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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1976)
4 # r s » r a n c h o b c n o s n - .e x c " U n i v e r s i t y 01 PORTLAND OBSER/ER Voi. 6 No. 21 Portland, Oregon Thursday, April 8, 1976 $<*«■ per copy Brown joins Carter staff Georgia S ta te R ep resen tative Ben Brown has been named a deputy director of fomer Governor Jimmy Carter’s na tional campaign for the presidency. Brown, a Black, is a graduate of Clark College. C a rter an n o u n ced B row n 's a p pointment at a Real Estate Awards' Banquet in Atlanta, which presented a service award to Jesse Hill, Jr. president of Atlanta Life Insurance Company. In paying tribute to Hill, Carter said, "Jesse Hill and others have fought to liberate Blacks and have, in the process, liberated whites as well." In commenting on his political cam paign, Carter said, "my most solid voters are Black voters. In Florida I carried every single precinct that was majority Black. “It would not have been possible fifty years ago for a Georgia governor to run for president because he had a stigma because of the race issue." Carter also received a sizable Black vote in New York and Wisconsin, Tues day. Carter has gained respect and sold support among Blacks in his native state, Georgia. Commission on Aging jeopardized to former contractors without allowing time, established the AAA advisory new potential customers to bid. committee as an arm of the Commission. One member claims that no written Homemakers Upjohn, a national com minutes are produced so that action is not pany that has been in Portland since taken in motions that have been posed or 1969, is among those that will protest that aspect of the plan. Currently Home the action is altered to fit the staffs idea rather than the board's. makers Upjohn has contracts with the Earlier this week, Ed Frankel, Direc State Welfare Division to provide home tor of the City Bureau of Human Re makers, with the Veterans Administra sources, meeting with control agencies tion to provide nursing and homemakers, (senior centers) that if the City-County and with several hospitals to provide Commission were elim inated, center staff relief. budgets could be increased by ten per Upjohn asked for an opportunity to cent. submit a proposal but were told the On April 6th, Holdridge asked contract contracts would go to previous contrac agencies to appear at the city budget tors. A spokesman told the Observer in 1974 the Commission was transfer hearings on April 12th and fight for the red from county control to the city. that contracts with Holdridge had led increase (elimination of the City-County Commissioner Jordan, at that time stated nowhere and that they feel they got a Council on Aging). his belief that the Commission should not “run around". Commissioner Charles Jordan told the Members of the AAA board are ex operate programs but should be a plan Observer that he has not determined that ning body, shifted the programs to the pressing the concern that they do not the Commission should be eliminated, but aging division of the Human Resource have adequate input, that the plan was that in light of funds shortages its role Bureau. Bob Holdridge was hired to head written by staff and presented to them should be examined. If it is a duplication the department and approximately 100 without adequate time to make changes. of services, the money could better be staff members were transferred from the On April 30th, Holdridge presented a spent on direct services to the elderly Commission to the city department. plan to the AAA advisory board that than those on administration, he said. Gradually the Commission staff was would have eliminated the City-County One option Jordan will present to the cut to the current three members. Now Council on Aging. The advisory board Council is to move the director City- Holdridge, reportedly in trouble with his rejected the plan, saying that Holdridge County Commission on Aging to his advisory board, the Area Agency on was out of line, that he is not a policy office, directly responsible to him, to Aging, has turned his attention to the making person, and that they should not serve as an advocate for the poor to elimination of the Commission. take it upon themselves to attempt to whom they could go directly with prob Recently the AAA advisory board eliminate a statuatory commission. lems or complaints. The other two staff refused to approve the 1976-1977 plan The City-Council on Aging was created members would be eliminated. He has presented by Holdridge, presenting it to and appointed by the Portland City not made a decision as to the possibility the City Council without their approval. Council and the Multnomah County of retaining the Commission, and is Among the sections not approved were Board of County Commissioners. The exploring this matter further. budget items and the award of contracts City County Commission on Aging, in (Please turn to p. 2 col. 4) Controversy over the City Human Resource Bureau's aging program is coming to a head as the Bureau moves to eliminate the City-County Commission on Aging, headed by Osly J. Gates. The City-County Commission on Aging was t stablished in 1968 to serve as a planning and advocacy board for the elderly. A staff was hired and programs established. Under Gate's leadership, the Commission reached a high of $800,000 annual budget and a staff of 112 persons. The Commission created the senior center concept and established six centers throughout the county. 