North Carolina Newspapers

i!Ar-TH2 CAROLINA TIMES SAT, JULY 20..1974 LBlTORI ALS AM). COMMEN' - . sum 5 ij-Hxoi C1ACS -CSO IK.f3$ , BLACK COMMUNITY SELF HELP -MUTVAI. IAIP SEU IMPROVEMENT ' COOPERATION EAaimnnEti When Earl Warren retired in 1969 as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Black America lost a friend. When he died last Thursday at the age of 83, all Americans who believe that justice, freedom and equality were rights to be enjoyed by all citizens lost a champion. Men's interpretation of laws cause them to "do strange and differing things some of them prompted by political expediency. Earl Warren at one time was guilty of this trait. As governor of California during the hysteria that followed Pearl Harbor, Warren presided over the evacuation of thousands of Japanese-Americans from their west coast homes. A three-term governor and one of the most popular vote-getters in California's history, Warren and his brand of "progressive conservatism" were prime assets to the King-makers of the Republican Party. He ran as Thomas Dewey's Vice Presidential candidate in the 1948 Presidential campaign. He unsuccessfully sought his party's Presidential nomination in 1952. The nominee, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who went on to win the Presidency, appointed him Chief Justice in 1953, a move that was not expected to create any controversy in an otherwise bland era. But thejre are times when an office elevates a man. Warren was only one of nine men who composed the highest tribunal in the land, but as Chief Justice his influence, leadership and dedication to humanistic and constitutional answers to the question, "Is it right?" led "the Warren Court" to arrive at the most egalitarian decisions in the history of American jurisprudence. Under his stewardship, the Supreme Court dealt with problems and questions the Executive and legislative branches of our government . refused to touch. ; l In perhaps its most important decision, the Court, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, destroyed the legal basis for segregation in this country. In Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims, the Court decided to favor of the one man, one vote principal. The Warren Court also will be remembered for its decisions. Curging wiretapping. Upholding the right to be secure against "unreasonable searches and siezures." Barring racial discrimination in votingj in marriage laws, in the use of public parks, airports, bus terminals and housing sales and rentals. Barring compulsory religious exercises in public schools. Liberalizing residency requirements for welfare recipients. Sustaining the right to disseminate and receive birth control information. Earl warren died knowing none of his major decisions have been overturned by the "strict constructionists" who succeeded him on the bench. He died knowing a significant minority of the American people had at last found the words, "Equal Justice under the Law," to be more than just a glorious phrase. The Constitution is more than just a body of words. Under Earl Warren's stewardship as Chief Justice it Was a set of principles applied equally to all, irregardless of race, creed, color, religion, sex or status in life. Those who love justice mourn his passing. - -r-f The Tak Of Two Men - By ELVA P. DeJARMON TO BE EQUAL by Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. teem V v - v .!''., i r i jof art? o, The citizens of Durham are urged to attend the Forumon School rights, responsibilities and discipline that will be held July 25, at Brogden Junior High SchooL It will be a public service session where any and all input is urged and sought from the people of Durham who are interested in improved school affairs. Broad support is being sought from students,, parents, educators, concerned citizens and public officials in order to make the Forum a real success. ' Sometimes there is the misguided conception that only minority groups have need to attend the human ATTEND SCHOOL FOlIUM relations 'Ifld othertype "workshops that have been held. Nothing could be more false. For within the human I don't want to sound like a prophet of doom, but the worldwide economic situation, runaway inflation, and the hunger crisis that engulfs millions of people around the world could result in disaster for the world's peoples. Some economists are talking about a worldwide Depression on the scale of the 1930's. I'm no more comfortable with all the talk of balance of payments deficits, devastations, and overhanging liquidity than the next guy, but the constant shocks to the world monetary system are reminding many people of the last time that happened.' The Great Depression meant not only hard times, but also' Hitler, Mussolini, and World War II. That why it is so hard to be optimistic , about the isujts of another ; econohfeoilTtllstioh. f (1S: ! This whole mess is stoked by an inflation that Is crippling the :- World's industrial nations and may wind up starving poor to death. The oil bill for Third World nations family, and especially in educational wW leap some $15 bUlion this year. That's outreach programs the most effective use of our educational systems, is made when all groups majority, and others need and are aware of the inherent values gained from a shared community experience. The time for action by all Durham citizens is now. If you have any questions as a concerned citizen about the rights, responsibilities and discipline, as well as the duties of your schools, and mine, please attend the Forum A Nmtumi they do not have. And the oil is not just to keep their autos going, but to convert into fertilizer products to feed themselves. - That leads to the third threat hanging over the over the world famine. Right this minute, over a billion people are malnouished and hundreds of millions may actually be starving to death. The famine that whipped across the African Sahel region and Ethiopia this year took a heavy toll in lives and disrupted social economic traditions that had lasted for thousands of years. The reliefoperations helped, but could not overcome the problem. Where a decade ago the world had grain reserves of almost three months, today it has less than four