Editorials & Comments Commissioners Slow Courage Earlier this week the Mecklen burg County Board of Commis sioners voted unanimously to honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by declaring his birth day, January 15, a County holiday. The Commission acted cou rageously in supporting Bob Walton’s suggestion to eliminate one of the 10 existing County holidays in order to avoid an additional holiday cost to the taxpayers of $132,215 annually. This action was taken with the Commissioners’ recognition that some County employees would be upset with the loss of their additional holiday at Christmas that could only be taken by the use of a vacation day. Dr. Mildred Baxter Davis, one of several black neighborhood leaders who spoke in favor of the January 15 holiday before the Commissioners' final vote, said, "A lot of young people in this community need this holiday as a way of recognizing a great leader.,r Several dnys before the Board voted, Commissioner Walton said, “For a man of King’s stature and what he has meant to the black and white commun ities, I think it’s proper we join (many) other cities and (19) states to designate his birthday as a legal holiday.’’ In spite of these and other : supportive statements, there has been some objection voiced by some County employees. Re ports indicate that a petition with over 100 signature and numerous telephone calls to the Commis sioners indicate support for the observance of King’s birthday but prefer an alternate holiday change in lieu of losing a Christ mas holiday. It is unfortunate that a positive move by the County Commis sioners to recognize the contri butions to democracy and equal justice by a great American has been overshadowed by the ques tion of which holiday to substi tute. However, the really important story in all of this is that honoring of Dr. King through a paid holiday observance - the first city or county iri both North and South Carolina to take such action - has apparently been well received in the community at large. Commissioner Walton, who initiated the idea of County observance of King’s 'birthday, put the issue in perspective when he said, lli mink we re maturing in this community...the board action is making all that Martin . Luther King stood for a reality.” The Post salutes the County Commissioners for its courage in taking the leadership in the Carolinas to recognize the contri butions of Martin Luther King, a truly great American. Dent In Our Commitment • With all the reports over the ; • past few years about newspapers and new magazines across the - nation closing down or cutting back in their additions, we are sad to learn that the Charlotte • News plans to discontinue its - Saturday edition. We certainly recognize and • understand the forces at work that make this decision neces ’ sary as the news media compe - tition increases along with in creasing operating costs. How ever, as we attempt to put such - decisions in perspective, the question must be asked, “What does it all mean?” The answer is that another dent is placed in our commitment to democracy and democratic ideals. Among these ideals is freedom of speech and freedom of the press. A single day a week loss of The Charlotte News means 52 editorial opinions per year are lost just to cite one example. Under our free press system those lost options could make a , significant difference in a vital issue affecting our community and indeed our nation. In spite of, and maybe because of this necessary move, The Charlotte Post wishes to com mend The Charlotte News for a job well done. Herschel Walker Shatters Myth! Athletes, especially football players have been stereotyped for years as being muscular jocks with limited intelligence • and unfit to be productive fol . lowing their college or profes : sional playing seasons. Now and then a football player comes along who shatters that stereotype. There is now one who graduated from high school as Valedictorian of his class two years ago, the same year he led his teammates to the state foot ~ ball championship and the otato track team titles. In me latter case, he earned 34Vfe of his school’s 35 points to win the 100-yard dash and the shot put. As a freshman college stu dent, our hero continued his practice of studying his school work diligently and maintaining good grades while limiting his social life. His coach has said, "The kid is as close to perfect as I’ve seen,” as a student and as a football player. In the 1980 Sugar Bowl game against Notre Dame our hero rushed for two touchdowns and 150. yards, not spectacular for a super fUUlUdUBi, lad, the rest of the team accounted tor a minus 30 yards rushing and seven yards passing. Blacks Destiny In Own Hands. black POWER- ' adeclaration OE INDEPENDENCE OE WHITE LEADER ' SHIP AND WHITE directionr --—Tony Broum^s_ Journal Nationally Syndicated Commercial Television Series Tony Brown I “If Black People Don’t, White People Won’t” columnist tony Brown Wrong Again” read the headline in the Sentinel Bulletin. And as proof, the Tampa, Florida, news paper offered an “opinion analysis” written by a Ru dolph Harris. While Mr. Harris was much more gracious in his disagreement than the paper’s castigating cap tion, His analysis of my analysis of the recent At lanta mayoral election ana lyzed a point that I never made. In fact, I agree with Mr. Harris that black people should vote for other black people. My logic is that if black people don’t, white people won’t. But I *iid not ■conclude, as the wiilei ac= cused me, that this consti tuted racist behavior. It would be racist, how ever, if we lived in a race-free society. More over, it would be suicidal to politically disenfranchise ourselves out of an idealis tic notion that the best person-white or black should get our support. Politics is anything but idealistic. It is absolutely pragmatic and as Dr. Carl ton Goodlett, the San Fran cisco publisher, once told me: “Politics means that me and mt friends can run better than you and your friends." If blacks should fall for the trap that political self help and survival is racist, then we will lose our politi cal gains as we have lost the quality of education we once received in all black schools. History has de monstrated that since we abondoned educating our selves-" When Black peo ple don’t, white people won’t”-Black high school »'ers make the lowest scores of any group in this country. And it is not because the tests are racially biased they have always been racially biased. It is be cause we are not taught as well by other-race people. However, let me get back to Mr. Harris’ very worthy ~~rebuttal~. He said: "Atlan— ta’s Black people voted overwhelmingly for (Andy) Young not because they were racist, but be cause they were proud; because they are human just like any other people.” He is saying that con sidering the racist pattern of the white vote, blacks must elect one another to office. However, when whites do it, they are racist. As emotionally ap pealing as his argument is, 1 do not find enough logic to support it. -In fant hp|h grnnre; arc —Unhinfl n.,1 f„- ifrpjr nwn best interests and race is (he vehicle. Whites are try mg to stay on top and blacks are trying to get off the bottom. Furthermore, how can you live in a racist society and not involve yourself in racist institu tions, e.g., Democratic Party, Republican Party or Communist Party. My advice is that blacks should disassociate them selves from the semantical notion that they are racist or even_behaving in a racist manner. If white people will not help you - and they won’t - politically, educa tionally or economically, then it stands to reason that you must elect other blacks to office, preserve your own neighborhood schools and colleges and spend -VOHI»—tl.w hillinn in ymlr own community 12 times as whites do rather than once as blacks do. A Negro integrationistj roughly translated as need ing the social company of whites more than self-de termined power, criticized my old television series: “Shows like ‘Black Journ al’ portray Negroes in a ridiculous light. It shows them as people who are unaware of the complex ities of living, the com plexities of civilization, who are aware of only one thing: color.” —Aiy TPS punsc Uich unit "now: "This fMMIUJii L'drr See “If Black...” Page 16 f —Rv RevrJohn Perkins ——— Walk Your Rev. Perkins * f. ■ *4 A Dangerous Opportunity One of the ministers in our church was speaking recently. His sermon spoke about the crisis ,that was set before Nehemiah wtjetf tie set out to rebuild the walls of Jeresulem. The young minister defined the word for crisis according to its definition in the Chinese language. He said, the Chinese use two symbols for the word crisis, the symbols for danger and opportunity. So he defined a crisis as a dangerous op portunity. Blacks in America are in the midst of a dangerous opportunity. The economy has been knotting up, placing a strangehold on most new business development and ' expansion. You know the story. The Federal Re serve pinches the money supply when inflation gets too high. Housing stars drops, putting construction workers out of work. Prices in the supermarket rise steadily along with those at the gas pump. What can the average breadwinner do in cases like these? Even now there is an effort brewing, a testing of the water, to shut off the growth of —cooperatives which could be the life line of the black community. A news reportr recently said the the National Consumer Cooperative Bank, that makes high-risk loans to cooperatives, may be trimmed or eliminated under the new Reagan Admin istration. The article also stated that many - Reagan conservatives see the bank as “nothing more than a vehicle for 1960-style activists to foment social change.” What’s wrong with that? Be they 1960 styled activists or 1980-styled survivalists, what difference does it make? _J am getting the urge to buy all the cultivatable land that we as black can buy. I believe that we need to pool our resources into organizations like credit unions and Thriftco. We need to start experimenting with farming cooperatives on a broad scale. We need to prepare ourselves for the future. Will the future bring food shortages, empty stores, hunger and then chads in our nation? It will if we are not prepared for the future. If we are to prepare, then some preliminary work must first be done. Nehemiah in the Bible made extensive and elaborate plans when he faced his crisis - his dangerous opportunity. Nehemiah stood up in his day, and we must do the same in ours. Riots for lack of even the basic necessities could come upon us unless we as leaders begin to go out and be the d light, the scripture says, “For without a’ vision the people perish.” -We need leaders whojrecognize the crises that are set before them. These leaders must be able to mobile groups positively, _both great and small. They must believe that they can impact their environment for the good. I’m praying in these days that God would give me this kind of insight. That-He will raise up young Christian men and women who will take the challenge of leadership. I feel that God has set before us a great opportunity, but the stakes are high. We need to pool our resources for the glory of God. However, I don’t believe this can happen without a deep moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives. - . . HPSunnsys ir, IHI1. column mav Iw III ml p in •‘Walk Your Talk,” 165 b St. Charles Si., Jackson, MS. 39209. THE CHARLOTTE POST Second Class Postage No. 965500 “THE PEOPLE’S NEWSPAPER’’ Established 1918' Published Every Thursday by Thfe Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. Subscription Rate $15.60 per year Send All 3579’slo: 1524 West Blvd., Charlotte. N.C. 28208 Telephone (704)376-0496 . Circulation 7,151 104 Years of continuous Service Bill Johnson Editor, Publisher Bernard Reeves General Manager F ran Farrer Advertising Director Dannette GaitherOffice Manager Second Class Postage No. 965500 Paid At Charlotte, North Carolina Under the Act pf March 3,1878 Member, National Newspaper Publishers’ Association North Carolina Black Publishers Association Headline lor all iieWi 6'6py AHd plIMM ft— 5 p.m. Monday. All photos and copy submitted become the property of The Post and will not be returned. National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc. 2100 S. Michigan Ave. ».', W. I.'