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News—Review - June 24, 1971,
THE NEWS-REVIEW
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY
930 Gwinnett Street - Augusta, Georgia
Mallory K. Millender Editor and Publisher
Mailing Address: Box 953 Augusta, Ga. Phone 722-4555
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URBAN
LEAGUE
REPORT
As a community service the News-Review will print the entire
text of the report and recommendations of the National Urban
League concerning the causes of the events of May 11, 1970.
It should be made perfectly clear that the text of this
report has not been edited or otherwise altered in anyway. Since
the report is too lengthy to be printed in one issue, we will print
it in a weekly series. We urge you to read it and carefully consider
the information found therein so that we may begin to work
seriously toward meaningful progress in race relations and human
dignity.
RACE RELATIONS
AS REFLECTED IN SAMPLINGS FROM INTERVIEWS
An assessment of human relations between blacks and whites
in any community depends largely on two factors: (1) The
honesty and validity of sources from which information is
obtained. (2) The quality of the experience-base of those who
collect and interpret the data. Should the sources utilized weigh
too heavily in one direction or point of view of the community,
the assessment is invariably skewed. Similarly, the results of an
undertaking like a community audit is susceptible to being
influenced by distortive forces, also. We have tried to control
these distortive forces in this audit so that we might present a
report that is as close to portraying the Augusta crisis in all of its
dimensions as is humanly possible.
Therefore, in our determination to conduct a meaningful
community audit that is compatible with reality, the Audit Team
canvassed a broad cross section of the Augusta community. Our
research efforts brought us in contact with a large number of
individuals and institution representatives. Moreover, what an
interviewee would advance as a summary viewpoint on this aspect
of the community’s structure was evaluated against a host of
factors relating to the individual’s position in the community that
could have influence in the shaping of his viewpoint. Thus, the
data-collection plan, while not fully determining the “Who’s”
contacted for information, did seek to understand as thoroughly
as possible the “What’s” and “Why’s” relating to expressed views.
As the overall content of this report is, in essence, an audit of
the socio-economic life of the Augusta community, this particular
section is included to reveal the divergence of opinions expressed
to the Audit Team and also to suggest the extent to which
polarization has created a community crisis in which most blacks
and whites hold severely divergent views about the magnitude of
the crisis which overtly manifested itself on May 11th.
It must be borne in mind that the following comments are not
representative of the interviews conducted or the institutions and
organizations contacted in the audit. In our effort to learn just
how blacks and whites feel about race relations in Augusta and
Richmond County, more than one hundred fifty persons (equally
divided racewise) were selected through a snowball referral
approach. From a base group of ten citizens (five blacks and five
whites) of varying political persuasions and all active in
community affairs, each was asked to list the names of five
additional persons in the community that they thought that the
Urban League’s Audit Team interview. The names appearing most
frequently were interviewed and they, were asked to list
community notables - thereby creating a snowball effect! Once
cited, all names remained in contention. Realizing that this
technique had serious limitations, we conducted a random sample
of names mentioned but not appearing with sufficient frequency
in our earlier efforts to get to the “nitty-gritty” of community
opinion. This second technique enabled us to get a generally
ignored spectrum of community notables whose names do not
appear in the newspapers or on radio and television but whose
power and organizational skills are immense. To supplement this
approach even more, we went into bars, pool rooms, dance halls,
restaurants, barber shops, beauty shops, church suppers,
community meetings, fraternal, business, social, and civic
meetings to listen to the voices of the people. The following
comments represent our attempt to record some of what emerged
from the process described above.
Minister:
A prominent white minister observed “. . .that, generally
speaking, the relations between whites and blacks in Augusta have
been good. Many black leaders have high respectability, and some
of the black ministers are not only good preachers but also
scholars. When we had the recent racial conflict, I really didn’t
think such a thing could happen here.”
Businessman:
A white businessman commented, “We’ve always had good
working relations in our store between blacks and whites. It’s
simply a few agitators that have come here recently and stirred
things up.”
Civic Leader
' We just don’t know what the Negro thinks or wants. I guess
it’s a matter of communications. Witnout a doubt, blacks have
grievances, but events like those of May 11th alienate many of
those who have tried to be helpful.”
