Newspaper Page Text
Cross burned
in front of
AKA house
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VOLUME 14 NUMBER 36
‘T7ze State of Black America: 1985
In each one of 10 recent years,
the National Urban League has
called together a group of outstan
ding scholars to assess and analyze
important events in a number of
specific areas. As a product of that
study, John E. Jacob, president of
the National Urban League, recen
tly delivered his annual appraisal
of the “State of Black America.”
Participating scholars and the
titles of the papers they con
tributed to the Urban League
study are as follows:
“The Phenomenon of the Jesse
Jackson Candidacy and the 1984
Presidential Election,” Dr.
Charles V. Hamilton, Columbia
University; “Modern Technology
and Urban Schools,” Dr. Robert
E. Fullilove, University of
California at Berkeley;
“Blackening in Media: The State
of Blacks in the Press,” Dr.
Samuel L. Adams, University of
Kansas; “Aged Black Americans:
Double Jeopardy Re-examined,”
Dr. Jacquelyne Johnson Jackson,
Duke University Medical Center;
‘‘Blacks in the U.S. Labor
Movement: Working or Not?”
Dr. Lenneal J. Henderson,
Howard University; “The Black
Family Today and Tomorrow,”
Dr. James D. McGhee, NUL
Director of Research; “The Poten
tials and Problems of Black Finan
cial Institutions,” Dr. Williams D.
Bradford, University of Maryland.
Following is the full text of
Jacob’s appraisal:
Ten years ago, the National Ur
ban League began publishing this
annual assessment of the status of
Blacks in America. Over this
period we have recorded some ad
vancements and some setbacks,
but what has remained constant is
the continuing struggle of Black
America for equity.
Black America is a special place
that requires special understan
ding. It embraces more than 26
Bishop is Founders’ Day speaker
Bishop Marshall Gilmore,
presiding bishop of the fourth
episcopal district, will return to his
alma mater on February 8 to ad
dress the annual Founder’s Day
convocation.
Bishop Gilmore holds the Doc
tor of Ministry degree from the
United Theological Seminary in
Dayton, Ohio and was awarded
the honorary Doctor of Divinity
from Texas College.
In addition to chairing the
buildings and grounds committee
of the Paine College Board of
Trustees, he is chairman of the
board for Mississippi Industrial
College, and a member of the
board of the Phillips School of
Cross burned in front of AKA house
“We shall not be silent on this
kind of deplorable action,” said
Faye B. Bryant, national president
of Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA)
sorority, in reaction to the burning
of a cross in front of the AKA
chapter house on the campus of
Georgia Tech in Atlanta Jan. 15.
“Such violence in 1985 is incom
prehensible and indefensible,”
Bryant siad.
The AKA’s move into the house
on Greek Row less than a year ago
gave them the distinction of being
the only Black sorority at Tech to
have a house. Mary Shy Scott,
AKA regional director and an
Augusta Neius-Sleuteui
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John E. Jacob
“Black America is a special place that requires special understanding.
It embraces more than 26 million men, women, and children, and is
becoming increasingly younger and more concentrated in urban areas.”
million men, women and children
and is becoming increasingly
younger and more concentrated in
urban areas. While it shares many
of the same concerns so common
to American society as a whole—a
decent education, a worthwhile job
offering upward mobility, the
rearing of a strong and healthy
family, and retirement in comfort
and dignity—it has its own special
set of concerns that exert a power
ful influence in determining the
quality of its life.
Concerns about schools that do
BishopvMarshall Gilmore
Atlanta resident, noted the “joy
and exhilaration” the members
had exhibited as they moved into
the residence. “These emotions
have now been replaced with
anguish and fear,” Scott said.
In a statement issued Jan. 16,
Joseph M. Pettit, president of
Georgia Tech, said that an in
vestigation was underway and that
the “appropriate penalty” would
be imposed. Pettit labelled the ac
tion as a “reversion to a less
enlightened state” and said that
never in his 13 years as president of
Georgia Tech had such a blatant
act of racism been perpetrated.
