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Howard University reissues a classic
The Sweet Flypaper of Life,
with photographs by Roy
DeCarava and text by Langston
Hughes, is a touching story of life
in Harlem in the fifties, told with
wisdom and humor by Sister Mary*
Bradley. A grandmother many
times over, she has learned to love
with open arms and an open heart.
She describes the love of her
family, the antics of her gran
dchildren, and the slights and
sounds of Harlem.
When originally published in
1955, The Sweet Flypaper of Life
was hailed as a harmonious
marriage of photographs and
prose. The first printing sold out
in one year, but the book was not
Reformed killer wants out
Wilbert Rideau, who read his
way out of ignorance to become an
award-winning journalist, will ask
the Louisiana Pardon Board to
free him at a hearing in Baton
Rouge.
At 19, Rideau robbed a Lake
Charles, La., bank, took $14,000
and three employees to a remote
location where he shot and woun
ded two and slit the throat of one,
who later died. Arrested 80
minutes later, he confessed on
local TV.
at 42, Rideau is a model inmate
at Louisiana State Pentientiary at
Angola, about 45 miles northwest
of Baton Rouge, where he and
colleague Billy Wayne Sinclair
have turned the magazine, The
Angolite, into the nation’s most
prominent prisoner publication.
Among their awards: the Robert
F. Kennedy Journalism Award,
three American Bar Association
awards and the George Polk
1985 economy headed
toward a recession
The 1985 economy is headed
towards a recession, and unem
ployment will be on the rise,
a noted economist perdicted.
Andrew Brimmer, a former
member of the Board of Governers
of the Federal Reserve System,
made his predictions during an ad
dress to portfolio managers and
investment counselors in Los
Angeles.
Brimmer said his speculations
were based on economic trends
produced in the last quarter of this
eyar.
These trends show a slow down
in the growth of the gross national
product (GNP), the rate of total
production in the United States, he
said.
Brimmer said the GNP growth
rate for the last two quarters of
the year was 1.9 percent and 4 to
4.5 percent, respectively. This
compared with 10.1 and 7.1 per
cent in the first two quarters, he
said.
Brimmer said two major con
tributing factors to the slowed
GNP were fewer business invest
ments and housing starts.
in short,' Brimmer said, the
GNP will probably be about 6.7
percent for 1984.
He added that the 1985 GNP
growth will only be between 2.5 to
2.75 percent based on the decline
demonstrated in the last half of
1984.
Unemployment will also also be
on the rise in the coming year.
Brimmer said he looks for the
unemployment rate to go from 7.5
Leontyne Price
to leave Met.
Leontyne Price, one of the
Metropolitan Opera’s leading
sopranos for the pst 23 years, will
make her final preformance at the
Met on January 3.
Miss Price, 57, said her singing
career would continue, however,
and would include a recital at the
Met on March 24. She has
bookings for recitals for the next
three years.
She said, “I made a decision to
leave one phase of my career at this
time and I have no plans to retire.”
She will make her formal farewell
in a film to be shown on January 3
during intermission of Aida, her
final preformance at the Met,
which will broadcast on public
television’s “Live from the Met.
reissued until 1967, when it quickly
sold out again. Howard University
Press recognized The Sweet
Flypaper of Life as at treasure of
enduring quality and has
redesigned the book, taking great
care to preserve the
photographer’s vision, presenting
it in a larger format that will be en
joyed by followers of the book as
well as a new generation of
readers.
The Sweet Flypaper of Life is
everyone’s family album. In it you
find loving, struggling people,
family members who work hard
and play hard, children and adults
who frolic on the streets and
stoops of the city, and one errant
iyirui | I
I I. I
v Jr
RIDEAU: Writer is servinq life without
parole for a murder when he was 19.
Award for specialized reporting.
