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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 •THE AUGUSTA N£JFS-XhHEFF(USPS «87 820) is published weekly for sll per year in the county and sl2 per year out of th j county. Second-class postage paid at Augusta, Ga. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW, P.O. Box 2123, Augusta, Ga. 30903-2123.” (404) 722-4555 AMALGAMATED National Advertising Representative PUBLISHERS, INC. JL 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.