Newspaper Page Text
County said
changes in hiring
will take time
Page 1
Augusta -Nma-lteutm
VOLUME 14 NUMBER 12
Hasan raps A llgood
over consolidation
Consolidation of Richmond
County and Augusta governments
proved to be a hot issue among
candidates in the Aug. 14
Democratic Primary last Thursday
night.
Facing a Black audience at
Crawford Baptist Church, State
Rep .George Brown said that now
that Blacks have come to
bat—with a Black school board
president and two Black state
representatives—“some people want
to change the rules by bringing
about a consolidated form of
government. As long as I’m in the
House of Representativies and as
long as I’ve got breath in my body,
there will be no consolidation, “he
said, adding that consolidation is
detrimental to the Black com
munity.
“Now is the time to open our
Jesse Jackson’s speech
at Demo convention
SAN FRANCISCO, July
17—Following are excerpts from
the text of remarks prepared for
aelivery by the Rev. Jesse Jackson
at the Democratic National Con
vention .
Tonight we come together bound
by our faith in a mighty God, with
genuine respect and love for our
country, and inheriting the legacy
of a great party—the Democratic
Party—which is the best hope for
redirecting our nation on a more
humane, just and peaceful course.
P
This is not a perfect party. We
are not a perfect people. Yet, we
are called to a perfect mission: to
feed the hungry, to clothe the
naked, to house the homeless, to
teach the illiterate, to provide jobs
for the jobless, and to choose the
human race over the nuclear race.
We are gathered here this week
to nominate a candidate and write
Student slain for kissing white girl
Two Bronx white men were
arrested Tuesday in the 1977
Christmas Day murder of a Black
Fordham University graduate
student who kissed a white woman
Merry Christmas after a midnight
Mass.
William. P. Brennan and Robert
Alvarez, both in their early 20 s
and described by Bronx District
Attorney Mario Merola as vigilan
tes who hated minorities, were
charged in the second degree mur
der of Michael Dwain Johnson.
Police said Tuesday it took them
County tells NAACP:
Progress will take time
The Rev. Charlie Moore, vice
president of the local chapter of
the NAACP, addressed the Rich
mond County Board of Com
missioners Tuesday and thanked
Chairman Jack Miles for his
telephoned apology to the NAACP
for the difficulty it encountered in
getting a copy of the Human
Relations Commission audit on
county hiring and promotions
which the NAACP complained
about in the press last week.
The Rev. Moore said the move
Muhammad Ali
repudiates
Farrakhan remarks
Page 3
eves and realize that we have a.
(Black) majority in the city and
should have district voting
“When we go back to the
legislature in January, we will hit
the floor fighting for a ward voting
bill, and we need your support for
it.”
Henry Ingram, who is challenging
Brown for the 88th District House
seat, said the “issue is not con
solidation. “It’s what’s in the
document. If we put together the
right kind of document, we can
have the kind of consolidation that
is needed.”
He took issue with 22nd District
Sen. Thomas F. Allgood who said
that consolidation is a dead issue.
“I’m not endorsing con
solidation,” he said, but it is not
dead.”
Allgood said it was the “totally
a platform which will expand,
unify, direct and inspire our party
and the nation to fulfill this
mission.
My constituency is the damned,
disinherited, disrespected,
despised.
They are restless and seek relief.
They’ve voted in record numbers.
They have invested faith, hope and
trust in us. The Democratic Party
must send them a signal that we
care. I pledge my best to not let
them down.
Leadership must heed the call of
conscience: redemption, expansion
healing and unity, for they are tne
key to achieving our mission.
Time is neutral and does not
change things.
Courage and Initiative
With courage and initiative,
leaders change things. No
generation can choose the age or
circumstances in which it is born.
nearly seven years to crack the case
because witnesses to tne murder
refused to cooperate with the in
vestigations.
