Page A4-The Chronicle, Thursday, June 6, 1985
Winston-Salem Chronicle
Founded 1974
IRNIST M. PITT, Publisher
NDUilSI IOEMONYI AILKN JOHNSON
Co-Founder Executive Editor
ROBIN ADAMS
ILAINS L. PITT Assistant Editor MIOHAKL PITT
Office Manager Circulation Manager
OUR OPINION
Our YMCA
Nestled among woods off Waterworks Road, the new
Winston .Lake Family YMCA, with its plate-glass and
brick facade, expansive parking lot and array,of facilities,
is a sight to behold, both outside andtirr
But to fully appreciate the facility, which did not come
easily, one need only visit its crumbling, if venerable,
predecessor, the 35-year-old Patterson YMCA downtown.
The Patterson Y was cramped. Its parking lot was
small, unpaved and pockmarked. Pieces of ceiling dropped
into its swimming pool. Its basketball court was small
and poorly lit. Much of its equipment was damaged.
When we visited the Patterson Y Friday, one of its glass
windows was broken and water leaked in a room adjacent
to its pool, where someone had placed a net to catch stray
ceiling fragments before they hit the water. An R&B tune
alluding to "Old times' sake" played over the radio in the
lobby, paying homage, if only coincidentally, to an old
friend that will be missed, despite its dilapidated condition.
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i nc ranerson y has served the community well over the
years and remained a nerve center for black youth in the
city, even in its waning days.
It deserved the tribute it received Friday night during a
bittersweet farewell ceremony.
And its successor deserves the welcome it received
Saturday afternoon during the new Y's official opening,
and the welcome it will receive during a grand opening
ceremony on June 22.
It includes among its facilities a fully-equipped weighttraining
room, four locker rooms, a sauna, a steam room,
handball courts, racquetball courts, an Olympic-sized
swimming pool, a children's center with a fenced-in
playground and its own entrance, a large gym with six
basketball goals that can be divided into two smaller gyms,
and a multi-purpose room for banquets and luncheons
that can hold 300 and be divided into three smaller rooms.
There's even a kitchen to accommodate catered affairs
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As for the manner in which our community's new Y will
be run, Executive Director Norman Joyner seems insistent
on organization and professionalism.
YMCA patrons must present photo membership cards
and sign in at a reception area that is purposefully designed
not to encourage loitering.
Each exercise area will be supervised by a YMCA staff
member at ail times.
Times for facility use will follow a strict schedule
designed with the convenience of most YMCA patrons in
mind. For instance, separate times will be designated for
recreational swimming and swimming classes at the Y,
bearing in mind those periods of the day when the largest
number of patrons are likely to require each.
The new YMCA will limit health services memberships
to prevent overcrowding and assure patrons quality service.
The watchword at the new YMCA will be family, says
Joyner, who says the Y's membership rates Will encourage
whole families to join.
"You'll notice as you go through the lobby that there
are very few people coming in here by themselves," Joyner
said Friday afternoon. Then he pointed proudly through
his office window at a family approaching the front entrance.
Besides being a recreational facility, this YMCA should
be the hub of our community. We can hold our meetings
and banquets there and register our youngsters in its day
care program.
It's one of the best black Y facilities in the natinn It u/ill
employ 18 to 20 full-time staff members, eight to 10 parttime
staffers and 30 more staff members during the summer
through youth employment programs. We have every
reason in the world to be proud of it and support it.
'This YMCA is here forever," Joyner said. "I don't
think this community will allow this facility to fail."
We don't either. ,
About letters
The Chronicle welcomes letters from its readers, as well
as guest columns.
Letters should be as concise as possible and typed or
printed legibly. They also should include the name, address
and telephone number of the writer.
We reserve the right to edit letters and columns for
brevity and grammar.
Submit your letters to Chronicle Letters, P.O. Box
3154, Winston-Salem, N.C., 27102.
Submit your columns to The Guest Column at the same
address.
