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■Xrwii-SUu Uut Vol. 1 NAACP DEMANDS REV SIMS PREPARES ROLLINS RESIGN TO SUE MR BIG STUFF |||gh . Jfr jp «R Jgtak -’’ -® M Sfc^ ? V- " W 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 I f Jr JAH i’a / - -Al 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. •