Here is how homicide detectives
reconstructed the case:
Shortly after 1 a.m. on Christ
mas Day in 1977, Johnson had
emerged from the Fordham
University Chapel in the
Kingsbridge section of the Bronx
after a Mass to meet a 21-year-old
white girl.
The two —friends who had at
tended Cardinal Spellman High
showed “courage and statesman
ship.”
He repeated, however, the
group’s demand for an affirmative
action program.
Miles responded that the com
missioners are “very much in
terested in more participation by
Blacks.”
He said the current com
missioners have appointed a Black
department head (dog catcher), a
woman and one handicapped per
son. He said that prior to the
discriminatory at-large voting
system that has kept things the way
they are.” He said that he believed
that a consolidated form of gover
nment is better, but noted that he
told his fellow legislators, “If you
don’t pass consolidation, I’ll vote
for district voting.” He added that
he will not support and further ef
forts to pass consolidation.
A.K. Hasan, Allgood’s op
ponent in the primary took sharp
issue with Allgood, who has led the
fight for consolidation for the two
years.
“Consolidation was defeated,”
Hasan said, “not because of
Allgood, but because people like
Charles Walker and George Brown
used their influence to neutralize
that effort. All of this changing
of heart is nothing but a farce.”
but through leadership it can
choose to make the age in which it
is born an age of enlighten
ment—an age of jobs, peace, and
justice.
Only leadership—that intangible
combination of gifts, discipline, in
formation, circumstance, courage,
timing, will and divine in
spiration—can lead us out of the
crisis in which we find ourselves.
Leadeship can mitigate the
misery of our nation. Leadership
can part the waters and lead our
nation in the direction of the
Promised Land. Leadership can
lift the boats stuck at the bottom.
I have had the rare opportunity
to watch seven men, and then two,
pour out their souls, offer their
service and heed the call of duty
to direct the course of our nation.
There is a proper season for
everything. There is a time to sow
and a time to reap. There is a time
School together—had a chat for
some few minutes and Johnson
had kissed the girl on the cheek to
wish her Merry Christmas as they
were parting.
After Johnson left the campus
he was greeted with a hail of rifle
bullets from parked red Mustang.
Police said Johnson fell, fatally
wounded in the back.
Detectives later reported that at
least 10 persons were present and
were witnesses to the shooting but
no one was willing to cooperate with
'reation of the county police
department Jan. 1 that the white to
Black ratio was 66 percent to 33
percent, which he called more
“precise” and “a step in the right
direction.”
He said the county already has
an affirmative action plan and that
the commission plans to talk tu
department heads to remind them
of the affirmative action
obligations.
“We will do what .we can but it
cannot be done overnight,” he said.
Black officials
oppose closing
of Black scho* ,
Page 1 ,
July 21,1984
Hasan charged.
He said that “it’s Augusta
Tomorrow and the Silk Stocking
crowd that are behind the con
solidation They couldn’t
lead tomorrow and they couldn’t
lead yesterday.”
Henry Brigham, Charles Grant
and Lee Handy are bidding for the
second seat to be occupied by a
Black on the County Commission
in January. Henry Howard has no
Democratic or Republican oip
position is assured of a seat on the
commission.
On the question of whether the
day-to-day affairs of county
should be run by a county ad
ministrator or the commissioners,
Grant favored a county ad
ministrator. “The County Com
mission is really a part-time job,
WxXf J £
Ven f
Jesse Jackson
to compete, and a time to
cooperate.
I ask for your vote on the first
ballot as a vote for a new direction
for this party and this nation; a
vote of conscience and conviction.
But I will be proud to support
the nominee of this convention for
the Presidency of the United
States.
Cites Respect for Opponents
I have watched the leadership of
see Jackson page 8
them except a Jesuit priest who
administered last rites to the dying
man who reportedly told the priest
in a faint voice, “My stomach hur
ts a little bit. Tell my family I love
them.”
