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the Board. Unfortunately we
have a judge who is torn
between his personal feelings
and his swdm constitutional
duty. And while these orders
that he is issuing may look
good, he’s under a mandate
from a higher court and that’s
the problem.
Question: What, in your
opinion, is at the heart of the
problem between the
Richmond County Board of
Education and the sth Circuit
Court? That is, why can’t the
two get together?
Answer: The two cannot
get together for the simple
reason that the Board of
' Education wants to resist as
much as it possibly can the
desegregating of the school
system. In other words the
Board is satisfied, or it can
tolerate tokenism, but it does
not want a unitary system
based upon race.
Question: What is your
understanding of the Supreme
Courts’ definition of a unitary
system?
Answer: The Supreme
Court defined what it meant
by a unitary school in the
Green and Kent cases back in
1968 when it indicated that
a person should be unable to
determine whether a school is
Black or white when looking at
its racial, make-up.
Question: Is that not the
same definition that, in our last
week’s interview with Board of
Education President John
Fleming denied that the
Supreme Court ever said that?
Answer: I would like to
deal with Mr. Fleming’s views
because the Board and Mr.
Fleming have repeatedly taken
the position that they are in
compliance despite the fact
that no plan that Richmond
County has ever come up with
has been accepted. It has either
■ been declared unconstitutional
at the district court level or at
the Court of Appeals of the
sth Circuit level. Oddly
enough, we have never had to
take the Richmond County
School case to the Supreme
Court. It just hasn’t gotten that
far because it was obvious that
the plans (desegregation plans)
were deficient.
Question: This region is an
area that constantly uses the
slogan “law and order”. Would
you say that the Richmond
County Board of Education is
trying to evade the law in this
instance, or in this instance are
they breaking the law?
Answer: I don’t think there
is any question about them
breaking the law. As I
indicated, no plan that they
have devised has been found to
be an acceptable plan. And the
Board has refused to work with
me in devising a plan. For
instance, I was invited to
participate in a meeting with
Jhe Board members and they
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expected me to have a plan
that was ready-made when I
was the recipient of their
invitation. And I went to the
Board meeting with statistics
on the schools - and I really
thought that was going to be a
working session, that we would
just roll up our sleeves and
simply work together op a plan
- but it turned out that I
did not have a plan. Then the
Board indicated that I -was
being obstinate, because I had
nothing to offer since their
plan had been rejected.
Question: Then it was their
responsibility to draw up a new
plan?
Answer: Yes it has always
been the board’s responsibility
to draw up a plan, under the
law. I have repeadely requested
that I be permitted to devise a
plan, call in experts at the
board’s expense.
Question: At Monday
night’s Board meeting it was
repeatedly suggested that it
would take six months before
school would be able to open.
Do you think that this was
intended to stir up the public,
making it seem as if Judge
Lawrence’s restraint order
prohibiting the opening of
schools will cause mass
confusion, or do you expect it
to take six months before the
schools will be open here?
What chaos or confusion, if
any, will be caused by the
restraint order by Judge
Lawrence?
Answer: Well, no confusion
any more than usual, that is to
say that whites are resisting
desegregation efforts and this is
confusion per se. But the
schools are going to open
whenever Judge Lawrence says
they’re going to open whether
the Board likes it or not. But
the confusion is not caused by
the court order because the
Board has known all along that
it had the responsibility of
coming up with a plan, and the
Board has decided or chosen to
just sit back and let HEW and
the Federal courts do it. I
think that the Board has
• abdicated its responsibility,
and as a result it fears massive
' busing. And it wants to look
good in the eyes of the public _
to say “we are against
busing, and this is not of the
Boards making. Its of the
Federal court’s making.”
I might inject here that
nobody is against busing, but
people are against busing to
achieve racial balance. Our
whole school system is
predicated on busing. As a
matter of fact according to the
Board’s own figures, we
transport or bus approximately
15,000 kids a day; therefore
the whole busing issue simply
offers a conduit for persons
who are opposed to integration
or desegregation to indicate
what their real fears are: their
racism.
Question: Do you think
William’s Memorial Men’s Day Speaker
Dr. Lucius Pitts
Paine College President
that the Board has fulfilled its
responsibility in terms of being
concerned about the education
of the students as opposed to
other side issues like hair and
busing. Some persons have
charged that the Board tries to
make everything as
complicated as possible to give
the impression that they are
working hard and that they are
trying to do something for the
school system. Do you think
that the Board is fulfilling its
responsibility in terms of the
academic education, etc?
Answer: Absolutely not.
You refer to the hair issue and
the dress code as side issues.
And if you mean by “side
issues” irrelevant issues then
I’m in agreement with your
characterization of it. But the
Board only tests for reading
skills on three grade levels -4,
6, 9 - I believe. Those may not
be the exact grades but they
test on only three levels which
means that the Board doesn’t
know what the reading level is
of the average graduate of its
schools. It doesn’t know by the
time a person reaches his junior
level what their real level is.
The Board doesn’t know what
their comprehension is or what
their reading speed is. These
are things I feel the Board
ought to be concerned about.
