APRIL 13, 1982
BLACK INK
PAGE 3
Sister's Corner
Search for right female role model can be hard
Donna Whitaker
Columnist
When I was in fifth or sixth grade, I saw
"West Side Story" on television. I loved to
dance, so I was attracted to the dance scenes
in the musical, I was especially attracted to
Rita Moreno. Gosh, that lady could nnove! I
decided I wanted to be just like her.
As I got older, my desire to become a
dancer dwindled while my desire to become
a journalist increased. By the time I was in
high school, Barbara Walters was a constant
face on television. I was firmly rooted into
print journalism by my sophomore year; so
when people asked me what I wanted to be
when I grew up, I'd tell them I wanted to be a
journalist. They'd say, "Oh, you want to be
another Barbara Walters, huh?" No, I didn't
want to be like her.
But I couldn't think of who I wanted to be
like. I didn't have a mentor. I didn't know of
any famous newspaper ladies. As a dancer I
had a name, but as a journalist, I couldn't
think of one.
1 continued to work in journalism and
people continued to compare me with Bar
bara or some broadcast journalist. Even in
college, I couldn't name anyone I wanted to
be like. 1 didn't know of anyone who was a
"famous" female print journalist who had a
wonderful character and a desire to be the
best she could be. I didn't have any famous
female, let alone any famous black female.
to look up to.
But now, in my last year of college, I do.
Now there is a black woman who has strug
gled in the profession and has ended up
being the first black woman to publish a
daily newspaper. She is Dr, Pam johnson,
publisher of the Ithica (N. Y.) Journal, which
is owned by the Gannett Newspaper Croup.
Dr. Johnson, 36, grew up in Evanston, III.
She received her bachelor's, master's and
doctorate degrees from the University of
Wisconsin, She has taught at various univer
sities, such as the University of Wisconsin
and Norfolk State University, She has work
ed in television, radio, public relations and,
of course, print journalism. She also is mar
ried and has two children.
Dr, Johnson spoke to journalists at the fifth
annual N,C, A&T State Uniersity Media
Conference on March 26. She told us about
how she got to where she is and how black
journalists can offer multicultural views to
newspapers and radio and television sta
tions. She didn't hide her blackness, but she
did not use it as an excuse, either.
Recently she has been in the news as
though she was a media event. People ask
her about being a black woman newspaper
publisher, as though she is supposed to feel
differently about herself. But Pam Johnson
answers that question with the self-
confidence that radiates from her person. At
the conference she said, "I've been black for
36 years and I've been in the public for 36
years and I like myself just fine."
Dr. Johnson also talks frankly about her
self and her position. At the conference she
said, "To say in 1982 that there are only two
black publishers (of daily white-oriented
newspapers) in this country is abominable. i
I'm not unique. There are a dozen black
journalists as oualified, or more so, it's my
company that's unique,"
In an article in the March 1982 issue of
Sepia magazine, her self-confidence is seen
again. She even spreads it to others. She said
in the article, "I tell my students that you
have to succeed in spite of obstacles rather
than fail because of them. We all have our
motivators and I guess when someone does
something that bothers me, then my re
sponse is 'I'll show you.'"
Who do I want to be like? I want to be like
Dr. Pam Johnson,
Sister's Corner
Residents question
dorm security
Mitchell Vann
Special to the Ink
It W3S h a.m. ana Sunday morning. I wote
up and went to the bathroom in our suite.
The shower curtain was closed but no one
was taking a shower as tar as I could tell. I
thought to myself . . . suppose someone is
back there. . . oh, that's ridiculous. . .but I
pulled the curtain back anyway. There vvd.s
someone back there. He was fully clothed,
laying down on the shower floor with a beer
can beside him. I did not know who he was. I
immediately went to my room and called the
campus police.
