Newspapers / The Carolina Times (Durham, … / June 14, 1980, edition 1 / Page 1
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NATIONAL ROSE MONTH CUSPS 091-380) Words Of Wisdom The future always holds something for the man who keeps his faith in it. He who falls in love with himself will find no rival. VOLUME 58 NUMBER 24 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1980 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE; 30 CENTS HOOKS URGES 71 T M 71 rr 771 A 7Th 0 ore money Jror uifoa Calls On Carter To Allocate Additional Funds 9 LEEA Civil Rights Efforts t?4 Benjamin L. Hooks, ex ecutive director of the Na tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has called on President Jimmy Carter to allocate additional operating funds to the Of fice of Revenue Sharing (ORS) and to the Law En forcement Assistance Ad ministration (LEAA), so that these two agencies can rule on a reported backlog of almost 1,500 cases against state and local municipalities where racial discrimination has been. documented. Without these additional funds Hooks charged, "this shameful state of af fairs at the Office of Revenue Sharing on September 30 would be automatically dropped, and LEAA would simply remain in its present state of being officially tied down by bureaucratic red tape." The concern, according to NAACP officials, grew out of information from the National Black Police Association that the Of fice of Revenue Sharing had a backlog of over 900 current complaints, with another 300 being monitored. -' In u ptfe4? ,'thif. ix tremely heavy caseload," Hooks said, "the Office of Revenue Sharing' Of fice for Civil Rights has only 31 investigators. This means that the vast ma jority of the complaints, most of which have been submitted by members of the minority community, will probably never be resolved. In addition to the 1,200 cases pending at the Office of Revenue Sharing, the NAACP's Executive Director noted that the National Black Police Association said there were another 225 cases pending in the Law En forcement Assistance Ad ministration (LEAA), where there are only five investigators in their Of fice of Civil Rights Compliance. James Hargrove, chair man of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), said that LEAA could not solve their pro blems simply by employ ing additional, staff: "They also have to change the manner in which they accept discrimination cases since they now restrict individual allega tions to the aggrieved in dividual." In addition Hargrove charged that there was a general "lack of competency'" in LEAA, and in the direc tion given by top LEAA officials." According to NAACP officials, the Office of Revenue Sharing and the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration "are the two government agencies most - ideally suited to investigating charges of discrimination since they are the only federal agencies governed by mandatory civil rights enforcement status that require a cut-off of funds on a finding of probable cause." State and local govern ments, according to the NAACP source, "have always opted to eliminate the probable discrimina tion when faced with a threatened loss of theii federal funding." Hooks concluded by stating, "Justice delayed is as explosive a situation today as its complete denial was to Miami just recently. We cannot af ford to allow this backlog of cases to trigger other urban unrest." Dismissal Of Becton and Jackson Feared In Move By Council The Finance Committee of the Durham City Coun cil, which has been dominated by . conser vative white males since the last municipal elec tion, has proposed eliminating the staff of the Durham Human Relations Commission. Final action on the pro posal is scheduled at the City Council meeting to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Mon day, June 16, in the City Council Chamber at City Hall. The move is viewed as an attempt to get rid of J. William (Joe) Becton, ex ecutive director of the Human Relations Com mission since November, 1970, and a staunch, outspoken defender of the rights of minorities and other oppressed people. The current efforts to unseat Becton appear to be strong recent moves by the commission staff to establish more clearly the problems ot discrimina tion faced by black people and others in Durham, and to move against this ttisertmirmtion. The wrath of the con servative group became focused on Becton in early April of this year, after a plan by the Human Rela tions Commission to con duct a housing market practice survey in Durham became public. The plan, which had been approved by a previous City Council, was a simple one, which has been used effectively in a number of other com munities. Simply stated, black and white in vestigators would be sent out to make inquiries regarding the sale or rental of certain housing units in the city, in an attempt to determine whether or not housing discrimination ex ists in the community and Continued on Page 2 Cuban Refugees Displacing Sick And Disabled Vets At VA WASHINGTON D.C. A White House directive which authorizes Cuban refugees to occupy beds at the Veterans Ad ministration (VA) medical center in Tampa, Florida, while sick and disabled ex Gl's are being denied treatment, has drawn outraged criticism from the 670,000-member Disabled American 1 Veterans (DAV). The Carter Administra tion has ordered the Tam pa VA medical center to reserve forty hospital beds for