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A4-Tb Cliionicle, Thursday, December 15, 1983
Winston-Salem Ctinoqicle
hounded 1974
ERNEST H. PITT , PyNtsher
NDUBISI EGEMONYE ALLEN JOHNSON
Cototindrr t ?r? uiitf t dilttr
ELAINE L. PITT JOHN SLADE
OZ/*r Munuxer 4uislint Idnot
An Obvious Choice
We hope our children are not using the city-county school
board as a model of democracy in action.
The board already has shunned economic and educational
viability ? and lost most of our respect ? in its justifiably
criticized reorganization plan which bowed to political
pressures and blatantly slapped the black community in its
face.
It still worries us that those who have so mufch control over
the education of our young seem so willing to put obvious
and educationally sound solutions on the back burner in
. favor of shrewd and not-so-shrewd maneuvers that buy votes
and appease vocal special interests.
Now there is a new controversy. The board can't agree on
who should chair it and is split straight down the middle on
whether present chairman Marvin Calloway should continue
in that capacity or whether Dr. William F. Sheppard should
assume the post.
Predictably, John Holleman, Beaufort Bailey and John
Wood are in the pro-Sheppard camp while Margaret PlemmonsrMgry~Mafrgarei
Lohr and Garlene Grogan have cast
their lot with Calloway. " = r
One of fhem willTiave to change his or Tier vote to end the
rlpaHlr\r>l/
uvuuiwrv .
Were we the counsel for the board member deciding what
to do, we would advise him to shelve the politics for at least
the moment and make the obvious choice.^
Sheppard has impressed us time and again with his candor
and sincerity. While other board members seem preoccupied
with playing politics and preserving their political careers,
Sheppard generally says what is on his mind, whether it is the
popular thing to say or not.
His, for instance, was the one voice in the wilderness calling
for fairness in the board's reorganization plan as well as
pointing out the impracticality of creating an eighth high
school in Kernersville.
Sheppard, who is serving his last term on the board and
cannot run for re-election, also is eloquent and routinely informed
sufficiently to know whereof he speaks before he
opens his mouth.
The school board has too many tasks ahead to create yet
another one by prolonging the leadership void the standoff
creates. It still must implement its four-yfaar .high school
i _ 1 i . i - - - - - -?
pian, nanaie me not potato the NAACP may throw its way if
it decides to take the board to court over the plan, and deal
with other educational needs that have been put on hold
while the reorganization was planned, debated, settled upon
and now must be implemented.
Those tasks require the kind of leadership that Bill Sheppard
can provide.
Gratitude
Though most of you apparently are quite busy making
local merchants happy by shopping in droves for Christmas
presents, we hope you'll take the time to submit your
nominees for our second annual Man And Woman of the
Year.
Since some of the most effective workers in our community
often work quietly and even go to considerable lengths to
avoid publicity, your input is especially important.
More than anything, we created the Man and Woman of
the Year awards last year to give credit where credit is due
? _ j _ cc i *r_i^ . i i - - ' " *
tinu iu uncr a ncaruen manK you 10 at least two ot tne many
people who have worked hard to make life better for us all.
Please join us in expressing that gratitude by filling out
and submitting the form that appears on Page B3 this issue.
The winners will be chosen by our staff and advisory
board and will be announced in our Jan. 26 special issue.
Crosswinds
What A Celebration!
From the (Cleveland) Call and Post.
So quickly, it seems, 1983 is almost behind us. And we
have seen, and are still seeing, obvious and subtle changes
take place inside and around us. Have the changes been
mostly good, mostly bad, or mixed? Have they'been of your
doing or at your expense?
One of the remarkable certainties of life is that it is ever
changing. With Thanksgiving behind us, we all know you
celebrate it in American tradition or with Kwanza, or some
other way.* We hope you do so with enthusiasm and with
family and friends.
As you look back on what you have and have not achieved
in 1983, you can certainly delight in knowing the upcoming
holiday will be as joyous as you make it. Planning for success
or failure will determine your fate. You've heard it
many times: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
We hope you are caring enough to plan. All the stress, tension,
pain, agony and disgust that some of the changes of
Please see pa%e A 5
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The Moral ]
By JOHN JACOB
_ Syndicated Columnist
When Sen .Edward Kennedy spoke?at
the Moral Majority's Liberty Baptist
College, he eloquently expressed
the importance of tolerance and the
necessary limits of religion and
politics.
1 don't know if he changecTmany
minds among his audience, but the
very fact that he was invited is a
hopeful sign that what we think of-asthe
"far right" may edge toward the
American mainstream.
