Newspaper Page Text
IT Jfrw-Stewro
Vol. 1
WRDW
Contributes
SSOO
On Sunday November 28th
radio station WRDW presented
a SSOO check to Mrs. Biondell
Conjey, president of the
Concerned Mothers Club.
The Concerned Mothers
serve free breakfast daily to
needy children at five centers
throughout the city and
Richmond County.
The check was presented by
Mai Cook, station manager at
WRDW. In making the
presentation Cook told Mrs.
Conley, “We at WRDW
your efforts in the
community for what you are
doing for the children of our
city. For many don’t really
know what it is to go hungry.
I’d like to commend you and
your staff for getting up at
4:30 and 5:00 on these cold
wintry mornings anti preparing
the food so these children can
go to school with a hot
breakfast so they can
concentrate and get their
lessons easier instead of sitting
in class with their minds on
food.”
The five hundred dollars
represents a percentage of the
WRDW sponsored
Thanksgiving show at Bell
Auditorium. Cook said that the
people who attended the show
have a part in this
contribution. “We want you to
know that we are not just
taking but returning money
back into the community to
help feed your sisters and
'brothers.”
Cook presented the check
on behalf of entertainer James
Brown, owner and president of
radio station WRDW.
(Black Man Has Unique
(Dimension-Soul Power
Reverend Andrew Young,
Executive Director of the
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference said at a meeting of
lhe local Caucus Tuesday night
nt Tabernacle Baptist Church
[hat the black man’s battle to
bain the “promise land” is
Educational, political and
[economical.
Young commended the
Caucus for its year round
concern and efforts to bring
hbout social reform. Young
Luoted SCLC founder Dr.
Martin Luther King’s statement
■nat “Long hot cummers are
[he result of winters of
neglect.”
I The 39 year old Young said
■rat if liberty and justice
Become a reality in Augusta it
Ivill have to be made by the
people who have been denied
liberty and justice. Nobody can
give you freedom. Young said,
“It has to be won by struggle.
People don’t voluntarily give
up power. You have to take
power.” If blacks are to take
possession of this land Blacks
will have come up with “better
ideas and harder work and
more creative approaches to
things than anybody has seen
before” Young continued.
Young rejects violence as a
means to “possessing the
land”. Young said that whites
use fear as a technique by
which to bring more repression
to Blacks. He said he believed
that the Republicans paid
Blacks to stage mini-riots in
Miami at the Republican
National Convention so as to
guarantee the nomination of a
conservative presidential
candidate.
“The one thing that the
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Dr. Pitts is smiles as he chats with “Miss Paine” Melinda
Jones at the Coronation Ball. Miss Jones is a senior from
Charleston, South Carolina.
930 Gwinnett St.
Reverend Andrew Young
people in power know”, Young
said, “is that to get their own
people riled up you have to
scare them. And nothing scares
them like the thought of black
folk doing to them all the
things that they have done to
us for over a hundred years.”
Young pointed ouf that
whereas New York City does
not have five Black principals
in its entire public school
system, Atlanta has about
sixty-five.
One of the things we have to
realize, Young said, “is that an
educational system is one of
the cornerstones of any kind of
revolution. The man who
controls the information is the
man who controls what’s going
THE PEOPLE’S PAPER
on.”
Young said that Black
teachers who work only for
their pay checks are not
cheating the white folk; they
are cheating their children.
Young urged that these
teachers not think of the
school system as the white
folks school system. “They’ve
got to think of the school
system as their school system,”
Young argued.
When blacks free their own
minds, they are also going to
set white people free, the civil
rights leader continued.
“When black teachers and
administrators begin to realize
that it is their school system
they are going to create a
revolution in American
education. And America will
develop an authentic 20th
century urban education which
is going to educate white
children better than they are
being educated.”
Young said the white
children are rebelling and
becoming hippies because their
education give them facts and
figures but does not teach
them how to deal with people.
The hippies (he called
them “imitation niggers”) “are
rebelling against the racism,
materialism and the impersonal
family life which their parents
ave created for them. And they
want to be real and to cope
with life as it really is.
Young said that the Black
man’s unique force is “soul
power.” “This is the cultural,
religious force that is capable
of taking over a nation.”
“Politics is money, ” Young
continued. The political system
is robbing us blind and the
SEE YOUNG
Page 3
Augusta Ga Phone 722-4555
Since September 1971
Verlyn Bell has been the
Executive of
Bethlehem Center. Although
the center dates back to 1912
and was designed to serve the
black community, Bell is the
first Black man to direct the
center (a black woman served
as director on an interior basis
during the early 20’s.)
