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The Augusta News - Review January 5,1985
Georgia ’s Black
state senators get
committee seats
Georgia’s - six Black state
senators won important committee
positions for the 1985-86 legislative
session.
The six—all Democrats—in
clude two newly elected Senators
who defeated veteran white
lawmakers to win their seats, and
four veterans who successfully
won re-election.
Senator Julian Bond will retain
his chairmanship of the Consumer
Affairs Committee, and is still the
only Senator from Fulton County
who heads a standing Senate
committee. Bond is also a member
of the committees on Children and
Youth, Governmental Operations
and Human Resources, and was
recently elected the first Black
chairman of the Fulton County
Senate Delegation.
Newly elected Senator Arthur
Langford will begin his legislative
career as a member of the Commit
tees on Children and Youth and
Retirement. In addition,
Langford, a former Atlanta City
councilmember, will serve as
secretary so the Consumer Affairs
Committee and as vice-chairman
of the Offender Rehabilitation
Committee.
Savannah Senator Albert J.
Scott, the outgoing chairman of
the Georgia Legislative Black
Caucus, will serve as the new
chairman of the Committee on
Children and Youth, vice chair
man of the Public Utilities Com
mittee, and amember of the
powerful committees on Rules and
Appropiations.
Atlanta’s David Scott will con
tinue his membership on the Con
sumer Affairs Committee. Scott
will also be vice chairman of the
Higher Education Committee, and
a member of the committees on
Economic Development and
Tourism and Federal, State and
Community Affairs.
Veteran Senator Horace Tate
will join Albert Scott on Rules and
Approipitions and will be vice
chairman of the Retirment Com
mittee and chairman of the sub
committee on Primary and Secon
dary Education of the Education
Committee.
DeKalb County’s newly elected
Eugene Walker will be a member
of the committees on Federal State
and Community Affairs and
Judiciary and Constitutional Law.
Walker, an educator, will also be
secretary of the Banking and
Finance Committee and Secretary
of the Governmental Operations
Committee.
Famed Battaßon
to hold reunion
The Famed (First all Black Tank
Battalion) 758th/64th Tank Bat
talion, is planning a reunion of its
members who served with the Bat
talion from its organization in
1941 to the present. The reunion
will be held in Cherry Hill, New
Jersey July 11 thru 14, 1985.
Members are urged to write or call
SCM (Ret) Clarence Kimbrough,
4801 Simpson Drive, Louisville,
Ky. 40218(502-458-4714)
? -i
1® v-' •
John W. Lewis
Lewis graduates
from Air Force
Airman John W. Lewis, son of
John W. Fuzz of 61 Chandler,
Worcester, Mass., and Annie M.
Fuzz of 2420 Belgrade Court, has
graduated from Air Force basic
training at Lackland Air Force
Base, Texas.
During the six weeks of training
the airman studied the Air Force
mission, organization and customs
and received special training in
human relations.
In addition, airmen who com
plete basic training earn credits
toward an associate degree
through the Community College o
the Air Force.
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UNCF TELEPHONE VOLUNTEERS
CSRA residents pledge
$25,000 to UNCF
We wish to thank WRDW TV
-12 for the time donated to the
United Negro College Fund
December 29. While there was a
cost for the time, it does not start
to compare with what WRDW
could have gained in advertising
from its normally scheduled adver
tising.
There ae few causes more wor
thy of support than the United
Negro College Fund. More than
two-thirds of the leadership of the
national Black community
At*
111
S.
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fi
Tony Hall Willie Kelly
Augusta duo lead Wildcat
scoring threat
The Fort Valley State College
basketball team is currently one
game under .500 at 3 wins and 4
losses. This represents the best
start for the team in recent years.
This success is due primarily to the
play of Augusta natives Willie
Kelly and Tony Hall.
Kelly is currently leading the
team and possibly the nation in
scoring with 209 points and a 29.8
average. The current national
leader has an average of 26.0 poin
ts per game according to the most
recent NCAA Division II report.
The number two spot is held by
Tony Hall who is averaging 23.0
Gregory shares health secrets
The life expectancy for a Black
person is 68 while a White person
is expected to live to 78 years of
age. Black women are two and a
half more likely to die from
diabetes than White women.
Unhealthy diets and fat in the
diet have been blamed for these
horrifying statistics. One expert
also singled out medical care which
focuses on “during illness, not
preventing it.”