Their journalistic expertise h.as
earned them the freedom to'travel
about Louisiana with a prison
percent to 7.6 percent. The rate
may increase to as much as 7.7
percent in the Ist quarter of the
year as compared to 7.3 percent in
the last quarter of 1984.
On a positive note, Brimmer an
ticipates the inflation rate for 1985
will be at 3.7 percent compared to
the 3.8 percent predicted for 1984.
Also, due to the Federal Reser
ve’s desire to increase the national
money supply, credit rates will be
somewhat lower.
Recently, the Reserve lowered its
credit rates from 9 percent to 8.5
percent. This is the rate of interest
the Reserve charges banks for
monetary loans. This should be
reflected in lower prime interest
rates for commercial borrowers
and lower rates for consumer
loans, Brimmer said.
In closing, Brimmer said he ex
pects the increased credit demands
to help stabilize the economy in its
fourth 1985 quarter and should be
reflected in more business invest
ments and a better unemployment
picture.
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e 1984 Georgia Power f V \
grandson—who is bathed in his
grandmother’s love in spit of him
self. You may recognize some of
your friends—dancing in the kit
chen on Saturday night, shooting
the breeze in the fiasement, looking
out of the window at the passing
scene below. You may hear your
mother’s lament, your cousin’s
joke, the pride in yur gran
dmother’s voice as she spoke of
you.
Seen through Sister Mary
Bradley’s bright old eyes, life isn’t
so much a chore as a challenge to
be met and mastered with hope
and determination. Sister Bradley
muses: Me, I always been all
tangled up in life—which ain’t
’ guard to research stories and par
ticipate in forums.
Butas for now, Rideau doesn’t
, want to talk for publication. “My
I lawyers told me to be cool untif af
ter the hearing.”
. Rideau is asking that his life sen
tence. for which there is no parole,
be commuted to the 23 years he
already has served; Louisiana Gov.
Edwin Edwards will have final say
I after the board’s recommendation.
But even though Louisiana
Corrections Secretary Paul Phelps
1 has declared him rehabilitated,
he’s been denied release three
t times.
At his last clemency hearing in
1980, the pardon board had
received more than 250 letters
from Lake Charles citizens. Vic
tim Dora McCain appeared at the
hearing, “I just don’t see,”
McCain said, “how the state can
give him his freedom and add more
pain to the victims. ’’From USA Today
NOEL
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always so sanitary as we might like
it to be.... This world is like a
crossword puzzle in the Daily
News—some folks make the puz
zles, others try to solve them.
The Sweet Flypaper of Life is
not just the storv of Sister Marv
Bradley her family and friend?
but a universal story of ordinary
people living multi-textured lives.
The union of Lanston Hughes’s
prose and Roy DeCarava’s
photographs make this book a
classic. Hughes’s prose echoes the
cadences of Sister Mary Bradley’s
speech as she describes the rhythms
and beauty of life in Harlem.
DeCarava’s photographs capture
the gentleness of a touch, the tired
stoop of a hard-working man, the
twinkle in the eye of a contented
babe, the dignity in the stride of a
young woman on her way to
graduation. The works of these
two giants blend to create a story
that celebrates the vitality and tex
ture of life in general, and life in
Harlem in particular. It is both a
work of art and work ot social
commentary.
Langston Hughes, poet,
dramatist, and master storyteller,
was by far the most experimental
and versatile author of the Harlem
Renaissance. A prolific writer,
Hughes was the author of
numerous works, including The
Dream Keeper and Other Poems,
Montage of a Dream Deferred,
The Weary Blues and Tam
bourines to Glory.
Augustan
promoted
to major
Hb
/
w
Jeanette Zeilars Walker
Jeanette Zeilars Walker was
recently promoted to major in the
United States Army. Major
Walker is a graduate of Lucy
Laney High School, Paine College
and Georgia State University. She
is an active member of New Beech
Grove Baptist Church in Newport
News, Va.
Among those attending the
promotion ceremony were her
mother Mrs. Clara Zeilars of
Augusta, and her godmother, Mrs.