We look forward to hearing from you.
r
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The architec
NEW YORK - If you read the
statistics carefully, you will see
what is really happening to Black
America.
The Labor Department just
reported that the general
unemployment rate is 7.3 percent;
this amounts to 8.4 million
people who do not have jobs.
Whites between 16 and 19 are 1
million of the total and black
teens account for some 360,000.
The jobless rate for white
teens, therefore, is almost 15 percent
while it is 39 percent for
blacks in the same age category.
But this racial gap did not always
exist. .?
As a matter of fact, in 1950 the
unemployment rate among black
and white teens was nearly equal
- at around 10 percent.
By 1954, the unemployment
rate had become identical for
both groups. Ironically, the
youth employment rate for black
teens was higher than for whites
during that year. However, in
each succeeding decade, the gap
got wider and wider until it reached
a 24-point spread in 1985.
This disastrous turnaround in
black youth unemployment was
accompanied by the same demise
in black family stability.
In 1954, fewer than 16 percent
of black families were singleparent
and female-headed, and
fewer than 20 percent of black
babies were born out of wedlock.
In 1983, 44 percent of black
A ves vote ffi
? ^ ? - ?-l/ Editor's
note: The following letter
was sent recently to the Forsyth
County legislative delegation.
To The Editor:
The Winston-Salem Human
Relations Commission is a
21-member civic group appointed
by the mayor for the purpose of
improving relations among
various racial, ethnic and
religious groups in our city.
Toward that end; we are concerned
with assuring that all
segments of our community are
able to partake in the benefits of
living in our fine city, including
improving the possibility of
minorities and women receiving
major city contracts.
However, before our city can
take steps toward improving
minorities' and women's participation
in such projects, it
must obtain authorization from
the state government.
In our view, contracts let by
the city on major community
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Winston-Salem coliseum project,
should be made available to all
the community. We are confident
that, given the authority, our
local officials can develop a program
that improves the participation
of minorities and women,
while being efficient and fair to
all.
We urge you to support pending
legislation that allows our
local government to embark
v.;
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ts of our own i
TONY BROWN
Syndicated Columnist
families were headed by a female,
and almost 55 percent of black
children were born to parents
who were not married.
In New York City in 1984,
nearly ^80 percent of black
children were born in fatherless
homes. This devastating pattern,
beginning in 1954, persists
unabated.
Looking at the numbers, you
may notice that the problem
seemed to start in 1954.
"... Black America has lost s
whatever it is, blacks will nev
tions outside of themselves.'
What was happening in 1954?
For one thing, the U.S. Supreme
Court declared segregation in
public schools unconstitutional ?
a positive development.
But 1954 also became a
magical year to many blacks who
believed that true integration had
finally come and America would
finally come to accept the descendants
of Africans as it had the
descendants from the rest of the
world.
Blacks became the leaders in
eliminating the black school
system, including the black prin^
cipals and teachers. Blacks stopped
buying from black businesses
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CHRONICLE LETTERS
Our readers speak
upon this important local initiative.
David A. Logan
Chairman
Winston-Salem Human
Relations Commission
Courtroom Utopia
To The Editor:
It seems the court has fairly
achieved its Utopia in the Sykes
case. That is, a jury composed
mostly of women of the "fairer
race." One imagines that this
Utopia is enforced by these
women's musing fears of angry
ex-slaves raping daughters and
sisters. Perhaps a whiter facsimile
of District AttorneyTisdale (if he
would concede that possibility)
will slip them notes saying,
''Convict the rabid Nigra." Let
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to spend in "integrated" settings
and eliminated their own jobs. It
was time to enter the mainstream,
they thought. But the white institutions
never absorbed blacks.
Blacks, meanwhile, seemed to
disband the cohesiveness that had
resulted from fighting a visible
segregation.
This psychological letdown,
after centuries of vigilance, I
suspect, led to a rejection of selfhelp
and community initiative.
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breakdown of the black family as
the cause of the enormous
number of births to childomething
very valuable. And
er find it by looking for solumothers
out of wedlock. But
what precipitated the family
disintegration?
