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(The little fighter who lost his way)
Curt Flood was a half-pint baseball player in Oakland
California kid’s league and later in that city’s high school. He
could run fast and catch the ball like mad. He hit harder than his
size indicated.
As a person Curt had soul, not the kind that is pitched around
loosely, but he had great compassion for people, especially when
they were poor and black. He had the soul of an artist, the deep
love of a humanitarian, and the keen instinct to make quick
judgments, some time they were too quick. Those snap decisions
on the ballfield made him into a SIOO,OOO a year star.
But his decision to tackle the huge Establishment of Baseball
may have been too much for his sensitive soul. He is no longer the
kid who thought everything about baseball was beautiful. Only
time will tell if he is a disillusioned wanderer or a benefactor of
mankind.
Flood sued Organized Baseball, Inc. to eliminate the reserve
clause. The U.S. Supreme Codrt finally recognized the case after
Flood had quit baseball a second time. The little out-fielder seems
to have disappeared. Perhaps his lawyers know where he is and
will call him back from abroad to testify. Whatever the verdict,
Flood will not benefit financially.
His last few remunerative years in the game were washed out.
Flood was always a crusader. He was among the first to march in
Alabama alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, and he was critical of
other black ball-players who would not go along.
He may go down in history of baseball as a man of the people,
if the Supreme Court declares the reserve clause illegal; or he will
be listed by many as a naive fool, who tossed a half million bucks
into thin air.
If the reserve clause is slavery, it has made many young
luxurious rich in their misery. It doesn’t allow everyman his own
thing, but many baseball players (like many union men) would
be lost without its benefits. Fights of the Curt Flood breed
brought baseball to its present lofty state; and they deserve the
credit, but so do union leaders.
The question before the court, however, is much deeper. Is the
reserve clause good for people? Can baseball survive without it or
something like it? The Supreme Court must decide if baseball is a
quasi-civic activity as well as a business and if it can maintain its
regulated competition without the reserve clause. If a decision
will kill baseball, all will be hurt.
What is the reserve clause? Basically it gives a single owner the
contractual rights over a player forever. That sounds harsh, and
legally it is. Formerly it was argued that baseball was more
democratic than football because the first contract was up for
bids. Dozens of scouts trailed the prep star and fought to give
him money.
In 1965 baseball adopted a draft system, so super-sized
bonuses disappeared. The player in effect had only one club to
join, and after he signed, he was the club’s chattel annually. The
major league ballplayer has a lot going for him. He has progressed
with the times; his minimum salary is $15,000, his per diem
expense on the road is sl6, and his pension rates with airline
pilots’ as the best in the United States.
The big question is, can organized baseball stay in business
without control? Maybe not. The biggest item in the game is
talent, and there is a saying among Baseball executives that
money doesn’t buy players, but players can be traded for other
players.
Pro Sports thrive on monopoly. I am not sure the majority
would do as well in another system. Curt Flood’s fight will keep
other slaves rolling in wealth and comfort for life, even though it
doesn’t win in court. One thing is almost certain it won’t help the
little firery civil righter from Oakland.
flfl
THE NEWS-REVIEW
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930 Gwinnett Street - Augusta, Georgia
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Vemo" E. Jordan, Jr.
Housing New Racial Battlefront
By
Vernon E. Jordan Jr.
Oh, to have Bull Connor back again. Remember him? He and
his Alabama troopers used their cattle prods and fire hoses to
turn back civil rights demonstrators in the ‘6o’s. Their brutality
against people marching for the right to vote brought about a
wave of national sympathy for the movement that helped to pass
civil rights and voting rights laws.
Now the enemies of change aren’t such easily defined villains
any more. In fact, they are often to be found among those white
liberals who were so vocal against southern racism in the sixties.
Now it’s harder to tell the good guys from the bad.
A prime example can be seen in the recent hysteria that took
place in the “liberal” Forest Hills section of New York City
recently. The city, in line with the new federal policy of
scattering low-income housing projects outside the ghetto, started
work on an 840-apartment project in Forest Hills, a
middle-income neighborhood of private homes and large
apartment houses.
Only a handful of blacks live in the neighborhood and the
project would have brought a small amount of racial and
economic integration to the area. Half the apartments were
reserved for the elderly - predominantly whites. And poor white
people would have had their share of the other units as well.
But then this nice “liberal” community exploded in rage. They
didn’t want the project. Let it move somewhere else, they said.