Comedian and social activist
Dick Gregory, nationally
renowned for his work in health
and nutrition, says the culprit of
most health problems is diet. On
the upcoming edition of TONY
BROWN’S JOURNAL, “The
Health Prophet,” Gregory
outlines away to make the Black
community healthier and
wealther.
Gregory, the author of books on
health, is now Gregory the en
trepreneur of health. And his best
example of health is himself. The
former 300 pound overweight,
graduated from United Negro
College Fund colleges. And these
colleges, most of which are more
than a hundred years old, continue
to inspire, challenge, and educate
Black students better than anyone
else.
We commend equally those per
sons who gave of their time and
money to insure that the minds
that go to waste for lack of oppor
tunity will ultimately be
eliminated.
points per game with a total of 161
through seven games. Tony also
holds down the number one
position in rebounding with a team
leading 61 and is the team’s field
goal percentage leader hitting 52.2
percent of his shots.
While Hall follows Kelly in
points scored, the two change
places percentage wise with Kelly
hitting 41.5 percent of his shots
from the field. At the free throw
line, Kelly is second behind Walter
Atkins of Atlanta with 69.4 per
cent of his shots made while Hall is
hitting 67.7 percent.
whisxy drinking, heavy-cigarette
smoking comedian transfor
med himself into a medically
certified phenomenon of health.
On the program Gregory talks
about his multi-million dollar deal
with Cernatin, an Ohio company,
to manufacture “Dick Gregory’s
Bahamian Diet.” A student of
nutrition for nearly 20 years,
Gregory says that one of the
problems in losing weight is the
amount of potassium that is lost.
“You don’t lose weight on this
formula at the expense of losing
nutrition,” he tells Tony Brown.
“You lose weight and you gain
nutrition.”
Gregory also shares his insights
into the relationship between
health and nutrition and the foible
plaguing the medical profession.
In addition, he discusses his plans
to share his success with the Black
community. Organizations such as
the NAACP, PUSH, SCLC, Ur
ban League and the Salvation Ar
my are targeted to receive millions
of dollars.
Moynihan Report -
From Pagel
standard of living? Indeed it does.
In general, it takes about 1.3 wage
earners per four-person family to
achieve the Bureau of Labor
Statistics lower-level standards
of living ($15,323 in 1981
prices—later figures have not yet
been published), 1.7 for the
moderate level ($24,407) and two
wage earners for the higher level
($38,060). The femlae-headed
family is clearly at a serious disad
vantage with limited opportunities
for moving up th economic ladder.
The data on the family charac
teristics of those in poverty are
even more compelling. In 1982,
only eight percent of two-parent
families were poor compared to 36
percent of female-headed
families. Among intact families
iwth two wage earners, only five
percent of white families, nine per
cent of Black families, and 12 per
cent of Hispanic families were
poor.
During the 19605, the
Black/white income ratio im
proved—from 54 percent in 1959
to 63 percent in 1968—though the
differential remained substantial.
But the differential widened again
in the 19705. According to an
analysis published in 1981, “a
fundamental reason for the
deterioration of the Black/white
income ratio between 1970 and
1976 is the substantially faster rate
of growth of female-headed
families among Blacks than among
whites. In fact, if the patterns of
family composisiton taht existed in
1970 had been present in 1978, the
Black/white income gap would
have been narrowed in that period
by five percentage points. If one
went back to 1960, the gain would
have been greater.” And it was
Dr. Robert Hill of the National
Urban League who pointed out
that the number of poor Black
families rose by 19 percent between
1969 and 1975 due to the sharp rise
of Black families headed by
women. While the number of poor
Black families headed by men fell
by 34 percent—the number of poor
Black families headed by women
soared by 64 percent, accounting
for all the increase in the number
of poor Black families.
Perhaps the most vulnerable of
ithe female-headed families are
headed by a teenager or a mother
who was a teenager when she had
her first child. A study published
by the Urban Institute found that
women who were teenagers at the
birth of their first child account for
more than half of total AFDC ex
penditures in the country and
comprise an astounding 71 per
cent of all AFDC mothers under 30
years of age.
Teenage mothers under 16 incur
the most long-term disadvantages.