AKA will wait for Georgia Tech
Ray Parker Jr.
buys farm
in Anderson S.C.
Pagel
not teach but graduate functional
illiterates, about horrendous
unemployment rates and the tens
of thousands of people who have
never held a job and probably
never will, about the staggering in
crease in families headed by single
women, about violent crimes
where Blacks are both the principal
victims and the perpetrators.
That Black America is not worse
off today than it is, is more of a
testament to its traditional ability
to survive under the most difficult
of conditions than to anything
Theology in Atlanta.
His church-related activities are
numerous, including his chair
manship of general board of the
Department, of Evangelism of the
Christian Methodist Episcopal
Church. He is also a member of
the board of directors of the
Louisiana Human Relations
Council.
The formal convocation is
scheduled for 11 a.m. in the
Gilbert-Lambuth Chapel, with
faculty and administrators of the
college in academic regalia.
As customary, a motorcade
procession to the gravesites of Dr.
George Williams Walker and John
to complete its investigation before
taking any action, but “....the in
vestigation must be comprehensive
and swift; we will monitor the ad
ministration’s actions to insure
that this occurs,” Bryant said. “It
is imperative that the ad
ministration take every measure
necessary to find the culprits im
mediately and impose the severest
penalty possible,” she said.
AKA is one of America’s
premier Greek-lettered
organizations for Black women.
Undergraduate chapters on more
than 325 campuses make up 25
percent of the sorority’s member
ship.
Killir :f:
knife v
lungers must stopl
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February 2,1985
else. Survival is away of life in all
too much of Black America, but
the word also carries with it the
implication of being able to make
those changes and adjustments
necessary to meetthe circumstances
of the moment.
These adjustments occurred in
creasingly in Black America in
1984 as more Blacks and more
Black institutions, realizing there
would be only minimal assistance
coming from the outside, directed
more and more of their own
energies and limited resources
toward addressing the pressing
problems at hand. We will return
to this point later.
When the National Urban
League started this series it was
because of the need to call the
nation’s attention to the special
conditions of Black Americans,
conditions that were being
ignored by the leadership and the
policy-makers in this country.
Those who were in a position to do
something about these conditions,
proceeded as if they did not exist.
And those who by raising the
issues that produced the conditions
might have compelled attention to
be paid to them, were either
p&werless or chose to be silent.
We spoke in the first “State of
Black America” of the slow but
steady decline in racial cooperation
and how the “condition of Black
Americans, once the benchmark of
America’s commitment to equality
and justice, is now the object of
malign neglect and hostile
disregard.”
A few days before the
publication of our document,
President Richard M. Nixon
delivered the State of the Union
Address. Commenting on that we
said:
“It did not include a single men
tion of Black citizens and their
needs. It included not one word
Wesley Gilbert will follow the
assembly.
Walker, who is buried in the
Westview Cemetery, was a mem
ber of the South Carolina Con
ference and second president of
Paine. Although he did not par
ticipate in the actual founding of
the college, his administration was
influential in stabilizing the in
sitution. It was during his twentv
seven year tenure that Paine In
stitute was rechartered as Paine
College, the faculty became
racially integrated, and Haygood
and Holsey Halls were constructed
as well as the original president’s
home.
Gilbert, interred at Cedargrove
Cemetery, was a minister of the
Christian Methodist Episcopal
Church, Paine’s first student and
graduate, and the first Black
faculty member
The second annual parent’s day
at Paine College is scheduled for
Saturday, Feb. 9, as the
culmination of a week-long series
of activities celebrating Black
History Week and Founder’s Day.
Parents will have the oppor
tunity to meet with administrative
staff and faculty and visit the
residence halls.
Other activities will include per
formances by the Paine College
Jazz Ensemble, the Choirs, and the
Dramatic Club.
Additional information and a
specific schedule of activities may
be obtained from the student ser
vices division on campus.
