• mis tcommaiii
ELducation’s New Challenge
By Hoyle H. Martin Sr.
Post Executive Editor
In years gone by, before the
“white flight” to the suburbs - at
least in the quasi-liberal North,
public education was characterized
as having dedicated teachers; eco
nomically, socially, racially and at
least semi-culturally integrated stu
dent bodies sufficiently motivated to
the pursuit of knowledge; and school
boards committed to quality educa
tion while being unintimidated by
political ideologies or preoccupation
with personal political ambitions.
Last, but certainly not least, parents
gave their wholehearted support to
the educational system by encourag
ing discipline, participating in PTA
activities that contributed to the
learning process, and making
“homework” a family learning ex
perience.
Today, many believe such charac
teristics of our schools are the
exception rather than the rule.
Paraphrasing one writer, but more
bluntly stated, public-education is
nearly a catastrophy. School boards
cannot seem to cope with problems.
Teachers have an “I don’t care”
' attitude (which is partly justified).
Too many parents are apathetic and
“social promotion” has dampened
the motivation of our youth to learn.
Considering this state of affairs, is
there any reason to wonder about
the level of school vandalism, the
high drop-out rate, teen-age pregna
ncy, drug traffic, teachers who don’t
teach and students who don’t learn?
* A concern over these issues has
led Operation PUSH director Jesse
Jackson to start a crusade to im
prove inner-city and largely black
schools. “Everywhere I go, kids
walk around not with books under
their arms but with radios up
against their heads,” Newsweek
reports. “Children can’t read or
write, but they can memorize whole
albums.” In his crusade, backed up
by a $200,000 Ford Foundation grant,
Jackson has called upon parents to
set aside two hours nightly for
“serious study” and the return of
tirmly enforced discipline in the
schools.
Ironically, teen-age youth and
their school administrators appear
to accept Jackson’s ideas, but some
politicians, teachers and their union
leaders object to what they call
“conservative pedagogy” and argue
that it takes more than “electrifying
speeches” to achieve academic ex
cellence. The attack on the so-called
“conservative pedagogy” does stop
with Jesse Jackson.
William Raspberry of the Wash
ington POST reports that the princi
pal of a Baltimore city high school
has received praise for “the order,
discipline and pride he has brought
to his school.” The students - black
and white - like the principal by rea
soning that w^nie his rules are tough
he is fair and predictable. The
teachers on the other hand, don’t
like the principal and his tough
minded autocratic leadership. A
part of this leadership requires that
leacners write on the chalkboard
before each class precisely what the
day’s objective is for that class and
teachers must make at least three
homework assignments per week.
This kind of tough-minded leader
ship includes using national stan
dardized test to measure student
programs not on the basis of the
tests’ relevance but because, as
Raspberry quotes him, “They are
the yardsticks that are used” by
society. One result has been that last
year only 58 percent of the school’s
llth graders passed a functional
reading test. This recently ended
school year 84 percent passed -
fourth highest in the city. All the
problems of this inner city school
are not over but a good beginning is
in the making.
If “conservative pedagogy”
means strengthening the teaching of
the three “R’s,” building character
and discipline in our youth and
improving our nation’s human re
sources, it is. good for black youth
and the Post supports it. This is
important too because education is
not the last hope for black youth, it is
their only hope.
Walton Gives Issue Priority
The latest of the Walton-Booe
alliances centers around the county
budget for the fiscal year beginning
July 1. Particular emphasis is on the
issue of whether school teachers
should be granted a pay increase of 5
percent on top of a 6 percent
increase from the state while appa
rently other county employees are
receiving no pay raises. The merits
of the issue were lost in a rowdy
debate, supposedly over the ethics of
Commissioner Walton voting on the
pay increase question because his
wife is a school teacher. However,
the real issue was apparently an
effort by Chairperson Liz Hair to
prevent a vote on the teacher pay
question. She is apparently opposed
to the pay increase but does not want
to vote on the issue because “of its
possible impact on her congression
al aspirations.” Since Walton and
Booe were known to favor the pay
raise it would take a motion by one
and a “second” by the other to force
a vote on the issue. Thus, one way to
nullify the vote was to raise the
ethics question with Walton and
keep him from voting.
