North Carolina Newspapers

cmm dcomnoii CBD Conference-Historic, Timely By Hoyle H. Martin Sr. Post Editorial Writer Basil Patterson, chairman of the Caucus of Black Democrats (CBD) Issues Conference steering commit tee, called the 3-day conference “an historical and timely meeting” and the first of its kind. Patterson’s viewpoint, however, was not shared by all the caucus leaders. Some leaders and many delegates expressed the feeling that the conference may have been too little and too late. Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, the conference’s opening keynote speaker, reflected this sentiment when he said: “ We’re coming to talk about maxi mizing the influence of black Demo crats in a presidential election when most of us know the train has already left the station.” Having “left the station” has reference, of course, to Jimmy Carter’s comman ding lead in the state primaries and committed delegates. The same belief was echoed by N.C. State Representative Joy John son, she said, “I think this (confer ence) is a positive step...a good move for four years from now, but the conference is too late (to do any good) for right now.” We believe that these sentiments of “too little too late” indicate a failure to put the conference in proper perspective, that is. a failure to ask what were the goals and accomplishments of the conference? Frank (Jowan, director of minority affairs for the Democratic National Committee and a conference plan ner,said, “There are two parts to our purpose here (Charlotte) - to fa shion an issues agenda to present to the party and, second, to develop a political strategy for 1976.” Basil Patterson added to this by noting “the aim is to get the presidential candidates “on the record” and to declare themselves on some issues of concern to black Americans.” In The Post’s opinion the confer ence achieved each of these goals. Specifically, the conference: - gained a consensus among the political leadership on goals; -defined a set of issues that the candidates can address themselves to, in part, because the issues have implications f( Gladys Anderson not just blacks; - broke the "conspiracy of silence” on issues of particualr concern to blacks; - got the candidates “on the record” in support of some of the issues of major concern to blacks; and - generally convinced the candidates they cannot win the election in November without the substantial aid of the 8 million black registered voters. The Post believes further, that any lack of enthusiasm by the delegates because of the timeliness of the conference, can be overcome by their own diligence in helping to spread the “issues agenda” among the 8 million black voters. In the final analysis, black voter knowledge of the issues is one of the major factors in making the confer ence a lasting success and making the black political strategy of 1976 a reality. Finally, The Post believes that the ultimate results will show a substantial increase in Black voter participation in November. -Follow Your Conviction And Vote Political issues of major concern to blacks — largely ignored by the Democratic Party and its presiden tial hopefuls - has led to the unthink able idea of blacks simply not voting in this election year. Basil Patterson, one of the leaders in the recently neld black political issues conference, expressed the frustration among the black leader ship when he said that if the Demo cratic nominee fails to give attention to issues of concern to blacks he won’t get the support of the nations 8 million registered black voters. Spe cifically, he siad, “those votes don’t necessarly have to go to a Republi can candidate, they can just stav home. J Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, said as much, “One alter native is for black voters to stay home” on election day if the nomi nee and the party fail to respond to their needs. What Patterson and Hatcher are suggesting is that blacks take the third of the histoical options that are available on election day. That op tion - not to vote -- is political suicide because it gives the balck voter no justification for demanding any thing from the political system. Option two is to vote for tne lesser of two evils in the hope that the office holder can be forced to recognize the role black voters played in getting elected and therefore, blacks may get some consideration when policy decisions are made. Patterson and Hatcher are sug gesting that if black voters fail to get voter option number one - a candi date who supports fully the caucus and needs of blacks - that we should withdraw from participating in the political process. It is such a vicious cycle now that is in part the cause of the Democratic Party’s indiffer ence, that is, some blacks don’t register and vote and in turn some candidates don’t give a “damn.” Black voters should always use their vote to maximize their own benefits, this cannot be done if we stay away from the polls on election day. Fol low your convictions, and vote, it is your God given right and civil obli gation to do those things that are in your own best interest. „ SToPu^ JWLiCg/ 1 &HuT40Tt pfiUce egownr. ' CRIM E IS BECOMING A WAY OF LIFE Blacks Must Help To Stop Crime REPORT FROM ij^^Washingtofi Right To Food Resolution By Jim Martin, 9th District Congressman A couple of weeks ago, I discussed the “Right To Food” resolution be fore Congress. It calls for the United States to donate 1 percent of our Gross National Product (G.N.P.) in food and re lated aid for “Third World” countries. That would come to $16 bil lion, or three times the total of all foreign aid at