Newspaper Page Text
Blacks annoyed
by treatment
of labor pool
Page 1
VOLUME 14 NUMBER 34
King birthday speakers emphasize planning
Hamilton urges
Black officials to
get together
Speakers at Martin Luther King
birthday celebrations here Tuesday
urged Blacks to develop a plan for
liberation and stick to it.
Dr. C.S. Hamilton, speaker for
the local NAACP Freedom
Banquet, said that “Augusta needs
a plan, and we must work the
plan.” Hamilton, whose car was
bombed when he was president of
the local chapter during the tur
bulent 19605, “The enemy is well
organized. We need to be decisive,
know what we want and work for
it.”
A former city councilman,
Hamilton said that Black elected
officials need'to be together on a
plan. “Whites have always been
able to defeat us because they can
keep us divided,” he said, adding
that there have been times when
“we’ve had to fight the people we
*<./ii help. ’’
Blacks have also been critics of
progress, he said. “Here we were
moving like a snail, and some
Blacks were telling us, ‘Y’all
moving too fast.’ ” Picking up on
the banquet theme, “Now Is the
Time,” Hamilton said, “We can
miss God’s best blessings by saying
‘not now but later,’ ”
“Now is the time to spend our
money where it is appreciated, to
DeVaney picks Thomason
for Ist ward seat
The Augusta City Council on
Friday approved Mayor Charles
A. DeVaney’s recommendation
that former Councilman John
Thomason be appointed until the
October Council election to fill the
Ist Ward seat vacated by
DeVaney.
The mayor said he would
recommend to City Council the
approval of Thomason to fill the
seat that he held for more than
three years.
DeVaney defeated Thomason in
1981 to win the first elected seat of
his political career. He had been
Thomason’s campaign finance
chairman but decided to run for
the office himsfelf.
In May 1984, he was selected by
City Council to serve as mayor pro
tern following the resignation of
former Mayor Edward M. Mcln
tyre.
Since the acting mayor must be a
member of City Council, DeVaney
has been serving a dual role of
mayor pro tern and one of two City
Council representatives from the
Ist Ward.
According to the City Code,
DeVaney has the option of appoin
ting Thomason to serve until the
next election or serve the remain
der of the term of the vacated seat.
If Thomason wins the seat in
October’s election, he still will
have to run again in October 1986
(the end of the three-year term for
the seat held by De Vaney) if he
wants to remain on council.
“John is one of the few people
living in the Ist Ward who ex-
Augusta Neuis-ileutew
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OTIS SMITH (right) outgoing president of the NAACP,
installs new officers. Harry James is president for 1985.
Also installed were: the Rev. Charlie More, first vice
get involved, and to get right with
God.”
“We’ve got to feed the hungry
and clothes the naked, Now Is the
Time.”
pressed a strong desire to serve on
City Council. He is supportive of
my plans for the city. I cm not
asking for someone who will be a
rubber stamp, but I am asking for
a team player who will try to work
with the rest of the council mem
bers for a better city,” DeVaney
said.
“There have been some high
emotions about my recommen
dation, but I think John will do a
good job. If you’ve been into
politics for awhile, you make a lot
of friends and enemies. If you
haven’t, then you haven’t done
much.”
Thomason will serve on the
Cemetery, Trees and Parks, the
Public Transit and Parking and the
Stockade and Recorder’s Court
committees.
Thomason, who resides at 401
Broad St., has lived in Augusta
since 1952. He owns the Augusta
Courier Serivce.
Under former Mayor Lewis A.
Newman, Thomason was a mem
ber of the Finance and Budget
Committee.
He is a past member of the
Augusta Elks Club and is a past
president of the Augusta Civitan
Club and past International vice
president of Civitan Club Inter
nationa. He also served as gover
nor of the South Georgia District of
Civitan Clubs.
Thomason also is a member of
the Pinnacle Club, Landmark Bap
tist Church and the Old Towne
Neighborhood Association.
Coretta Scott King
still pushing
Martin’s dream
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ATLANTA—Seventeen years
after her husband’s death, Coretta
Scott King still lives in his shadow;
her office overlooks the park
where his crypt lies near a reflec
ting pool.
She has devoted herself to
establishing the Martin Luther
King Jr. Center for Nonviolent
Social Change, a sls million
monument to the man historian
Theodore White calls “the first
Black in American history who
you cannot erase from the story of
our nation.”
Mrs. King lobbied' for years to
NAACP angered by moving of labor pools
The Presidents of two Augusta
civil rights groups called a press
conference last Thursday to voice
their “disgust” at a city decision to
bar unofficial labor pools from
gathering on a downtown street
and stated that they were con
sidering legal action.
“The Augusta Chapter of the
NAACP alpng with the Committee
for Concerned Citizens are distur
bed and we are disgusted,” said
NAACP President Harry B. James
111 at the press conference held to
protest the city’s actions.
On Last Wednesday, the
Augusta police told a group of
men standing near the Georgia
Department of Labor building at
6th and Greene streets that they
had to leave the site, and warned
them not to return.