Additionally, back copies of THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE,
THE AUGUSTA JOURNAL, THE FREE PRESS, THE MIRROR,
and THE VOICE were subjected to a content analysis in order to
obtain baseline background information and to detect major
conimum'.j themes and to identify individuals and/or
organizations associated with community issues. The original
group of community respondents was determined through this
process.
Page 2
Businessman:
Another leader in the white business sector has his assessment
thusly: “Since we integrated the stores, restaurants, theatres, etc.,
we’ve had no trouble here; but the May 11th racial flare-up has
set race relations back in this city.”
Social Scientist:
A white social scientist is quoted in THE AUGUSTA
JOURNAL as having said in an address before the Augusta
Rotary Club: “What race relations in Augusta will be like in the
future depends upon how blacks and whites solve racial problems
that are evident in the metropolitan area today.”
Basing his predictions on current trends at that time, the
sociologist said, “The refusal or failure otherwise of both races to
improve their relationship could lead to: (1) a greater polarization
or drifting apart of blacks and whites; (2) widespread disturbance
and confrontations emanating from extreme militants; but,” he
continued, “It doesn’t have to be this way. We’ve still got time to
work out these problems and live together in a happy
community.” He further warned against “whites fooling
themselves into thinking that Negroes are satisfied with the
progress already made. We whites may be able to fool ourselves
with such thoughts, but we can’t fool the Negro community.”
Blacks are dissatisfied because some of their basic requests have
been largely ignored, including pleas for better housing, water
sewage service, rodent control and playground facilities for
children in the slum areas.”
Commenting further, the sociologist observed that “there has
been a failure in the white community to realize that blacks want
progress commensurate with the needs of the times and aren’t to
be satisfied with token improvements.” He cited significant
advances in race relations in Augusta over the past several years,
but said, “despite the advances, there still exists a communication
problem. We still haven’t learned to talk and understand each
other.”
Local Industrialist:
One official of a major local industry, in referring to the six
blacks who were killed by police during the May 11th disturbance
exclaimed that “it’s too bad it wasn’t sixty instead of just six.”
On the other hand, many of the whites interviewed expressed
concern and regret over these killings.
Newspaper Editor:
A highly respected white newspaper official pointed out, “The
years of slavery and general powerlessness and frustration account
for much of the ‘new mood’ that many blacks express today.
Broader and more meaningful communication between blacks
and whites would help to repair some of the damage.”
Business Officials:
Six white business officials interviewed attributed the May
11th disturbance to “outside agitators,” while alarmingly few
seemed to sense any connection between local discriminatory
patterns and the May 11 th crisis.
Newspaper Publisher:
Notably, in this latter respect, a high official of one of the local
newspapers who is identified by both local whites and blacks as
the single most influential person in the city, and by most blacks
as a “racist,” wrote in his May 25th edition of the newspaper
with reference to the May 11th racial disturbance’ “... but then,
one or two things stick out like a sore thumb; one is that not a
single Negro leader has publicly apologized or said he was sorry;
and secondly, on the contrary, the Negro leaders have tried to
justify the riots, and have been trying to negotiate whith white
authorities for a settlement.” Continuing, this official wrote,
“The Negro leaders can’t hold themselves blameless.”
Community Meetings:
Black citizens interviewed or listened to in their community
meetings appeared determined to see that their objectives were
achieved. These objectives were articulated under the general
heading of: better education, more desegregation, better jobs,
improved housing, and better police protection with the
elimination of police brutality. As the method generally
expressed as best adapted to the fulfillment of these objectives,
non-violence was most frequently identified. However, one black
youth leader freely expressed the viewpoint that “most of the
meaningful progress that we have made in Augusta has come
through direct action accompanied with threats of violence.”
Disenchanted Youth:
Similar to urban communities across the nation, the most
disenchanted segment of the Augusta community was found to
be that of black youth. Innumerable grievances were expressed by
these young people; however, in the main, they seemed aroused
by experiences that have led to intense distrust of older black
leaders, police brutality and a system of brainwashing educational
institutions.”
According to one of their spokesmen, “We have distrust for the
‘establishment’ and we question the value of studies (such as the
Urban League Audit). What we need is action now! People are
hungry; many are without homes; and alarming numbers are
hungry -- yet, we are continually exploited.”