1RS harassment of Black business, politicians alleged State Senator Bill McCoy. Senate District 8, was elected to the Democratic National Committee this week. Also elected by the Oregon state convention were Franklin l-anih and Mitzi Scott. Senator McCoy, who currently chairs a sub committee of the Interim Committee on Human Resources which deals with delivery of services, is seeking election to the Senate post he now holds WASHINGTON, D.C. The “Nation" magazine has reported that the Delta llemocrat Times newspaper of Green ville. Mississippi "was routinely audited" from 1954, when the paper endorsed the Supreme Court's desegration edict, to 1972, when its publisher, Hodding Carter, died. Carter's son, Hodding Carter III, the paper's current editor, said, "We always assumed it was harassment, but there was no way to prove it. Reputable accountants have always handled our books. We never had to pay adjustments, but God, what a nuisance.” "Nation" claimed it had found nu merous instances of IRS harassment of civil rights figures "at a relentless pace." The magazine said that “The South's small Black businessmen -- tavern own ers, shopkeepers, grocers - have been pursued even more than political acti vists." It added that these people, who tend to be self made and often are semi literate, "often err out of ignorance.” "In the last three years alone," “Na tion reported, "more than 50 prominent members of Black-liberal alliances in Deep South states have been audited or investigated, lied to, harassed, divested of many dollars in attorneys' or accoun tants' fees. And others with littk money to tax have been deprived of countless hours of personal time spent reporting their returns.” Those whose tax returns have been audited included Georgia State Senator Julian Bond; eight Black elected officials from Atlanta; the presidents of the Mississippi and Alabama NAACPs; five Black legislators from Memphis including Emmett and John Ford; Morris Dees, the leading civil rights attorney in Alabama; and five of thirteen Black Alabama legislators. In Mississippi, the IRS audited 26 members of the predominantly Black Loyalist Democratic Party and its New York fund raiser; the President of the ACLU; and secretaries of the Delta Ministry. In Tennessee and Georgia, the books of the ACLU are under study by the IRS. The “Nation” charged that “the statis tical probability that such a pattern of audits could be legitimate is highly unlikely.” The authoritative Federal Tax Guide Reports, in its February 15, 1974 issue, indicates that about one in every 57 Americans was selected for audit in 1973. An IRS official in Boston said there is less than a two percent chance that the average citizen would be audited. The article charged, “In Mississippi, Tennessee. Georgia and Alabama, the IRS functions, in effect, as an arm of political systems which are trying by economic means to keep Blacks out of power." doctor visits; family planning and mater nity benefits; treatment of psychiatric, drug or alcohol problems paid up to $1,000 per year each; full payment of hospital emergency care; full payment of routine examinations; full payment of eye exam and glasses; payment for prescription drugs. Applications are now being received. "Those families being sought are among the 40.000 working poor in Multnomah County." We want the norma! families with the ordinary amount of sickness." Wilcox explained. “No insurance pro gram can exist if all its clients are already sick. We want to enroll people, get them on a regular medical routine - examina tion. innoculation, etc. - and prevent illness as much as possible." Public health nurses will be available for follow up and health education. The second activity of the project is tl Episodic Program, which is for those wl are not enrolled in the prepaid insuranc It is designed to cover emergency nee< of those who otherwise could not pay f< medical care. A number of clinics an doctors are authorized to provide cat following determination by eligibility Call 248-335-1 for referral. Project Health is funded with count money that was previously used t provide care at the Multnomah Count Hospital, Federal and state funds. Eligibility is determined by incom« family size and other economic factor and can be determined quickly, without lot of forms and "red tape." Persons wh think they might be eligible are urged t apply by calling 248-3354. D o You Need health insurance but can’t afford it? Worry that you could not pay for medical care in an emergency? Wish you and your children had a regular family doctor? Project Health is a new county health program that is looking for families and individuals who need com prehensive health. Project Health is a unique program that provides health services for low income people by providing health in surance through the private medical insurance companies Kaiser. Oregon Physicians Service. Cascade Health Care and the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center. "There is nothing to distinguish the person whose insurance is paid for by Project Health from those where in surance is paid for by the employer or union." Lee Wilcox. Health Planner said. "Each is issued a card, like everyone else's card, and takes it to the clinic or his doctor. Patients will no longer