While the POST deplores the
manner in which this matter has
been battered about by the Commis
sion, we applaud Mr. Walton for his
integrity in standing by his convic
tions instead of playing partisan
politics at the expense of our school
teachers.
66 percent of murders in
17 cities committed by
blacks killing blacks.
FROM 4 STUPY
0Y THE N Y. TIMS
WHITEY COULD, FOR
ALL INTENTS AND
PURPOSES PUT HIS
^ GUNS AWAY. WE’VE
A ALWAYS BEEN ABLE
W TO KILL OURSELVES
K BETTER THAN HE
f CAN. . M
CLAY JON RILEY, LIBERATOR V
M d
FOR HBj
BLACKS IN 9HB|
city 8 JBm
TIMES THAT H|g
FOR WHITES. ^
THE
POWER
O the
Cfc GLORY
By Dr G.E.A. Toote
Fhe Silent Invasion
Do illegal aliens compete effec
tively with and displace large num
bers of American workers? Is the
social cost of illegal aliens residency
counter balanced by their availabili
ty as needed low cost labor? Will the
new influx of illegal aliens remain
here, and impose increasing long
term burdens on municipal and
federal budgets, to which they are
not proportionate contributors?
CHEAP LABOR
Inflation - deflation has caused
many industries to relocate to areas
of cheap labor, such as Mexico or the
American side of the Mexican bor
der.
For $2.30 an hour, thirty five
women sort and box shrimp on the
Texas-Mexican border. They can
package for freezing and grade six
thousand pounds of shrimp an hour
with machine help.
On the Mexican side of the border,
one hundred and sixty women, peel
and devein shrimp without ma
chines, remove shells and back
veins from two thousand pounds of
shrimp an hour. Their base pay is
99c an hour.
MEXICO
Mexico is struggling to survive a
serious economic crisis. More than
half of the work population is unem
ployed or underemployed. At least
twenty percent of its population
depends upon wages earned in the
United States.
The Mexican population has al
most tripled from twenty million in
1945 to sixty three million today.' As
a nation it has one of the worlds
highest birth rates. Next year, its
population will increase by two
million more people.
The Mexican government predicts
a population in excess of one hun
dred and twenty million by the end
of the century.
NATURALIZED AMERICANS
Four hundred thousand foreigners
become legal residents each year.
Most of them seek employment.
Many seek welfare and unemploy
ment benefits.
One out of every five persons who
surreptitiously enters from Mexico,
if caught, face little punishment
other than deportation, which has
proven not to deter their attempt to
return the next day.
CONFRONTATION
Next week this column will discuss
the abuse of travel visas by more
than three hundred thousand Colum
bians.
The dismal plight of the black
unemployed is compounded by the
silent invasion of job seeking illegal
aliens. We must help to forge a
national policy that will reduce the
number of illegal aliens who enter
our country, before it becomes an
issue of racial confrontation.
AMEN
TO
BE
EQUAL
j Vernon E. Jordan Jr. |
Southern Africa Policy Advanced
The Carter Administration is pursuing a re
vised Southern African policy that will hopeful
ly liberate blacks there from minority rule.
Given the rigidity of the South African govern
ment, it is hard to say whether change can come
peacefully to the region, but American pressure
is a vital ingredient.
South Africa’s Prime Minister John Vorster is
the key to change in the entire region. He’s
staked his policy on helping to achieve a
settlement in Rhodesia. In return, he’s banking
on American gratitute that will leave intact
minority white domination of South Africa. ^
That’s an offer the United States can, and
reportedly has, refused. Vice President Mondale
has informed Vorster that nothing less than
majority rule will do.
There are four major elements in the Southern
African pot - Rhodesia, Namibian indepen
dence, South Africa’s apartheid, and South
A _1?_11 11 • ...
o ui ^cpdicuu ueveiupmeiu.
