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UKU EflSKQBB QLQDSOHS A lesion in Southern
education and justice
"The Pacesetter of the Seventies"
JOHNNY Tl'RNER
Editor
TYLER HAMMETT
Managing Editor
by Johnny Turner
DON NOTTINGHAM. Business Manager
Mr Michael Casa. Advisor
Executive Editor* Tom Caulhom. Bobby Phillip*
t Unv«n*d iff Hu oo*«*o« o* Ww Clutter end ir>ou»d not t* confuted mtS newt
ttortet. Stored cofumnt end certoont ere the op.n.oo* ot the euthort end not me Clutter)
The Ouster welcomes letters from individuals expressing their views and opinions on anv«tubject
The letters ' I • must be MO words or less «2* must be typed double space. Cli mus* be signed by
author, name can be withheld from publication upon consent- of the editor, H» once letters are
received, they become Cluster propel> The Cluster reserves the right to re-edit or.not to publish any
letter not in good journalistic form and style
Sic Hiel Lester!
Things appear to be getting out ot hand
m this state. We are refering to the
current wave ot pious ravings by state
and city officials about books and
magazines which have been defined by
them as either controversial or obscene.
Up until recently people like Lester
Maddox and Ronnie Thompson have
made loud noises about this subject and
nothing more So. quite properly, they
have been ignored.
However. consider the actidhs ot these
two politicians lately. Thompson has
closed a bookstore, confiscating the
books and jailing the owners before the
shop ever made a sale. He threatened to
born the books in front of City Hall but
was dissuaded when someone reminded
him that the books constituted his only
possible evidence. Mayor Thompson hzjs
also blasted the University for its In
sight Lecture Series and more
specifically Jane Fonda and
naddette Delvin tor their radical views
which he evidently feels should be
illegal in this state. And now the Mayor
is engaged in a law suit against Playboy
Magazine charging that publication
with obscenity.
Meanwhile Lester Maddox has been
busy making lists of books which he
considers controversial and has
recommended that such books be
removed from school libraries. He has
also condemned college newspapers
for being controversial. As a result of
his suggestions many public school
libraries'have been screened for
potentially controversial or obscene
books. The disturbing (act is that these
two men are beginning to cause people
to' take action where before they were
ignored.
The Cluster (eels that the Time to
speak out against this maddness is right
now. It the fanaticism of Thompson
and Maddox is allowed to create a
repressive atmosphere in this state,
freedom ot speech will have been dealt a
serious blow, we should realize the
motive behind their attacks are more
than a mere appetite for headlines,
although that surely is one aspect of it.
The goal ot their campaign is a single
point of view and a control over the
reading matter available to the public.
A single point ot view means the end of
democracy. and nobody has the right to
tetl the public what it can and what It
cannot read whether that reading
matter be obscene trash or Shakes pere
All of this should make us very ner
vous. We should be very upset about
threats of burning books and actual
screenings ol libraries by committees
And we should be doing something about
this. But instead we are being-good little
boys and girls and are not causing any
emharassment or trouble to anybody.
One day we may learn that this is a very
expensive policy. Especially where our
freedom is at stake
I
Please help
The East Pakistan Cyclone Relief
Fund deserves the support (in dollars
and cents) of this school. Workers are
• From down on the South
Carolina coast in a little town
called Beaufort comes a sad
story It is about Mr Pat
Conroy, a local school teacher
who dired try something dif
ferent and was fired for his
trouble Mr Conroy was the
teacher for eighteen black
children on Daufuskie island
The island is the home of 13S
blacks who Uve a hard life in an
area which the 20th century has
completely passed by
When Mr Conroy took qjrer
the one room school on
Daufuskie Island he found the
the children incredibiiy behind
minimum educational stan
dards Not one of the children
could recite the alphabet, and
fifteen were below the first grade
reading level None of them
knew who the president of the
United Stales was. or that the
Atlantic Ocean was the name of
the water which washed the
shores of their island Many of
them thought that John F
Kennedy was the first president
of the United States; they had
never heard the words •“in
tegration" or "segregation .**
Their conception of geography
seemed hopeless They thought
Daufaskie Island was one of
the nine planets and Savannah
was the largest city in the
world Words like "Europe
*TWa". "the Pacific Ocean"
and so on had no meaning for
them And they steadfastly
refused to believe that
astronanls had landed on the
moon.