.th St.. Suite 11911 < hicago. III. iiotiiK New York, New York, ioo:M> ' olumet .'•-0200 (212) 1X9-1220 From Capitol Hill Caribbean Seminar Reveals Reagan’s Racism Policy? By Alfreds L. Msdison Special To The Post The Congressional Black Caucus seminar on the Caribbean was so well at tended that the meeting had to be moved from a committee room in the Rayburn Building to the Health and Human Ser vices auditorium. The overwhelming success of the seminar was largely due to the energetic work of Congressman Mervyn Dymally, Chairman of the' Caucus Task Force on the Caribbean. The Congressional Black Caucus has presented a 12 point policy which it urges the United States to include in its Caribbean policy. These include: Emphasis on economic assistance and preservation of the integrity of Caribbean na ' lions, defining Caiibbeaii as the region made up of all the islands in the Carib bean Sea, creation of an assistant secretary in the State Department for the region, increase economic aid, increase trade and eliminate excessive tariffs in the region, amnesty for undocumented Caribbean workers in the United States, a more humane Alfreds L. Madison policy toward Haitian en trants, a more consiliatory stance toward Grenada, lifting of embargo on medical supplies to Cuba, assistance in settling border despute between Guatamala and Belize, and use U.S. influence in seek ing admission of Guyana to The Organization of Apieri ran Staton This meeting came at a time when President Rea gan has just enunciated his plan for reduction of de ployment of nuclear wea pons in Europe, and at the same time Secretary Haig is talking about military support and giving signals that the United States might invade Cuba. The panel on U.S. policy in Caribbean, Chaired by Representative William Gray, with Deputy Assist ant Secretary of Inter American Affairs, Bushell, and Professor Franklin Knight of Johns Hopkins University participating, really revealed interesting facts about our govern ment's Caribbean policy, which seems to be some what inhumane, discrim inatory and entirely void of principles which a demo cratic government espouses Dr Knight stated that the United States has never had a comprehensive Caribbean policy and that Secretary of State Haig has never been serious about a dialogue with our Carib bean neighbors. In formu lating a Caribbean policy we must make a self-intro SQflrtinn consider our own Declaration of Independ ence, "all men are created free and equal.” All peo ple demand unqualified re spect and dignity and the sovereign right to choose their own form of govern ment, an that we have no right to dictate the policy of any government, we do not elect Each state must fa shion its own government. saia Mr. Knight. It was emphasized that the Uited States serves no good pur pose in trying to keep other countries from being friendly with Cuba - there is no reason for ostracizing Cuba while recognizing other communist nations. The United States was criticized for its patience with the inhumane South African apartheid, and yet not only showing concern for the poor economic con ditions of Grenado, but is making serious efforts to block any aid given it by other countries, and the U S. violation of resolutions which accord humane treatment to Haitians who echoed loud and clear A former Ambassador to the Caribbean, who seemed unable to face the try re velations to brown and hlark pffpple any longer arose in defense of our government Chairman Bill Gray had a hard time quieting the audience, which made blatant out cries against his defense. Mr. Knight, politely re sponded, “This type of ar rogance is not based on evaluation of U S. policies and programs." Under Secretary Bush neu was given a very hard time in the tough question and answer period He was aksed if the U.S. has evi dence that Cuba is supply ing military aid in Central America, why not produce it? He replied that the state the source of information might become a risk. In response to a question about difference in our giving military aid to Northern African and Cuba's givjng aid to Cen tral America? he said we support governments and Cuba supports guerrilas. Of course, in Angola, Cuba supports the government and we are supporting the guerrillas. Former Prime Minister Michael Manley, who was defeated in the recent Jamaica election by United States manipulation of Seaga in to power, made nw-ry uynumii bpuuui. mb is still the head of the Democratic-Socialist Party and he expects that party to regain power in the future. He stated that the public education, land reforms and social growth of his Administration were ignored by the media, and because his Administration formed a friendship with Cuba and other Third World countries, this was not acceptable to the United States. Manley said unemployment is great in the Third World, of which, he says American Blacks comprise a Third World in this country, and that un employment is a structural matter. He stated that if the world is rolling along to economic recovery it has escaped notice. The former Prime Minister stated that economy of the world has not been intelligently man aged Intelligence abolish es the free enterprize system. m The Immigration and Re fugee panel was chaired by Representative Chisholm, who denounced U S. Hai tian policy as discrimina tory and inhumane. Mr. Nelson of the INS was flatly told that the U.S. policy is based on racism. a