Their interest in the case was
rekindled, police said, when upon
the arrest of a robbery suspect he
told them that he knew a man
named Brannan who was involved in
the murder of Johnson on the early
Christmas Day in 1977.
Following their investigation,
police said they learned the full
name of Brennan and followed
him to a bar he frequented. They
also learned that Brennan’s close
friend, Robert Alvarez, also
owned a 1966 red Mustang at the
time of the murder.
After collecting enough infor
mation on the two, police said,
they arrested the suspects and
charged them with the killings.
Police reveal Brennan was the
gunman while Alvarez was the
driver of the getaway car.
Police said they recovered spent
bullets in a vacant lot where Bren
nan was seen a few days ago firing
a rifle. The spent bullets were tur
ned over to ballistic experts to
determine if they were fired from
the same rifle used to kill John
son.
Student slain
for kissing
4 r J a
I
Less than 75 percent Advertising
W ’HF*
A.K. Hasan
and there is no real guarantee of
expertise from the com
missioners,” he said.
Brigham disagreed. “I don’t
think the County Commission
should give that responsibility to
others. We should have people
Black officials
fight to keep
schools open
All of the Black elected officials
in Richmond County, with the ex
ception of Dr. I.E. Washington,
who was out of town,
held a news conference Friday to
oppose the closing of two
predominantly Black schools by
the Richmond County Board of
Education.
Among the group was school
board President A.K. Hasan.
Hasan said that the school board
considered eight schools for
possible closing.
“No one wanted their school
closed.” Only one group(Turpin
Hill) said, “If you must close one
of our schools then close A.C.
Griggs. It was the only group
willing to compromise and it was
that group that got both of its
schools closed.”
in an order filed last Tuesday,
U.S. District Judge Dudley Bowen
Jr. approved the Richmond Coun
ty Board of Education’s decision
in October to close A.C. Griggs
and Ursula Collins elementary
schools. A 1972 court order
stemming from a desegregation suit
requires that any school closings be
approved by a federal judge.
The decsion was said to be part
of a plan to save money for the
school system.
Stating that the Black elected of
ficials would not sit idly by, State
Rep. Charles W. Walker said that
the Black community has been
required to carry the burden of
desegregation and the Black com
imunity was not the culprit.
He said that the reason that
Elders to induct 18
Eighteen local persons will be
inducted into the roster of
Distingushed Living Black
Augusta Elders August 19 at 3:30
p.m. by the Augusta Black History
Committee at its fifth annual
pubuc assembly at Spnngtield Bap-
jy Hl I
'■ • * * ••
*»♦ * : .
*s4 » ,
Sen. Thomas F. Allgood
there who have time to oversee the
affairs of the county. When you
are elected you have an obligation
to see that policies are carried out.
We need commissioners to have
the authority to say when and what
to do.”
these schools are under enrolled is
that Black students have been
bused to other schools to keep
them open. That was the net ef
fect.
“We’re talking about maintaining
and recognizing institutions in the
Black community,” said State
Rep. George Brown. “We resent
our schools being wiped out for
expediency.”
Asked if their request was not a
call for neighborhood schools,
schoolboard member Kingsley
Riley said, “It’s not a call for
neighborhood schools. It’s a call
for justice.”
She said that Blacks on the
school board are at a disadvantage
because they are only four of 16
members, and they are not given
the statistics.
Another reason the schools
should remain open, she said, is
that “Black children need role
models. This has been our strength
through the years.
“This is as important to their in
spiration to become somebody as
what he gets in tne classroom.”
Hasan saui another difficulty is
that whites and Blacks define
Black and white schools differen
tly. “They will close a school like
Fleming and say a white school
was closed because, it used to be
white.
“But now most of the students
are Black and we see a Black
school being closed. They see it as
a white school. Bricks and mortar
do not a school make.”
tist Church.
In addition, several institutions
and community leaders will be
cited for long-time service and
leadership in connection with the
Zsoth anniversary of the rounding
of Georgia.
30C