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The News-Review - Novembei 4, 1971,
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Veroo" E. Jordan, Jr.
If black people are not to end this decade as disadvantaged as
we began it, there has to be a strong, grass-roots movement to
influence the political institutions of the country. Black people
have the numbers and the know-how to help bring about the
political “browning of America” that will at long last result in the
total inclusion of blacks in the democratic political process.
Some people think that if a black man is elected mayor of a
city, that proves the existence of black political power. To a
degree it does, but that mayor is going to have to deal with
regional authorities, governors, planning boards, councilmen and
legislators, not to mention federal officials, and his power to
benefit his black constituents is partially dependent upon these
outside forces.
So black political power must come to mean more than
electing a few mayors. It must mean the complete participation
of black people in the political process and their involvement in
party decision-making and government machinery at all levels.
Black office-holders account to only three-tenths of one
percent of the 522,000 elected officials in this country. There is a
need to increase this percentage, as well as to influence the
political institutions to become more aware of the needs and
power of black voters.
Massive registration of black voters is, then, a necessity. But a
major stumbling block is that in many places, especially in
medium sized northern towns, electoral laws and regulation are
designed to limit and exclude the young, minorities, and working
people.
In some places the only way to register is to go to the county
courthouse in the center of town. Since it’s only open from 9 to
5 on weekdays, it’s really closed to working people who would
have to lose a day’s pay in order to come in to town to register.
Local governments have a responsibility to encourage
wide-spread registration and voting. Many existing practices really
amount to the undemocratic denial of basic citizenship rights. If
this system is to survive, then those so long excluded from it must
now be included.
There ought to be opportunities to register all year round, not
just for a few days in the fall. Registration offices should be open
evenings and weekends. Neighborhoods with low registration
should get their own neighborhood registrars drawn from those
living in the community. Mobile units could go to where people
work and live. Community groups could be commissioned to
register people.
If this system is to work, it will have to expand the
participation of its citizens in the political process. And if black
people are to make our needs and interests felt, we’ll have to
learn how to make the political system responsive.
So registration is the important first step. Black citizens also
have to become more active in party politics of both major
parties, for it is the party structure that is the basis for our
political system. The party delegates and the party machinery
pick the candidates for offices and write the platforms and
strategies they run on.
Election Day may be too late for black voters. By then, unless
enough blacks register, become active in party meetings and
clubs, and run for party posts, we may be back in our old
political role of being taken for granted and forced to choose
among candidates and programs that don’t reflect our interests.
It is through the ballot that black people will bring the
meaningful change in our communities and in our lives.
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THE NEWS-REVIEW
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BLACK BALLOT POWER
Page 2
Bloodbath at Attica Tells Something About Our Society
By HAROLD R. SIMS
Acting Executive Director, National Urban League
Forty men died in the assult on the prison at Attica, N.Y. We
mourn for the dead and wounded. We mourn for the pain their
families are going through. And we mourn for the sick soul of a
society that values force and brutal power over humane
considerations.
It seems obvious that these men need not have died. But
apparently human life is less important to some people than the
rule of force and iron order, and so an assault on the prison was
launched and a massacre followed.
This is more than an isolated instance of prison rebellion and
suppression. The slaughter at Attica raises profound questions
about the brutality of our society and its penal system. And it
brings into question many doubts about the nature of our social
problems and the apparent national plunge into official violence
as a means of settling the issues.
Painted as vicious
One major issue concerns the wide gap between the official
version of what happened and the facts as they came out. The
prisoners were painted as vicious killers who slit the throats of
their hostages.
But hours after this story was circulated, the doctor who
performed the autopsies announced all were killed by gunshot
wounds.
Since the only guns on the scene were those of the soldiers and
police, we are faced with the fantastic realization that the
powers-that-be held the lives of the guards so cheap as to kill
them rather than negotiate a settlement. So a major issue of the
day is the morality and humanity of persons holding official
power and authority.
As has been proved elsewhere, troopers and guardsmen
displayed a lack of training and ability that led to wholesale
shootings and brutality. It is time that officers of such units be
made responsible for the actions of their men and such outfits
not be permitted to take part in armed operations until they
demonstrate a capacity for disciplined action.
System’s racism
The attempt to paint the Attica rising as a black versus white
conflict is also questionable. The picture of an institution made
up of predominately black and Puerto Rican inmates guarded by
white officers is a demonstration of the penal system’s racism.
But reports from the impartial observers indicates that black
and white prisoners were united and saw themselves as part of an
oppressed class struggling for manhood in the face of oppression.
Society’s victims cross racial barriers observed by the outside
world.
Most tragic is why the prisoners rebelled. Religious freedom,
and effective drug rehabilitation program, and end to censorship
of mails, parole reform, better food, Spanish language library
books, and better educational and vocational training facilities are
things men shouldn’t have to rebel to get.
America’s prisons are powder-kegs. The Attica rising, coming
so quickly after the still-unexplained San Quentin incidents that
ended with George Jackson’s death, make it obvious that drastic
changes are necessary.