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I Page 6
Less than 75 percent Advertising
about the government’s commit
ment to enforce civil rights laws,
about the disproportionate suf
fering Black people have endured
in the current depression, about
mob effort to defy court orders to
desegregate the schools, about the
urban fiscal problems of our most
urbanized minority—not one
word!
“Because the public has been
subjected to an analysis of the
State of the Union that excludes
Black people, the National Urban
League has prepared a document
that delineates the State of Black
Americans today. It is a document
that does not attempt to cover up
the seriousness of the situation
Black people find themselves in.”
And 10 years later, what is the
State of Black America? Has it
improved? Has it grown worse?
In the best of worlds we would
be reporting that the Black con
dition has shown marked im
provement over the past decade.
But the facts argue otherwise. In
virtually every area of life that
counts, Black people made strong
progress in the 19605, peaked in
the 70s, and have been sliding back
ever since. Much of this, but not
all, is attributable to the shape of
the American economy which has
gone through some trying times,
and is still not out of the woods, as
far as Black Americans can
discern.
One measuring rod for an
swering the questions we have
posed is employment. In 1975,
Stop the killing
Before any in
vestigation into the
shooting death of
Lawrence James of South
Augusta is completed, a
thorough review should
be made of the
psychological backgrou
nd of Joseph Michael
Cawley, the county police
officer who shot him.
Although much has
been made of his having
been diagnosed as a
“chronic paranoid
schizophrenic with
homicidal tendencies,”
some people who have
worked with Cawley say
that he is “crazier than
the man he killed.”
Sources say4hat when
Cawley worked at
Southern Bell Telephone
Company where he was
terminated for “safety”
reasons, he had a
“terribly” conduct
record, was known to
dislike Blacks, and that if
the Richmond County
Police Department had
checked his record they
would not have hired him
to protect, the lives of
others whefri he is a
danger to himself.
Cawley shot James
Monday afternoon after
a neighbor reported that
he was making a distur
bance. allegedly
been shouting obscenities
at officers and “lunged
at” the officer with a
Black unemployment was 14.1
percent, about double that of
white unemployment (7.6 percent).
At the end of 1984, Black unem
ployment was 16 percent, more
than double that of whites (6.5
percent). Constituting some 10
percent of the labor force, Blacks
account for 20 percent of the
jobless.
The economy is not the only for
ce that continues to operate against
Blacks. The national will to take
positive steps to help set the scales
of justice into balance has
deminished tremendously over the
past 10 years, and has been
replaced, in large measure, by a
feeling that nothing more needs to
be done and if Blacks are still on
the outside looking in, it’s
probably their own fault.
National leadership must be held
accountable because by its failure
to continue to place strong em
phasis on those programs and
policies that were improving the
lives of Blacks, other minorities
and the poor, it sent a signal that
such matters had been placed on
the backburner.
Under the Nixon-Ford Ad
ministration, the problems of
Blacks and the poor were never
major concerns, but there was little
overt hostitlity, and draconian
measures against the disadvan
taged were not taken. For all of its
professed, and undoubtedly real
concern for those at the lower end
of the socio-economic spectrum,
See Black America, P£ge 3
Editorial
knife, whereupon he was
shot and killed.
Upon hearing that a
man had been killed for
lunging at an officer with
a knife, one could predict
the race of the killer and
the victim.
We’ve heard that
story so many times
before.
The most recent was in
May of 1984 when Willie
Lee Burch, also 33 years
old, was killed by a coun
ty policeman, Ray Myers.
Burch is supposed to
have lunged at Myers.
While we question the
truth of the lunging in both
instances, that is not the
point. The point is that
police officers armed
with guns should be able
to subdue a person armed
only with a knife without
killing him. How many
people have to lose their
lives before we start to in
sist on competent law en
forcement? We’ve had
enough of these two or
three-day suspensions
that result in “in
vestigations” which in
variably exonerate the
killer. When responsible
officials allow this car
nage to take place, they
are as guilty as the men
who pull the trigger.
These irresponsibile
killings must stop and the
community ought to in
sist upon it now.
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