Sen. Kennedy attacked head-on the
connection made bv the Moral Ma.
jority and other religiously-oriented
right wing groups between morality
and specific political issues.
For years we've been hearing that
backing the equal rights amendment,
establishing a federal Department of
Education and majority rule in South
Africa are "immoral."
The senator pointed out the absurdity
of this,*and of the danger of tur-. ?
ning honest political differences into
.religious
In this, he follows a long line of
prominent citizens who have spoken
forcefully against efforts of the far
?right?ro?impose?its?version?of?
"ayatollah" rule - fitting almost
every private and public issue into
moral judgments based on its own
particular religiously-inspired viewpoints.
One of the first was the elder
'Unfinished.
Bv DR. MANNING MARARI F
Guest Columnist
The debate around a black
presidential candidate for 1984 has
split the black community large'y, but
not exclusively, on class lines. Poor
people, blue-collar and low- to
middle-income workers overwhelmingly
endorse a_black revolt within the
Democratic Party.
Most black middle-class leaders of
the NAACP and Urban League, on
the other hand, have denounced the
idea as a "hoax" and a "fraud." The
majority of black elected officials,
and particularly the mayors of major
cities, have already jumped aboard
MondaleV bandwagon, along with
the AFL-CIO bureaucracy. Even
Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, one
of Jesse's closet friends, states that
"blacks ought to be in any campaign
where the candidate is likely to be
elected president."
The immediate cause for debate
revolves around Jesse Jackson's
strengths and weaknesses as a can
didate. But the more fundamental
issue ? which no one is discussing ? is
the fact that the black community is
nowhere nearly as culturally,
economically or socially cohesive as it
was during the period of Jim Crow 30
years ago. A handful of blacks view
the civil rights movement as having
accomplished most, if not all, of its
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statesman of American conservatives,
Senator Bairy Goldwater, who charged
that the Moral Majority ^and~
similar groups "are trying to forcegovernment
leaders into following
their positions 100 percent.0
Like Kennedy, Goldwater warned
of the threat to the integrity of the
political process and objected to what
he called "the threats of every
religious group that thinks it has
some God-granted right to control
my vote on every roll call in the
Senate.*' As Goldwater rightly
pointed out, "the use of God's name
on one's behalf should be used sparingly."
"As (Sen. Barry) Goldwater rig>
God's name on nnp\ hphn/f c/)m
That is so when the issues are purely
economic, such as whether the
federal budget ought to be balanced.
And it is even more true when some
e\Ufiipi&L ^r.oups twist tbe central v
racial equality is immoral.""
As Kennedy pointed out, religious
values have a place in public debate,
and our history is full of religious?
leaders who have reminded the nation
of the needs of morality and ethics .?
"including many of the early abotfc
tionists, and, in our own time, Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., who awakened
the nation to the evil of racism.
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major goals. But for the black mainritxi
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jvji.tjr, iiiv 9uu^ic iur equaiuy nas
barely begun.
One viewpoint on our recent
history is that blacks have achieved a
tremendous degree of success.
Undeniably, massive changes in race
relations have occurred. In Birmingham,
Ala., only 20 years ago,
Police Chief "Bull" Connor unleashed
dogs and levied clubs and firehoses
against passive black protestors. Today,
the mayor of Birmingham is a
black progressive, Richard Arrington.
In September 1968, Andrew
/
"Superficially, the sheer number
tions of political and economic
myth of American cultural plura
Young was arrested for blocking
sanitation trucks during a strike of
black garbage workers. Four years
later he was elected to Congress, and
today he is the mayor of Atlanta.
Less than a decade ago, Howard
Fuller was leader of the revolutionary
Malcolm X college in North
Carolina. Late last year, Fuller
became a cabinet member and top
black administrator to the governor
of Wisconsin.
During the Cold War, Coleman
Young was the racial executive
secretary of the communist*
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But none of those leaders sought to
portray their opponents as agents of
the Devil, -^as today's extremists
routinely do.
?in a pluralistic society such as oursf=
public debate is harmed by such intolerance
of opposing views. We got
an ugly sampling of that recently in
Jesse Helms-reckless charges of communism
in the debate over the King
holiday.
Opposing the designation of a_na-^
tional holiday honoring Dr. King is, I
believe, wrong. Wrong ? not immoral
or ungodly -- just mistaken.
