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Augusta News-Heutm
VOLUME 14 NUMBER 32
Black America: Facing the road ahead
by Frank Harris 111.
Traditionally, the dawn of a new
year has been a time of reflection,
projection and introspection on
the part of Black Americans.
Reflections as to where we have
come from. Projections as to
where we would like to be. In
trospections as to where we ac
tually are at the moment the clock
strikes twelve.
Perhaps it stems from the fact
that the first of the year was the
day we were declared legally free in
the United States of America:
January 1, 1863 —the Eman
cipation Proclamation. It’s a day
that goes virtually unrecognized
and unholidayized by Black
Americans. Yet, 122 years ago we
stood in jubilation and
trepidation, looking out at the
road ahead, wondering what the
new year would bring.
Today we stand after two
decades of civil rights, facing an
old familiar road. A road that
seems both rocky and uncertain.,
A road with twists and turns
through an increasingly hostile
land. A road fastly coming to
resemble the many Southern dirt
roads we trod in the years of
yester.
The signs are springing up every
where along the way. A reversed
decision here. A ruling there. A
postponement over there.
These signs point to the direc
tion for a new kind of slavery, a
new kind of terorism racing along
the should in the shadows seeking
to cut us off at the pass. Seeking
to subvert the road we trod.
There it once received attention
make it smooth and accessible for
us to enter the mainstream, it
is now being abandoned. Work
has been stopped, leaving the road
in disrepair. Its very foundation
undermined. The screws to the
bridges we might pass have been
loosened. Obstacle after obstacle
has been thrown in our path.
Some signs have already sprung
up. Like last October when the
Senate voted to set aside a civil
rights bill so they could proceed
with more important matters. The
sign says our rights are not impor-
Palimony suit filed against Muhammad Ali
NORRISTOWN, PA-A
woman who says she is the third
wife of former heavyweight boxing
champion Muhammad Ali and has
mothered his child is suing Ali for
his alleged failure to provide
financial support.
Aaisha Ali, 28, of Bala Cynwyd,
is seeking $2 million for herself
and her daughter, Khaliah, 10, ac
cording to a suit filed in Mon
tgomery County Court.
Ali, a native of Louisville, Ky.,
contends she married the boxing
Knoxville College recieves donation from
Jesse Jackson brother
KNOXVILLE, TN.—The Rev.
Jesse Jackson’s half brother has
pledged SIOO,OOO to financially
troubled Knoxville College, which
lost its accreditation because of
money woes.
Noah Robinson, a Chicago
millionaire and Knoxville College
alumnus, said he hope his
donation will prompt other people
to support the 110-year-old
tanttothem.
The signs say “Stony is the road
we trod”—and we pass at our own
risk.
The issue of race and those who
make decisions and actions based
upon it is on the rise. There is no
longer any shame today on the part
of white Americans about being
viewed as a racist or prejudiced in
dividual, or any of the other words
that once caused a reddening of the
face and a heightening of the guilt
level. Many of these have fallen by
the wayside and merged with the
crowd of those they once ad
monished for expressing racist at
titudes and actions.
They’ve fallen by the wayside,
and now there is silence from the
side of the road as the majority of
“all right” whites have ceased
trying to modify their brothers’
and sisters’ attitudes. There is
silence now. A tacit agreement. A
nod of the head to the view that
we’ve already gotten too much.”
Let the bandits make the laws, is
what they say.
Time passes. Things change.
Life goes in cycles. No more guts
do they have. Their battle’s over.
But our’s never ends.
In the past four years during the
Reagan Administration, we as a
people have lost more ground
economically, socially, and
politically than any other group in
America. In general, unem
ployment has worsened. Last Sep
tember it was 15.1 percent for
Black adults. For teenagers it was
19.3 percent. And in both cases, it
was, as it always seems to
be—double that of white
Americans.
That our condition should wor
sen while whites’' remained the
same, or in fact, got better, it is of
little surprise. It is due, in large
degree, to the Reagan Ad
ministration’s relaxation of gover
nmental control and lack of im
volvement in seeing that racial
discrimination has no place in the
workforce. That it exercises a
laissez faire attitude toward
racism in America has led to the
unmistakable reaffirmation of the
fact that whites will not hire Blacks
champ in a Muslim ceremony in
Miami in 1975 and that he fathered
her daughter.
