Newspaper Page Text
The Augusta News Review May 19,1984
Mallory K. MiilenderEditor-Publisher
Paul Walker Assistant to the Publisher
Theresa Minor Administrative assistant/Reporter
Juanita BealOffice Manager
Rev. R.E. Donaldsonßeligion Editor 1
Mrs. Geneva Y. Gibson Church Coordinator
Charles Beale Jenkins County Correspondent
Mrs. Fannie Johnson Aiken County Correspondent
Mrs. Clara WestMcDuffie County Correspondent
Mrs. Jleen Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor
Wilbert Allen Columnist
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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Covering up Central America
Henry Kissinger, former U.S.
Secretary of State, and spokesman
for the White House current
Spanish American policy, put on
one of his pretentious picture
shows for the Commonwealth
Club of California last month in
the city of Saint Francis. For those
who don’t know the spectacle and
spectacled German tongue would
be Hebrew, hearing him speak is
like listening to the emperor with
‘‘new clothes.”
Naked without office or offer of
new directions, he pretended to
preach the Republican Party line
to an audience whose popular
topic tends to be “might makes
right.” Rightly or wrongly without
regards to his proposed central
theme for discussion the defensive
little dictatorial orator advised his
anxious audience to pull the
nuclear trigger at the sight of a red
bear in your bedroom. But red
bears do not exist in your
bedroom.
Nuking bears in your bedroom is
dangerous anyway, both for you
and the bear. Being out of political
office apparently gave Mr.
Kissinger political license to lecture
his listeners on the leaks in f*e
Kremlin political base. Bad news
for America if it is to continue' on
’ts same course, according to this
soothsayer.
Schemes by the Soviets to stop
our arms build up are but a fake to
cause us to falter in our military
spending program. Put your faith
behind a bigger military machine
manned with more nuclear
weapons and threaten to wipe the
daylights out of the Soviets at sea
or in South America says this man
who would be King.
His catty remarks about his not
being a natural born U.S. citizen
and therefore ineligible to be
President of the United States, in
dicated his contempt for the Con-
Civil Rights Journal
No right to vote
by Dr. Charles E. Cobb
Today the right of all those
qualified to register and vote is
publicly supported by most people.
According to what we’re taught in
school, you’d assume that
politicians would be in the
forefront of any registration ef
fort. In fact, you’d be wrong.
A recent Washington Post ar
ticle notes that a non-partisan
organization called Project Vote
has tried to register citizens where
they are most accessible. This has
included registration at welfare
and unemployment offices and on
cheese distribution lines.
Instead of assisting the project,
as they should have, Republican
governors in several states have
filed suits to stop the effort. Not
only that, the federal Department
of Health and Human Services has
supported the governors in their
opposition.
Fortunately, Pennsylvania, In
diana and Ohio recently lost their
legal suits against the registration
methods of Project Vote. And
most recently, Governor Bodn of
Missouri lost his suit as well. The
District Court in Kansas City
reminded the governor that what
he was attempting to do violated
the First Amendment guarantee of
freedom of speech.
The issue here is now where
registration occurs, but who is
being registered. This is the real
Page 4
stitution of the United States. No
doubt because he did not have an
opportunity to dictate it to his
secretaries for notice and public
posting.
Presidents are no problem for
him since he serves Democrats and
Republicans alike provided he is
given a private office and
privileged parking space. In both
administrations many are only too
glad to give him room as
sometimes a strong odor is emitted
from his office, as Hamlet might
have noticed.
Nothing was new about the edit
that the bipartisan commission ap
pointed by the President to
develop a policy position for the
United States on Central America
came up with under the chairman
ship of Mr. Kissinger. Keep
pouring more money and military
weapons into Central America.
First and foremost to bail out the
big U.S. banks which poured
billions of U.S. dollars down there
rather than downtown Detroit,
Chicagc or New York. One lousy
billion dollars is the total of 726
loans to small businesses in 30
states received from the small
business revitalizaiton program
since it was set up about two years
ago, according to the National
Development Council, a 15-year
old private, non-profit
organization in New York coor
dinating the program for the White
House.
Putting U.S. military might in
Central America, either by men or
mines, is not addressing the central
issue of Central America in a con
structive manner. Mr. Kissinger
may have put on “new clothes” in
and now out of Central America,
but he has offered no solution to
their problems only pretentions for
the administration admiration that
the U.S. Central American
problem is fully clothed.
reason that Republican governors
are opposing Project Vote. They
wish to impede any effort that could
strengthen the voter pool which
might cost them their next election.
President Reagan and his Depar
tment of Health and Human Ser
vices understand this, too. When
you are a president who has caused
a large percentage of the working
poor to fall below the poverty line,
the effects of a successful
registration drive among the poor
are not lost to you.