present. Support for the resolu tion comes from several church organizations. Thirty-two percent of the people who respond ed to my 1976 question naire were in favor of the resolution. The ma jority were opposed. It seems to me that a resolution declaring that everyone in the world has a “right to food,” ought to provide that this “right” should be coupled with an equi valent “duty” on the part of hungry nations to do all humanly possi ble to balance their food consumption and pro duction, and stabilize their populations. Otherwise, they would be asking for an irrever sible dependence on us. We have a duty of conscience to exercise charity internationally, in cases of earthquake, flood or unavoidable fa mine. Yet, I do not be lieve we as a govern ment have a right, much less a duty, to tax our people year after year to provide aid to other governments who re fuse to adopt changes which would make their own people more self sufficient. We have seen clearly where other nations, chronically dependent on us for support, have indulged the wrong pri orities. India for exam ple, has been able to develop nuclear wea pons, instead of ferti lizer plants. The govern ment of Mail has watch ed the Sahara Desert expand, consuming grasslands where cattle once grazed and some crops were grown. Thousands of people have succumbed to the ravages of the drought, but their government has not moved to relo cate those affected. They just turn to the United States, because we can’t turn them a way. What should we do _ when a country as in dustrialized as Russia looks to us for help. There’s no chance it will reorganize its govern ment involvement in • agriculture. Yet, Rus sians could grow more food if they shifted their emphasis from Mar xism to incentives that give more income to those who raise more per acre. In a way, it is fortunate for our trade balance that Russian shortages mean an op portunity for profitable sale of our grain sur dIus. In light of the 3 exam ples I have mentioned, I think it is best we main tain the concept of food assistance by means of a commerical effort or a voluntary act of charity. With poorer countries, there’s no reason why a barter system could not be set up, whereby our food surplus would be exchanged for their mi neral resources on a fair market value basis. „ wv. . m I — TO BE EQUAL YKK\0\ K. JORI> \\ JR. j Desegregating Suburbia The Supreme Court’s recent decision giving a reluctant Department of Housing and Urban Development authority to develop regional plans that would place low-income housing in the suburbs is a landmark step toward reducing suburban apartheid policies. HUD was found to have violated constitutional rights by placing its public housing projects in Chicago’s ghetto neighborhoods, thus increasing ^ inner-city segregation. ™ The riding doesn’t mean the suburbs’ wall of exclusion will definitely be breached; it does, however, take HUD out of its traditional role as accessory to discriminatory practices. And it is likely that a new round of court cases will be set off by this ruling, since the suburbs are likely to hide behind zoning and land-use restrictions to squirm out of any federal scatter site housing plans. nut me c,ouri s acuon opens ine aoor to metropolitan-wide solutions to housing segrega tion and it weakens its ruling in the 1974 Detroit school busing case that appeared to limit such metropolitan remedies. Further, there are other cases in the docket that challenge patterns of housing segregation and promise to help break the white noose that strangles inner-cities through denying blacks and poor people access to hous ing near new jobs in the suburbs. One such suit was brought by the Justice Department and charges national real estate appraisers and lending institutions with discri minatory standards in assessing homes and making loans to homeowners in integrated areas. Lower values are assigned to homes in integrated areas and higher ones in “racially homogeneous areas.” At least there’s no double talk about “ethnic heritage” here. That appraisers and lenders have been “red lining” integrated and black neighborhoods for years in common knowledge and has been docu mented at length. Why it took the government so long to finally move, against such practices is a ... good question, but now thatithas, the courts have a chance to make the law more than an empty promise. A_1.1__*1 • • * . ... miuuTCi suit is ui jersey, wnere citizens and some local officials charge real estate brokers with perpetuating racial segregation by steering potential black homebuyers to areas of black settlement and whites to white areas. Enough evidence has been accumulated to show that such devices by brokers effectively keep the races apart, and the pleas of the brokers that they’re just trapped by potential white clients’ fears just won’t wash. They’re licensed by the state and have to comply with the law, not with the racial hysteria of white suburbanites. • In New Jersey’s Bergen County, one town of 38,000 people has just 64 blacks. The conventional response is that it’s probably an expensive place and most blacks can’t afford to live there. If that’s so, how can we explain the fact that a middle income town of 20,000 has only 35 blacks? Or that a blue collar suburb of 23,000 residents has a grand total of seven blacks? At the same time those communities are kept lily white, towns in the County with significant integration are targets for funneling in new black residents, raising the danger that the^il eventually become predominately black islanls in a white sea, duplicating center-city experi ence. THE CHARLOTTE POST “THE PEOPLES NEWSPAPER” Established 1918 Published Every Thursday By The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. 