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THE MERCER CLUSTER
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SCLC Conference; An Age Of Revolution
by Katie Cantwell. Carloa Johnson. and Beverly HarriMw
Nine Mercer students attended
the Student Conference spon
sored by the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC)
at State University which is the
third oldest black school in the
country (oldest in the South) on
May 11, 12, 13. The students who
attended were Leon Larke,
Beverly Harrison. Deliah Harris,
Joe W. Davis, Carlos Johnson,
Nathaniel Glover, Judy Williams
Wyonna Sharpe, and Katie
Cantwell, representing two of
Mercer's organizations, the
Black Students Alliance and the
9GA.
The purpose of the conference
was to “take an indepth look at
the existing world situation;
where experts would come with
an indepth analysis and in
formation ; where we would chart
a course to make our government
serve the needs of the people.’’
This is not necessarily what
happened, however...
Despite a few difficulties such
as misleading publicity, bad
lining and just plain bad
organization, the conference was
very useful and fruitful. One of
the main criticisms of the
organisers is that we were told
Jesse Jackson and Ralph
Abernathy would be in at
tendance. Jackson's name didn’t
even appear on the program, and
Abernathy didn’t get any further
north than Atlanta. However,
after the conference got un
derway, whatever knowledge and
wisdom these two men might
have brought to Shaw was more
than compensated for by the
presence of Jack O’Dell who is a
professor of education at Antioch
College and Associate Editor of
FREEDOMWAYS MAGAZINE,
Rev. C. T. Vivian, Bernard Scott
Lee who is an executive of SCLC,
and Chief Howard Broftks of the
Tuscarora Indians in N. C. All of
these men were extremely im
pressive and wise. Listening to
them talk was like listening to the
collective wisdom of an age—an
age of revolution.
The majority of people in at
tendance at the Conference were
black, since most of the letters
thtft were sent out to the 250
schools were black schools.
Therskwas a small minority of
Tuscarora Indians and not quite a
handful of white students present
also.
Seeing as there were many
speakers and students from
different schools and all had
varied opinions and ideas
regarding social reform and
revolution. But after two days of
an interchange of these ideas and
thoughts, four main themes
emerged from the conference.
(1) For any kind of effective
act'on, we must begin to form
coalitions among minority a
coalition being a group of people
coming together to work to
change a common condition, but
maintaining their uniqu identities
in the process. Tt)p advancement
of rights of rights and op
portunities will mean the ad
vancement of rights and op
portunities of every
minority...For the black man, it
is not the poor white or the
Chicano or the Native American
who is his enemy, but rather the
% system, with its institutionalized
prejudices and discriminatory
practices that is the real enemy.
(2) For these groups to work
together, there must be an
elimination of prejudices and
misconceptions between the
Blacks, Chicanos, poor Whites
and native Americans. This can
only be brought about by
education and communication.
(3) The efforts and action of the
coalition groups must be
systemetized. In other words, the
workers in any movement must
be disciplined in what they are
doing so that they will be able to
handle the responsibility of the
positions and offices, as gains are
made. After all, what good is it if
we take over jobs if we are too
ignorant to do them well? (4) The
efforts of the movement must be
made towards developing a new
kind of economic system, that is
neither capitalistic, socialistic,
fascistic, or whatever. It is
impossible to have true equality
under any of the existing
economic systems.
Jack O'Dell, the first speaker,
talked of revolution and counter
revolution With every revolution
there is a counter-revolution, and
the counter-revolution may not
necessarily be blatantly
noticeable. Its workings may be
subtle in nature. O'Dell says the
evidence of this subtle revdution
can be seen in the school crises,
employment practices and in
stitutional red-tape. The
beginnings of the counter
revolution can be found in the
joining together of the southern
problem of racism with the
application of northern solutions
to this problem. Since then the
counter-resolution has set in and
sets in deeper and deeper. A good
example of the manifestation of
the counter-revolution is the
Poverty Program. It Is O'Dell's
contention that the only thing the
Poverty Program has done, is to
move “the movement" out of the
streets and institutionalized it.
Because the movement could not
be stopped abruptly, due to the
momentum, it was cultivated into
our existing political system and
various institutions. O'Dell says
that the counter-revolution is
building up even though “the
movement’’ is forcing con
cessions. O'Dell also calls for a
phasing out of the present
capitalistic system and the
present education system which
is necessary before any kind of
real progress can be made.