Ruby Carter, Spring Grove,
Va. Major Walker is stationed at
Fort Estes, Va. where she performs
duties of Adjustant of the United
States Army Transportant and
Aviation Schools.
The Augusta News - Review December 22,1984
Culture shock
By Cynthia Butler Omololu
In a bright eye bushy tailed
manner, I approached my first
case in Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria has
most popular
success of all
't h e Black
countries on
the African
continent. She
may not by the
most respected
Black country,
but she has ex-
perienced economic success.
Os course, one has to examine
the success in terms of develop
ment. Nigeria gained independen
ce from Britain about twenty-four
years ago. A twenty-four year old
is hardly old enough to run a coun
try of more than 80,000,000
people. This is even more serious
when one realizes that the twenty
four year old had no models for
running a country in the 20th cen
tury.
This twenty-four year old was
brought up in a system of chiefs
and masters. This system would
look like slavery to the ‘American
eye.’ The difference, of course, is
that the American characters were
white masters and Black slaves
while the African characters are all
Black.
I emphasize the statement “look
like slavery to Americans.”
Nigerians say it is not slavery and
perhaps to them, it is not.
Most twenty-four year old Black
men seem to love clothes, cars,
houses, and women...in that or
der. It is no different in that coun
try today. Those who get their
hands on the money use it for
material acquisitions. But
wouldn’t your twenty-four year
old son do the same thing?
Much of the economic power of
that country has diminished
because of the twenty-four year old
mentality.
However, I predict that by the
time they have reached the age
group of 35-50 years old, she will
be a positive model for Black
Americans. At the present time, it
is difficult to look to that country
for momma and daddy. A twenty
four year old does not want
Famous last words
FROM FRIENDS TO FRIENDS.
“Are you OK to drive?”
“What’s a few beers?”
“Did you have too much to drink?”
“Pm perfectly fine”
“Are you in any shape to drive?”
“I’ve never felt better?
“I think you’ve had a few too many?
“You kiddin, I can drive
with my eyes closed?
“You’ve had too much to diink,
let me drive?
L “Nobody drives my car but me?
“Are you OK to drive?”
tew beers?”
JNWk
DRINKING AND DRIVING
CAN KILL A FRIENDSHIP
U. S. Department of Transportation S 3
children. He is too cute. For
tunately, most adolescents become
adults.
Oh, well, allow me to share a
modified version of my first
Clinical experience with you. Af
ter all, I am not a historian. I am a
psychologist.
A woman and two men walked
into my office. I smiled lightly and
aslced how I could help them. The
largr man explained that his wife
had started taking off her clothes
and running naked screaming
down public roads. It would take
several men to catch and subdue
her. He had taken her to holy
churches for treatment but nothing
stopped the behaviors. I asked
about specific life crises which
might have precipitated the
behaviours. After trial and error,
the husband admitted that it star
ted the day the wife was told that
he had taken a second wife.
He explained further that he had
taken a second wife to help his wife
with housework. Housemaids
were difficult to secure in his area.
His new wife was thirteen years
old. He was forty-eight years old.
I was faced with two problems.
The wifewouid not admit'her
problem because women are sup
posed to accept second wives.
Secondly, it was not a problem to
anyone but me that he had taken a
thirteen-year old child as a com
bination wife and maid.
The second man was the brother
of the woman. His comment was
that he did not understand why his
sister was upset about a second
wife. After she had eight sons for
the man and he fed her well.
Without a smile, I asked the two
of them to stand up, outside the
door until I called them in again.
The wife admitted that she was
very frustrated and disgusted even
though she knew she was not sup
posed to be. She had felt that eight
sons would assure her a permanent
place in his heart.
Is this the beginning of an
emotional revolution among
women in Nigeria? I do not know.
But I do know that if it is, they
had better be quiet about it and not
mention my name.
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