The suit contends Ali pledged
during the ceremony to support
her and the child for the rest of
their lives. The couple have been
separated since August 1980, the
suit said.
“It is part of the ceremony.
There are vows taken,” siad San
dra Newman, Aaisha Ali’s lawyer.
“He also told her mother when
he first met her he would take care
predominantly Black college.
“There are lots of Noah Robin
sons. a lot of nameless, faceless
people who would not get a chance
without Knoxville College,” he
said.
The college’s long-running
financial troubles caused the
Southern Association of Colleges
and Schools to revoke its ac
creditation.
Robinson, 42, and Jackson, an
on their own good will or sense of
fairness; but only by threat of
financial punishment such as the
withholding of federal funds or the
loss of a contract —a fact surely
known by those who seek an end to
affirmative action and “gover
nmental meddling.”
For the poorest of us, there has
been a redistribution of income
away from low income families,
toward those with higher incomes.
In other words, the rich got richer,
while the poor got poorer. And
overall, the number of poor rose
from 29 million in 1980, to 35.3
million today according to the
U.S. Census Bureau. For Black
people in particular, the poverty
rate rose from 32.5 percent to 35.7
percent.
And the stony road we trod does
not yield special courtesies to our
young. There is not quarter given.
Half of our poor are children.
And this will continue to be the
case as white children grow up to
carry out the legacy of their paren
ts by making the road more dif
ficult for our children when they
grow up—lest we prepare them for
the road ahead. Prepare them
mentally, physically, spiritually,
and emotionally so that they are a
strong generation.
During the late fifties and
through the sixties, we made major
gains in America. Gains in all
areas of American life.
How were we able to do it?
Why? Was it because ye were
strong during that generation, and
whites correspondingly weak?
And if so, what made us strong?
What made them weak? What
made it possible for us to suddenly
rise up to challenge our treatment
in America after nearly three-and
a-half centuries of, for the most
part, quiet submission?
A leader? Martin, Malcolm and
others?
We have had leaders before.
There was Douglas, Dubois, Gar
vey—and nothing comparable to
the accomplishments and gains of
the civil rights movement took
place.
Leaders can only lead when the
people want to be led. For leaders
themselves are, for the most part,
reflections of the thoughts and
of her (Khaliah) forever. He has
continued to tell her that he would
take care of her,” Newman said.
The lawyer said the fighter spoke
to his former wife on the telephone
this week but that they did not
discuss the legal action.
The suit also seeks to acquire the
title to the Bala Cynwyd home
owned by Ali in which the woman
lives and to require Ali to pay the
costs of the woman’s college
educaiton.
Newman said the “palimony”
suit contends Ali provided some
unsuccessful Democratic candidate
for president, have the same
father. They grew up in different
households in Greenville, S.C., but
attended the same schools and
“hung around toghther.”
Robinson is now president of
Precision Contractors Inc., one of
the nation’s biggest minority
general construction firms. He is
also chairman of a milk company
January 5,1985
feelings of the people they
represent. At least they start out
that way. And in the years past,
when Blacks sought the nerve to do
something contrary to white
America’s desires, a spurt of
violence sent most of us scurry ing
back to our prior humbleness.
What made us, two decades ago,
keep on pushing when whites
resorted to repressive measures to
beat us back? Were the whites of
that generation less committed?
Did we see an opening and white
America, seeing the strength and
courage in our eyes step back in
amazement and respect and a pin
ch of fear?
The example that Black adults
set them—both young and
old, middle-class and poor-in
challenging the unjust social,
political and economic laws had a
tremendous effect upon Black
youth who came of age looking up
to them.
The year ahead will require new
strength and courage, the likes of
which has not been called upon in
us in a good many years, if we are
to turn back the foes who would
turn us around in the direction
from whence we came. It will
reguire more than just meetings
and talks and contributions. It will
require more than essays such as
this.
