I Mandela Stirs Hope In Message At Yankee Stadium
NEW YORK (AP) - A Haitian
immigrant, the granddaughter of a
date and a youth group from an
^ 1 peeflon of Brooklyn
i Mendel's message of
the top rows of
Jdsee for them to
her1’ asked Dun gaquelin, a
volunteer who brought tS boys and
g^e, age 7 to ld, from the Buskwick
Youth Council to the Rally last
Thursday. “They don’t have to see
Just the drugs and the dope and the
shooting in the street. They’ve got a
better role model hen.”
Malar Wigfall, 14, clearly agreed.
Mangels, he said, “is important to
me. I learned something tonight -
you can change things.”
Nearby, Norma Leveridge, a Head
Start director in the Bronx and the
granddaughter of a South Carolina
ilave, raised her fist and joined the
audience in Binging Nkoee Sikelele
Africa (God Bless Africa), the
anthem of the African National
Congress.
“This is a prayer to Africa,” she
said, adding: “Even in this age, with
all the problems we have, with drugs
and racial tensions, there’s still
hope.”
A few rows up, J. Klebert Obas,
who came to New York from Haiti “to
get a better life - like everybody,”
proudly held in front of him a 4-by-4
foot painting he had done to sum up
his thoughts. A vulture on the canvas
represented the South African
government, he said, while a dove
represented peace. The road between
the two birds was covered with blood.
Obas and thousands of others had
15 and $10 seats so far from the stage
that Mandela, his wife, Winnie, and
musical performers looked no taller
than a fingernail.
But the enthusiasm they generated
was gigantic. Spontaneous cheers of
“Man-del-a” and “Keep the pressure
on” went up again and again amid a
sea of “Free South Africa” posters in
the ANC colors green, black and
yellow. Tiny ANC flags were pinned
to dreadlocks, elegant coiffures,
baseball caps and straw hats alike.
There was also dancing in the
aisles, thanks to Salsa singer Willie
Colon, folk singer Tracey Chapman
and Calypso singer Mighty Sparrow.
Caught up in the fervor, the 71
year-old freedom fighter merrily
waved his fist and bopped to the
crowd’s rhythmic clapping.
The good feelings even spilled over
into the normally tense subways as
thousands lined up to take brains
home. Unlike the shoving matches
that typify rush hour, crowds
jamming the platforms near Yankee
Stadium calmly entered the trains,
carefully avoiding nearby toes and
apologizing to each other when they
bumped.
Said one strap hander: “This is
probably the only time everyone on
the train has been nice.”
Mangela came to the stadium
following a rally in Harlem where
crowds filled streets, balconies and J
fire escapes to experience a little bit *
of history. Malcolm X’s widow, Betty j
Shabazz, wept as Mrs. Mandela j
embraced her.
Earlier, Mandela had taped a jj
question-and-answer session :
moderated by Ted Koppel. The last
person Koppel called on was 8-year- j
old Bernard L. Charles III, who told J
Mangela, “I am very glad you’re ;
free. If there’s anything we can do, j
just send us a post card, and we’ll do
anything we can do - evon raise *
money.”
Mannerist,
Musician,
Or Muse?
NEW YORK (AP)- b Miles Davit
a anas, a mannerist or a musician?
TIM question’s been asked in the
jus world for years. Sometimes he’s
mere of one than the other two, but on
the opening night of this year’s JVC
Jam Festival he played a bit of each
role.
As muse, he drifted dreamily
screes the stage, noodllng on his
trumpet. As mannerist, he
committed such no-nos as playing
meat of the set with Ms bade to the
audience. As musician, he engaged
Me players in conversation that
ranged from, intimate to vigorous.
Davie and his six-pkeo band
entered August Avery Fisher Hall
reeking and left the same way last
Friday night The audience stomped
and howled for more but what they
heard waa what they got Besides
Miles Davie and the Milae Davis
Band had a late show to play.
Davis, who’s passed beyond the
1 stage to the cult figure level
mr, indifferent to Ms
, but never to Ms music. His
duets with saxophonist
Garrett and load bassist
Joseph Foley McCreary wore the
l, an American band with
soma Oriental affectations, played
the first half of the bill at a highly
level that often drowned
York through June 90
an to Saratoga
BETTMS READY TO PLAY - Dr. Boorgo C. Debnam is
shown wamlnhig participants hi St Augustine's National
Yoath Sports Pragram. Loft to right an Jamal Porry,
Tyrone Foorior, Wrick Evans, Dr. Dobnam, and Roco
Bans. The youth could hardly wait to comploto thotr
physicals so they could begin playing basketball, soccer,
tennis, softball and volleyball. They an looking forward to
the swimming classes at Chavis Park also.
inmate* Racial Slur* Lead To Assault
MARSHFIELD, Mo. (AP) -
Racial alura lad to tha aaxual aaaault
of oaa lnmata and tha boating of two
othara by their callmataa at Web*ter
County Jail, Sheriff Bill John laid last
The inmates were watching the
NBA finale on television last Tuesday
night when derogatory remarks
allegedly war* made about blacks,
Jain said.