Need U.S. takeover
This isn’t just a state or local matter, it’s a national problem.
We’ve got to decide whether our prisons will be concentration
camps dealing death to inmates, or rehabilitation centers where
offenders can be restored to society as productive citizens.
There should be an immediate national conference on penal
reform that would set federal standards for prisons and provide
for sweeping reforms in the whole rotten system of correctional
institutions.
The time for this is long past. A timetable should be set and
funds appropriated to change the face of the nation’s penal
systems, even if it takes a federal takeover to do it. If the Attica
bloodbath doesn’t lead to that kind of radical reform, then the
lives of both guards and prisoners at Attica will have been lost in
vain and the violence on both sides will continue to grow.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND GOVERNEMNT LEADERS
MEET TO DISCUSS U.S. BIRTH CONTROL PROGRAMS
SAN FRANCISCO, OCT. 24 - More than 500 birth control and
population authorities are gathering here for a week-long annual
meeting of the national membership of the Planned Parenthood
of America, including Father David C. Streett of Augusta.
Government health officials will be prominent in the four-day
conference which opens tomorrow at the Jack Tar Hotel, with
the newly-released Federal Five Year Plan for Family Planning
Services a major item on the agenda.
The Federation, known nationally as Planned
Parenthood-World Population, has led in the development of
voluntary family planning programs in this country for more than
50 years. It now has 190 affiliates in 42 states and the District of
Columbia, with more than 600 medically-supervised clinics
providing contraceptive information and services.
Dr. Louis M. Hellman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Population Affairs of the Department of Health, Education and
Welfare (HEW), will speak at the luncheon meeting tomorrow on
the expanding role of government in the provision of family
planning services and the importance of public-private agency
cooperation in meeting the needs of American women.
A panel analysis of the Federal Five Year Plan will be
conducted from 2:00-5:00 p.m. tomorrow (Oct. 25) with
government and Planned Parenthood executives discussing various
aspects of the program. John C. Robbins, chief executive officer
of Planned Parenthood-World Population, will serve as moderator.
Participants will include Dr. Frank N. Beckles, director of the
National Center for Family Planning Services, HEW; Dr. George
Contis, director of Family Planning, Office of Ecconomic
Opportunity; Frederick S. Jaffe, PP-WP vice president and
director of its Center for Family Planning Program Development;
Mrs. Lee Minto, executive director, Planned Parenthood Center of
Seattle, and Dr. Carl Schultz, director of the Office of Population
Affairs, HEW.
Dr. Andrew Billingsley, vice president for Academic Affairs,
Howard University, Wash., D.C., will be the guest luncheon
speaker on Tuesday (Oct. 26). Dr. Alan F. Guttmacher, president
of Planned Parenthood-World Population and pioneer in the birth
control movement who spoke in Augusta Thursday, will review
the progress made in voluntary family planning through the years
and set goals for future achievement at the luncheon program on
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gS AUGUSTA, GEORGIA
' LETTERS TO EDITOR J
Editor News Review
Augusta, Georgia
Dear Editor;
I am more dnd more
convinced that ministers have a
valuable role to play in the
needed restructuring of the
American society. It is quite
obvious that the organized
church will perhaps never move
forward progressively unless
more ministers are willing to be
unselfish spokesmen for God.
It is well to be mindful of the
scriptural warning that “Where
there is no vision, the people
perish.”
One would probably need
binoculars or magnifying
glasses to see much vision in
the sermons and activities of
many ministers. The almighty
dollar has caused many men to
become Judases when they
would have been Jeremiahs.
One minister (Billy Graham)
has even become a political
tool for one of the most racist
and oppressive presidential
administrations in the history
of this country. Instead of
being voices crying in the
American wilderness, today’s
religious leaders are often
choruses of sounding brass and
tinkling cymbals.
The last hope of the
Christian Church may very well
be found in the ministries of
black ministers and the needed
relevant activities of black
churches. Men like the late
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., the Rev. Jessie Jackson,
and the Rev. Leon Sullivan
merit the attention and study
of black people. The Rev. Mr.
Sullivan of Philadelphia is
doing a tremendous job to
achieve economic
opportunities for blacks in a
progressive manner.
Augusta is fortunate to have
a number of black ministers
who have done much for their
people as well as others. This
brings to mind men like the
Rev. N.T. Young, Sr., the Rev.
Arthur D. Sims, the Rev.
Charles S. Hamilton, the Rev.
F. Francis Cooke, the Rev.
M.E. Stokes, the Rev. J.H.
Sims, Jr., the Rev. James
Thomas, the Rev. J.S. Wright,
the Rev. H.W. Phinizy, Jr., and
many others. These men need
the support of Augustans for a
better community. This listing
is by no means complete since
I only want to say something
that really needs saying.
Ministers need to be told and
Augusta is fortunate to have
a number of black ministers
who have done much for their
people as well as others. This
brings to mind men like the
Rev. N.T. Young, Sr., the Rev.