The relationship between the
registration of all qualified voters
and the potential for substantially
changing the way this country is
run is not lost to the Rev. Jesse
Jackson either. He is advocating
that all those who qualify should
be automatically registered when
they turn 18. We do this on behalf
of the draft, why not for voter
registration which is at least as im
portant?
It is clear that those in power do
now wish to see the voting rolls ex
panded to include certain groups
of citizens. It is therefore essential
that each one of us become a
committee of one to register our
apartment buildings, our neigh
borhoods, and our work-places. In
this year’s presidential election, we
should not be guilty of allowing
only half the electorate to choose
our next president, as they did
when President Reagan was elected
in 1980.
WHY DON'T YOU
BELIEVE WHAT I TELL- FOR&ET H,
YbU ABOUT MY CIVIL PINOCCHIO/
RIGHTS RE COR
BRECON
black Resou Pees i
Walking With Dignity
Blacks’ second religion
by Al Irby
Rev. Jesse Jackson has given the
Black community a ‘Second
...
Religion’ of
applied poli
tics. Someth
ing is stirring
in Black
America.
In increasing
numbers Blacks
are registering
to vote. They are electing Black
leaders to positions once the reser
ve of whites. And they are
boosting in a dramatic way Rev.
Jackson’s bid for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
Despite his low delegate count in
the primaries so far, the good
clergy man’s campaign is expected
to have an impact long after the
1984 race. “Politics,” says Paul
M. Green,” has become a second
religion in the Black community.”
Mr. Green is director of the In
stitute for Public Policy and Ad
ministration at Governors State
University in Chicago.
He notes that the Black political
movement definitely predates the
Jackson campaign. According to
the Joint Center for Political
Studies, the number of Black of
ficials rose 8.6 percent from 1982
to ’B3, after several years of more
meager increases.
Last year, Chicago and
Going Places
Johnson Publishing tops Motown
by Phillip Waring
There is some good news on the
national business front, but the
news is devasting in the political
sector. The
annual spring
time announ
cement by the
highly-placed
Black Enter
prise magazine
on top Black
business lead
ers and
i i
organizations is here. It is a news
highlight in Black America.
During the past ten years I’ve had
the pleasant opportunity via Going
Places to examine these findings
for News-Review readers. Facts
from the magazine indicate an up
ward trend in several areas.
The nub of this year’s announ
cement, however, is that the John
son Publishing Company of
Chicago, with 118 million dollars
in sales, topped Motown, the giant
entertainment complex of Los
Angeles, which had 108 millions in
sales.
The story-behind-the-story,
however, is that during the 12 years
since the annual Black economic
findings have been issued, Motown
has always been number one. John
Johnson, the publisher of Ebony
and Jet, credits the expansion of
the Fashion Fair comestics
program both at home and over-
We still believe
in Ed Mclntyre
Philadelphia elected their first
Black mayors. What Jackson has
done is to capitalize on and
dramatically expand that
movement, says Lucius Barker,
chairman of the political science
department at the University of
Missouri at St. Louis. The Atlanta
based Voter Education Project
reports that registration in seven
southern states has added 408,000
Black voters since the 1982
congressional elections.
Significantly, these figures
reflect the routine subtraction of
voters as names and addresses are
verified, says a project official.
“Even to maintain Black
registration levels requires active
work.”
In vote-getting, however
Jackson’s success has surprised
many people. In December, soon
after he formally entered the race,
he was expected at best to win 50 to
60 percent of the Black vote, says
Lorn S. Foster, senior fellow at the
Joint Center. Instead, he has
racked up 77 percent of the Black
vote in Pennsylvania, 79 percent in
Illinois, and 87 percent in New
York.
In St. Louis, Jackson’s strength
has been evident. “It has not been
any problem to get our Black
people and right thinking white
people to support Reverend
Jackson,” said Charles L. Bussey
seas with advancing revenues.
The largest block of similar
business firms in the one hundred
roster were 34 auto dealerships,
which numbered only 125
nationally. USA Today, which
gave a detailed feature review,
pointed out that this figure
represents only one third of one
percent of the total auto dealers in
America. May I add that racial
barriers and other factors still are
with us. This is still another reason
to continue our support for the
CSRA Business League.
Among the first 20 of the 100
selected firms around the nation, it
should be noted that three are in
Georgia and in the Atlanta area.
They are: the Herman J. Russell
Construction/Land Development
Corp, with 95 million in sales
Thacker Construction Company,
86 million in revenues, and the
M&M Hair Care Products Com
pany which gathered 47 million in
sales.
It is further noted that the 100
key firms had total sales of some
2.3 billion dollars during 1983.
This would place them only in the
162nd slot among the current For
tune 500 listing.
Pilgrim to be Highlighted
Black Enterprise also names the
top Black banks, the savings and
loan associations, and our in
surance companies. We will review
Jr., state campaign chairman for
Jackson, interviewed shortly
before the Missouri caucuses.