Professionals:
Many black professionals expressed concern over the plight of
blacks who are caught up in the cycle of poverty and who daily
experience hardships of poor housing and discrimination in
employment. On the other hand, a significant number of black
professionals suggest that race relations in the City of Augusta are
as good, or better, than in most cities in Georgia, but that the
recent killings have obviously ushered in a period of adverse
effect and difficulty.
A black lawyer summed up the situation as one greatly strained
by the influence of three forces acting upon the community and
affecting both whites and blacks.
(1) Augusta, Georgia, is an extremely conservative community
because of the influence of a major newspaper whose publisher
has long wielded power in the shaping of white attitudes toward
Negroes.
(2) As a result of the role of this newspaper, public officials
have established ceilings on opportunities for Negroes
economically and educationally.
(3) These ceilings have left blacks powerless in affecting change
for their people, while that at the same time, have been led to
believe otherwise.
The comments derived from the aforementioned black citizens
suggest in rather blatant terms the feeling of an immense void,
despair, hopelessness, on the part of blacks, in their desire true
racial equality and harmony in the Augusta area.
GENERAL SUMMARIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Recognizing the fact that many of the findings in this audit
indicate inequitable conditions in Employment, Housing,
Health, Welfare, Education, and in other areas as well, it is
imperative that the city government move immediately to correct
the long standing inequities between blacks and whites in the
Augusta community.
Therefore we recommend:
1. THAT the mayor, in cooperation with the City Council and
County Commission and with the advice and counsel of the
Survey Advisory Committee, appoint an Augusta-Richmond
County Community Task Force and that appropriate legislation
be enacted by the City Council and County Commission to give
this Task Force subpoena powers to act on all problems involving
discrimination.
2. THAT the Task Force be composed of not less than 21 nor
more than 35 members and that emphasis should be placed on
obtaining diverse representative group in terms of race, religion,
national origin, and sex.
TERMS OF OFFICE FOR MEMBERS
3. THAT the Mayor, in cooperation with the City Council
"GOING
PLACES” Cfc I
■MB -
Philip Waring /
GEORGIAN TO HEAD URBAN LEAGUE
The nation is now well aware that the National Urban League
Movement (NUL) has wisely chosen Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. as its
national Executive Director. Here is a brilliant and able young
Georgia lawyer with “an old, wise head on young shoulders” who
has in eleven exciting years demonstrated outstanding
effectiveness and success as a planner, an organizer in getting
people and groups together for action programs, a civil rights
leader and fund raiser on the state, regional and national level
with the NAACP, OEO, Southern Regional Council, Southern
Voter Education Project and United Negro College Fund.
His selection augurs much good for the NUL Movement and
should get excellent support and cooperation from the 98 local
affiliates around the nation. I am personally proud of his
selection because Mr. Jordan, like this columnist, is a native
Georgian. And so is Louis Martin (Savannah), editor of the
Sengstacke publications, veteran NUL Trustee and senior vice
president, who headed the nine-member Search Committee. More
on Louis Martin in another column.
I first met Vernon Jordon some ten years ago while on
vacation visiting relatives and friends in Augusta. It was no
vacation time for him because he was mounting a civil rights
demonstration which helped to lay the basis for breaking down
decade-long barriers. This person to person civil rights experience
under great pressure coupled with his NAACP break through with
Charlyne Hunter at the University of Georgia have given him solid
professional experience.
OUTSTANDING SOCIAL WORKERS IN LEAGUE
Over its 61-year history the NUL Movement has been fortunate
in attracting an outstanding and devoted group of men and
women on its staff. At a significant 50 Anniversary Program at
the Atlanta University School of Social Work in 1970 Whitney
Young praised our black forefathers in the social work profession
and cautioned young people not to compare his current
achievements with such men as Lester Granger and Forrester
Washington. Mr. Young pointed out that these men and others
were great men who functioned magnificently because great racial
odds were stacked against them and their programs. Liberal
whites aided the League in many different ways.