Incidents like this and other incidents in
volving thefts and peeping toms raise con
cerns among South Campus residents about
the security of their residence halls,
Gerry Jeffries, a resident assistant on South
Campus, said, "The security (in South Cam
pus dormsl is as good as it can be consider
ing the number of people in each dorm and
the visitation policies,"
Keith Williams, a resident of Hinton
James, said that anybody can walk in the
dorm easily.
Lauren Stevens, area director of Hinton
lames, agreed with Williams. "Because of
our visitation policies, people can easily
come into the building," she sa^d.
"They can just as easily remain in the
dorm after the doors are locked . . . there
fore residents have to assum^ more responsi
bility for their own security," she said.
However, Stevens said she feels good ab
out the security system because there ha
ven't been many security incidents.
Residence areas run a 20-hour informa
tion desk with an attendant from 5 p.m. to 6
a.m, Stevens said the attendants check the
keys of people coming into the hall after the
doors are locked as a security measure. Only
people with a key coded for Hinton lames
and guests are allowed in,
Jeffries said after-hour key-checking,
though, has many loopholes. She said, for
instance, residents let visitors borrow their
keys, girl-friends check out a third key from
their boyfriends and residents allow stran
gers to come in with them saying that they
are their guests when, in fact, the residents
don't know the strangers.
Williams supported Jeffries assertions,
"Sometimes I let somebody come in with me
that I don't know because they want to see
somebody,"
"Residents must be more careful,"
Stevens said, "They shouldn't leave their
doors unlocked when they shower or run to
the kitchen . , . and they've got to stop leav
ing their keys in the bathroom when they
leave the dorm .... Everybody knows that
trick, " Resident safety begins with the resi
dent, she added,
Jeffries sometimes patrols her floor, look
ing for suspicious people,
"On some weekends. I've taken a roster
with me and patrolled the hall," she said, "If
I saw someone , , , looking in windows or
moving from suite to suite, I would ask them;
'Do you live here?' And if they said yes. I'd
look them up on the roster. If they din't live
where they said they lived, then. I'd ask
them to leave. Later, if I saw them again I'd
call the campus police."
lohn Conyers
Congressman advocates
change in federal budget
Congressman John Conyers, a civil rights
advocate and critic of the federal budget,
spoke to approximately 39 persons on "The
Challenge of Procedural and Economic
Democracy" and "The Evolution of the Civil
Rights Movement," on March 29, in Hamil
ton Hall,
"The unworkability of the economic prog
ram is obviously demonstrated in everyone's
pocket not just the blacks and the poor,''
Conyers said. "The government and econo
mical structures are fatal," he said.
Conyers said many dangerous spin-offs
are flowing out of the future of the economy.
Two of the dangerous sp.in-offs were the res
trictions on small businesses and the dis
mantling of education programs to educate
and train citizens.
"What we are doing to restrict small
businesses is subversive," he said.
Conyers stressed that there was subver
siveness in the dismantling of the education
al programs. "It is an act of subversion to
eliminate the educational programs," he
said, "It is the best way to build a strong
country,"
The congressman also addressed the
evolution of the Civil Rights Movement, "Its ^
techniques have been a life giving force,"
Conyers said.
For example, "TheCivil Rights Movement
(of the 50's and 60's) marked the resurgence
of blacks and other ethnic groups in Amer
ica," he said,
Conyers attributed the improvement of
race relations to civil rights leader Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. and other advocates of the
Civil Rights Movement.
Conyers also spoke about the past Civil
Rights Movement. "It W'as not a radical
movement," he said. "It was conservative
undertaken the circumstances which it was
under," Conyers said the past Civil Rights
Movement had religious aura, and it was
nonviolent.
"Revolution means the end of discussion
and negotiation," he said. "Now we must
resort to violence."
He said that most young people do not
know that it was the law to be racist. "If you
were not racist, you would have been break
ing the law," Conyers said.
"This is now (1980s) phase two of the Civil
Rights Movement. The time is different, the
mood is different, the tactics are different,"
Conyers said.
"We are now in the political part of the
movement to keep the Voting Rights Act,"
he said. "We need a different approach,
now," Conyers said.