Os course, folks up north are ashamed of their racism, so they
brought up a host of other factors to justify their opposition.
The subways would be too crowded with all the newcomers.
The schools are too full. The land is too soft to support the
buildings. No one complained about other new buildings in the
area, buildings soon filled up with middle-income white people
who also used the subways and whose children helped fill up the
public schools.
When it became too easy to see through these false issues, the
hidden code words of racism came into play. There would be
“crime in the streets,” they howled. There is no reason to believe
that giving people a crack at decent housing in a good
neighborhood will suddenly turn them into criminals, but it’s just
another one of those veil stereotypes that persist among people
hung up on irrational fears.
The city stood firm and the project is under way. To his credit,
Secretary George Romney of HUD, which is financing the
project, also gave the go-ahead sign in the face of opposition from
some Congressmen. It will take leaders with backbone to
withstand racist pressures from people who were so loud in their
disapproval of southern racism and are now so violently opposed
to giving black people and poor people a chance to live in a
decent home in their own neighborhoods.
There’s a lot that’s wrong with public housing, but
scattered-site construction isn’t one of them. To date, projects
have been too vast and the social services needed by large
concentrations of poor people have not been made available.
Since there’s a tremendous shortage of housing for all income
levels, perhaps there needs to be federally financed and subsidized
construction that will rent at market rates to higher-income
families and provide for sizable numbers of subsidized apartments
for the poor.
But a basic aim of a national housing policy has to be to
distribute people of all income and racial groups fairly within a
community. It is only in this way that we can avoid the bitterness
and inequality that segregation and economically enforced
separation brings.
What people in the suburbs or in upper-middle income
neighborhoods like Forest Hills have to learn is that they can’t
run any more; they can no longer turn their backs on the cities
and on the country’s social problems. Those who have made it in
our society are going to have to move over and give some
breathing room to those who are still on the way up.
Caucus Scoring Again
Guest Editorial from the Afro-American, Nov. 13, 1971
The Congressional Black Caucus continues to live up to the
role of promoting progress that it staked out for itself months
ago.
Currently it is involved in two singularly important endeavors.
One is the on-site hearings on the extent of racism in the
military services. The other is the newly-announced program of
cooperating with Oberlin College in Ohio to increase the
institution’s ratio of black students.
Two things are significant about the military hearings: the need
for high-level airing of the day-to-day problems and reasons for
them, and the prospect that the caucus will be able to bring the
type of pressure that will result in necessary changes.
Frankly, the problems are pretty well known. But new
documentation won’t hurt. New congressional pressures
definitely will help.
The military, unlike many sections of the society, can make
things happen in a reasonable time - if it wants to.
When men were needed to be pushed onto the front lines when
Vietnam was a hot war, the military was able to get reduced
qualifications for men. Now, just in case it hasn’t been noticed,
the war is cooling off and the military is getting ready to cut
loose a lot of low-income, little-education types and reduce the
number of such men admitted.
Changes such as these should not be considered any more
important to the welfare of the services or to the security of the
nation than in the curbing of ill treatment based on race.
Oberlin College, under its enlightened president, Dr. Robert
Fuller, currently with about 7 per cent black students, has turned
to the caucus with a cooperative program for bringing the ratio
up to 14 percent by 1975.
Through the program announced by Rep. Louis Stokes,
D-Ohio, each of the 13 members of the caucus would be able to
nominate 10 to 15 students from his district as prospects for
Oberlin, and the college has agreed to take at least 4 of those
recommended by each congressman. Oberlin has also agreed to
help with financial assistance where necessary.
A
[ LETTERS TO
Letter to the Editor
News-Review
Augusta, Ga.
I feel that it is important for
your readers to know, first of
all, that I’m not guilty of the
charges brought against me.
Although many will believe
otherwise. But they have that
right. And I feel that when all
of the facts are revealed you’ll
find that my only guilt was
trying to help my fellowman.
The local news media will
never print or tell the truth,
because they aren’t interested.
They are only interested in
making me seem like a
hardened criminal who will
commit such crimes that have
been brought against me.
If you’ll remember the life
of Christ, you’ll attest to the
fact that it wasn’t the Romans
who put Christ to death but his
own followers. His disciples fell
asleep on Him when He needed
them most. Judas, one of His
closest disciples, betrayed him
for thirty pieces of silver. And
Thomas doubted Him after he
had risen from the*grave.