It will require standing up and
doing battle for our rights, for in
deed, it has been said that if one
does not stand up and is content to
lay back and accept whatever is
dealt one’s way, they will keep
placing obstacles in the road for us
to crash into.
The road ahead will require new
unity and cooperation among us.
It will require new responsibility
and self-determination. New pride
and dignity. Forthere is no respect
for submissiveness, silence and
inactivity. There is respect for
challenge. Respect for the guts to
fight for what we know is right.
The words are in our an
them—“ Facing the rising sun of
our new day begun, let us march
on till victory is won.”
Stony is the road we must trod.
But trod it we must. There can be
no turning back. No retreat.
For in the end, we win. .
support for the mother and child
until May, but then stopped any
payments, thus breaching the
couple’s wedding vows.
“there is precedent in Pen
nsylvania for this kind of
agreement but it has not
traditionally been called
palimony,” Newman said.
According to the suit, the couple
first met in July 1973 at Ali’s
training camp in Deer Lake Camp.
Schuylkill County, and were
married two years later.
pesident of a soft drink firm in
Chicago and president of four fast
food franchise comaonies.
He said he hope his contribution
will “show that even though
Knoxville College is small and
predominantly Black, the quality
of education is such that a Noah
Robinson can come through as a
rough stone and be polished into a
quality diamond.
Less than 75 percent Advertising
' fc
s w W
Jessye Norman concert
tickets to go on sale
Tickets are now on sale for the
Jessye Norman benefit concert
which will launch Paine College’s
Campaign for Excellence. The in
ternationally acclaimed soprano
and native of Augusta is serving as
Honorary Chairperson of the $6
million fund drive to build a
library and performing arts theater
complex on the Paine campus.
Ms. Norman will perform in
Washington, D.C. at the Presiden
tial inauguration on Jan. 21, then
fly to Atlanta for the concert,
which will be held at the Martin
Luther King, Jr. International
Chapel on the Morhouse College
Campus.
A special highlight of the con
cert will be interpretive dance
selections performed by Arthur
Mitchell’s Dance Theatre of
Harlem to “The Songs of
Mahler”, which will be sung by
Ms. Norman.
She will also perform operatic
pieces and will be joined by the
Ist Black
city councilman
dies
Mr. B. L. Dent, 72, died Friday,
Dec. 22, 1984 at University
Hospital.
B.L. Dent received his elemen
tary and high school education at
Walker Baptist Institute of
Augusta. After graduation from
high school, he entered Paine
College where he remained for
three years after which he
matriculated at Morehouse College
in Atlanta.
B.L. Dent was the first Black
elected to city countil and the first
Black to serve as vice chairman of
the Finance Committee. During
his tenue in office Mr. Dent raised
issue of the treatment of Black cab
companies not being allowed to
pick up passangers at Bush Field
and the exclusion of these com
panies from participation in other
contracts to which they might have
been entitled.
Mr. Dent also favored an-
Jessye Norman
Paine College Choir with members
of the Morehouse College Glee
Club for a series of spirituals. John
Williams, Visiting Lecturer of
Choral-Vocal Music at Paine, will
conduct the choral portion of the
program.
A reception in Ms. Norman’s
honor, to be hosted by Georgia’s
Lt. Governor Zell Miller, will im
mediately follow the concert at the
State Capitol.
Ticket prices for the concert,
which is set for 7:30 p.m., are as
follows: sls: full time students,
S3O: concert admission, SSO: con
cert and reception admission, $75:
concert, reception, and round trip
transportation from Augusta.
Tickets may be purchased by
mail by sending a stamped, self
adressed envelope with a check or
money order to the Development
Office at Paine College, 1235 15th
St., Augusta, Ga., 30910. Phone
orders are also acceptable for Visa
or Mastercard holders (722-4471,
Ext. 223).
L'•? ■
B. L. Dent
nexation or consolidation for the
city of Augusta. He encouraged
the expansion of the transit
system, and downtown
revitalization. He was successful
in getting council to re-evaluate its
old system of classifying city em
ployees. The old practice did not
provide for the promotion of a
Black employee no matter how
long he worked in the City.
30C