Explaining the absence of a
black director Bell said, “I
think we have to look at our
funding source; close to
seventy percent of our funds
come from the Methodist
Church; and historically the
Methodist Church has sent
deaconesses to run the center
prior to 1971. This is when we
elected for the first time an
independent board -a board on
the local level that makes
policies.
Bell feels that many Blacks
"Tell ft like ft tis”
Sims gets louder voice
Reverend Arthur D. Sims
has a new radio show “Tell it
like it Tis” heard on WTHB
twice a week (Tues. 3:00 -
3:30 Sat. 2:00-2:30 P.M.).
Sims said that he has been
critized for using his pulpit to
“dabble” in politics. “There
were so many people who
questioned my method of
preaching not that I’m going
to change; I’m still not going to
change my style of preaching,
but I felt I needed more time
where I could address myself
on a more neutral basis.”
On the program Sims said
that he plans “to look at the
social and political issues as
they occur during the week
and to speak out on them. “I
don’t care whether its about
the police department, a black
politician, a white politician,
the church, Paine College
needing money or the Augusta
Chronicle being biased,
whatever comes up.”
Sims says that he won’t be
pushing a certain candidate or
telling folk whom to vote for.
“I’m not talking so much
“for-ness”, I’m talking
moreorless against-ness.”
jt. r
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Vk . //
Molly Kenner, newly crowned queen of the Progressive Blacks poses with escort
Alan Collier.
Bethiehelm Center Takes
On A New Look
in the community have
benefitted from the services of
Bethlehem Center, and most
Blacks hold the Center in high
esteem. He acknowledged,
however, that many of the
people in the community feel
that they have not been served
by Bethlehem Center.
In order to better meet the
needs of the community, Bell
conducted a survey among four
hundred residents of the
Bethlehem Center area.
Bell said that 80% of the
residents felt that the Center
ought to be taking a more
active role in community
problems such as garbage
collection. The residents cited
garbage collection as then
number one problem.
According to Bell garbage is
collected only once a week in
the area surrounding
Bethlehem Center, and rubbish
Asked if “Tell It Like It Tis”
will reduce the amount of
politics normally heard in his
Sunday morning sermons, Sims
said, “No. Not whatsoever. If I
were to change my style it
would be like saying that those
people (critics) are right. To
me, the people who say 1 have
too much politics in my
preaching do not know what
preaching is. They are
brainwashed by the white
man’s concept of God. I think
religion has both helped and
hindered the Black man. So I
think that my type of sermons
are needed, and if I do
anything I’m going to get even
more involved, because I think
that the church is not only on
Sunday mornings; the gospel
has no confinement; the
preacher has no certain
boundaries. He is supposed to
address himself to anything or
any situation. I’m not changing
my preaching; I’m expanding
it.
Sims said the name of the
program was his idea. He said
he chose “tell it like it Tis”
rather than “tell it like it Is”
because the grass-roots people
December 2, 1971 No. 37
JI
Verlyn Bell
is picked up once a month.
Asked why this area had
garbage pick ups only once a
week when garbage is collected
three times a week in most
parts of the city, Bell said he
suspects that “the community
itself, m°'’e up of low income
blacks is the reason.”
Historically low income Black
communities have been
excluded from getting services
that the rest of the city gets.
The Bethlehem Center
community ranked crime and
drugs as the most urgent
problem after poor garbage
collection. “Our calls to the
sanitation department don’t
get much action,” Bell said.
“The people in the community
can identify with it more
easily. “It’s Black. It sounds
more Black. I think that more
Black people will listen to it
that are not educated. It cut’s
down on the communication
gap-
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have talked with, the mayor
and members of City Council
about their . problems in the .
past and the results were
‘almost fruitless’. There is a
pervasive attitude in the
community that nobody cares.
Nobody cares if our garbage is
picked up; nobody cares about
our children; nobody cares if
we receive adequate police
protection.”
Bethiehelm Center is
currently considering limiting
its scope to an area within a
ten block radius of the center.
The center is primarily
centered around a child
development program involving
children between the ages of
four and fifteen; although the
gymnasium and recreational
facilities are able to youngsters
age 16-24. The center assists
the latter age group in career
training, job development
referrals to other agencies.
Bell says that he would like
to hire social workers to work
with drop outs. Bell stated that
according to the Board of
Education. 689 children quit
school in rJchmond County
last year. “The overwhelming
majority of those kids were
Black. Many of the children
who quit school came from the
Bethlehem Center service area.
So we are thinking of focusing
in on the problem of drop
outs.
In addition to the child
development program, the
center has a pre-school
program which complements
the centers Head Start
program. Other programs at
the center include boy scouts,
girl scouts, adult education and
planned parenthood.