weeks left at any given moment. - : Here at home we are getting a taste of what economic insecurity, double-digit inflation and hunger are like. And just as poor nations are bearing the major brunt of the worldwide economic collapse, so too are poor people carrying the load in the United States. The food crunch is an example. Food prices are leaping forward, causing high income families to switch to less expensive cuts of meat or go out to eat a bit less often. But poor folks have been eating the least expensive foods all along, food like rice and beans and the like. The only switch they can make now is to stop eating, which many are being forced to do. Skipped meals are a regular fact of life for poor people and the elderly these days. And it is "poor people's food" that's climbed furthest and fastest. Margarine is up , by over 60 percent, but butter is only up by less than 10 percent. Dried beans have more than tripled in price. Rice is up sharply. So is bread, so are a lost of foods that are staples in the diets of poor. In the last four years, foods included in the Agriculture Department's model food basket for cheaper eating rose by over forty percent. But real income for working people to declining! And the value of food stamps, supposed to take up the slack for the poor, Isn't rising as fast as food prices. Worse still, very little is being done to inform people of their right to food stamps only a little more than a third of eligible people now get them. All of this means that there is terrible suffering going on throughout the world and the nation, a suffering that is smothered by neglect and a failure of leadership, a suffering that is horrible today and may become far worse tormrow. ; Ailmnce By GERALDINE RICKMAN Editor's Note:. Thii 'is the first of a three-part series that appeared in the Spring, 1974, issue of Civil RighU Digest. Mrs. Rlckman is . director of Resource Development, associate professor of psychology, and adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. Black women represent the legitimate' Instruments by which the women's movements and the black movement can forge a power wedge for accomplishing significant change-legal, economic, social, educational, and political that will benefit both groups. Such a natural alliance is not inevitable. It is subject to the pressures of all.aHlance made between groups with similar destinies competing for recognition and power; black women, black men, and white women. The point must be made early that, although the emphasis here is on the role of black women the active Involvement and support of white women la essential to the tuceessful development of new alliance around issues affecting both women and blacks, (ultimately, the role of black women in effecting new alliance with powerful white men will be, if not a continuing source ' of 'concern or irritation to both white women and black men, at least a "problem" to be overcome). Black women can become 21st eentruy "change agents" by taking on a Unking pin relationship with white women, white men, and black men. By "change agents" I mean those persons who desire to participate In, and often instigate, institutional change ' processes through strategic risk taking and; calculated planning. Change agents are also those persons who are called upon to work and live In vanguard positions in order to model new behaviors that affect persons and institutions. This role for black women was never envisioned by the social scientists who pioneered the. theories and processes designed, to aid managers in making institutions more tolerable for humans and more productive for society. In fact, no role for women black or white or for black males was envisioned by these men. But some of their theories, concepts, and processes are relevant to our strategy of change, and deserve closer scrutiny, testing, and where necessary rebuilding. Rensis Likert, in his work at the University of Michigan, advanced the Unking pin concept which he described as follows; ' One condition for supportive relationships is that the form of the organisation should be one of multiple, overlapping groups in which each supervisor is a linking pin -a leader of the group below and also a member in the group above. . V In addition, persons at all levels are. members of the other groups (committees, representational groups, and the like) which help link the organization laterally. . Linking pin change agents thus enjoy membership (or psychological affinity) in overlapping groups. With their ability to articulate the viewpoints of differing and competing groups, and their skill ' in interpreting one group to another, such change agents can perform an Important , unifying function in complex organizations' (according to Warren Bennto, in his book Changing Organization). The Ideas above are important to proving that the black woman can play a linking pin role. She has the necessary adaptability, sense of self, and reality orientation. The high risk involved for the black woman as a functioning change agent is equal only to the . high stakes to be gained by her. Economically, she is at the bottom of the barrel, and, as a group, there is only one way : to go-up. Before examining strategies any further, one question in particular must answered: who is the black woman? Census data tell us that: She is 5?.6 percent of the total black population of 22,672,570. She remains' single more often than white women (28 percent against 21.3 percent.)' ' "' t vr- She is paid less than toy other groupttn the country. The order, from the lowest paid to the highest is: black women, white women, black men, white men. Of the 3.4 million nonwhite (principally black) women workers n 1968, nearly, one-half were service worfewi and domestics. The same ratio exists in 1$73; V 7 . ' . , In 1969, black women 25 years or more of age had a median Income of $2,078, which is $2,670 less than that, of the average . black male, and about three8 fourths of the median Income for white women.,' Of all black women, 30 percent are employed, whDe 23 percent of all white women are ' employed. Of all black women, 29 percent are '. aervlce workers, while 18 percent of 'white; women are service workers. Of all black