2606B West Blvd.-Charlotte, N.C. 28208 Telephones (704 ) 392-1306,392-1307 Circulation 11,000 57 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS SERVICE Bill Johnson .Editor-Publisher Gerald O. Johnson ...Business Manager ^ Rex Hovey .Circulation Manager _Second CJass Postage Paid at Charlotte, N.C. under the Act of March 3,1878 Member National Newpaper Publishers Association North Carolina Black Publishers Association Deadline for all news copy and photos is 5 p.m Monday. The Post is not responsible for any photos or news copies submitted for publication. National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc. 45 W. 5th, Suite 1403 2400 S. Michigan Ave New York, N Y 10036 Chicago, IH. 60616 (212) 489 1220 Calumet 5-0200 as i sec i L Council Off Track On Mass Transit By Gerald Johnson Post Staff Writer Charlotte should consider it self lucky to be blessed with one of the finest city councils I’ve ever seen. The current city council Is progressive, aggressive, and for the most part intelligent. All facets of the Charlotte Community are seemingly well represented. Moveover, Charlotte's best in terest is usually the primary objective of most of the coun cil members. However, sometimes over zealousness leads to poor rat ionale. Such seems to be the case as council members ex press their ideas on upgrading Charlotte's mass transit sys tem. One proposal suggests, at a cost of approximately 139 mil lion ducketts, building bus lanes on major thoroughfares. Council members are seem ingly in favor of upgrading our transit system, but to insure proper usage of the system the council members intend to force people to ride the sys tern."i am sorry! Force is a bad choice for a word. The council members intend to impose “car disincentives” to persuade you to ride the bus. Some of the ‘‘car disincen tives” mentioned were (1) make city employees pay to park downtown, (2) raise the cost of the city sticker to $15 or $25, (3) raise the cost of park ing downtown. These are some suggestions that council members thought of to kind of make you want to ride the bus. After all, after spending 129 million dollars, somebody’s got to ride the bus...Lets face it. Realistically speaking, I for one feel that you should have the riders to warrant the ex penses. It is absurd to incur the expense and then look for the riders. But the council member's hearts are in the right place. It is their heads that has me worried. Charlotte is not a mass tran sit town By that, I mean, it is Gerald Johnson not a town that merits that type of an expense for mass transit. It does not have the people. It is not urbanized toward center city. It does not have a good center city. It is not congested enough. All of this and more should cause everyone to feel that the cause does not justify the cost. For example: Let us com pare what I will call a mass transit city with Charlotte. There are several; Philadeph ia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and many others. Let us take just one , Philadelphia Within a S mile radius of downtown Philadelphia are probably more people than in the entire Charlotte Metropoli tan area. Thus, areas that could be used for parking lots are used for housing people. Consequently, parking space in downtown Philadelphia is very expensive. Furthermore, If you couple that fact with the fact that downtown Philadelphia is used more than downtown Charlotte, you end up with more people using downtown on a percentage basis and less • parking space to accomodate' those people. Therefore, mass transit is the only answer. It becomes quite inconvenient to be a car owner in Diaces like Philadelphia. The cost of re pairing and maintaining a car is astronomical. The congest ion of cars makes it unbeara ble to drive in these placet. The long distance that must be traveled to get somewhere adds to the inconvenience and the cost. . This inconvenience caused people to turn to something else. This something else hap pened to be a mass transit system. But note here that mass transit had all the riders it needed. People seek out mass transit systems. Cars are sel domly used by inner city dwel lers. Charlotte Is just the oppo site. It is inconvenient to use the mass transit system. The convenience of shopping cen ters eliminates the downtown area as a major shopping area. Sparsely populated downtown areas offer an a bundance of parking spaces. The inconvenience of trying to get from one location to ano ther on buses does not warrant forcing people to use It. Hence, from a practical point of view Charlotte should not go out on a limb with this type of investment. The need for it does not justify the cost. The whole thing reminds me of the guy trying to get fly paper off of his right foot by * uaing his left foot to pry it off. Well, he got it off of his right foot but It generally get’s stuck to his left foot. The city council is seeming ly facing the same dilemma in trying to solve the city’s mass transit problem. With a little ingenuity and a lot of work this council can and I’m sure will come up with a reasonable and far less ex pensive solution to the pro blem. A good place to start would, be with a percentage of Char lotteans that currently ride the bus. Money should then be allocated proportionately. Then...I’m sorry,...the council is getting paid for doing this sort of thing. After aU, they are intelligent men and wo men. Come on council: A little less heart and a little more head. I am behind you M and .44 percent.