My people slept on me when
I needed them most. They saw
me frozen out of employment,
knowing I had many
qualifications which could have
been used constructively. Some
of my closest friends,
especially a former student of
mine, betrayed me for forty
pieces of silver. And many
doubt my innocence and
perhaps will doubt it if I’m
freed.
But I want to tell them, my
brothers and sisters, I still love
them as Christ still loves us. We
all are in prison, and until all of
us are free none shall see the
Promised land.
Love and Peace,
Grady Abrams
PRESIDENT NIXON’S PRINCIPAL
IN CHANGING SUPREME COURT
AND SCHOOL BUSING
(Guest Editorial From St. Louis American - Nov. 18 1971)
While President Nixon has been an utter failure in many
important issues directly concerning the people of the United
States, he has had his “success” in a few matters, none more than
in “re-segregating” the Supreme Court and in bringing down with
a crash the school busings used to implement integration. It is
hard to conceive even a George Wallace in the White House with
any more of a back setting hand. Os course, President Nixon
always wears antiseptic gloves.
Now that the busing issue seems to be corraled in the “Nixon
political hacienda” it is well to re-read what the Rev. Theodore
M. Hesburgh, Notre Dame President and Chairman of the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights recently wrote.
NOTRE DAME, Ind. -- After seventeen torturous years, the
United States was about to desegregate many of its formerly
segregated schools, North and mostly South. Following a decision
of the Supreme Court, many of the school districts were using
busing as a means -- often the only possible means ~ of doing so.
After more than a decade and a half of legal struggles, the law
seemed clear and finally, through the heroic efforts of many
school boards, mainly in the South, the law was abouv to be
followed. The result would be that finally, more than a century
after slavery was ended in America, the great-grandchildren of
former slaves would finally have the opportunity to obtain a
first-class education -- the key to final liberation and upward
social mobility.
At this strategic point, the President of the United States
declared that he was opposed to busing.
Moreover, the President’s statement, while obviously popular
with those who are unwilling to pay the price for a united
America with freedom and justice and good education for all,
especially blacks, really ignores the facts of busing. Forty per cent
of all school children in America are bused to school -two billion
miles a year - at a cost of 98 million dollars for 250,000 buses.
To be opposed to busing is to not want 40 per cent of American
youngsters to get to school.
If the commission had hired Governor Wallace, he could not
have performed better.
Busing is really not the issue. What is important is the
education that awaits the child, especially the minority child, for
the first time good education, at the end of the bus ride. Busing
never aroused emotions when it was done for all the wrong
reasons - like the black youngsters in Wallace’s Alabama who
were bused 100 miles a day from Selma to Montgomery and back
to attend a black vocational school when there was a lily-white
vocational school where the buses left from in Selma. I remember
Medgar Evers saying that his first recollection of busing was the
new school buses passing him and other black children on the
way to school -a very bad school - splashing them with mud as
the white children on their way to a good school yelled out the
window, “Nigger, nigger!” No objection to busing them.
As time goes on, two aspects of the arrangement might be
given second looks. There are so few black congressmen now that
they should be able to choose students outside their own
districts. And, is it necessary that Oberlin limit prospects to the
top 15 per cent of graduating high school classes?
The Editor
The News-Review
Augusta, Georgia
Al Irby, in his December 9
editorial, writes of how the
Nixon Administration has been
a better friend to the Black
Man than the ultra-liberals who
are making such a lot of noise.
This is often true. The real
liberals, in the old sense of the
word, work within the
Establishment and get things
done.
I have just written a
“Panorama” article about
George Mason of Virginia who
did more to insure the civil
rights of Americans than any
of the other Founding Fathers,
though no one ever hears about
him. He was a rich slaveowner,
but spent all his life trying to
outlaw slavery. He even refused
to sign the Constitution which
he had helped to write because
slaves were not to be freed, but
were still counted as
“population” of the southern
states, and because there was
no bill of civil rights to assure
freedom to the little man.
He kept his slaves—beause,
as the law stood, there was
little hope of justice or
employment for the
freedman—but he did his best
to have legislation passed so all
slaves would be free. He was
finally successful in having a
Bill of Rights, the first ten
ammendments, added to the
Constitution. On these
ammendments are based many
of the Civil Rights decisions
almost two hundred years
later. It took the Civil War to
free the slaves, but George
Mason had given them a legal
basis to fight for equal
treatment.