NEED FOR URBAN LEAGUE HISTORY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
This gives me opportunity to share one of my favorite subjects:
The need for our national community service agencies to give
historical review of their personnel and programs. The NAACP
has moved forward on this with its own history which highlights
the activities of such men and women as: James Weldon Johnson,
Walter White, Attorney Charles Houston and W.E.B. Dußois.
I find more and more of the volunteers and young staff
workers whom I am bringing into the NUL Movement anxious to
learn more about the background of the organization and its
personnel. We in the Urban League have a rich heritage, with men
and women who have given many years to topflight leadership
and service to the American Community. As example: Eugene K.
Jones served as Executive (1914-41) until his retirement when
Lester B. Granger (now often referred to as “The Elderstatesman
of American Social Work”) handed the mantel over to Whitney
Young in 1961. Many of us refer to the period 196070 as “The
Golden Era” in Urban League history. Thanks to Mr. Young’s
great leadership the Movement witnessed tremendous growth in
the number of affiliated, budget, personnel, volunteers, influence
in the American Community and enrichment of program thrust.
History will surely remember him as one of our greatest and most
effective social work executives and civil rights leaders.
SUCCESSFUL ACTION AGAINST RACIAL ODDS
As we move forward today to meet the crucial challenges of
the 1970’5, we must not forget our past League heritage which
started in 1910. Who are some of these men and women who
worked so hard against such racial odds? We’ve already
mentioned the beloved Eugene K. Jones (1914-41). Let us look at
Lester B. Granger, Dartmouth graduate, combat officer in Europe
during World War I, tennis champ, social worker and educator,
womanizer, he has been associated in professional social work for
fifty years and started with the League back in the 1920’5. He
was the first black to serve as acting president of the American
Assn, of Social Work back in the 1940’s and later became our
first president of the Natl. Cons. On Social Welfare and
International Cons. On Social Work. He gave excellent and
dedicated leadership to the NUL.
Os importance to Southerners is the name of Jesse O. Thomas,
who organized the Atlanta School of Social Work in 1920 and
started NUL’s Southern Office in Atlanta during the World War I
era; then there is Julius A. Thomas, NUL Director of Industrial
Relations, who opened more job opportunities for blacks than
any other man; Miss Ann Tennehill, who organized a national
network of career guidance programs for minority youth which is
useful even today and Nelson C. Jackson, who mounted family
life and community organization projects. Also Guichard Parris,
astute P.R. Director.
Listed on the roster of those who helped to build the League
and serve the American Community are: Charles Johnson, Ira
Reid and E. Franklin Franklin, whose early research surveys
formed the basis for organizing local Urban League affiliates in
many states; Elmer Carter, editor of the NUL magazine,
“OPPORTUNITY”. In those days the poems and writings of
and County Commission appoint a Task Force chairman, vice
chairman, secretary, and other officers deemed advisable by the
Task Force.
4. THAT the Task Force have the following duties and
functions:
a. To work towards the implementation of the general and
specific recommendations of this audit, and
b. To encourage, promote, and develop fair and equal
treatment and opportunity for all persons regardless of race,
color, creed, sex, or national origin, and
c. To coordinate and assist local governmental agencies and
commissions in their efforts to promote better human relations,
and to cooperate with community, professional and religious
organizations, Federal agencies, and other community groups in
the development of public information programs and other
activities in the interest of equal opportunity and justice, and
d. To periodically (at least quarterly) report activities of the
Task Force to the Mayor, the City Council and County
SEE URBAN LEAGUE
Page 6
Ijßmm
QS THE ANGUISHED VOICE OF THE BLACK PANTHERS
THE GREAT AGONIZING WAILING OF ALL BLACK
AMERICANS?)
There is a heated controversy going on in the nation, that the
contumacious action of the Panthers is mostly bravado and
ghetto rhetoric. If the tough talk of this handful of mad youths is
a replica of novelist Wright’s “Negative Son” walking hard
and talking loud, did not attract much support among the masses
of black, they certainly engendered sympathy from a great
segment. The majority of blacks were too busy making a living to
think about radical ideology. These courageous and supercilious
young souls with their dashing uniforms, proclaimed the same
rage that Nat Turner and Fredrick Douglas experienced.
