177661976
THE BETTER WE KNOW US ...
Johnny White is just 19 years old.
But he’s already serving a second
prison ternn, this time for car theft.
Up for parole in 60 days, he's de
termined not to return a third time. But
without help from the community, the
chances are high that he'll end up
back behind bars.
Johnny White is a fictitious char
acter, but there are many men and
women who are in similar situations —
wanting to become productive citizens
upon release, but in many respects,
unsure of how or if they can make it on
their own.
Two Wachovians in Raleigh are
helping to make this transition from
prison to the outside world a little
easier.
Grady Perkins, Marketing, and Beki
Alexander, manager of the North
Ridge Office, are now offering their
financial expertise as part of a special
North Carolina program — Pre-Release
and After Care Training — designed to
make a criminal’s re-entry into the
community smoother and more
effective.
"I definitely feel good about the pro
gram and think it’s already proving
itself,” says Mr. Perkins who has been
participating in the pilot project since
it was begun a year ago.
"I think these people can be pro
ductive citizens, but it’s up to us to
help them. If we provide them with
helpful information — show them that
we’re behind them — we’re in essence
helping to reduce crime.”
The four-week programs are com
pletely voluntary. They are set up for
25 to 30 adult honor prisoners from a
40-county area who are 30 to 90 days
away from parole. Ages of the par
ticipants range from 16 to the mid
fifties and include both male and fe
male prisoners. Training centers on
four areas: self-awareness, family, the
community, and finance, the latter
which involves Wachovia.
”1 start out by explaining our ser
vices at Wachovia,” says Mr. Perkins
who discusses financial planning with
the groups once a month. “Then I talk
about credit. They want to know how
to get credit, can they borrow money,
and how to go about buying a house.
“I am. very straightforward with the
inmates on the matter of credit. I tell
them that they will have to demonstrate
their creditworthiness because it will
be more difficult for them to attain
credit. I encourage them to get a
steady job and establish creditability
with their employers and then get in
volved in community affairs.
"I also suggest establishing a re
lationship with a bank by opening up
a savings account as well as a check
ing account. Then after a year or so,
their chances for getting credit are
more favorable.”
Mr. Perkins also tells the inmates to
be completely honest about their back
grounds with their Personal Bankers
as well as their employers.
’’Some of the prisoners have had
absolutely no experience with banking
services,” says Mrs. Alexander who
just recently began participating in the
programs. "So we explain how to open
checking and savings accounts and
then how to use these accounts.”
The program is showing good re
sults. Although it has not been in
operation long enough to gather mean
ingful statistics on its rate of success,
prison officials are optimistic about the
benefits the program offers, and they
expect to see a reduction in the num
ber of these people returning to prison.
"I honestly feel that if we reach just
one person, the program’s worth
while,” says Mr. Perkins. "Anything we
can do to help these people break out
of their role of dependency — be it
physical, economic, or mental — will
benefit them and in turn help the
community.”
f'*' i
THE TRIBUNAL AID
A VIABLE. VALID REQUIREMENT
RESPONDING TO
BLACK NORTH CAROLINA
V0LLMEIV,IN0.5
^43
BICENTENNIAL
IBIACK HISTORY
Black history in the Western Hemisphere most probably be
gins Iiith the discovery of the New World by Christopher Co
lumbus in 1492. Blacks are known to have participated mean
ingfully in a numlM'r of later explorations made by Europeans in
various parts of the United Slates and Spanish America. Facts
such as these at once fashion a new dimension for Black history
within the mainstream of American history. Inasmuch as one of
the primary purposes of this feature is to record some historical
arhiev‘ments of the Black, it becomes most important to offer the
reader chronological accounts through which he can conveniently
vaniiliarize himself with the broad sweep of American Black
history. The years covered here are 1492-19I>4.
KANSAS
Nicodemus
Nicodemus Colony
Located along U.S. Route
24 two miles west of the
Rooks-Graham County
line, Nicodemus Colony is
the last of three now-
virtually-deserted colonies
which were founded by
the Exodusters-a group of
Negro homesteaders
active in Kansas during
the I870's. The name
‘Nicodemus’ was deroved
from a slave who, according
to legend, foretold the
coming of the Civil War.
Arriving in 1877, the
first settlers lived in
dugouts and burrows
during the cold weather.
From the outset, they
were plagued by crop
failures. Although never
more than 500 in number,
they managed nonetheless
to create a real community-
with teachers, ministers,
civil servants, etc. The
state of Kansas has com
memorated this site with
a historical marker located
in a roadside park in
Nicodemus.
LEAVENWORTH:
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth was
the first home of the
10th Cavalry, the all
black unit which not only
participated in many im
portant battles during the
Indian wars, but also serv
ed with valor and dis
tinction during the Scanish-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Drotning, Phillip I. A
Guide to Negro History in
America New York: Dou
bleday and Company. 1968
Katz, William Loren
Eyewitness: The Negro in
American War. It was at
Leavenworth that the In
dependent Kansas Colered
Battery, a unit with sev-''
eralNegro officers, was
recruited in 1864. Among
its members was Captain
H. Ford Douglass, son of
the noted abolitionist
Frederick Douglass. The
younger Douglass joined
the Illinois Volunteers
as far back as 1862.