Arthur D. Sims, the Rev.
Charles S. Hamilton, the Rev.
F. Francis Cooke, the Rev.
M.E. Stokes, the Rev. J.H.
Sims, Jr., the Rev. James
Thomas, the Rev. J.S. Wright,
the Rev. H.W. Phinizy, Jr., and
many others. These men need
the support of Augustans for a
better community. This listing
is by no means complete since
I only want to say something
that really needs saying.
Ministers need to be told and
Thursday (Oct. 28.)
Workshop discussions scheduled for Tuesday (Oct. 26) include
“College Program”, dealing with on-campus birth control
programs (8:00 a.m. - Noon); “Affiliate Service to Teens”,
discussing the special problems of teenagers faced with legal
barriers to contraceptive information and services, and the
growing incidence of unwanted pregnancies, and “Future of
Marriage and the Family”, exploring alternatives to marriage,
communal living, new roles for women and the changing roles for
men (Both 2:00-4:00 p.m.).
Planned Parenthood-World Population is the United States
member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and
aids in its work of providing family planning services in more than
100 countries. Casper Brook, executive director of the Family
Planning Association of the United Kingdom, will be a guest of
the U.S. organization during the San Francisco meeting.
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shown how much you
appreciate their leadership and
efforts. I hope the above listing
of ministers does not provoke a
popularity contest nor do I
wish to offend any ministers
not listed. I take full
responsibility for what I say
but not for how it may be
misinterpreted or
misunderstood. Any
disagreement is your problem
and not mine.
Finally, my criticism of the
church and some ministers is
intended to be constructive.
One can always be critical of
what he cares about because he
really does care. It is
unreasonable for youth and
others to “write off’ the
church for it has a profound
influence (whether positive or
negative) on our society. It is
not perfect because man is not
perfect. However, there is no
excuse for not striving for
perfection. Remember, “God
gave Noah the rainbow sign, no
more water the Fire next
time.”
Roosevelt Green, Jr.
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SB by Al Irby -—"“J
(THE MENACE OF THE FRAGMENTED AMATEURISH
GROUPS THAT POLARIZE OUR COMMUNITIES)
Is group concern an ultimate asset to a free society? We are
seeing a rash of so-called concern groups. Our local most adamant
groups are the concerned citizens, who are in opposition to real
integregation. Os course they call themselves not opposed to
school mixing, but only interested in neighborhood schools. But
how can there be any true integration when the whites keep
running to the suburbs, and the Board of Education keeps
building better equipped and staffed schools there.
The group participation in America could be good and
progressive if the constituents don’t become totally fanatic like a
great deal of them are doing about busing.
Dr. Raymond Vernon, the noted economist, makes a pertinent
dichotomous observation on the fast growing proletarian
activism. He labels this pathology “massive fragmented power.”
Adding further, “only a tiny sliver of society participates in
public decision-making except at election time. Power is confined
to a few big corporations, big unions, the dominant church and
political machines.”
“These large groups quickly reconcile their conflict of interest.
A good many times their differences have already been solved or
compromised when the public is aware. But on the other hand,
unorganized and amateurish groups often rip a community
asunder, because they are not versed in negotiable skills.”
These local tug-o-wars are getting more rancor and explosive
year after year. Citizens mobilize to block new highways through
residential neighborhoods. Groups fight to keep jetports from
being built. Black parents battle for desegregated schools. Selfish
so-called concerned groups threaten the internal peace of the
entire nation; and put the politicians in a dilly trying to be all
things to everybody. There is a real danger that our system will
not be able to with-stand the terrific pressure of so many zealous
self-appointed crusaders. These mass movements seem incapable
of understanding what all this fragmenting is doing to us as a
civilized people.
The crusaders often generate their indignation for the
unessentials rather than important issues. Educating all children
should be the prime concern; rather than marching to keep some
ignorant and ultimately landing on welfare roles. Maybe Dr.
Skinner is right about our nation, just maybe we do need
conditioning with chemicals and physiotherapy.
Much of our actions are fraught with just plain meannessand
unreasonable paranoia. Drugs are rampant. Environmental
crusaders are far too impatient, for jobs are closely associated
with pollution. We must have air-fields and highways. Common
sense must be applied before we start, mostly publicity-seeking
crusading.
Something must be done; we do not listen to the Church and
its mission, nor does the Church live by its mission, therefore is
mute. Traditional concepts and mores of individual freedom and
human dignity, which was always withheld from some segments
of our culture, even the loose rhetoric is out-moded, and
dangerous to our society. It’s really over-stressing individual
expression at the cost of a safe and sane social order. Let s face it,
unchecked individualism merely gives us over-population, while
the rich grow richer, and the poor get poorer. The black and the
poor are superfluous residue for wars. Let us forget about
freedom and dignity, its really an hallucination anyway.
Manipulate environmental factors and condition people
psychologically; we may be the better for it; because, remember
we have already rejected the philosophy of “LOVE”. The Human
Behaviorists may be our last chance.
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