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The Au: "is<3 News - Review January 19, 1985
Mallory K. MillenderEditor-Publisher
Paul Walker Assistant to the Publishei
Georgene Hatcher-Seabrook •• General Manage!
Rev. R.E. Donaldsoißeligion Editor
Mrs. Geneva Y. Gibson.. Church Coordinator
Charles Beale Jenkins County Correspondent
Mrs. Fannie Johnson Aiken County Correspondent
Mrs. Clara WestMcDuffie County Correspondent
Mrs. Been Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor
Linda Starks-Andrews Reporter
Roosevelt Green Columnist
Al IrbyColumnist
Philip Waring Columnist
Marva Stewart Columnist
George Bailey Sports Writer
Carl McCoyEditorial Cartoonist
Olando HamlettPhotographer
Roscoe Williams i Photographer
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Going Places
Augusta natives to perform
By Phil Waring
All highways and byways again
lead to next Tuesday’s Jessey Nor
man concert at Paine College.
Also in ap
pearance will
be Karen
Brown, who
will dance with
the famous
Harlem Dance
Theatre of
Harlem. The
Paine College Choir and
Morehouse College Glee Club will
perform. Also Miss Brown’s
brother, Russell, now with the
Morehouse Choir, will sing in sup
port of his sister.
Miss Norman, now a renown
Metropolitan Opera House diva,
has been widely acclaimed for her
craftsmanship around the world.
She also has not forgotten her
Augusta roots. She has given
special scholarships for music
students at both Augusta and
Paine Colleges.
Miss Norman also appeared
during the Paine College Centen
nial. A graduate of Howard
University, she is also an alumnus
of Lucy C. Laney High School and
a long time member of Mt. Calvary
Baptist Church.
In the past few years Karen
Brown has won plaudits and come
To Be Equal
Does equal employment exist in
the corporate world
By John E. Jacob
Equal employment opportunity
is not something corporations do
for minorities. It is something
corporations must do for them-
■ *
selves in order
to compete for
talent.
Corporate
America has
been slow to
realize this. It
only began
hiring Blacks in appreciate num
bers during the civil rights ferment
in the 19605. But it tended to see
that hiring as social responsibility,
not as sound business practice.
It takes anywhere from fifteen to
twenty years of aggressive
nanagers to work their way
■hrough line operating positions of
increasing importance to finally en
ter the inner circle of senior
executives.
If corporate America had been
serious about fully utilizing the
new Black talent it recruited in the
19605, today we would be seeing
larger numbers of Black vice
presidents, senior and group vice
presidents, and even CEOs.
But we do not. That is because
Blacks hired in the sixties were of
ten shunted into EEO, into special
markets, into the ghetto of
designated “Black” jobs that did
not give them exposure to
operating positions that constitute
the corporate fast track to success.
We now have large numbers of
Black managers who have reached
a career plateau because they were
denied those experiences.
Many are approaching
retirement, and they wil not be
replaced by other Blacks because
their functions are being integrated
into the general operations of the
corporation. Today, most large
companies can reach special
markets without Black specialists.
They can implement EEO plans
without Black EEO managers.
The first generation of Black
achievers blazed an important
to the forefront both in the United
States and Europe as she became a
premier ballarenia with the famous
Dance Theatre of Harlem. She is
a distinguished graduate of
Aquinas High School, she also
formerly danced with the Augusta
Ballet during the 19705. Miss
Brown did advance study with the
Jeffrey School of Ballet in New
York. She often praises guidance
and direction received from Arthur
Mitchell co-founder and director
of the Dance Theatre of Harlem,
and also Karel Schook, co
director. She has been also warm
in praise of her peers in the dance
group with whom she has been
closely associated during the past
ten years.
Reared at St. Mary’s Episcopal
church here where her parents Dr.
and Mrs. Allen N. Brown are of
ficers, and her six brothers and
sisters sang in the church choir and
served on the altar.
So let’s all come out next
Tuesday and honor these two
‘‘Distinguished Daughters of
Augusta”.
Incidently any town in this
nation would be proud to have
such a cultural assembly featuring
two daughters who have gone out
to aid their hometown. This in
cidentally is being given splendid
national coverage.
trail. They helped their com
panies. They were role models for
younger Blacks.
They served honorably and well
. They deserve better than the
frustration of knowing that their
Blackness was a barrier to career
growth and success.
Will their successors the
bright young Black managers hired
in the past five or ten years meet
with similar frustrations?
Is corporate America making
the best use of their talents? Is it
giving them the opportunities to
run key enterprises to bring
products to market to let their
talent and their accomplishments
take them to the top?
The true test of corporate equal
opportunity is not simply in the
numbers of Black managers; it is
not solely quantity but quality.