ailing Cuban refugees. The VA medical center in Gainseville, Florida, has been told to reserve fifty mcdicdal and surgical beds for this'purposc. On Monday, while thirteen Cuban refugees were oc cupying beds on the Tam pa VA facility's psychiatric wards, two American veterans apply ing for psychiatric care were denied admission due to lack of beds in the hospital's psychiatric care section. The Tampa VA hospital has been hit particularly hard by Carter Ad ministration budgei policies in recent years. Underfunding an understating at the ' hospital were causing denial of treatment to many eligible Tampa veterans long before the massive influx of Cuban refugees into Florida began. While this situation has it parallels at VA health care facilities across the United States, the pro blem in Tampa became so severe a year ago that the DAV and a number of VA physicians, themselves, called public attention to it. A headline in the Tam pa Tribune-Times on June 24, v 1979, stated that "Staff Doctors Call Some VA Policies Medical Malpractice." A few of the physicians went so far as to charge that some veterans had died because of these policies, which resulted directly from in adequate budgeting. "I'm astonished by the crass insensitivily of giv ing priority medical care in VA facilities to un documented aliens at a time when men and women who fought in our nation's wars arc being' turned away at the door '" said DAV National Com mander Paul L. Thomp son. He noted that the situa tion could only become worse as more Cubans enter VA hospitals, filling the beds allotted to them. The DAV has learned that Carter Administration of ficials have contacted other VA medical centers in Florida, searching for, hospital beds in which to place Cuban refugees re quiring medical attention. "This is a clear indica tion of how the Carter Ad ministration really feels about the nation's com mitment to its war ( veterans how it policies have become the complete opposite of what they should be," said Thomp son. "To show humanitarian concern for the refugees is one thing, but how much, humanitarian concern has the Carter Administration shown for sick and disabl-. ed veterans needing health services from the VA dur ing the last three and a, half years? None!' They private health care sector currently has 130,000 empty hospital beds, and DAV leaders are asking why the Carter Ad ministration is not using these beds rather tjian the already overburdened VA system to treat the Cubans. i M If r. 12!. It 13 ,1 3s I 1 : ' 7 Mi tie eights GS YlilTGoiEi i Yer CEicaraes IP By Tanya LeGette "The Duke Power Cpmpany has caused ex tensive damage. ,f o , my home, J lafrd' 'turned -wy backyard into a swamp full of insects." These were the words of Mrs. Mildred Carlton, a resi dent of the Fisher Heights community, as she com plained about underground cables plac ed by Duke Power. According to Mrs. Carlton, she was not aware of any underground cables when she bought her house in J973, and now Duke Power refuses to relocate the cables in her back yard so that the land can be graded down to one even level. "Because the yard is cumulates under my house and this causes mildew, mold and insects such as millipedes, centipedes, along with snails, worms and many others to come into my house," Mrs. Carlton explained. "I have confronted Duke Power about my problems for seven years, and trenches have been added for the water to drain, but when they trenches close up, water still runs under my house DELTAS HELP STUDENTS 'ACE9 COMPETENCY TEST By Treilie L. Jeffers Mrs. Nancy Rowland, counselor at Durham High School, speaking Saturday, June 7 at St. 'Joseph's AME Church as the Delta Sigma Theta reception to honor community people who helped the organization ac complish its 1979-80 goals, said that when the test results from the 1978-79 N.C. Competency Test return ed, some of the members of the Delta Sorority first sat down and cried, and afterwards began planning suc cessful strategy to enable the failing students to pass the test. (Thirty-five percent of Durham High and fifteen per cent of Hillside students initially failed the test.) Although the N.C. General Assembly had ap propriated .money for additional teachers and equip ment to help students prepare themselves to pass the test, the Deltas organized tutorial sessions for failing students at their Life Development Center on Saturdays and at both Durham and Hillside high schools during lunch periods and on afternoons after school. Tutors for these sessions included Delta sorors and any interested persons from the Durham community both professional educators and non-professionals. As late as April, 1980, approximately ten per cent of the students at Durham High School had received a fail ing test score, according to Mrs. Rowland. "We were determined, even though people were tell ing us that if. they had not learned it in eleven years that it could not be done," said Mrs. Rowland. She said that the students were tutored by rich and poor, black and white, old and young, educated and non-educated. "There were retired teachers who opened their homes to tutor students or who. went to the students' homes. If we could have the same cooperative effort, if we could unite Durham in a common goal as it (Durham) did to insure that the students would pass the N.C. Competen cy Test, Durham would be a progressive community," said Mrs. Rowland. On Thursday, June 5, only two Durham