They exhibit a high dropout rate
from school, have larger families,
less oportunity for employment
and lower earnings when they do
work. Further, they are more
likely to find themselves and their
children trapped in long-term
poverty with its harmful con
sequences for health, housing,
learning, and social development.
Reviewing trends from 1940 to
1960, Moynihan already expressed
concern about the fact that Black
women were having babies at
younger ages but the problem then
was still of modest dimension. It
was not until the 60s and 70s that
teenage pregnancy grew to enor
mous proportins and became the
single most important cause of
long-term poverty.
A few figures are necessary to
delineate the growth and size of the
problem, as well as its impact on
the well-being of the major ethnic
communities. The number of
teenage out-of-wedlock births rose
from 91,700 in 1960 to 262,500 in
1979; if one counts only those un
der 17, the increase is from 48,300
to 129,500. While out-of-wedlock
teenage births have increased more
rapidly among whites than among
Blacks, the rate of 15 births to un
married teenagers per 1,000 white
births is still far below the rate of
87 for Blacks. In 1971, of all
females 15-19 years, old with per
cent conceived a child; by 1979 the
figure had risen to 12 percent, or
one out of nine teenagers. Births
have also increased among
children 13-15 years old. Some 1.3
million children in this country live
with teenage mothers; an ad
ditional 1.6 million children under
five years of age live with mothers
who were teenagers when they gave
birth.
Perhaps even more revealing
than the data on births of teenagers
are the trends in teenage sexual ac
tivity and its outcome. Between
1971 and 1979, while the number
of teenagers 15 to 19 rose by six
percent, the number who were
sexually active almost doubled;
from 2.5 to 4.7 million. Among
whites the figure went from 41 per-
20 years later
cent to 65 percent; among Blacks,
from 78 percent to 89 percent.
Further, the number of teenagers
who conceived a child was about
double the number who gave birth
out-of-wedlock. In other words,
about half the conceptions ter
minated in an abortion or
miscarriage, mainly the former.
The acceleration of family
breakup and teenage pregnancy
were reflected not only in a tripling
of the welfare caseload during the
1960 s and further substantial in
creases until the mid-19705, but in
the increase in crime, juvenille
delinquency, and drug use, with
the youngsters on welfare,
disproportionately represented in
all those areas as well as among
school dropouts. The “tangle of
pathology” has become ever more
tangled.
One cannot put all the blame for
this dismaying picture on. unem
ployment, or even on
discrimination, though racial
discrimination has not yet been
eliminated from our society.
Moynihan traced a positive
correlation between Black unem
ployment rates and family in
stability for the two decades he
studied but he noted that this con
nection appeared to have broken
in 1962-3; at that time he could
only wonder whether it was the
beginning of a trend. It was. From
the early 60’s to the early 70’s
unemployment declined from an
overall rate of about six percent to
three to four percent and though
unemployment for Blacks
remained higher than that for
whites, it too declined. We were in
fact in a tight labor market.
And yet, these wsere the very
years of the explosion in the
welfare case load and the in
creasing evidence of social
pathology. What was overlooked
during this period of turbulen
ce—when there was concern
about the continued existence of
poverty within the country;
evidence of continuing though
diminishing discrimination against
Blacks and other minorities; and
violent reaction, as reflected in
riots in many cities, to what per
ceived as past and current in
justices—was the enormous
growth in female-headed families
because of family break-up mainly
as a result of teenage child
bearing. For more than two
decades, the problem was largely
ignored by the Black community.
In A Statistical Overview of Black
America published by the National
Urban League in December, 1982,
the family structure explantion of
the economic disorder which had
befallen Blacks was discounted
with the statement that “People
are not poor because they are
female and household heads; they
are poor because they do not have
jobs or adequate income.” And
the subject of Black family struc
ture was taboo among a significant
section of the white community as
well. Only recently has this
changed.
At first only individual Black
voices were heard —William
Rasberry in the Washington Post,
Robert Curvin in the New York
Times, William Haskins of the
National Urban League among
others. They were saying publicly
that in effect the Black family and
particularly with teenage pregnan
cy. The major breakthrough came
with the publication of a pamphlet
in June, 1983 entitled A Policy
Framework for Racial Justice,
issued by 30 liberal Black leaders
and members of the Black leader
ship Forum. These leaders list the
following as the most urgent
problems to be tackled to bring
poor Blacks into the mainstream:
progress in the economy, the con
dition of the Black family (my
emphasis) and educational oppor
tunity. They add that unless
major efforts are made quickly
•• 1 ne condition of a large portion
of the Black population will
deteriorate beyond the point where
any program of action can be ef
fective.” On the subject of
teenagers they say “Teenagers and
young men and women need to be
encouraged to pursue training,
work, and personal development
while they delay pregnancy and
family formation” and further
that “For young people, there is a
special need for sex education and
education about the importance
of delaying sex, pregnancy and
marriage (my emphasis)”.