No arrests were made, but police
took down the names and ad
dresses of at least 10 of those who
were standing near the building,
according to James.
The officers were acting on an
order from Mayor Charles
DeVaney, who had received a
request from Department of Labor
Widow still seeks King’s goals
Jess
to come nome
Monday night
Page 2
January 19,1985
president; Verma Curtis, second vice president; Dr. LeJeune
Brown, third vice president; Charles Williams, secretary;
and Rosa Spring, treasurer.
make sure the nation never forgets:
A federal holiday honoring the
assissinated civil rights leader star
ts next year. Already, the anniver
sary of King’s birthday —he would
have been 56 January 15th— will
be celebrated in 25 states, and in
cities from San Diego to Chicago;
many schools, offices and
businesses will close.
Coretta Scott King is still in the
business of making her husband’s
dreams come true.
For 15 years, Mrs. King —the
daughter of a Southern family that
officials that groups of people no
longer be allowed to congregate by
their building, DeVaney said.
For several years, the site has
served as a place where unem
ployed citizens can meet people
who want to hire short term help,
James said. Many of the people
who meet there may have been
unable to find work through the
Labor Department, and are willing
to work for less than the minimum
wage, he said.
James noted that the men were
on public property and were not
breaking any laws. “Their only
crime is that they are poor and
unemployed,” he said.
By asking them to leave the area,
the police department was
violating the men’s constitutional
rights to freedom of assembly and
freedom of association, James
said.
DeVaney said he took the action
after receiving complaints from
Labor officials that the large
groups were causing traffic hazar
ds —when trucks stopped in the
street to pick up workers— and
that some of the men had verbally
Less than 75 percent Advertising
scraped by working a small plot of
land outside Marion, Ala., during
the worst years of segregation
—took a back seat as her husband
became a national leader. She
traveled with him occasionally but
made their four children her
primary responsibility.
When her husband was shot in
1968, “my whole life changed,”
says Mrs. King, 57. Today, she is
sensitive about being recognized
for her own accomplishments, in
cluding the founding and presiden
cy of King Center —not simply as
King’s widow.
harrased employees and patrons of
the Labor Department.
DeVaney conceded that the men
were breaking no laws, but added
that he stands by his decision to
prevent people from gathering by
the Labor building.
“All I suggested is that they
move to another location off a
major thoroughfare,” he said. “I
think we have the duty to prevent
the citizens of the city from being
harassed.”
James said, “It was overkill.”
He said the actions of a few should
not require that the entire group be
forced to leave.
James said the NAACP was
ready to seek an injunction against
the city if officials continue to bar
groups from gathering at the site.
“We will support any workers who
are out there trying to get em
ployment to support their
families,” he said.
Committee of Concerned
Citizens President Leonardo
Eubanks-Stern said his group
backed the NAACP’s statements.
Another issue the groups are
concerned with is the city’s
ney chooses
i nomason for
Ist Ward seat
Page 1
Paine students
urged to lead
purposeful lives
Paine College students were told
Tuesday that they have been called
co live purposeful lives.
Dr. Thelma J. Dudley, presiden
ts of the Women’s Missionary
Council of the Christian Methodist
Episcopal Church, said that get
ting an education is “big
business.” “You have been called.
The world needs you. The nation
needs you. The race needs you. I
need you.”
She challenged the students to
plan their lives so well that they
have a vision of what it will be like.
“Circumstances may alter the pat
tern we have designed, but we
don’t throw away the plan.”
Noting that Martin Luther King
tried to make his dreams a reality,
Dr. Dudley said that “a man who
has no aim not only leaves no
name, but—ten to one—he leaves
a record of shame.
“It is better to die in strife than
to glide with the stream and lead a
purposeless life.
“It is better to climb and fall
than never to strive at all,” she
continued. “Dr. Benjamin Mays
said, ‘You are what you aspire to
be. You are what you do with your
mind and what you do with your
youth.’”
Former President Jimmy Carter,
who has known Mrs. King for
many years, says: “Coretta tends
to submerge her own ambitions
and characteristics, perhaps
somewhat excessively, to play the
very important role of continuing
to represent her husband. 1 see this
as unselfish and generous, but it
makes it difficult to see the in
timate side of her.”
The result is a woman who
seems passionate about public
policy and blase about her own
lite.
removal of public benches in the
Greene •Street median near the
Labor Department building. Ine
benches were installed with federal
grant funds to beautify the city and
therefore belong to the taxpayers,
James said.
Their removal, he said, shows
the “Meanness and the callousness
of the city administration.” He
added that only those benches ad
jacent to the Labor Department
had been removed.
DeVaney said the benches were
removed because they had lately
become a haven for vagrants who
used them as beds, and that he
would rather remove the benches
than have to make arrests. It is
possible the benches will be
replaced at a later date, he said.
DeVaney said he would nave no
objection to job-seekers gathering
at a spot where they would not in
terrupt traffic or disturb passers
by.
Richmond County Human
Relations Commission Chairman
Frank Thomas said about 10
people have contacted his office to
find out where they can meet to
find temporary jobs.
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