Whoever is correct, Black
America has lost something very
valuable. And whatever it is,
blacks will never find it by looking
for solutions outside of
themselves.
And if you think the situation
is alarming now (and it is), proiect
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disintegration of the black community
into the next century.
Based on the current growth
rate, 66 percent of black families
will be headed by a woman, and
Please see page A11
islation
no man's whiteness be challenged.
In actuality, the question is not
the thoughts of the jurors, but
the intent of those in (for us) that
fantastical kingdom of the
Squires that control some events
in the Triad, snmt* r?f
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members of Winston-Salem's
own fortunate and unassuming
gentry, others those who meet the
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gentry's demands.
One wonders, and perhaps in
sanity rather than William
Buckley's black cuckooland of
the mind, if sonfeone didn't call
the Greensboro police from the
temperature-controlled comfort
of Stillwell City here and ask
them not to attend the Death to
the Klan rally that we might all
flourish more smoothly here
under the glass, like rare flora
and fauna - greens that bring
home a profit on the international
market, if Communists
don't encourage the growth of
unions.
Please see page A14
{
CHILDWATCH
Bright results
at City Lights
By MARIAN W. EDELMAN
Syndicated Columnist
WASHINGTON - The boy
sits in front of the computer
screen, his hands nervously gripping
his knees. A quiz question
appears on the screen. He pauses,
frowns, then taps out his answer.
"Good work, Howard!'* says
the computer screen.
^ The boy grins, delighted.
Effort, accomplishment and
reward - a simple sequence
-u/hirh mrKf rhiMren, they're
learning and growing, take for
granted. But at a very unusual
school in Washington, D C., called
City Lights, many black teen
agers like Howard arc experiencing
this process for the first time.
For them, it is a daily miracle.
The 30 black city youths who
attend City Lights are not used to
hearing the word "good" applied
to anything about them. They do
not come from what many may
consider "good" families: Theirs
are marred by poverty,
alcoholism, mental illness and
violence. The teen-agers
themselves have not been
"good," by anybody's definition
- many have been to jail, used
drugs, dropped out of school.
For the most part, our government
and too many citizens write
off youths like this. They are
allowed to slip through the cracks
in our education and social ser
vice systems and to drift slowly
into permanent poverty, mental
illness or institutionalization.
But the people who run City
Lights refuse to write these
youngsters off. Two years ago,
after scraping together funding
from private sources, they set up
a day school for these emotionally
and economically disadvantaged
black youth. They began with
only two students.
Today they have 30 students, a.
well-equipped facility housed in a
converted warehouse and some
private funding with increasing
amounts of public funds.
Students approach the school
warily: arms folded, guards up
against a grown-up world that
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u<u? icpcaieuiy wounaea tnem
and betrayed their trust. These
young men and women do not
believe that they can succeed
anywhere ? least of all within the
walls of a school.
But they do succeed/ in little
ways each day, at City Lights. If
students do well in class for one
day, they can make the
"A-Team," a daily list of student
point scores that is posted on the
classroom wall. At their
- ? - ? - " VVI\I^
riding lessons, they can learn how
to master a horse. If they earn it,
they can gain access to one of the
school's computers.
The successes are small and the
progress is slow, but they are occurring
and accumulating. In addition
to constant attention and
support from their teachers, the
students receive many different
forms of therapy to help them
cope with the pain, anger and
frustration that have built up inside
them. They also get help with
the skills they need to survive in
the less supportive world beyond
the school's doors - such as
lessons in how to interview for a
job. And they are provided work
experience, since the whole point
of City Lights is to help troubled
young people become selfsufficient
members of the community.
After only two years, City
Lights makes no grandiose claims
of changing the world. But the
school has made a real difference
in the lives of these youngsters.
Five students have graduated.
The student body's reading and
math levels have gone up an
average of 1.5 grade levels each
school year.
Most remarkable of all, among
this group of chronic truants and
lawbreakers, almost all have
chosen to stick with City Lights.
Please see page A11