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Vol. 1
NAACP DEMANDS REV SIMS PREPARES
ROLLINS RESIGN TO SUE MR BIG STUFF
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31
NAACP Executive Council Meeting
In a spirited meeting at the
Tabernacle Baptist Church on
Monday night, August 23, the
Executive Council of the local
N.A.A.C.P. appointed four of
its members to confront Roy
Rollins, Superintendent of
Richmond County schools, to
demand his resignation. The
group is asking for the
resignation of Rollins and all
the other members of the
Richmond County Board of
Education excluding that of
Reverend N.T. Young.
NAACP President Daniel
Cross issued this statement to
the News-Review:
“I am today calling for the
resignation of Supt. of Schools
Roy Rollins and the Board of
Education.” The Superintendent
and the Board of Education
have for the past seventeen
years failed to dismantle the
dual school system in
Richmond County and have in
fact done as little as possible to
solve Richmond County
School problems, and more
recently the Superintendent
and the Board failed to present
an acceptable desegregation
plan. Their failure to do the
job over a seventeen year
period means nothing more
than their admission of being
incompetent, inadequate, and
inept. Their willingness to let
the Federal Court and HEW
assume the Superintendent’s and
Board’s jobs can mean nothing
930 Gwinnett St. Augusta Ga Phone 722-4555
more than the abdication of
their responsibilities their
failure to desegregate over a
seventeen year period and their
abdication of responsibility
have jeopardized the entire
school system in Richmond
County. It is for these reasons
we call for the resignation of
the Superintendent of Schools
and the entire Board of
Education, and call for a
special election to replace the
Board, and hire a competent
professional educator as
Superintendent of Schools.
Cross said that he has sent a
telegram to Rollins calling for
his resignation.
The Council contends that
Rollins and other Board
members are derelict in their
duties and responsibilities of
proposing school desegregation
plans and implementing federal
guidelines for a unitary school
system in Richmond County.
Daniel Cross, head of the local
N.A.A.C.P., stated that the
Board “has had seventeen years
to come up with a plan and has
not done so.” Cross opposes
the neighborhood concept and
feeis that it is inadequate.
Several members of the
Council feel that Attorneys
Ruffin and Hinton have been
doing the work of the Board
and that the Board is not doing
what it is supposed to do. The
prevailing sentiment of the
Council is that the resignation
of the Board members is
crucial because “Rollins will do
whatever the members say.”
THE PEOPLE’S PAPER
The Council did not
recommend the resignation of
Reverend Young but will ask
the resignation of the other
Black member of the Board.
The Council is planning a
fund-raising dance at one dollar
per person at the local Amvets
Club at Ninth Street and
Walton way and has set August
31 as a tentative date. The
local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.
holds its general meetings every
second and fourth Monday
after every second and fourth
Sunday of each month at the
Tabernacle Baptist Church at
8:00 p.m. The next meeting
will be held at Tabernacle at
6:30 p.m. on August 31. The
public is invited.
WHAT THE PUBLIC
OUGHT TO KNOW
RUFFIN
Plaintiff Atty.
' In the heat of the board of
education desegregation
controversy, News-Review
interviewed board of education
president John Fleming. This
week we talked with the
plaintiff attorney John Ruffin.
Question: The Board of
Education and members of the
Board have held meetings to
inform the public of things
they felt the public should
know about the current school
crisis. Are there things that you
would like for the public to
know?
Answer: I think that the
public ought to be aware of the
bad faith on the part of the
Board. For instance when we
first went to court back in
1964-65, it was not the black
plaintiffs who originally went
into court, it was the Board of
Education that went into
court. I don’t think that most
of the Richmond County
public realize that. We
requested the board to submit
a plan to desegregate the
school system ten years after
Brown versus the Board of
Education in 1954. The Board
took the position at the time
Jones Asked Bow
Out Os 2nd
Ward Race
Reverend Roosevelt Jones,
who recently announced his
candidacy for the second ward
seat on City Council,said that
he has been asked to bow out
of the race in favor of B.L.