The issuance of A Policy
Framework for Fracial Justice ser
ved to galvanize the Black com
munity to action on a national
scale. It was followed within a year
by a Black Family Summit Con
ference called by the National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People and the
National Urban League. The news
release issued at the end of the con-
ference, May 5, 1984, contains
language not heard for many
years; for example John Jacobs, |
President of NUL warned that
“some of our problems may be
self-inflicted, that we my have
allowed our just anger at what
America has done to obscure our
own need for self-discipline and
strengthened community values”.
If one reads through the sum
mary recommendations of each of
the ten task forces established at
the conference, it is not difficult
to be critical of its laundry list
aspect or the lack of specificity of
many of the recommendations.
What is more important, however,
is the recognition of the nature of
the problem and the beginning ef
fort to outline a strategy for
dealing with it, a strategy which
clerly must stress the economic and
social advantages of family
stability and the behavior
necessary to achieve it and not rest
solely on an appeal to morality.
The public recognition by Black
leaders of the responsibility of the
Black family and for persuading
teenagers and young people, boys
and girls alike, to postpone sexual
activity and pregnancy has
also made it easier for the white
sponsored foundations and other
philanthropic organizations to
assist in developing and funding
necessary programs, and also to
evaluate the effectiveness of dif
ferenct approaches. Hitherto, the
foundations approached these J
issues very cautiously, concerned
that they might be considered
racist.
The importance of evaluation of
the effectiveness of programs can
not be overemphasized. The belated
recogniton of the caused of pover
ty among Blacks in the 1960’s and
onward—not to be condused with
the causes of poverty in the 1930’s
or earilier—have resulted in a
problem of enormous size and
complexity. No one knows exac
tly how to promote family stability
and persuade teenage boys and
girls to postpone sexual activity
after two decades of permissiveness
and the erosion of earlier held
values Efforts to develop
programs of any major scope are
no more than two years old and
some remain statements of inten
tion rather than programs which
can be implemented beginning neart
month. One of the early
ones—Teaching Teens to Say
No—begun on a demonstration
basis in Cleveland and Atlanta
aqnd now being carried out on a
large scale in the schools in Atlan
ta, is being evaluated by the Ford
Foundation. Governor Mario
Cuomo of New York has initiated
a program on adolescent pregnan
cy which is, however, still largely
on the drawing board and the New
York City public school system has
within recent months initiated an
updated sex education curriculum
dealing with teenage pregnancy
among other issues. Other efforts
are underway in various cities
sponsored by various foundations.
What is needed is a national cen
tral repository of information on
what programs are being tried, and
which show promise of success un
der what circumstances, so that
scarce resources are not wasted on
reinventing the wheel, espeically
wheels that don’t turn.
Government at all levels should
join in the effort to strenghten the
Black family in appropriate ways.
The federal government might well
fund the national depository of in
formation suggested above
Washington and the states should
focus more attention and resources
on advancing the educational
achievement of the children in
welfare families since there is a
positive correlation between
progress in schools and delaying
sexual activity. The names and
addresses of the roughly 8 million
children in the nation on welfare
are know to local welfare depar
tments. But little is done to
provide extra assistance to them in
the early years of schooling though
it is know that they are dispropor
tionately represented among
school dropouts. If effort is not
made in the early grades we will
continue to face a costly
remediation effort —as we are
now—in the high schools and even
the colleges, as we seek with only
limited success to prepare them for
the existing opportunities in the
world of work.
It is urgent that the effort to
postpone teenage sexual activity su
cceed if we are to avoid the heavy
cowsts to society of teenage child
bearing and the even heavier costs
to the teenager, her child, and the
Black community, as well as the
costs of continuing conflict bet
ween Blacks, whites and other
ethnic groups over the distribution
of the nation’s product.
Moynihan was right.