There ought to be a working
relationship with Augusta
College and Paine College to
find out what the weaknesses
are of students who attend
’ those institutions who have
been graduates of the
Richmond County public
school system.
But the Board of Education
is really a part time board.
These men and ladies are
persons who have their daily
occupations to look after and a
lot of these things are simply
left to the superintendent and
his staff. The Superintendent
has dissipated his energies and
efforts along irrelevant lines,
and the relevant lines have
been left in the balance.
Question: Do you foresee a
change in the school system?
We’ve had the same
superintendent for a long time'.
We had the same type of Board
members that we’ve been
getting in the past. Is it likely
that there will be a change into
new direction along the lines of
relevant things from the
Board?
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Dr. Lucius Pitts, President of
Paine College, will be the Men’s
Day speaker at Williams
Memorial C.M.E. Church on
Sunday, August 29 during the
11:00 service.
Dr. Pitts was formerly
President of Miles College in
Birmingham prior to coming to
Paine.
Dr. Pitts, who is a Paine
graduate, is also the College’s
first Black President. He
assumed the presidency of
Paine on July 1,1971.
Answer: The only way that
I see the Board to capitulate
from its present position is for
the people of Richmond
County to be concerned about
the quality of education that
their kids will get. I think the
various news media do our
community a tremendous
disservice when it indicated
what is going on in the school
system from a qualitative stand
point, when they have taken
the time to really ascertain
what we’re talking about when
we talk about quality
education.
The Board ought not to be
praised for something that it is
not doing properly. By the
same token it ought to be
praised when it does something
properly. And I think until
people become concerned
about the quality of education
their children are getting, or
not getting, then we’re stuck
with a part-time Board
cheating our children. One of
the problems in American
education is that boards of
education have appropriated
the boards of education of
their respective communities,
and they feel that it is theirs to
run as they see fit. And parents
are only called in or consulted
on a superficial basis. Students
are seldom consulted even
though they are the persons
with whom you are dealing. So
the contact is a superficial
contact. For it is only when a
board is placed in a crisis like
we have now - and I might add
a crisis of its own making • that
parents are extended a
wholesale invitation to come in
and voice their concern. For
instance, if the people of
Richmond County were half as
concerned about quality
education as they are with
“massive busing,” then we’d
have a much better educational
system. But until such time as
people become concerned,
then I suppose we’ll always
have a second rate educational
system.
Question: Is there much
hope for that in terms of
Blacks, in that most of our
parents did not get very much
education and they have not
been educated to show their
numbers at meetings and to
demonstrate their concern in
this manner? What is the hope
for that kind of response?
I Answer: I don’t know. It
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WH'M
in ~
" Im iM
■ Salesman Bush Anderson and customer Charles Grace
Jack Levine’s men’s shop is
celebrating its first anniversary.
Jack Levine’s caters to a
does, however, place a very
heavy burden on those Blacks
who recognize the problem and
who want to do something
about the problems. In
Augusta, I understand there
aren’t three generations of
college educated Blacks in a
single family. Those Blacks
who for some reason or
another could not go on, or did
not go on, to get a college
education know the value of
what they have missed are
suffering. But these Blacks who
have been able to go on to
college have an inkling of what
success is, although they don’t
have the full appreciation for it
that they ought to have. As a
result we are placed in a
position where Blacks
by-and-large understand what
it means to have an education
and what it means not to have
one.
It’s odd, but all of us are
intricately involved for the
simple reason that even now
Blacks who are college trained
and who are in our educational
system are being displaced not
because they are incompetent
but because of the inherent
racism in the system which is
not being used in punitive ways
to eliminate Blacks. Those
Blacks who are in the system
and want to speak out are
reluctant because they fear
reprisals on the part of the
Board and on the part of the
superintendent.
Question: Do you feel that
these fears are realistic fears?
Answer: I find that these
fears for the most part are
realistic and I find that blacks
don’t have a monopoly on
them; I find that the white
teachers also fear the
Superintendent’s terms of
reprisals. It’s just unfortunate
that here is a person who is
trained to exercise his mind
and to develop the minds of
young people, and they are
being supressed and can’t speak
out. We don’t have this
freedom of speech that we so
cherish. We don’t have the
academic freedom that we
cherish. This is one of the
reasons that we need to make
certain that our black kids get
quality instruction.
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Open 7 a.m. ll p.m.
Serving breakfast & dinner
6 days per week
Mr. & Mrs, Morris, Prop.
Please come to see us.
Black clientele featuring
double knits, blye shirts,
maxicoats, unusual colors in
dress and sport shirts and
“different” styling in dress
shoes, and boots. An unusual
line of jump suits and tunic
suits are also featured.
Employees in the store
include Bush Anderson, Rosa
Winfield, Betty Anderson,
Marty Silverstein, Mary Jones
and Jack Levine.
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JAMES BROWN]
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ITHE SOUL OF THE CITY - THE PULSE OF THE GHETTO 1
THE SOUND OF BLACK GOLD
►
News-Review August 26, 1971
, , , jj-H
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2102 Milledgeville Road Augusta, Ga. |
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