Beeler: George Washing
ton Carver Marker—Fort
Scott
Along route K-96 in Ness
County. Kansas lies the
plot of land once home
steaded by George Wash
ington Carver, famed
Negro agricultural scient
ist. He spent two years
there before going to col
lege in Iowa.
Along route K-96 in Ness
County, Kansas lies the
plot of land once home
steaded by George Wash-
ingtonCarver, famed Ne
gro agricultural Scientist.
He spent two years there
before going to college
in Iowa
Fort Scott was the home
of the First Kansas Co
lored Volunteers, a Negro
unit organized by the
Union Army in August
1862. The first such unit
to go into combat during
the Civil War, it beat
back a superior Confeder
ate force at the battle
of Island Mount, Miss
ouri on October 28, 1862.
America New York: Pitt
man Publishing Corpor*-
tion 1967
Ploski, Harry A. Phe
Kaiser, Ernest The Negro
Alamaiiac New York;* Bel
W KDNKSDA^. JLL^ 7. 1976
MEMBER; North Carolina Black Publishers Association
$6.00 PER YEAR
North Carolina Press Association, Inc.
2.'; CENTS
The 1976 Editions of THE TRIBUNAL All) will
be ledicated to America's bicentennial Cele
bration. with *mphasis m contributions our Race
has made in the making of America, from
birth to th(‘ present.
In 1976 there should not be a need to lift these
contributions from isolated sources. Our past
should ne interwoven into the fabric of our ci
vilization. because we are, except for the Indian,
America's oldest ethnic minority.
We have helped make America what it was,
and what it is, since the founding of Virginia,
Vt e ha\e been a factor in many major issues in
r)ur history. There have been many misdeeds
against us, yet we have been able to live through
them and fight back. This is living proof of our
history.
Our r()le in the making of America is neither
well kn>wn or correctly known. Many positive
contributions have escajM'd historians and have
not founl their way into the pages of many
history biH)ks,
We will strive to give readt'rs. Black and
whit(‘. many little-known facts about our past
and il is hoped that a proper perspective of our
history will 1)‘ of valu(‘ to persons who may
believe that as Black peopU' we hav‘ an un
worthy past; and henc‘. no strong claims lo
all rights of other Americans.
Fannie Lou Hamer
A NATURAL LEADER
FANNIE LOU HAMER is a native of
Mississippi. Her parents moved to Sunflow
er County when she was two years old.
The year Fannie Lou Townsend reached
her third birthday, thirteen lynchings had
taken place in Mississippi. Only Georgia,
with fourteen lynchings, kept Mississippi
out of first place. Two years later, ten
thousand Yazoo City Black men, women
and children fled their native Mississippi.
A oung man named Willie Mansfield,
had been accused (but by no means found
guilty) of attacking a white woman with an
ax. He had been burned alive by an en
raged mob of whites, and Yazoo City
Blacks were not sure the mob would not
suddenly turn on them. By the time Fannie
Townsend was six years old she was
trapped into the beginning of the work she
would continue for a long period of her life.
a plantation owner came to her and asked
if she could pick cotton, she was not sure
she could but he promised her a long list
of things from his store. Fannie picked
thirty pounds of cotton in a week and never
did get out of the man’s debt.
Fannie Lou was the youngest of twenty
children in a poverty-ridden Mississippi
Black family. Her parents had no easy task
of trying to keep the children in school,
because they could not afford cloths for all
of them. School for Black children was
held for only four months out of the year,
and the rest of the time was spent in the
cotton fields.
There were fourteen boys and six girls
working with their parents and they could
produce fifty-five and sixty bale crops.
But they were producing for the white
landowner, and little went to them. Mr.
Townsend had managed to save a little in
spite of the cheating that had kept them
or, nnnr Hp Viniiffht mules. waeons, cul
tivators and some farm equipment. He
rented land because this would afford him
a measure of independence. But this small
measure of independence was short lived
for someone, determined they would not
"get too uppity,” put paris green in their
livestock’s feed, killing their ’ mules and
cows. This act, Mrs. Hamer recalls "knock
ed them right back down”. Things got so
tough that she began to "wish she were
white”.
At the age of twenty-four, Fannie Lou
Townsend married Perry Hamer. She se
cured a jcb on a Mississippi plantation
as a sharecropper and timekeeper. She held
this job for eighteen years, until in 1962
she decided that she was going to exercise
her citizen’s right to vote.
To understand why voting has been,
and still is, difficult and often impossible
for Black Mississippians, one must first
know something of Mississippi politics
and economy and the relationship of
Black Mississippians to both.
Nearly a hundred years ago Blacks did
vote freely for a time in Mississippi inspite
of their former slave status and the south’s
fear of what they might do in tetaliation.