Black people as a whole at some time in their lives, are forced
to revert to the same kind of rage that the Panthers live by, here
in America; for instance, when four little girls in the 16th Street
Baptist Church, on that infamous Sunday morning in Birmingham
were brutally murdered; or the young girl graduate on her way
home in Blair Mississippi was shot down senselessly.
Many persons both white and black ask who are the Panthers,
and what is their history? In 1966, Huey Newton, and his buddy
Bobby Seale, decided to test Oakland’s liberality by trying out a
real terror confrontation upon the city’s establishment. They
bought copies of Mao Tse-Tung’s celebrated little red books of
quotations for 30 cents and sold them for one dollar apiece to
radical students at the University of California.
They used the profits to buy guns. These two rebels were real
smart in public relations, and masters of violent verbosity. The
news media was very much responsible for building up their
image. Newton and Seale published newsletters every week, and
followed the Oakland Police around with lawbooks as well as
guns to make sure they were not brutal to suspects. The
self-styled sub-police invaded the California Legislature with guns
flashing to protest a proposed gun control bill. They carried guns
and said it was in self-defense. The party never numbered more
than a few thousand nationwide, but the very sight of blacks
carrying guns irritated both whites and blacks.
Two young knowledgeable persons have written books on the
Panthers activities, both are journalistically connected. Gilbert
Moore, a black newsman was sent by Life Magazine as a member
of that prestigeous publication’s staff to cover Huey Newton’s
trial in California in 1967. The other is Gail Sheehy, a white girl,
covering the New Haven murder trial of Alex Rackley, which
caused the arrest of several Panthers including the party’s national
chairman, Bobby Seale. The charges against Mr. Seale were
dropped recently, after a New Haven jury could not reach a
verdict.
Miss Sheehy was assigned in the spring of 1970 to cover the
trial for a New York Magazine. She writes, “I was just as taken up
with the Panthers’ cause as anyone else; but what confounded me
was the way the legions of white students supported the Panthers,
oblivious to the facts: “A real murder had been committed, and
two men had already confessed to it.”
Miss Sheehy further pointed out, “That while the media
seemed so transfixed with the Panthers, teen-age black gangs in
Chicago were engaging in virtually ignored gunplay of much more
impressive scale. In the first months of 1970, for example, 64
young blacks died in Chicago gang warfare, and no less than 12
police officers were shot to death in gang incidents.” Mr. Moore
writes, “The uniformed Black Panthers proclaim the same rage
the rest of us feel but, for one cop-out or another do not show.
Eldridge Cleaver is skilled in expressing that rage; most of us are
skilled in suppressing it.”
These two unbiased writers seems to complement each other
on the central premise that racism is rampart in America, and no
one has the answer that might correct its unfairness, or repair the
damage it has wrought.
Is all of this rage a political phenomenon, the possible
forerunner of a gigantic scheme, using mad groups, both white
and black preparing to destroy the American way of life?
blacks just were not accepted in American magazines and
publications. Thus we had “OPPORTUNITY”.
LOCAL LEAGUES PLAYED IMPORTANT ROLE
The local League affiliates form the other half of the NUL
Movement. Many of its local Executives acquired 25 to 40 year
service records. Who are some of these men and women? Mrs.
Grace Hamilton served Atlanta well and long before retiring and
moving on into the Georgia House of Representatives; The fabled
Edwin “Bill” Berry took the Chicago League from a slow moving
agency with a $75,000 budget to that of one and a half million
dollars when he retired in 1970. They are now serving one million
blacks in Chicago; M. Leo Bohanon, St. Louis NUL, who helped
to expand that affiliates Block Vote program into the nation’s
largest self-help neighborhood organization; and “Uncle” John
Dancy, Detroit, who opened the giant automobile industry to
blacks. A few other Executives include: Wiley Hall, Richmond; R.
Maurice Moss, Pittsburgh and NUL; James Hulbert, Edward S.
Lewis and Robert Elsey, New York and Brooklyn; Nimrod B.
Allen, Columbus; William Asby and Harold Lett of New Jersey,
Miller Barbour, Denver and NUL West Coast office and Robert
Small of Warren, Ohio.
Many of us feel that in addition to the forthcoming history of
the Urban League there should be an on-going Commission On
Urban League History to help young blacks and and liberal whites
to become better informed of contributions of blacks to American
social work.
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