It is not the man who does
the shouting who changes the
world. Sincerely,
Anne Osborne
|| "GOING £
II PLACES” fF FI
1' uy-.w |
fl With Philip Waring
Today as the Holiday Season approaches we are examining two
recent news events both of which were highlighted in the Chicago
Daily Defender newspaper:
CONFERENCE ON AGING
The 3,500 delegates and 500 observers that attended the White
House Conference on Aging, came away from the meeting with
rumblings of dissatisfaction reverberating everywhere in the
nation’s capital.
The delegates had hoped that a guaranteed adequate income
for the country’s 25 million elderly citizens would be the main
feature of the conference. But this was not at all in the mind of
the Nixon’s team which scrambled to head off any such
discussion.
Nevertheless, the question of income adequate to live on
decently, in dignity flared up in animated conversations and in
floor debate. The majority of the conference participants were
senior citizens and an unprecedented number of black and poor
elderly people were involved.
They were infuriated over the stress put by members of the
Administration on self-help for the aged. The White House failed
to provide money for programs to help the elderly. Much heat
was generated by the announcement that 120 voluntary
organizations had signed an agreement to get their local affiliates
to help older people in their homesand other places of residence.
The elderly citizens are the fastest growing minority in the
nation today. Their voting power can help bring about social
changes of a profound character.
SPRINGARN OF THE NAACP
There is no greater symbol of striving for the American dream
of racial equality than was personified by Arthur B. Spingarn who
died the other day at the age of 93, after 75 years of participating
with the NAACP in the struggle for freedom and civil rights.
Springarn devoted his energy and legal talents to the
furtherance of social justice at a time when such a pursuit was
unpopular and far removed from the thinking of Congress and the
courts.
For more than half a century the Supreme Court dwelt in the
shadow of the “Separate but Equal” doctrine. It was this ignoble
conception that frustrated every attempt by Negroes at
interpreting the Constitution in a manner consonant with the
provisions of the 14th Amendment.
Springarn became head of the NAACP Legal Committee in
1911. He fought hard and long for legal recognition of the black
man’s right to equal justice. Following the NAACP’s victory in
the school desegregation case, in 1954, his immediate reaction
was to announce new goals - eliminating residential and job
discrimination throughout the nation.
Few persons have the perception of social change and dare to
labor for its advent. And fewer still are given to sacrificing for
causes that lie beyond their own sphere of personal interest.
Spingarn set the example for white America to follow in the
struggle to make democracy a living reality and not a distant
dream.
Favorable Information
(Guest Editorial from the St. Louis Sentinel, Nov. 2,1971)
Out of public discussions such as that which has come about as
a result of Senator Muskie’s statement that his chances for
election to the presidency in 1972 would be hurt by having a
Negro running-mate we sometimes get some good and positive
information and understanding.
The Gallup Poll reports after a nation-wide survey that a Negro
Vice-Presidential candidate would be a liability on a national
ticket in 1972, but, and this is important, prejudice toward a
Negro’s running for President is at the lowest level yet recorded.
Note the progress made in 13 years. In 1958 38 per cent of
those interviewed said they would vote for a well-qualified Negro
for the Presidency, but in mid October, 1971 70 per cent of those
interviewed said they would vote for a well-qualified Negro for
President.
It is good to know that ideas are changing and that there are
increasing indications that being a Negro will not be a liability to
a future national ticket in the not-too-distant future.
A SIGNIFICANT ANNOUNCEMENT
The Ford Foundation has announced that in the next six years
it will spend SIOO million dollars to aid the nation’s
predominantly black colleges and minority students.
This announcement is indeed of great significance and value
and comes as a welcome support of America’s Negro colleges
which have produced much professional leadership under the
great handicap of barely enough funds to keep their doors open.
Just how important the black colleges are can be gotten from
realizing that most black PhD’s received their undergraduate
degrees from Negro colleges, that two out of every three Negro
legislators attended black colleges.
The Ford Foundation announcement is welcomed because the
students in the black colleges generally come from families of low
incomes.
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. of the United Negro College Fund
declares that “Seventy per cent of the students at these schools
come from families whose income is less than $5,000 per year.
More than a third come from families that make less than $3,000
per year.”
These figures plainly tell us that the black colleges, can’t do as
white colleges do - raise their tuitions and get any worthwhile
relief. Their students are just too poor.
The setting aside of $100,000,000 by the Ford Foundation in
the next six years is evidence that it recognizes the worth of black
colleges and that it means to do away with starvation for these
institutions mat have contributed so much to the progress of
blacks and the well-being of this nation.