of “an in
dependent urologist, a pathologist,
a Medical College of Georgia
representative (MCG has been con
tracted to handle the program), a
Concerned Citizens Committee
member, a representative of
Synalloy, and a chemical worker.”
Allen said the governing panel
would ensure that data compiled
from the screening program will
not be “white-washed.”
The group also objects to the
plan for Spartanburg chemical
workers to be monitored long
distance by sending urine samples
Those familiar with Black
colleges fully understood Dr. Mays
saying: “These are the schools who
always and forever have to do so
much with so little.”
Then Williams said of Dr. Mays’
death, “It’s like the passing of an
era.”
Mayor Edward Mclntyre, who
was a Morehouse classmate of
former Atlanta Mayor Maynard
Jackson and Fulton County
Commissioner Reginald Eaves,
said, Dr. Mays “was like a father
to a nation. He instilled in us that
our obligation was to make
America realize its obligation to
the fulfillment of its people.”
The mayor said Dr. Mays would
always remind his students that as
Blacks, they had to run twice as
fast in order to catch up.
Mclntyre remembers Dr. Mays
chastising Morehouse students for.
attending the then-segregated Fox
Theatre. He told them, “I cannot
believe that a Morehouse man will
sit up in a chicken roof paying for
segregation.”
One of the favorite sayings of
the 27-year Morehouse president
was, “For a man or woman to
come into the world and not to
make it better than they found it, is
like they never lived at all.”
Mclntyre concluded, “He’ll
never die. He’ll always live in the
hearts and souls and minds of all
who knew him.”
to MCG during the screening
program.
“As far as we know, Synalloy
has not screened any of the
workers at Spartanburg,” said
Allen.
A mass meeting is slated for
April 30 to gather as many workers
as possible in order to make a
decision as to whether or not the
group should battle it out in court
with the Synalloy Corp.
bJ’
- pg
PAINE COLLEGE President William
Harris with Secretary of State Max Cleland at
March 31,1984
ft
Charles Grant
Grants runs for
commission seat
Former Augusta-Richmond
County Planning Commission
Chairman, Charles Grant says he
has been thinking about running
for the county commission for
four years. On Monday the
thought became reality, with
Grant’s announcement that he is a
candidate for the 88th district seat
on the county panel.
Grant’s rival for the post is his
neighbor, educator Henry
Brigham.
The 47-year old computer
analyst said during a press con
ference that he intends to work for
efficiency in spending. He also
stated that he favored an appoin
ted police chief for the county over
an elected sheriff.
Grant is vying for the elected
post on a completely revamped
county commission, enlarged
recently from five to six members
by the Georgia General Assembly.
Under the new structure, local
lawmakers say it is feasible that the
county commission could have two
Black members elected to the
panel.
Brigham had previously stated
tht the new make-up of the panel,
which will now be elected from
districts rather than at-large, has
forced the county government into
a new era —“out of the horse-and
buggy days.” Grant countered in
saying, “I’d say the buggy whip
was thrown away some time ago.”
Grant is running in the Augusta
Democratic primary but said he
would seek bipartisan support.
Less than 75 percent Advertising
Jesse Jackson has demon
strated clearly in this
political season that Black
voters are just as en
thusiastic—perhaps even
more so—about going to the
polls as whites, if they feel
they have a genuine stake in
the election process.
(With official returns
finally in from Super
Tuesday, Blacks may have
comprised as much as 50
percent of the total March 13
Democratic primary vote in
Georgia, the secretary of
state’s office estimates. Only
about 25 percent of the white
vote turned out.)
In the Southern primaries
and in Illinois, where there is
a sizable Black vote, Jackson
inspired a record turnout,
and many of those were
brand-new voters.
Unhappily, Jackson has
finally been lured into saying
that whites will not support a
Black candidate, with the
implication that Blacks
might as well stay home in
November.
UNCF leaders pledge
to stop brain drain
“If you want to enhance your
preparation for life, enhance your
preparation,” Secretary of State
Max Cleland told Augustans at the
kick-off luncheon of Paine
College’s United Negro College
fund.
Noting persons such as Thomas
Edison, George Washington Car
ver and Walt Disney, who were
told they would never succeed,
Cleland repeated the UNCF
Slogan, “A mind is a terrible thing
Kick-off luncheon for the United Negro
College Fund.
Jesse makes point
(Guest Editorial)
Jackson later told some
close associates that he
regretted making the racially
polarizing statements and
does not intend to venture in
to that quagmire again.
But the main lesson of the
Jackson candidacy ought not
to be lost on strategists in the
Democratic Party.
And that is, the Black vote
can be motivated first to
register and then to cast
ballots in the election. But
they are no different from
the rest of the electorate;
they need a compelling
reason to take the time and
trouble to participate in an
election.
It is clearly up to the
Democrats to come up with
that reason.
For the Democrats
probably cannot win the
election without a heavy
Black vote. Assuming that
Jackson will not be on the
Democratic ticket in
November, the next question
is, how does an orthodox
see Jesse, page 4
to waste.”
He pointed out that 70 percent
of all Blacks who are college
graduates graduated from Black
colleges.
“Some 90 percent of the students
in schools like Paine College
receive financial aid and would not
get a chance for a college
education were it not for the
United Negro College Fund,” he
said.
Seventy percent of the Black
teachers in Richmond County and
28 percent of the principals are
Paine College graduates.
“Paine continues to hold out a
goal and an ideal, and urge studen
ts to reach for the stars,” he said.
Don Howard, president of
Belk’s said that he has a personal
committment, the United Negro
College Fund. He heads the cor
porate segment charged with
raising 50 percent of the drive’s
SIOO,OOO goal.
“We’ve got to go out and tell the
Paine College story with the same
enthusiasm and zeal of a young
missionary,” he said, adding that
the corporate community must ac
cept its social obligation.
“We don’t have the wealthy
alumni that many of the other
schools have. We have a limited
endowment, but on top of that,
the leaders of the college have
sought to keep tuition low and
student fees minimal, so that every
student who wants to go to college
will be able to attend this one.
“I believe that the community is
prepared to accept this corporate
citizenship,” he continued.
“The cause is right, but that will
not make it happen. Each of us
must make it happen. And I
promise to do my share.”
30C