All are agreed that Rhodesia’s break-away
regime has to give way to majority rule. And
Namibia, illegally held for years by South
Africa, has to have UN supervised elections that
permit free participation of all groups, not just
those the South African government sanctions.
Rhodesia and Namibia are pawns in Vorster’s
game. He’ll buckle under on those if he doesn’t
have to compromise too much on what he
considers internal South African affairs,
j The vicious apartheid system is probably
negotiable. The South Africans have sent signals
indicating they might relax some of the more
objectionable features of the system. When I was
there last year it was clear that some of the petty
apartheid rules - especially those affecting
blacks working for foreign businesses - were not
strictly enforced.
But without massive foreign, especially Ame
rican, pressure, South Africa is likely to persist
in its separate development policy. This carves
out parts of the cduntry for so-called indepen
dence for tribal “homelands.” With this, South
Africa’s black majority is fragmented into
tribal groupings and denied South African
citizenship.
ine masses of unbamzed blacks are still
confined to black townships, are still forced to
become an army of underpaid cheap labor, and
still refused recognition as South Africans. In
effect, separate development means making
people foreigners in their own land.
As “citizens” of some fictional “homeland”
they may never have seen, blacks are denied the
right to vote or to participate in civic life. If they
become involved in political or union activity, or
even if they lose their jobs, they face being
deported to the “homeland area.”
Separate development is a shell game design
ed to pacify the international community while
assuring permanent minority rule in South
Africa. It’s the real issue in South Africa.
Apartheid, a serious affront to any concept of
morality and human rights, is a system that
supports minority rule. It makes it easier to
implement, but even if apartheid were to vanish
minority rule would continue.
Separate development, though, is a policy that
is at the core of the South African system of «
subiucatine thp hlarlr maiApihi mk
THE CHARLOTTE POST
“THE PEOPLES NEWSPAPER”
Established 1918
Published Every Thursday
By The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc.
2606-B West Blvd.-Charlotte, N.C. 28208
Telephones (704 ) 392-1306, 392-1307
Circulation, 7,185
58 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS SERVICE
Bill Johnson..Editor-Publisher
Hoyle H. Martin Sr.Executive Editor
Bernard Reeves.General Manager
.Circulation Director
Albert Campbell.Advertising Director
Second Class Postage No. 965500 Paid At
Charlotte, N.C. under the Act of March 3,1878
Member National Newspaper Publishers
Association
North Carolina Black Publishers Association
Deadline for all news copy and photos is 5 p.m.
Monday. All photos and copy submitted becomes
the property of the Post, and will not be returned, i
National Advertising Representative
Amalgamated Publishers. Inc
45 W. 5th Suite 1403 2400 S. Michigan Ave.
New York. N Y. 10036 Chicago. 111. 60616
(212 ) 489-1220 Calumet 5-0200
Burrell Calk For Greater Government Commitment
(Washington, D.C.,....At a
taping of the nationally syndi
cated television program, A
merica's Black Forum, Dr.
Berkeley G. Burrell, 10th Pre
sident of the National Busi
ness League, called for great
er commitment by the federal
government in assisting the
minority business community.
On the program, to be broad
cast this week in 12 cities. Dr.
Burell emphasized that only
through increased govern
ment assistance could minori
ty enterprise attain economic
parity for the nation's 17 per
cent minority population.
Dr. Burrell stated that the
prospect of future increases in
productivity throughout the
total national economy de
pends on boosting productivity
in the underutilized minority
business sector. But the NBL
President was quick to point
out that there was more to
gain than boosting production
and cutting inflation. Dr Bur
rell contended that streng
thening the minority business
community was the only way
to guarantee the survival of
the fret enterprise system
In ar. wer to reporters ques
tions. Dr. Burrell explained
that minority business has a
lot of catching up to do
Minority firms grossed $7 bil
lion last year, while gross
receipts for non-minority busi
ness totaled $1.4 trillion. The
minority parity share should
have been $900 billion in gross
receipts.
According to Dr. Burrell's
analysis, minority business
needs capital to expand and in
so doing create new Jobs and
lower the nation's high mino
rity unemployment rate.