If a company says it has x per
cent Black managers that tells us
little. Where are those Blacks? If
they are buried in staff functions
or in special markets we know the
company is not fully living up to its
equal employment obligations.
If they are in production, sales,
finance, and other traditional
routes to the top, then we know the
company is serious about EEO and
serious about attracting top Black
achievers.
Corporate America must go
beyond its traditional conception
of equal employment hiring to
equal promotional opportunities
and to grooming talented young
Black managers for line positions
that lead to career ladders reaching
to the pinnacle of corporate
power.
While white women have made
great strides in recent years and
may well penetrate the senior ranks
of corporate executives within a
short period of time, Blacks have
not made such such gains.
It is in the interests of Blacks, of
corporations of the nation that
they do so. An efficient, growth
economy needs the full talents of
all, and that means equalizing op
portunities for those who have
been left out in the oast.
Page 4
on
k /n £
■ eiACfc- g-CSOOgCEL IK>C-.
Walking With Dignity
Ah’ York City—
a world within itself
By Al Irby
In many ways New York City is
a world within itself, and its sub
ways is a separate continent within
the world. But
the public con
cern about
random crimes
of violence that
lately has
found such
strong ex
pression in the
‘Big Apple’ is shared by people in
many areas of the country. In
Manhattan the issue has revolved
around the shooting of four Black
youths in a subway by a man
referred to as a “vigilante”; he
says the four lads had threatened
him and demanded money from
him. It is up to the courts to
determine what the facts are in this
ugly case.
But as to the general issue of so
called vigilantism, no one should
condone a person’s taking the law
into his own hands, as used to be
done with sometimes horrific
results in the early days of the
United States.
Shortly after 5 a.m. on Thur
sday, Dec. 13, 1984, I arrived in
Havana, Cuba, the first stop on
my 10-day,
fact-finding mis
sion to Cuba
and the
troubled, small
Central Ameri
can nations of
Nicaragua, El
Salvador and'
Guatemala.
Havana is a modern city of some
2 million industrious and frien
dly Spanish-speaking people. It
winds along the northwestern coast
of Cuba, only about a hundred
miles south of Miami, Florida.
Blessed with a bright, ideal
climate, Havana lies on the
southern shore of the Gulf of
Mexico, close to where the Gulf
quietly joins the Atlantic Ocean.
Once a bustling, international
resort and commercial center, it is
the capital of the only Communist
nation in the Western hemisphere.
Cuba is the largest island in the
Caribbean Sea, almost 800 miles
long from east to west, though only
125 miles across at its widest, north
to south point. The population of
Cuba approaches 10 million, about
three times that of Chicago. Ap
proximately one-fourth of the
nation’s inhabitants are direct
descendants to African slaves, one-
%-* * a. 2
Cuba —land of progress and surprises
by Gus Savage
:W\<l
In a society as advanced as the
United States, it is the proper job
of the law enforcement and
judicial systems to see that the rule
ot law is upheld. Unfortunately
too often these systems do not
work. The victim is protected after
the fact, if at all, and the criminal
is not apprehended, able to escape
all punishment, or lightly
punished.
This situation has given rise to
the kind of frustration with due
legal process whjph, in the New
York case, has shown itself in a
broad public outpouring of sup
port for the actions of the man ac
cused of having shot the four
youths he says were his assailants.
Decrying vigilantism is not the
solution. What is required is a
more effective effort by gover
nment leaders at the local level and
by law enforcement agencies to
devise ways to keep subways,
streets, and neighborhoods
reasonably safe from violent, ran
don crime. Across the nation there
have been improvement in recent
years. The number of violent
crimes have begun to recede
slowly.
Political leaders and the judicial
third of white-Spanish origin, and
the remainder of racially mixed
origin. However, compared with
the United States, race has little or
no significance.
While I noticed few Blacks
among the political and military
heirarchy, at a huge steel mill and
foundry I visited on the second day
of my stay on the island, half or
more of the management and
supervisory personnel whom I met
were Black. Additionally, among
students and in the streets, social
distinctions based upon race were
not apparent.
As for its one-party form of
government, Cuba is ruled by a
highly disciplined Communist Par
ty, under a popularly adopted con
stitution. To the extent that there
is legislative power, it is rested in
popularly elected national and
local assemblies. Executive power
belongs to a council of ministers.
This council, as well as the Party
and national assembly, is headed
by the President, the charismatic
and brilliant Marxist-leninist, Fidel
Castro, heroic leader of Cuba’s
socialist revolution which propelled
him into power in 1959.
I first met and chatted with
Castro on the Friday night
following my arrival in Havana, at
a grand official reception for the
visiting President of Ethiopia,
who, incidentally, sincerely invited
me to visit his drought-plagued
system are paying more attention
to the needs and rights of victims.
Some of the guilty are receiving
stiffer sentences, following swifter
trials. Yet the perception is v
little affected; many people feel no
more comfortable.
