October 24, 1985 1
Page A5 I
F arrakhan:.
The author is director of the
Southeast Regional Office of the
Anti-Defamation League of
B'nai B'rith.
During the past few days my
mind wandered back to October
1973 -- to be specific, two days
after the start of the Yom Kippur
War. Jews the world over felt
threatened. The initial military
victories, as a result of the surprise
attack, seemed to belong to
the Arabs. Israel had not yet
turned to the tide. In
Washington, there were; timeconsuming
debates ovei^ arms
shipments to Israel.
That morning, into my office
walked a friend, Lonnie King,
then president of the Atlanta
NAACP and a longtime active
civil rights leader. As a
Morehouse College student, Lonnie
was one of the architects of
the early sit-ins and had more
than once been threatened and attacked
by white racists. In 1973,
Lonnie, while active in community
affairs, was also struggling to
establish his own business.
He sat down at my desk and
pulled out his personal
checkbook. He wrote out a check
for $100 (not a small amount for
him then) and said, "I want to
send this to the Israelis. Can you
do it for me?" I told him to fill in
"UJA-Israel Emergency Fund"
and I would see that the check got
there.
Then I said "thanks," and asked,
"how come?"
I've never forgotten Lonnie's
response. He said: "I don't know
much about Arabs or Israelis, but
I do know that' when I was marching
for our rights and I looked
around, ippst of the whites that I
saw helping us were Jews and I
figure I owe you this. When we
needed you, you helped. Now it's
my turn." I hugged Lonnie. Interestingly,
several months later,
Lonnie King and I led a mission
of 12 Atlanta black leaders to
Israel in what remains for me one
of the highlights of my own
career.
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ti nas oeen several years since I
last saw Lonnie. I'm not sure
whether he is still in Atlanta or
not. The reason I recall his visit
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Jnez Shaw: Her husband wasn
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Marable
graduate schools are 65 percent
white.
TSU enrolls only 10 percent of
the state's black college students
but produces 40 percent of its
blick college graduates!
Meanwhile, the historically
white University of Tennessee has
only 2.5 percent black faculty
and seven of its schools have absolutely
no black administrators.
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?IE GUEST COLUMN
By STEWART LEWFNRBii
that October day, 12 years ago,
relates to the current issue concerning
the anti-Semitism of
black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan
and the reluctance of
some black political and community
leaders to issue unqualified,
firm and clear condemnations
of this peddler of bigotry.
In recent months, Farrakhan's
anti-Semitism has reached a fever
pitch. His audiences have grown
in number and enthusiasm. His
public expressions of bigotry are
not directed toward Jews alone;
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From Page A4
Yet, virtually no political
pressure is being exerted to
desegregate white, statesupported
institutions.
TL ^ a - -rr?r t J
i iic struggle to save i au ana
Fisk is more than an effort to
preserve the institutions that gave
this country some of its most
gifted artists, writers, scientists
and political leaders. It is part of
a coordinated attempt to address
I More opinions,
columns and features.
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white Americans, in general, also
share his oratorical ire. But his
pet scapegoats are "the Jews."
Actually, he refers to us frequently
as "the so-called Jews."
In the most insulting and
detestable of terms, Farrakhan
mocks the Holocaust, attacks the
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State of Israel and degrades
Judaism itself. He ascribes the
cause of every affliction suffered
by blacks to the Jews. "Jewish
control," "Jewish money" and
"Jewish wickedness" are among
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I visit to Winston-Salem (photo
A senseless a
Sometimes you hurt so badly
you have to talk about it.
Inez Shaw of Greensboro
knows such pain.
The call came at 2:45 a.m. on
Oct. 2 ? a dispassionate voice on
the other end of a long-distance
connection.
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at CMAC Hospital and he's
dead," the voice said,
Next August would have marked
her 20th anniversary of marriage
to Galen to Shaw, 46, a
Winston-Salem-based
Greyhound-bus driver. Whgn
Mrs. Shaw speaks of him, she is
always smiling, always obviously
pleased and self-assured that hers
was a good husband. The very
best.
Now he was gone, the victim of
four gunshot wounds from what
police in Charleston, W. Va.,
believe was a Colt .357 Magnum
nandgun.
A ao o ^ J * I? A A AL - ??
rv wiuitss icsuncu in<11 inc man
accused of shooting and killing
Shaw met him on a sidewalk outthe
concrete problems which confront
Black America ? in health
care, economic development,
education and public policv Few
white universities will, in the near
future, dedicate themselves to the
full development of black youth
as leaders, and to the goal of
complete educational opportunity
for the masses of black people.
A national effort must begin to
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his oft-used phrases.
There are those who have explained
that Farrakhan speaks to
issues of black pride, black
economic initiative and black
freedom. But why with his foot
firmly on the neck of the Jews?
Farrakhan does not simply say
to black audiences, get rid of
your shackles and find your
freedom. He says get rid of the
shackles placed on you by the
Jews and Find your freedom from
tfte Jews.
Why then, is criticism from
some of our nation's most
respected and visible black
"Farrakhan has been terme
legitimate force for positivi
ticulate and persuasive. The
pride. * Mussolini made the tt
cuse their evil?"
leaders - such as Atlanta Mayor
Andrew Young and Los Angeles
Mayor Tom Bradley ? belated
and then so carefully phrased and
muted?