Many teachers in the county
had argued that it was a waste
of time to attempt teaching the
children. 'Hopelessly
illiterate" was the tag which
they applied.to the children of
Daufuskie Island But Mr
Conroy proved them wrong
With the help of modern
ids and a great
amount of patience he taught
the kids the basics of primary
education But be did not stop
there He introduced such
things as comic books, poetry
and btg league baseball to them
They learned not only of
American geography but also of
such places as South America.
Asia and Afhca They learned
about politics. the economy. and
Viet Nam They discovered
history and learned that the
first man to die in the American
Revolution was a black man
They learned of newspapers
and became interested in
sports
And then last June Mr
Conroy was warned of his
impending dismiss I Evidently
the school board objected to the
cost of the small boat which Mr
Conroy used to sail from
Bluffton. S.C to the island It
was the only connection
Daufuskie had with the
mainland. But it was too much
of a connection for county
school superintendant. Walter
Trammell who played his cards
very shrewdly Mr Trammell
allowed Mr Conroy just enough
rope to hang himself At the
formal hearing one July night
the school board heard Mr
Conroy's defense Mr Tram
mell knew that a manasyoung,
dedicated and idealistic as Mr
Conroy would be honor bound to
speak from the heart. And Mr
Conroy did just that.
In defending the education of
his children he said.' “If their
parents were white and im
portant . the children would
know instinctively, their school
would be as fine as any in the
county. If their parents were
white, the question of a gas and
maintenance bill would never
arise, even if I were driving a
battleship to work* The people
an the island are black The
school is black And my God.
. ( oat on Page ■
Letters ^
the editor
going to be taking contributions in
various places on the campus this week
The Cluster urges you to give.
Liettre au redacteur
It la high tune for the Mercer
Student body to escape from
ihis_"Back of the Bus
mentality Mercer is just
about the moat segregated
this segregation is not nearly all
racial. Mercer's diguetebness
is 1
Advertising Manager
Circulation Manager
Feature Editor
Sports Editor
Copy Editor
Photography
Marion Murray
Robert Mike
Marsha Matthews
Tom Robinson
Joe Parker
Joe Cook* Bob Johnson, Wayne Johnson
Staff Writers Mike K or pan, Doug Funk, Lou Swam, Kirk Swoverland, Phil Sealy,
Howard Jordan, Tom Matthews, David Duncan. Mike Street man, Andi Frost,
Advertising Staff Bryant Durham, Rod Hilton
Typist Mary Prosise, Deliah Harris
Action Man Per van Peter
Assistant Business Manager . • Ronnie Sikes
The Mercer Cluster is a weekly student publication published by the students
of Mercer University. The phone number is 743-lSH. extension 211, The address
is Box 21. Mercer University. Office room 324 and 22i CSC Office hours are
S:3t, Monday through Friday. Subscriptions are S5.00.
but. they'are not entirely
responsible Some af the most
exclusive groups ere the anti
Greek factions too the cam
pus.) In fact, no one including
myself, is ihnocenl of this
la so much a part of Mercer 's
campus life This polarisation
is becoming too much
U was very refreshing, at the
beginning of school, to meet
launitiaied freshmen Now. as
many oZ them have affiliated
with either Greeks. In
dependents. of l'As-end I do
mean affiliated, UAs. -they
have lout their innocence and no
1 with those of
N
different castes For a while,
they (hdn t even know ihey
weren't supposed to sit in
certain places in the cafeteria
They didn't know that they
coukhTt date certain people
But now. they have the benefit
of collegiate enlightenment. er«d
Mercer's great tradition of
will be carried
Associate Editor
The Cluster Staff
Chuck Jackson
ever seen it Has problem has
been traditionally < on
the Greeks for having separate,
exclusive organisations - and.
an Is ignorance really Mias'*
As 1 said, before, it is easy to
blame the Greek system for this
xnobiiahnew However the
V
Assistant Editor
Ed Fisher
they may Well be responsible-
problem is campus wide
Greeks make a fancy target
because they do have formal
organisations Destroying the
Greek system would not destroy
the problem. and the problem is
that nothing unites groups st
Mercer Every contact between
frstemitiee (Greeks, MIMAa.
UAa> is geared for compe
tition mtermurals and beauty
contents, for example-nowhere
at Merceri do members of dsf
fereot groups put their
v the same task It is
'if the
most important thmg we have
to do here is to bicker am' %
ourselves We have no
university identity-only digue
Cent, ea Psge a