Dent. Jones says that he wants
the people to decide whether
he should withdraw and urges
the public to call him at his
headquarters (722-6941) to
express their opinion. William
Baxter who was appointed to
complete the term of Grady
Abrams who resigned in July is
also generally expected to
make a bid for the seat.
Charles G. Harris Jr., has
also said that he is considering '
running for the second ward '
seat.
Reverend Arthur D. Sims
says that he is prepared to sue
“Mr. Big Stuff’ (John Murray)
owner of the Murray Biscuit
Company and political kingpin
in Augusta.
Sims says that Murray’s
lawyers filed a complaint with
the labor board against the
teamsters union contesting the
May election which the
teamsters won 39-34. This is in
the area of trucking of the
John Murray Biscuit Company
which is an enterprise of
Beatrice Foods. Sims says that
he “was in sympathy with the
cause” and that he used his
broadcast to urge poor whites
and blacks to vote for the
union because they needed
that it did not know whether
its charter would permit it to
do so. And of course any high
school civics student will tell
you that the Constitution as
interpreted by the Supreme
Court takes precedence over
any state charter. So this was a
shame on the part of the
board. And when it went to
. court • then the plaintiffs
decided that they would go to
the Federal Court and require
the board to desegregate the
school system. And as a result
the federal suit filed by the
plaintiffs superseded the state
suit filed by the Board.
I think that the public needs
to know also that out of the
four or five different plans that
the Board has put into effect
over the last five years, none
has been accepted by the
courts. The Board has never
attempted to find out from the
school systems in other areas
what plans have been
successfully implemented. But
the Board has sought direction
and guidance and court
decisions that would help the
board maintain and perpetuate
a dual system based upon race.
This is very important. The
question isn’t really one of
integregration, desegregation,
or segregation. It is one of
determination, and the Board
has not come up with the type
of determination that is
necessary in order to rid our
community of this confusion
and at the same time unify the
system based upon race.
Another thing that the
public needs to know is that
the dilemma in which the
Board now finds itself is of its
own making. The Board has
been very adamant almost to
the point of desegregation,
and, as a result, the Board has
now placed itself in a position
where HEW has to come in and
do the work that the Board
itself could have done, had it
had the right leadership.
The Board has not had the
sufficient leadership it needs
even now. While its president is
a personal friend of mine, he
has not provided the type of
leadership that this Board and
this community needs. It was
back in 1966 when HEW first
promulgated guidelines for
systems to follow in
desegregating and one item
contained in the guidelines was
that the school heard through
protection and because he “felt
personally that they were not
making the correct amount of
money and order to take care
of their families.”
“I did not talk to any of the
workers in person,” Sims said,
except the warden who asked
for his opinion.
In the complaint against the
teamsters Sims says that the
attorneys for Murray charged
that he was an “agent” of the
teamsters. Sims said that this
implied that he was receiving
money. According to Sims, the
complaint further stated that
the election “was not
conducted in a fair
atmosphere” because he used
its superintendent would
propose the community for
desegregation and our school
board has not done that. Our
school board has held out false
hope to this community. It has
given this community the
impression that it could evade,
avoid, circumvent court
decisions, and now it has run as
far as it can run. It finds itself
now in this busing dilemma.
And we could very easily have
avoided this dilemma in which
the community now finds
itself. The Board wants to shift
the blame to either the
plaintiffs or HEW when it has
really abdicated its
responsibility.
Question: Even if there is
integration of students and
faculty, it seems unlikely that
there will be much integration
on major decision making
levels. Aren’t black kids going
to get caught in the shuffle
anyway? In all probability the
people who are going to be
making decisions are going to
be the people who have
resisted the court order etc,
etc. So that most of the results
of their decisions will not be in
the interest of black people.
What is your feeling on this?
Answer: That is a logical
conclusion based on the
experience we have had with
the board. This is one of the
things that we have insisted
0n... that there be
desegregation from the policy
level on down to the janitorial
level. We don’t care if they use
some white custodians, white
janitors, and white maids.
