Page 4
THE TRffiUNAL AID
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7,1976
EDITORIALS
*You’re A Part Of The Solution^ Or You’re A Part Of The Problem ’
THE VIEWS OF THE WIITEI'S ME NOT UWIYS THOSE OF THE PIPEI'S
The
Point
Is...
by Albert A. Campbell
With this the first edition of THE
TRIBUNAL AID for 1976, America’s
Bicentennial Year, the first of many articles
and specials along with a constant reminder
has been incorporated on the front page. The
following fifty two weeks of this year will
likewise carry various materials in celebrating
this country’s birth.
Because THE TRIBUNAL AID feels that
much needs to be said about Blacks in this
country and their contributions, this paper will
concern itself particularly with matters of
record with which few of us are familiar.
In keeping with the creed and tradition of
THE TRIBUNAL AID, informing its readers
will be the sole purpose of this year’s special
articles. Much work and research has gone
into making this year’s bicentennial editions
not only interesting, but collectors’ items and
reference material.
Additionally, THE TRIBUNAL AID will also
welcome informative material submitted by
our readers.
We strongly feel that the Black press carries
with it a heavy responsibility to its readers as
well as its advertisers. The dire need for the
Black press cannot be denied nor ignored.
Therefore, if THE TRIBUNAL AID strives in
some small way to fill the void, then it is the
responsibility of THE TRIBUNAL AID, and
others, to provide to the community its real
reason for existance...To publish that which
will not normally be seen elsewhere.
Hopefully, you (readers) will find this year’s
editions so valuable in content that each will
become permanent fixtures of your reference
library.
Comments and suggestions from you, as
has always been in the past, will continue to
be welcomed, because with a combined effort,
just maybe THE TRIBUNAL AID will meet its
responsibilities.
ALTHOUGH THE EDITORIALS WRITTEN JN
THIS NEWSPAPER ARE NOT INTENDED TO BP
THE ONLY ANSWERS TO THE PROBLEMS
AND CXDNDITIONS EXPRESSED, SOME PER
SONS MAY STILL DISAGREE WITH THESE
THOUGHTS, BECAUSE OF THIS, THE NEWS
PAPER EXTENDS AN INVITATION TO ANY
RESPONSIBLE PERSON WHO WISHES TO
REFUTE THESE EXPRESSIONS TO DO SO,
AND FREE AND EQUAL SPACE WILL BE PRO
VIDED.
THE TRIBUNAL AID
1228. Montlieu Avenue
Post Office Box 921 Phone [919] 885-65J9I i
High Point. N. C. 27261
, Published Every Wednesday
by Triad Publications, Inc.
Mailed Subscription Rate .$5.00 Per Year
ALBERTA. CAMPBELL, EDITOR
DON L BAILEY, GENERAL MANAGER
JEANM. WHITE, SECRETARY
ASHEBORO Vanessa (Jioss 625-4960
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Last week I had the privilege of talking
to a young fellow who was disturbed
about his inability to find a job. He had
not held a fulltime job since graduating in
June from one of the many North
Carolina colleges. Though he had many
job offers, he failed to accept them
because they were not in his area of
study.
The young fellow, majoring in one of
the social science areas, felt that if he had
not attended a predominately black
institution he would now be gainfully
employed. He also felt that he was being
discriminated against even though jobs
had been offered to him. Moreover, the
fellow was very confident that he had the
aptitude to work effectively at any job
offered in his area of study.
This problem is not characteristic of
Black people, per se. It has no color
barriers. The problem is characteristic of
any and all people who lack exposure to
the mechanics of the employment
machinery. Too often our college
students feel that the college degree is
the key that unlocks the door to success.
Seldom, however, is the student taught
that attitude is equally as important as
one’s aptitude. Consequently, it is most
important that teachers and guidance
counselors instruct students on the facts
Ibings Toa Should Knovr
B.
WEILS-BARNETT
Born jn Mississippi m les^. ^
SHE TAUGHT SCHOOl. IN MEMPHIS,LATER
BECAME A NEWSftVPER EDITOR-OWNER./
A LEADER IN THE CRUSADE TO OUTLAW
iyNCHIN6,SHE COniPILEDTHE FIRST STA7WTV*
CAL REPORT ONTOE SUBJECT IN 1895/aS
CHAIRMAN OF THE ANTI-LYNCHING BUREAU
OF THE NATIONAL AFRO-AMERICAN
COUNCIL, SHE TOURED THE WORLD
SPEAKING FOR CIVIL RIGHTS /
TO BE EQUAL
by Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
Executive Director of the National Urban League
By Alfred L. Hinson
of life as opposed to the fantasies thereof.
One should not expect to graduate from
college and immediately become
president of IBM. He must realize that
there are others employed with the
company and many have the same
aspirations and much more experience.
Furthermore, all prospective graduates
should be made to understand that the
college degree simply says to an
employer that this individual has the
credentials to be trained for a given job
with the company. Because one has
concentrated his efforts toward a career
in teaching does not mean that he cannot
be trained for other jobs.
My advice to the young felloW was for
him to try to raise his attitude to the
height of his aptitude. He was also told to
face reality as it is the opposite of what he
would have it to be. Moreover, if after
four years of college one feels that he
can only teach and do nothing more, I
strongly feel that our institutions of
higher education have failed us.
Let us not be so quick as to establish
self-imposed limitations on employment
opportunities. As the late John F.
Kennedy once said, “Some people dream
dreams and say ‘why’ but I dream
dreams and say ‘why not’.”
Three main themes will dominate the
course of the new year, and they are all
interrelated. How the nation handles
them will tell a great deal about what kind
of a people we are and what sort of future
we’ll have.