But to drag the reputation of a great
leader and symbol of ethical conduct
htlv pointed out, 'the use of
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in the mud in such a vile manner is
typical of the intolerance and
downright obscenity against which
Sens. Goldwater and Kennedy,
3Uiiqng,inany others, warned.
^JPegj^cjm disagree about what naiionaCuftocial
and economic policies
to follow, but it is mistaken to suggest
that a government role in, for example,
assisting the poor, is barred by
religious precepts. Nothing could be
farther from the truth. As Sen. Kennedy
said: 44I believe that the prophecy
-- 'the ijoor you have always
with you' -- is an indictment, not a
commandment."
Please see page A 5
*art One
dominated National Negro Labor
Council. For almost a decade, he has
been the mayor of Detroit and has
pursued a close and cordial relationship
with local corporate leaders and
Henry Ford II. Marion Barry, currently
major of Washington, D.C.,
first became involved in politics two
decades ago as a militant leader of the
Student Non-violent Coordinating
Committee. The defiant youihs of the
4'Black Power'* generation have now
reached middle age, and many are
ensconced in higher education,
government and trade union leader5
of blacks moving into posipower
seem to validate the
7ism and democracy. "
ship.
Superficially, the sheer numbers of
blacks moving into positions of
political and economic power seem to
validate the myth of American
cultural pluralism and democracy.
The number of black elected officials
nationwide jumped from 103 in 1964
to 5,003 in 1980. The number of
blacks in Congress increased from
five in 1964 to 21 in 1983. A generation
ago, the "black bourgeoisie"
consisted primarily of school
teachers, postal workers and skilled
Please see page A 5
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Jackson-it is v
And My Baby
% CLIFTON GRA VES
Chronicle Columnist
14People always told me be
careful of what you do, and don 7
go around breaking young girl's*
hearts"
-- From Michael Jackson's
"B* Hie Jean "
As virtually everyone in the
Western World knows, Michael
Jackson, formally of the Jackson
Five singing group, is without a
doubt the premier male recording
star on the planet Earth. A young
man of considerable skills and
talents, Michael is making an unprecedented
impact on the recor- I
ding industry, and will certainly be J
a force in show business for years
to come.
But, while I have known of
Michael's talents for some 15 years
-- first, as a teen-age fan, then
observing his impact on my
younger sisters and brother -vj
honestly did not realize the marked
influence Jackson has until recently,
an infuence which transcends
race, class and age.
Ah, yes, age. For, after careful
deliberation and observation, 1
have come to the conclusion that
^=my daughter, Thema ^rage 2 - is
"ih love" with Michael Jackson,,
or perhaps, 4'obsessed" is the
more appropriate term.
How else can one explain a.
2-year-old
. ^knowing practically verbatim all
of Michael's songs from his cur-^
rent "Thriller" album with accom~
panying dance steps?
requesting -- no, demanding -that
her parents play the hit song
"Beat It" at least 10 times daily.?
becoming mesmerized whenever
Jackson's "Beat It" or "Billie
Jean" videos appear on television?.
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Jackson's 'Thriller" album cover
to bed with her?
Before child psychologists begin
writing me with therapeutic advice,
let me assure you that may wife
and I have the situation under control
(somewhat) by .providing
Thema with a steadyi diet I educational
and cultural activities to
counter-balance Michael Jackson's i
grip. 1
Nonetheless, as a father, the
situation concerns me, for, if
Thema wants to sleep with Michael
Jackson's picture at age 2, what is
in store for me when my baby
turns 10? Or 15?
On second thought, maybe you
had better send that advice, or better
still, pray for me.
However, in the meantime, I of-?
fer this warning to Jackson on
behalf of all parents whose
daughters have Michael Jacksoniris:
"While it may be human nature
for young girls to love you,
Michael; if you Wanna Be Startin'
Something around here, you haa
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issuer Dcai ii. aecause jor now,
this Pretty Young Thing namea
Thema is a main Lady In My Life
- and she is much too young to be
another BiHie Jean.
Amen.
Chronicle Letters
A Good Choice
To The Editor:
I was elated to read in the Dec. 8
issue of the Chronicle that Mrs.
Earline Parmon will seek the chairmanship
of the Democratic Party
of Forsyth County.
Mrs. Parmon has demonstrated
many times over that she has the
ability to perform in a leadership
capacity.
I have watched her grow and
progress in the party. She has beeit
a member of h#?r l^rai
v w wi ix/VUI pi VVIIIVl
committee (Forest Park), precinct
chairman, secretary of the party's
Executive Committee, 1st vice
chairman of the party, a delegate
Please see page AS
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