Are they unaware that Farrakhan
is appealing to the basest
instincts of his audiences? Do
they doubt the anti-Semitic thrust
of his message? Do they believe
that the $5 million Farrakhan
received from Libya's Muammar
Qaddafi is solely for the purpose
of manufacturing and selling
toothpaste and cosmetics and has
nothing to do with his past
assaults on Jews and Israel and as
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mccnuve ior iuture ones?
Are they simply afraid of
retaliation by Farrakhan or his
\eathin West
side of a Charleston motel, angry
and muttering racial slurs.
"He said, 'Who runs this
place, a bunch of niggers?' "
Ronnie Ray King, 20, a
dishwasher, testified two weeks
ago in a probable-cause hearing.
"He said, 'Do you like colored
people&Land I said, 'They don't
bother m$.' ... He said, 'Let's go
whip this colored guy.' ... I said,
'He didn't do nothing to me.' "
King also testified that the
man, Francis Lloyd Ramsey, 61,
a West Virginia Department of
Highways employee, said he was
going to "shoot up this motel"
and asked him to "help me fight
these niggers."
When Shaw left the motel,
King said, Ramsey reached into
his coat pocket and shot Shaw.
"There wasn't any words between
the two of them," King
said. "He just shot."
Aside from the call from the
hospital and another call from a
police investigator, Inez Shaw
says, she could only piece
consolidate the gains at Fisk, and
to reverse the legal campaign to
destroy TSU's identity as a black
institution. If TSU falls, the collapse
of state-supported black
higher education will occur
across the country.
Syndicated columnist Dr. Manning
Marahle teaches political
sociology at Colgate University.
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followers should they be too
critical?
There have been several black
political and civil rights leaders,
as well as journalists, who have
fir ml V denounced Farralrhan a nA
his bigotry. But too many others
have couched even their mild
criticisms in sociological explanations,
apologies, assurances of
his harmlessness and suggestions
he is being 4 'misread" and
"misunderstood.'*
Farrakhan has been termed
"articulate," "persuasive," "a
legitimate force for positive
change," etc. Hitler was ard
'articulate,' 'persuasive,9 'a
? change,9 etc. Hitler was arKu
Klux Klan speaks of 'white
-ains run on time. Does that exticulate
and persuasive. The Ku
Klux Klan speaks of "white
pride." Mussolini made the
trains run on time. Does that excuse
their evil?
It is both fair and accurate to
suggest that, were it not for the
early and continuous support of
many Jews, political leaders such
as Young and Bradley would likely
not have achieved their successes.
It was not Jews alone who
provided support and obviously
each man has been successful
because of his individual abilities
and efforts. But the fact remains
that Jewish support was vital to
each.
So then, what, if anything, do
they owe Jews? Is that a cynical
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together snatches of information
about the incident from news accounts.
"By 12 noon, we still had not
received any information from
Charleston," she says.
When she did, her grief turned
into frustration.
The early news accounts had
said her husband "may have been
involved in an argument inside
the motel prior to the shooting,"
says Mrs. Shaw, a registered
nurse at Moses Cone Hospital.
That didn't sound like her husband,
she insists.
"He never had an enemy," she
calmly says of Galento Shaw.
"He makes friends. He always
wanted to do things for people."
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question? Not at all. Reciprocity
is not cynical. Nor is it immoral.
Reciprocity is the essence of
political life and perhaps of most
human behavior. It does not suggest
a compromise of principle.
Black political and civil rights
leaders do not - repeat do not ~
owe the Jewish community
automatic agreement, assent, or
support on any political issue.
There is the mutual responsibility
to listen to one another's concerns
and views and, indeed,
there are times when we will agree
and times we will differ on given
issues. Sometimes our agendas
are shared; sometimes they are
not.
But I believe there is one thing
black leaders and spokesmen do
owe the Jewish community.
Whenever and wherever racism
has surfaced, Jews have been,
and still are, among the first to
publicly condemn it and assure
the black community that we
stand side-by-side in opposing
that racism. Strategies may differ,
but the history of the Jewish
people and the teachings of
Judaism demand that we oppos
racism. We have learned
painful lesson that bigotry is co..
t agio us and, once unleashed,
knows no limitations.
1 believe it is not too much to
expect that those who hold positions
of leadership in the black
community will likewise denounce
anti-Semitism - without
qualification, without apologies,
without equivocation - whenever
and wherever it surfaces.
Is it reasonable to expect a
black leader, whose primary conPlease
see page A13
'idow copes
Clyde Scott, another WinstonSalem-bascd
Greyhound driver
who had known Shaw for 12
years, agrees.
Although his apprais&i of his
friend's character is hardly objective,
he says, Shaw was not the
type of man to provoke a fight.
"He's just not the type of individual
who would go to a
lounge and make enemies,'' Scott
says. "He was the type who
would make friends. That wasn't .
the Galento Shaw (the one referred
to in the accounts) at all that
we knew.
"You could go to" Charleston,
West Virginia, right now and talk
to drivers, black and white, and
they'd say the same thing about
him."
Later news stories gave a more
detailed account of the incident,
including the eyewitness'
testimony.
But Mrs. Shaw still feels a need
to tell her story to area media to
be sure that the public knows that
Please see page A13
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