City School students: one from Durham High and one from Hillside, were unable to graduate because of a failing test score. Mrs. Betty Blackmon, president of the Durham Alumnae Chapter of the sorority, accepted an award presented to the group for outstanding service by Herbert Tatum, principal of Shepard Junior High School. In presenting the award. Prof. Tatum said, "at least 85 of Durham City pupils are very bright, and therefore, our students can do anything that they make up their minds to do." Several other persons were presented awards or received recognition for outstanding service at Satur day's reception. and nothing more has been done," Mrs. Carlton said. . James MuvDhev, direc tor of "the "'Engineering' Department at Duke Power, said, "we have of fered to relocate, or even to de-energize the underground cables while a contractor is working, and bury the cable to the depth required for the grading, but Mrs. Carlton would not agree." Mur phey added, "it is the customer's option to have underground cables and when the lines are install ed, it is left up to the owner to say whether the land is to its final grade. Many times the builder or developer decides on this before the house is sold, and the owner may not be aware." According to a letter dated March 16, 1979, ad dressed to Mrs. Carlton, signed by James Murphey, "an easement is duly recorded in Deed Book of the Durham Register of Deeds." When this reporter checked Deed Book 383, Page 371, it revealed the property of one Elry and Mrs. Peggy S. Holloway on the eastside of Olive Branch Road, and there is no mention of Mrs. Carlton's property even though the letter refers to it. Mrs. Carlton also complained about the primary cable for approx imately fifty families ex tending into her yard, as well as a telephone drop wire that was left hanging from a pine tree over her back yard. "This primary cable is the reason my yard can't be graded down, and if Duke Power had used the property lines, 1 would be able to have it graded," she said. Mrs. Carlton went on to say that Duke Power had ;j&QSLSydeMaUx, .-.jejm... her County underground telephone cable while digging, and it was not placed back underground. According to Mrs. Carlton's deed dated February 21, 1973, "This property is conveyed sub ject to the Buffer Area',' which Mrs. Carlion originally understood to be the area in which the cables were located. Darrell Jones, an employee of the Engineer ing Department ai Duke Power said, "because of the wat Fisher Heights is arranged, a primary cable extends into everyone's yard at one point. Everything is kept a cfose to the property liius as possible and every Continued on Page 3 Monsanto Taking Steps To Utilize Minority-Owned Firms ST. LOUIS Monsanto Company, the fourth largest U.S. chemical company, awarded $27.3 million in purchasing con tracts to minority-owned businesses last year mak ing it a leader among com panies supporting economic parity for minority-owned firms. Reco Gibson, Monsan to field purchasing manager, said the com pany's formal commit ment to minority enter prise began in 1973 after an award of $15,000 to minority firms at Monsan to's Mound Research Laboatory in Miamisburg, Ohio. The program wafc expanded in 1977 to include all com pany locations and a new goal to spend $15 million in purchases by the end of 1980. Since then the company goal has changed four times, from $15 million to the present goal of $32 million in pur chases by the end of 19804 Monsanto's . minority purchasing program af fects all the company's U.S. locations, including its 63 plants, 23 laboratories and technical centers, and various sales offices. It contracts minority firms for such jobs as construction, transportation, advertis ing, food service, accoun ting and legal services. "We must take part in the system of providing these opportunities," said Gibson, "or else, it could be mandated by the government to private in dustry as it is with com panies that do business with the government." Although company wide participation in minority purchasing is relatively new at Monsan to, the company has already been praised for its forsight and leadership in the area. Last month, the tompany received the 1980 Private Corporation of the Year award from the Missouri-Kansas region of the Minority Contractor's Association. In 1976, Monsanto sponsored the first chemical-petrochemical industry-wide conference on minority purchasing at its world headquarters in St. Louis. The company has assisted seventeen U.S. companies in design ing its lbwh minority pruchasing-con tract program. $300,000 Grant Awarded Howard Youth Program The Rockfeller Founda tion has awarded Howard University a $300,000 grant to expose approx imately v ) high school students to careers in the life sciences. Howard is coordinating a "Summer Program in Life Sciences Careers for High -"School Minority Students" at thirty univer sities around the nation.. For eight to ten weeks, students have an oppor-. t unity to work on research projects, attend seminars, and get a taste of college life at such schools asHax vard, the University, of Minnesota, Florida A&M, as well as at Howard. Each participation in stitution receives $2,000 an "apprentice" -and is (Continued on fkgt IT
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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June 14, 1980, edition 1
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