‘‘There are 400,000 minority
businesses in this country. If
they could each hire just two
more people, we’d have new
jobs for 800,000 people in the
minority community,” said
Dr. Burrell.
The NBL President explain
ed that it was up to govern
ment to set the tone for the
nation's reaction to the efforts
of minority enterprise.
"The government provides
the markets and climate for
corporate business,” Dr. Bur
rell explained. “What it has
done for defense, airlines and
railroads, it must do for mino
rities. make it possible for
minorities to participate in
large scale revenue industries
like health maintenance,
transportation and defense ”
In response to questions
about what the government
has done so far. Dr. Burrell
explained that since 1953 the
Small Business Administra
tion has provided only $17
billion in total loans and loan
guarantees, to minority enter
prise, adding that SBA cer
tainly does not have the re
quired resources as a single
agency.
"In order for the minority
business sector to achieve
parity by the year 2000, it will
be necessary to invest $440
billion in minority enter
prise"
Dr. Burrell stressed the im
portance of government pro
curement policy in assisting
minority business. "The go
vernment must commit itself
to spending greater procure
ment dollars with minority
firms while providing for a full
range of support services in
enabling minority business to
fulfill each contract.”
Dr. Burrell pointed out the
minority procurement provi
sions in the Railroad Regula
tory Act of last year which
guaranteed minority partici
pation in upgrading the na
tion's railroads. The NBL
President restated his belief
that time is running out for the
government to take decisive
action in assistng minority
enterprise
Some Blacks hate the sys
tem." said Dr. Burrell "be
cause they don't have a part in
American business And
young Whites are asking me
why do you support free en
terprise which they feel hasn't
done anything for minorities
in this country. They are using
us as an excuse to attack the
system,” Burrell emphasized.
"But we must preserve the
system and the only way to do
that is by minorities participa
tion in it. For the system to
survive, a number of Blacks
are going to have to be highly
visible so that other Blacks
can see that there are oppor
tunities.”
Dr. Burrell asked for ex
panded government assis
tance in providing equity
capital, debt financing and
technical assistance to the
minority business community,
calling for the kind of program
that created the Alaska pipe
line and revitalization of Ame
rican railroads.
In answer as to whether the
Carter administration will be
responsive to minority enter
prise, Dr. Burrell indicated it
was too early to tell, but did
say that being a small busi
ness man, the President un
derstood that you have to
make an investment in order
to get back a return...”
NBL, founded in 1900 by
Booker T. Washington, is the
nation's oldest national busi
ness organization and serves
as the national advocate for
minority business enterprise.
Dr Burrell was questioned
by Glen Ford and Ben Frazier
of the Black Forum and Lou
Law of the Mutual Black
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Support Welcomed
927 Drummond Avenue
Charlotte, N.C 28205
Charlotte Post Publishing Co,
Inc.
2606 B West Blvd
Charlotte, N.C. 28208
Dear Mr. Bill Johnson
I think that the paper that
you have is real good And
some of the things that are in
it are real nice tolcnow about
But I v.ould like to tell you
something about a friend of
mine that is just unreal but it
is very true
His name is Norman Bussey
and he is a very smart black
male that I think that you
should put in your paper and
call it an. "Outstanding Sen
ior," because he will attend
the University of Hawaii be
cause he has received a four
year scholarship to this school
where mostly all smart people
attend Because this school is
for people that want to major
in the field of Air Traffic
Control, and aviation.
He plans to attend this
school in the fall At school
Norman has better than a 3 0
average All the classes he has
were advanced Chemistry II
and Analysis, Physics. Frg
lish VI T D he plans to major
in Air Traffic Control Before
I
ne does he will be in the U.S
Army and they found out
■bout his plans so they will
send him to the school for (4)
years, and they will pay for his ,
■chooling That is why I think
that my brother is the smart
est
Thank you,
_^eVerr^^Bussey.
Keep your out-of-town
friends informed on what's
happening in Charlotte by
sending them a copy of the
Charlotte Post each week The
cost is only $8 per year.