When Mr . Bussey talked to
several local Black leaders four
months ago, they “thought
Jackson’s campaign was
quixotic,” he says. Now, 90 per
cent openly endorse him, most of
the uncommitted are also leaning
toward the dashing Baptist gen
tlemen of the cloth. “This is a
campaign that has transcended in
stitutional politics,” bringing
together established leaders, the
clergy, disaffected voters, and
other segments of the Black com
munity, Mr. Foster says.
The Black vote “is to have to be
played very carefully” by the
Democratic Party, agrees George
Wendel, director of the Center for
Urban Programs at St. Louis
University. One dilemma is
Jackson’s demand for the
elimination of runoff primaries in
the Southland. The Country
Preacher better had be careful with
this latter issue. If the eventual
Democratic nominee doesn’t go
along, he risks losing the support
of Jackson, and, perhaps, many
Black voters. If he accepts, he risks
the wrath of many important
southern white Democrats. A final
legacy of the Jackson campaign is
that he has opened doors for
future Black political asperations.
them at a later date. Last year,
however, we were able to highlight
Solomon Walker, II and Pilgrim
Health and Life Insurance Com
pany, which had been given a
national spotlight in the annual
1983 Black Enterprise roster. As I
recall, it is our oldest and largest
local business concern of its kind,
and is the second oldest and seven
th largest among Black insurance
firms.
Bad Political News Happenings
Despite the marvelous political
advances made for us by Rev.
Jesse Jackson, negative news
emanated from three different
communities last week. First and
most serious, dynamic
Congresswoman Katie Hall of
Gary and northern Indiana, lost
her bid to be renominated in the
Democratic primary. Gary mayor
Richard Hatcher said that a suf
ficient number of Blacks from that
areas just would not come out and
vote. This hurts because we only
have 21 persons in the
Congressional Black Caucus.
Former Chapel Hill, N.C. mayor,
Howard Lee lost in his bid for a
congressional seat, and so did At
torney Ed Spaulding of Durham,
N.C. In the North Carolina
situation, however, we saw the
spectacle of two Black candidates
running against Spaulding and
Lee.
To Be Equal
Education
and
equity
by John E. Jacob
The attention being given to
improving the educational system,
as symbolized by the highly
publicized reports on today s
schools, is welcome. But aside
from their attention-getting value,
most of the recommendations in
those reports are troubling.
One, for example, would limit
high school entrance to those
deemed “qualified.” All tend to
place an undue emphasis on tests,
not as diagnostic tools for in
dividualized learning, but as
screening devices and as indicators
of potential.
Few of the reports appear con
cerned that our educational system
has become a giant tracking
machine. The children of the
privileged get pre-school
educational opportunities, attend
schools with programs and resour
ces that nurture their talents, and
receive further educational
enrichment opportunities from the
home.
The children of the disadvan
taged rarely enter school before the
first grade, generally attend
schools that are strapped for
resources, and urgently need
educational opportunities that
compensate for their disadvan
tages.
Through their single-minded
concern with excellence —defined
as competence in science—these
reports tend to neglect the vitally
important issue of equity. By not
addressing the equity issue the
national debate on education is
unbalanced.
Equity is not an issue that can be
sidestepped. For Blacks, it is the
central issue—equal access to
quality education is the prime issue
on the Black education agenda. I
believe it has to be at the core of
national educational policy as well.
Only about half of all white
families have school age children.
But almost three out of four Black
and Hispanic families include
children under 18. The Black and
brown share of the school age
population is growing, and those
demographics must be considered
in any rational discussion of
education reform.
Ignoring the equity issue en
courages national policies that un
dermine the limited progress that
has been made toward greater
equity.
Throughout the 1960 s and
19705, minorities made important
strides toward greater educational
achievement. Those improvements
were the direct result of additional
resources made avialable to in
dividuals and to school systems by
federal programs targeted to
helping the disadvantaged.
Those improvements are proof
that federal programs do work;
that federal resources can make a
difference. But in spite of demon
strated evidence that investing in
the human resources represented
by disadvantaged children pays off
for the nation, those programs,
have been cut heavily.
The past several years have seen
ruthless cuts in programs that
provide cqmpensatory educational
opportunities, that feed children
from poor families, and that offer
pre-school enrichment experiences.
The cuts were worsened by
packaging key educational
programs into block grants for the
states.
That resulted in a clear pattern
of shifting resources away from
school districts with special needs.
The biggest losers were school
systems with the largest enrollmen
ts of minorities and the poor. And
the total funds avialable through
block grants are less than a third of
what had formerly been available
in categorical grants.
We have to be seriously concer
ned with the direction in which
national education policies are
going. There’s drift away from ex
cellence and equity; away from
universal educational oppor
tunities, away from strenghtening
public education.
In its place is a drift toward
elitism, toward screening the
children of the poor out of the
system, toward writing off the
needs, hopes, and aspirations of
minorities.