Blacks did experience a measure of freedom
under the Military Government set up
following the Civil War. There were forty
Black members of the first Reconstruction
Legislature in 1867. "THE BLACK AND
TAN CONVENTION” assembled in 1868
had sixteen Blacks amont its hundred
members. This Convention drew up a con
stitution eliminating most voting quali
fications and extending the vote to Blacks
and Whites on the same basis. This Consti
tution was ratified in 1869, and for the first
time Black Mississippians were permitted
by the State law to vote. They comprised a
maioritv of the electorate.
Out numbered Mississippi whites
became alarmed. In 1890 Mississippi with
its majority Black population decided that
the only way to preserve White Supremacy
was by completly disfranchising Blacks.
This was accomplished by not allowing non
property owners or those who were desend-
ants of persons who had not voted before
1866 voting rights, and also requiring
voters to read and interpret any section of
the state constitution. These methods kept
Black Mississippians from voting.
FANNIE LOU HAMER lived in Miss
issippi’s Sunflower County, where in 1964
there were nearly twice as many Blacks
as whites voting age, yet the number of
registered Black voters there was only 2.5
per cent'of the white. Mre. Hamer saw
that as a shameful violation of human
rights and there could be no rest for her
until she did something to correct it.
In August 1962 two Civil Rights groups
came to Mississippi to help Black people
register to vote, they were SNCC and SCLC.
It was agreed at the end of the meeting that
eighteen of those present would go to
the Indianola Courthouse to register.
Fannie Lou Hamer would be their leader.
The test they were confronted with took
the entire day. When Mrs. Hamer returned
to her home she was informed that unless
she withdrew her right to vote she would
lose her job. That night Mrs. Hamer
left her family with friends in Ruleville.
Her husband was urged to remain until the
end of the harvest, and was promised that
he could take his belongings. Of course
he was not allow ed to take his belongings at
the end of the harvest season. Mrs. Hamer
and her family had many unfortunate ex
periences including severe beatings.
For months Mrs. Hamer tried to work
with the regular Mississippi Democratic
Party, first attempting to go to work on
precinct level. She had no luck, whenever
she attended a precinct meeting in Rule
ville, her husband recently hired on a new
job, was fired the following day.
The only way to attack the tight politi
cal machine would be to establish a poli
tical party of their own. Mrs. Hamer and
her fellow workers established their own
party and named it THE MISSISSIPPI
FREEDOM PARTY. The M.F.D.P. was
formed well before the August 1964 Dem
ocratic Convention that met in Atlantic
Citv, New Jersey. Its program for getting
support among other delegates to the con
vention was well organized and executeel.
As early as May 1964 the M.F.D.P. opened
an office in Washington, D.C.
The Delegates took their views from
that section of the Declaration of Indepen
dence that reads: "Whenever any form of
Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is Right of the People to alter or
abolish it, and to institute new Govern
ment .
The Convention was opened to Black and
White alike. And the delegation that came
out of those conventions was made of
peonle doing average jobs. At the June
1964 meeting held in Jackson, Mississippi,
a White native born Mississippian named
Ed King was elected as Chairman of its
delegation. Fannie Lou Hamer was elected
Vice-Chairman. For the first time in its
history the old-line Mississippi politicians
were being challenged before the nation
and the world by thie
and the world by their own constituents.
The M.F.D.P. was finally offered a com
promise, the regulars, they were informed,
were going to be seated and two members
of the M.F.D.P. could be seated as dele-
gates-at-large at the convention. But the
choice of which two of their party to be
chosen would not be theirs. The M.F.D.P.
rejected the compromise and their hope of
replacing the Mississippi regulars died.
With the help of Northern liberals the
M.F.D.P. was later able in Washington to
challenge the right of the Mississippi
regulars to lake seats in the House of
Representatives. They lorced an answer to
the challenge from the Governors and other
State officials who issued a statement
condemning violence and racism in Mississ
ippi.
Farmie Lou Hamer is kept busy now as
a lecturer, traveling to various parts of the
nation. She is the author of a pratical plan
for feeding Sunflower County’s poor
Blacks with dignity. Freedom Farms which
she conceived, get right to the vitals ol
the contry’s problems. Mrs. Hamer wants
no chihl on Freedom Farms to experience
the uncertainty of the tenant farm living
she knows too well.
On commencement Day in 1969 at At
lanta’s Morehouse College, Fannie Lou
Hamer was honored, the speaker in paying
tribute to Mrs. Hamer said: "Fannie Lou
Hamer, you have little formal education
and your speech is full of errors in grammar
and diction; but you tell your story with a
paaaionale power that is intensified by
pain, and you are a natural leader with the
capacity to guide and inspire your fellow
sufferers. You also have the ability to
awaken in your oppressed countrymen
vour own unquenchable yearning for
freedom and equality. We pay tribute to
\ou for your noble example of Black wo
manhood , for your strong defense of human
dignilv, and for your fearless promotion
of civil rights in your native state of Miss-
•ssippi.” Mrs. Hamer redeived the honor
with the earthly and dignified simplicity
befitting a woman ol valor and greatness.
Reference: Fax, Elton C. Contemporary
Black Lea
REFERENCE: FAX, ELTON C. CON
TEMPORARY BLACK LEADERS, DODD
MEAD CO. NEW YORK c. 1970.
1776 Honoring America's Bicentennial 1976