Take for instance the Title I
monies ought to be spent in
those schools which are
designated as poor schools. But
Richmond Academy has gotten
most of the Title I monies and
I would think that it is one of
the schools that needs it the
least. But if you got a black
person who has some gumption
about him - because you can
have a black person up there
and if he’s going to rubber
stamp what the Board wants
and what the superintendent
wants, it’s not going to help
the problem - if you have a
person who is going to insist
that the Title I monies be
expended in trfe manner and
light which Congress intended
this money to be spent, it
would benefit the blacks and
poor white children that the
Iris pulpit “to produce racial
tension” and “to threaten the
workers at the Biscuit
Company”. Sims says that the
charges implied that he “was
taking a bribe to work for the
teamsters.”
Sims says that he had
“nothing to hide” and went to
talk to the labor board on his
“own free will.”
“The main thing that he
showed me was a piece of
paper whereby evidently
someone had taped one or a
series of my services and taken
things out of context. Or said
things that I did not say.” Sims
says that he has not heard the
tape.
money was designed to benefit
originally.
Question: How would you
characterize the mood of the
black community on the issue
of busing, the court restraint
order, and whole current
situation?
Answer: I think that by and
large blacks see through the
species of argument of busing,
because blacks realize that
they’ve gotten the short end of
the stick. Blacks have been
bused past white schools for
years; by the same token
whites have been bused by
black schools going to white
schools for years. Nobody
raised a cry about busing, and
all of the excitement about
busing now is simply from
PIONEERS IN AUGUSTA BLACK
LIBRARY GATHER
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In a historic reunion last
Monday at the Wallace
Branch Library four leaders
of the former Community
Forum gathered to view
progress made since the
1935-36 campaign to establish
Augusta’s first public library.
Shown in photo (L to R):
L.B. Wallace, civic and business
leader; Mrs. Gwen Cummings,
Wallace Branch Librarian;
Eugene Yerby Lowe, now a
New York City social service
administrator; Dr. I.E.
Washington, educator and
principal of Lucy Laney High
and J. Philip Waring,
Connecticut Urban League
Executive director? In rear is
photo of the late Rev. Samuel
Wallace, pastor of Trinity CME
church, for whom the- library
was named.
The Community Forum
spearheaded the two year
city-wide effort which secured
August , 26,1971 No. 23
“The charges are untrue” Sims
said, and “I’ll be happy to see
just how far a man will go to
have his way.
“It seems that Mr. Big Stuff
lias not gotten use to losing.
He’s been winning for thirty
years. And now he can’t stand
to lose, but 1 feel personally
that he is getting his politics
mixed up with his labor.”
Sims said that Murray was
trying to get back at him for
certain endorsements of
candidates that Sims had made.
Sims said that if the case
goes to court and he finds that
the tape has been spliced, he is
“definitely going to sue.”
those' persons who have
permitted their racist attitudes
to surface; and blacks feel that
if busing was good to use to
preserve segregation, it is good
to use to bring about
desegregation.
Question: What are some of
the bigger obstacles that you
have run up against in your
struggle to desegrate the
schools here?
Answer: The problem the
plaintiffs have is not so much
with the Board of Education
and its negativism as it is with
the court’s failure to make the
Board of Education unify the
system. Several years ago,
when a Federal judge ordered a
certain corporation to cease
and desist, the judge fined the
company a $150,000 per day
until it complied. Now if the
judge really wanted to get the
Board of Education out of this
dilemma it could very easily
fine the Board so many
hundred dollars per day; then
you would see how quickly we
could get a unified system. So
all the fault is not entirely with
SEE RUFFIN Page 3
several thousand books and
funds donated by citizens of
Augusta which resulted in the
establishment of library
facilities on the second floor of
the old Fire House
immediately adjacent to
Tabernacle Baptist Church
(now the site of the present
Wallace Brancn).
The four men recalled the
difficult job of getting final
approval from city officials to
use the old fire facility, and
then later the long uphill fight
to get public funds to open and
staff the library. It was further
recalled that this was many
years prior to the 1950-60 civil
rights laws and Black people
could not use the Augusta
public library facilities.
Mr. Waring brought copies
of Urban League histories and
Complimented Mrs. Cummings
on her five-year service at the
branch. •