Larry Bullock, a State Health
Lobbyist, spoke of federal
revenue sharing and how this
could be used for the citizens'
benefit. What federal revenue
sharing is. is the returning of
federal money to state and local
government. This money is
supposed to be spent in the
priority areas, the priority being
deckled by the local decision
makers But this has not been the
case in the past. This is where the
citizen conies in. The citizens'
neglect results in the robbing of
the public treasury. A report of
how the money is to be spent
must be submitted to the office,
stating the areas where the
money will bo spent and it must
be in conjunction with equal
opportunity and civil rights
provisions. The local government
must then report in more than
one newspaper (at least one
being a minority paper) of where
the money will be spent. What
can the citizen, specifically the
student, do? Bullock says they
can do two things: (1) Find
sensitive local decision-makers
and create a local decision
monitoring board. The purpose of
this board would be to utilize
citizen input and prevent misuse
of public funds. (2) Students can
halp arrange town hall ac-
countibility meetings where
citizens would be able to question
the local decision makers of tax
expenditures, local government
policies, etc. Bullock finished his
discuasion on revenue-sharing
with the quote “The only thing
necessary for the triumph of evil
is for good men to do nothing.”
One of the Planned Sessions
was a student panel discussion
period. Several points were
brought out in this session. That
for the blacks, in looking for
solutions to their problems, their
efforts must be centered around
definite issues, not attitudes, that
ethnocentrism (dealing only with
one’s own group) must end. Hie
black people must be willing to
include other groups in on their
planning stages to find out how
others feel, at least to know who
their enemies are and who their
friends are The question was
raised as to what kind of response
aid per group pressure would be
present at each particular school,
when the black students went
back to report this type of
thinking to their fellow students.
Would the peer pressure be so
great and the trend of practicing
enthnocentrism so great that this
type of thinking would have to be
(topped? No one really knew
what the consequences of this
would be. They would just have
to wail and to find out.
An interesting point was
brought out in this session. Jack
O'Dell said that Ford Foundation
Had decided that 12 black
iruversities would survive the
present problems all schools face
in university financial sigjpcrt
The Ford Foundation has specific
criterion that it follows in g
grantirg aid to universities and
the federal government adopts
this criterion as its own. If a
university is truly concerned with
education of Us students, (him
the student will be learning
things that may be harmful to
“the system.” This is not in the
interest of Ford Foundation,
therefore it will only give grants
to 12 universities and then the
federal government will follow
Ford’s lead, thereby Ford
Foundation insuring the survival
of only 12 black universities. It
was brought out that Shaw
University was not one ot these,
mainly because it bolds such
conferences as the one this past
weekend., and was where such
organizations as SNCC were
born.
Late Saturday night we broke
ig) into discussion groups. We had
an opportunity to put the ideas we
were discussing into some con
crete programs. One discussion
group came up with four definite
things that need to be done. (1)
There must be altitudinal
changes, In other wards our
attitudes towards others who are
different must be examined and
if there are any hidden
prejudices, they must be worked
an to be eradicated. (2) Com
munication can bring about these
changes. (3) One positive way of
educating people is to use
newspapers to let people know
what other BS.THER BSA's
organizations, etc. are doing
along the Pates of social reforms.
(4) Research should be un
dertaken to find other passible
areas of coalition (besides the
Native Americans of Robeson
County, N. C. and the blacks of
SCLC).
The other discussion group
dealt mainly with education,
specifically education in terms of
‘classrooms without walls,’’
using every thing that is available
in the community to educate not
only university students, but to
educate children of all ages and
adults As s result of the
discussion, some of the students
from Mercer will be looking into
ways to implement adult
education and “classrooms
without walls” at Mercer,
perhaps as an extension of the
preachool progran\.
The Rev. C. T. Vivian gave a
very impressive speech em
phasizing a New World Order. If
being equal means exploiting the
poor for personal gains, or being
responsible for institutional
prejudices, or denying the
manhood of an indivual. then he
.doesn’t want any part of equality.
Bernard Scott Lee aiao spoke of
a New Order, this New Order not
based on socialism, capitalism or
communism, but something of a
New Jerusalem. He ended to say
some of his friends refer to this a
anarchism—he calk it Love.
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