have to fear em harassment or differential treat ment because they are poor." The project is aimed at people who are not on welfare but whose income does not allow them to purchase private health insurance. Guidelines for eligibility are flexible, with income, size of family, and prior obligations factors in determining eligibility Project Health will pay the bulk of the insurance premium, but the family will be expected to pay a small percentage of the insurance payment, depending on economic factors and choice of the insurance company. The coverage provided is more com prehensive than most plans. Coverage includes: unlimited hospitalization; lab oratory tests; physical therapy and other treatments; full payment of all Roots of war at Pine Ridge (Editor's Note: Pine Ridge Reserva tion, the site of the 71-dav confrontation at Wounded Knee three years ago, is again setting a precedent for all other Indian reservations in this country. With a new tribal president taking office April 12th, the Oglala Sioux are moving to dismantle the system of political power and land use that has guaranteed domination - not only of Sioux lands but of those of other tribes across the country - by an alien white culture. For the first time in 100 years, the Sioux are at a turning point in their quest for self-determination. Yet the violence of the last four years continues. Since the election on January 27th eight people have been killed on the reservation. In this two-part series, David Corkery, the only national newsman on the reser vation during the recent wave of terror, presents the situation that has plagued Pine Ridge; the second looks at the new nationalism that has emerged among the traditional Oglala Sioux, now demanding their rights as a sovereign nation under their 1868 treaty with the United States.) by David Corkery Doing their part to help with this year's Camp Fire Girls community service project to collect usable items for The Salvation Army Men’s Social Service Center are, from left. Racket Sneed, Jael Reese. Terry Lyn White and Kim Jenkins, all from Boise school and members of the Camp Fire Girls group led by Mrs. Ernestine Broadous. They are getting a preview and encouragement from Brigadier Clenton Irby, director of The Salvation Army Men's Social Service Center, whose work therapy program helps some 500 men annually. (Please see page 7.) PINE RIDGE, (PNS) Three years after the confrontation at Wounded Knee, the visitor to Pine Ridge Kescrva- tion is still confronted with the shocking sense of entering a war zone. The reservation's population of 1 S.uOO is totally polariMd between traditioiuu. often full-blood Sioux on one side, and whites and their Indian allies - near white mixed bloods who share the white culture - on the other. Few on either side dare go anywhere unarmed or alone, especially at night. Bounties on the heads of traditional leaders are common, beatings routine. Wanblee, a town of 500. was recently terrorized for 24 hours by a caravan of mixed bioods who firebombed homes, riddled them with bullets and murdered one person. The town has formed its own sixty-member armed patrol to provide its own security. Since mixed blood Tribal President Richard Wilson was defeated by tradi tional supported A1 Trimble in a fed erally supervised election January 27th, eight traditionals have been killed: three shot, two beaten to death and three killed when their car was forced off the road in a high-speed chase. At root, the struggle is between the Sioux nation and the U.S. government. Pine Ridge Reservation, a land locked area the size of Delaware, is an American Rhodesia. All government and police power and ninety percent of all land is controlled by a white and near white minority. Children of the traditional Oglala Sioux are taught from birth that they are an occupied people, a sovereign nation that never joined the United States and that -- by an 186b treaty between the Great Sioux Nation and the U.S. - legally ’ mains independent. (The Oglalas on Pine Ridge Reservation are one of five bands of the Sioux nation.) Landless now and virtually jobless (the unemployment rate on the reservation is seventy percent, but worse for full bloods), with an average life span of 42, the traditional Oglala people have lived for decades in defiance of U.S. policies barring practice of their religion, forcing Christianity and the English language on their children and imposing a form of government totally at odds with tradi tional tribal ways. Only those who have assimilated to white ways - usually those with little Indian blood -- have been able to mani pulate the white man's government and land policies and escape his prejudice to rise to power and wealth. For traditional full bloods, both race and culture - an unwillingness to abandon their roots and adopt white ways - have prohibited that path. But now, after three years of simmer ing war that has coat an estimated seventy lives, the reservation is at a turning point. Al Trimble's election as tribal president, widely heralded as a path to peace for the reservation, in fact threatens to alter the entire power system which has frozen land, federally funded jobs and power in the hands of mixed bloods and whites. As a result, outgoing President Wil son’s supporters called his "goon squad'5 by the traditionals - are striking back. And qfhen Trimble takes office this (Please turn to p. 3 col. I)