Many who use urban public
transportation after dark are par
ticularly concerned. Most buses
have no police protection, and
serious questions are raised about
the amount and quality of training
provided to those special
policemen who do patrol subways
or other transit lines.
The strong public backing for
the New Yorker accused in the
shooting should be a warning to
public officials that they will have
to find the means to provide better
protection to citizens in subways
and buses and on the streets. It is
proper for all Americans,
where ever they live, to be freed of
fear of violent crime.
Some New Yorkers do not sup
port the shooting of the four teen
agers by Goetz, who had been
mugged in 1981. But they also are
quick to note that the four boys all
had criminal records.
country. The next day, Saturday, 1
was granted a more than two-hour
private audience with Castro,
where we discussed many aspects
of his country’s internal develop
ment, as well as the areas of con
flict with the Untied States.
Although 1 had heard many
stories about Castro’s billiance and
charm, I was not fully prepared for
the extent of his relaxed and con
fident manner, apparently un
diminished despite the terrible
pressures of the past 25 years.
However, regardless of Castro’s
courage and commitment to his
socialist revolution, I left the
meeting convinced that the Cub
an President genuinely desires im
proved relations with the United
States and is willing to take the
lead in bringing this about.
My conviction is supported by
the excitement created in Havana
over the agreement concluded on
the day after my arrival between
the United States and Cuba. As
many readers probably know, the
agreement provides that Cuba will
accept the return of 2,746 of the
some 125,000 Cubans it permitted
to leave for the United States in
1980, on the basis of a one-shot ac
ceptance by the Carter ad
ministration.
The United States now wishes to
expel the returnes because they are
considered to be convicted
criminals, mental patients and
. Editorial
Martin Luther King—
a closer look
Our national holidays are
designated by acts of congress and
become law by our
signature. On these few days scat
tered over our calendar, all gover
nment business is suspended, our
mails halt, schools are closed and
many of our commercial in
stitutions do not transact business.
On January 15, 1986, a new
national holiday will be observed,
Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Thereafter it will always by ob
served on the third Monday of
January. President Reagan signed
this bill into Law on November 2,
1984. Only George Washington,
the founder of our country and Dr.
King have been so honored.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was
born in 1929 and received national
attention in 1955 when he led a 381
day boycott of the Montgomery,
Alabama busses. This led to the
discontinuance of segregation
seating on public transportation in
that city.
Inspired by the example of In
dia’s Mohandas K. Gandhi, Dr.
King urged the nation’s Black
population to follow his tenets of
non-violence to achieve racial
equality.
As head of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference,
Dr. King led S.C.L.C. demon
strations in other southern cities.
He met with hostility and brutality
in many of them. His followers
were beaten and he was jailed
several times. He was the object of
an intense F. 8.1. investigation, but
he continued to strictly observe
and urge the methods of non
violence. His goal was simply to
end all segregation and achieve full
civil rights for all Americans.
In 1964, Dr. King, at 35, was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
He was the youngest to ever win
that prize.
Dr. King’s message was that the
American Revolution had not en
ded and "Would not until’ every
American,- regardless of sexzsreed.
or color could share, as equal par
tners, the American Adventure.
His vision was set forth in his
famous “I have a dream” speech
of an America that lives up to the
See M. L. King Page 6
A commentary in the New York
Times quoted Harvard political
Scientist Dr. James Wilson as
saying: ‘‘ln New York City there
are no liberals any more on the
crime and the law-and-order
issues. All the liberals have been
mugged.”
This class of punks—fare
beaters, smokers, kids who play
loud music or bother other
passengers—is very tough to pur
sue. They are young, have few
assets, and are hard to track down.
And when they are caught the
courts turn them loose.
other hard-core social misfits who
normally would be excluded under
our immigration laws. However,
in a one-hour, 40-minute radio and
television speech on the day of the
agreement, Castro painstakenly
and vehemently denied that the
proposed returnees were as
described by the United States.
The agreement further provides
that the United States will begin
accepting Cuban immigrants nor
mally, up to 20,000 per year from
now on, plus 3,000 political
refugees in 1985.
The significance of the
agreement is that, first of all, an
official agreement negotiated bet
ween the two countries is a big step
toward easing tensions. Also, it
provides the Cuban government
with a safety valve for those who
wish to leave, many of whom are
incurably profit-oriented and
drawn by the lures and promises of
America’s capitalistic society.
Incidentally, Castro made a
point in his speech of crediting
Rev. Jesse Jackson, by name, with
crucially contributing to the
initiation of the negotiations.
During Rev. Jackson’s visit to
Cuba last June, some will recall, he
helped persuade Castro not to wait
until the presidental election was
over before entering the
negotiations, insisting they would
not become an issue in the cam
paign.