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RUFFIN Cont’d from Page 1 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 t See the latest < . in / / Fall Fashions O<® s ./ for fa Men, Women Children 4 / s O3 _ j. -? c a * if <o x "Use our charge or any bank card” Ruben’s DOWNTOWN 914 BROAD ST. Small Boy's ————————J Depocit Student. Largest Selection of Z*?\ Muaont* Clothes in Augusta An Y Floor r Hem! 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? »•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• SATCHER FORD PLANTATION 3510 AjUGUSTA ROAD PHONES AUGUSTA- 279-4330 AIKEN - 648-4301 "Before You Buy, Give Us A Try” >•••••••••••••••••< ANDERSON BAR u i '' (jUfkM ptOfAl' iMtt/ i ■ 1441 12th ST. ! OPEN FROM 7:30 to 2 A.iwjb "Dot” "Hattie” j Phone 722-7896 Partners "We are happy to serve you” No Worries Come epjoy our pleasant lAV L All JU I surroun< lings and linger WC wdSil Allowed Here! With yolur favorite brew and got >d companions. ■ WjfdOll wIIwCKS 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 >••••••••••••••< 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. MORRIS CAFE 1812 Milledgeville Rd. 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. T JAMES "KING OF SOUL" BROWN I | President of i JAMES BROWN] {enterprises* i which includes f i WRDW Radio, Ltd. of Augusta, | |the home of the RAW SOUL D. J.’sA I * I r on your dial J i 24 Hours a Day - 5,000 Watts | l WRDW | ITHE SOUL OF THE CITY - THE PULSE OF THE GHETTO 1 THE SOUND OF BLACK GOLD ► News-Review August 26, 1971 , , , jj-H FOR THE CLEANEST CAR’S IN TOWN SEE ■jIM BRASWELL B DAN ROBERT'S AT ® JOHN WILSON AT GrA. CAROLINA MOTORS, INC. 1297 ELLIS STREET Phone 724 7904 PACKAGE DISCOUNTED LIQUORS ■ LAKE SMITH, Manager A ■ CUZ JOHNSON Asst. Manager A ■ ALANZO MICKENS Clerk * L Friendly and Courteous Service at all Times k 2102 Milledgeville Road Augusta, Ga. | Page 3