women, 31 percent are white collar workers,' while , 64 percent of white women are white collar workers. Of all black women ' 18 percent are ; blue collar workers, as. opposed to 16 percent of all white women. : , Of the 9.1 million clerical workers, about , 21 percent had some college and about 75; percent had attended high school , (66' percent graduated.) Black women constitute ; 6.4 percent of this group. Black females whof have completed or gone beyond college earn ' only 78.8 percent as much as black males ' who have completed or gone beyond college, In 1971, 28.9 percent of jblack families were headed by females, as compared to 9.4 percent of white families. " r, In 1970 there were 608,745 more black women, than men between the ages' of 15 and 44. In 1970, for those 21 or more years of age, 4.5 percent of black males as compared with 4.4 percent of black females had completed or gone beyond a college education. Many fabled myths surround black women. They have suffered from the stigma of being seen as the white man's lover, and the black man's matriarchlal oppressor. Such myths tend to reinforce erroneous beliefs that directly affect social policies which in turn adversely affect many black females. Clearly, the black woman has the most to gain. She is already a high-risk change agent In her own world, or she would not have survived. She is adaptable, knows who she is, and knows what the real world is all about! As Beth Day points out in Sexual Life between Blacks and Whites: Legal mvriage for blacks In the South was possible only following the Civil War, and black women did not develop the same economic and , -- , social dependence upon the marital state that white women did. No matter what her own needs and emotions, the black woman as a slave had been utterly on her own, having to dredge up whatever inner strength she could muster to survive separation from her husband and sometimes, most cruelly,' from her children. She survived alone. In , contrast , to the dependent white Southern woman, the black woman was eons ahead In strength durability, and independence. If she had survived, it had been through the protection, support, or strength, of no man, educational system, or body of law; It bad been by her own native strength, wit, and gut widsom. . .In this context the white woman has never even been tested. She has never learned to survive In the world on her own. Two men from California went to Washington, D.C. Both were of humble origins. One was a brakeman on a railroad in his youth, the other's occupation, during his youth, Is obscure. In California one became a "Law and Order" Attorney General and a three-time governor: of that state. The other became a champion of Anti-Communist rhetoric and of guilt by association. V Both paths led across this great country to the nation's capltol. In- Washington, one became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The other became an artist in ' character assass ination and a blood hound sleuth of questionable "Pumpkin papers." , The appointment to the Supreme Court of these Californians was described by the President who appointed him as the "greatest damn fool mistake" I have ever made. The other of the Californians was described by the same President as being as clean as a hound's tooth. Two Californians came to Washington, D.C. One took the high road, the other took the low road. . One became a moving hand in The Granting of Social Justice Brown vs the Board of Education, Miranda vs. State of Arizona, Baker vs. Carr, Reynolds vs. Sims, Hamilton vs. Alabama, Humar vs. I. Larche, the Sioux Qity Cemetery case and Wltherspoon vs Illinois. These were decisions that brought about and equality, equal schools, equal rights. Equal representation The other helped found the "plumbers" contributed to 112 percent Inflation, and directed campaign abuses, and covert activity, directed against loyal American citizens. One left the Supreme Court and founded a foundation to provide funds for the legal education of the economically disadvantaged. . The other Californian still has the duty to see that "the law to faithfully executed" and to show that no man, not even he as president is above the jurisdiction of our. laws. One Californian returned to the Supreme Court on July 11, for his final Supreme Court Honors and was buried on July 12. The other Californian attended the last rites. The former brakeman on a railroad, former "Law and Order Attorney General, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Earl Warren, will be recorded In history as the guiding hand that extended the blessings of liberty and justice to all segments of the American melting pot. Througb the years this has been known as the American way, and thoseT who were the beneficiaries of The "Warren Court's" decisions will always remember him. The 1974 champions of the other Californians have attempted to compare his tribulations to the trial of Warren G. Harding. He can be described by the argument of Richard B. Sheridan at Warren Hastings trial. "We see nothing solid or penetrating, nothing noble or magnanimous, nothing open, direct, liberal, manly or superior, jn t his measures or his mind. All Jf dark, nsldj9U,. fordW,,and insincere. Wherever he has an option in the choice of his objects or his instruments, he Instinctively settles on the worst. He is ail shuffling, twtoting, cold and little. There is nothing open or upright, simple or unmixed. His crimes are the only great thing about him, and these are contrasted by the littleness of his motives." President Eisenhower, who once said Earl Warren was his greatest mistake, also said of his vice president for eight years, Richard Nixon, that he just hasn't grown, History will decide. Imp You Md Know TANNED 1859-1937 0N IN PimimtHM.rl0NOMN A.M.I. tllHO-THI MM MUNCH (XPfT CAU.lO"MUTeT UICHlCNMlNTfl--l'TM 0Y! UJ TUCHIN4TCUKUNIVtMlTY, Ml t NT TO UVI IN MMI, fMC MOM MC IM. MtlUOICI. Hit ttlLICAl MINTINH WON COUNTUM MUMS THROUGHOUT TH UNITfO STATCf AND IU0M Editor-Publisher 1027-1071 L. B. AUSTIN Published every Saturday at Durham. N. C.' ,.Ry..Vn ted PuWUhers. Ine. ' V MRS. VIVIAN AUSTIN WMOmubllsher ' V Malvln R. 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