“They were watching the Portland
Trail Blasers and the (Detroit)
Pistons. Racial slurs started over
that,” John said.
After the game ended, three white
inmates allegedly woke a sleeping
black inmate and began beating him,
the sheriff said. The television was
turned up to drown out the noise, John
said.
The iail trusty, sleeping in a nearby
F-'WCT
cell, told the inmates to turn down the
volume and then probably shut his
door, John said.
One of two white inmates who tried
to break up the fight was forced to
perform sex acts on the three
attackers, the sheriff said, and the
second white inmate was treated for
bruises, an injured eye and several
loose teeth allegedly suffered during
the attack.
Black Non Leads
Richmond Parish
RICHMOND, Va. — Mercy Sister
Cara Billings, director of the Diocese
of Richmond’s Office for Black
Catholics, has assumed an added title
of parish pastoral coordinator and is
believed to be the first Black woman
in the United States to hold such a
position.
Sister Billings will do almost
everything but celebrate Mass and
administer the sacraments at the
largely Black parish in Richmond.
“It’s a great responsibility, a great
challenge. But I’m the kind of person
who realises that anything I may
accomplish I cannot do on my own,”
Sister Billings told Catholic News
Service June 4, the first day of her
new assignment.
A non-resident “priest moderator”
from a Richmond parish will handle
sacramental ministry at the parish
and collaborate with Sister Rilling*,
she said, “but I will have the most
responsibility.”
Sister Billings’ open-ended parish
assignment is the first to come from a
Richmond diocesan policy enacted
last October to make non-ordained
parish leaders a central feature in
serving a growing Catholic
population with fewer priests.
Rural areas in the diocese, she
said, had traditionally been “where
the community gathered with a lay
person as a leader” to stave off a
priest shortage. Hers is the first
application of the policy in an urban
ana of the diocese.
Father Matties Newell, former
pastor at St Elisabeth, a 219-member
parish in a middle-to lower class
section of Richmond, left diocesan
service to Join a Benedictine
monastery.
Would the parish have had to shut
down were she not named pastoral
coordinator? “When I look around the
other dioceses, that’s the pattern I
see,” said Sister Billings, a
Philadelphia native who has worked
in the Richmond diocese since 1981.
“I don’t think that would have been
the case here.”
She said Richmond Bishop Walter
F. Sullivan “asked me would I be
willing to do it. 1 thought about it, l
prayed about it. I thought it would be
something I’m capable of doing. ”
Sister Billings, 51, will continue two
or three days a week in the Black
Catholic office in Richmond and
spend the rest of her time at St.
Elizabeth, but cut her involvement in
campus ministry at Virginia State
University in Petersburg, Va
Sister Billings said she recognizes
"every day” that the eyes of
Catholids nationwide may be on her
yet she sees importance in being
Black, being a woman and being a
religious in her parish position “All
of the above,” she said with a laugh.
“I see it as a way of encouraging
others for women to be leaders.. . .for
Black woman, African-Americans,”
Sister Billings said.
If someone like her is not there “for
people to look at and see as
themselves, they’re not even
encouraged to go out and try
something,” she said.
The average American eats 3.1
pounds of fresh strawberries and
one pound of frozen berries a year.
If we had a dollar
for every graduate
we’d all be richer.
As a graduate of a Black public college you
know the value of your education. Right now'
there are too many kids who may never be able
to afford this opportunity. Right now you can
do something about it. The Thurgood Marshall
Black Education Fund provides scholarships to
kids who couldn't otherwise afford to go to a
Black public college—schools which do not
get the same corporate support that some
private colleges do. Just one dollar from
each of you puts a kid one step closer to a
college education.
When’s the last time your dollar was
watt to help sand someone to* public Black
illegn Herat tny donation of -——
1VUY1C
ADDRESS
CITY.
-STATE
I Please send check or money order (do not send cash) to:
I Thurgood Marshall Black Education Rind. One Dupont
j Circle, N.W., Suite 710ML, Washington, DC. 20036.
I
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