First, 1976 is the Bicentennial Year.
After all the hoopla and fanfare over the
past several months, the real thing has
finally arrived.
It started early with last summer’s
displays of fake militia battles and
wearing revolutionary-era costumes and
in the coming months we’ll be hearing a
lot about America’s struggle for freedom
200 years ago.
But if that’s all we hear, chalk the
Bicentennial down as another commer
cialized non-event to be yawned at and
ignored.
If America’s birth 200 years ago is
taken seriously, the Bicentennial ought to
be an occasion of putting our society
under the microscope and analyzing our
shortcomings as well as our triumphs, the
work that still needs to be done to attain
our ideals, as well as celebrating the
progress we’ve made.
Above all, it should be the occasion to
come to grips with the gravity of
America’s historic racial injustices. The
“liberty” the colonist fought for did not
include their black slaves and blacks have
continued to be excluded from the fruits
of this society while being disproportion
ately included in its dirty work and its
poverty statistics.
So instead of blind celebration, the
Bicentennial ought to be a period of
rational discourse, reflection and
formulation of action plans to overcome
the heritage of racism. '
The second 1976 theme ought to
reinforce that. This is a presidential
election year and already we’re heavily
into political debate with both parties
fielding a full slate of contestants for the
top prize and more waiting in the wings.
Ideally, a presidential election ought
also to be an educational experience for
the nation, with lines drawn on issues
instead of personalities and an
opportunity given for full citizen
participation not only in choosing
candidates but also in debating the key
issues.
This eiection looms even more
important for the future because of the
presence of extremist candidates in both
parties whose hidden message is
dismantling of social programs and
halting black progress at home while
purusing military adventures abroad.
1 have faith though, that the American
people are sensible enough to reject
demagogues and send them a message of
their own, namely that there’s no room in
a progressive country for dubious
leadership devoted to fomenting racial
hatred and economic warfare against
poor and moderate income people.
But it’s a long way till election time,
and months till the conventions, and
there's little evidence to suggest that the
coming campaign will be devoted to
rational, issue-oriented politics that ■
explains alternative policies and the
reasons for them. Our elections have all
too often turned into circus events
dominated by personality and media
manipulations. It would be sad if this one
too, degenerated into another lost
opportunity to build an educated citizenry
that understands the complex issues our
nation faces.
The final theme of 1976 is bound to be a ,
campaign issue itself, and that is the
economic Depression that’s doggeg the
country for over a year-and-a-half. Real
income is down and unemployment is up
and our mismanaged economy hasn’t
shown any real signs of coming out of the
slump.
So the time is ripe for candidates to tell
us what they plan to do to increase
economic opportunities for blacks,
minorities and poor whites who have
been frozen out of the system. It is clear •
that the old economic rules don’t work
any more and that it will take massive
job-creation programs to get people back
to work again, and I predict that
candidates honest enough to spell this out
will do a lot better than those who keep
repeating that everything’s all right, it’s
just that several million people can’t find
work and maybe they’re too lazy to.
So it all shapes up as a potentially
crucial year for our nation, certainly an
interesting one. Which may not be too
comforting a though since “may you have
an interesting year,” is an old Chinese
saying used as a curse!
INSIGHT:
For Teens Only
by
Miller Carter, Jr.
Listen to the song of the golden wind
chimes sounding in the brisk, light wind.
Listen to a rainy day. Hear the rain
pitter-pattering on the top of the house. It
has a hypnotic sound as if to put us all to
sleep.
Listen to the hustle and bustle of a busy
day: horns blowing, people yelling or a
car with a loud muffler. Or still, hear the
quiet night with each scary little sound or
the dogs barking in the distance.
How sweet these sounds can be.
Sometimes we don’t really think they are
so beautiful but that’s because we take
them for granted. What would happen if
we lost our sense of hearing? The world
for us would be at an almost complete
standstill. All of the joyous sounds of life
would be left for the mind to imagine.
Even hearing the most simple sounds
in life such as our favorite song on the
radio, a clock ticking on a silent night, a
rushing river or even a soft voice
murmuring “Hove you”, all are joy to the
ears. Don’t take hearing for granted
because everyone doesn’t come equipped
with this sense. There are thousands
born, each year, as proof to this fact.
There are still thousands more, each
year, that lose their precious hearing.
There are other ways that our hearing
is important to our everyday lives. By
hearing we learn approximately 65
percent of all the things we know as
compared to 25 percent learned by seeing
and 10 percent learned by actual
experience. These statistics seem
reasonably correct, considering that
manv of us spend from 30 to 40 hours per
week listening to teachers in school. We
must also keep in mind that we learfi a
great deal from our parents or other
adults who from time-to-time preach
right and wrong into our minds for many
hours each week. Also many of us spend
many hours on Sundays in church
listening to preachers speaking, trying to
teach us all something.
Without the gift of hearing how could
we communicate effectively? Sure, we
could all learn to spell out our words by
using our hands and bodies, but how
would one know just how happy someone
is without hearing some type of verbal
comrnunication. How can the young
ladies receive gossip over the phone if
they can t hear a voice? How can the
young man hear the news about a new
young lady in the neighborhood if he
can t hear his friends to tell him. How can
the small children go to sleep without
hearing that bed-time story or the tender
I voice saying “I love you...Good night.”
So you see, hearing is important to
everyone in some way, whether great or
small.
There are many things in this world
that we tune our ears to; some we benefit
from, while others do us more harm than
good. We are the only ones who can
evaluate what we hear and say whether it
is bad or good. But no matter what we
hear, we should all be thankful that we
can hear.
Hearing is a gift and should not be
taken for granted. Listen and learn. Don’t
let anything pass you by.