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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1976)
Ellis Crsson has announced that he will not be a candidate for re-election as Presi dent of the Portland Branch of the NAACP. Casaon was elected to a two year term in 1970, and took office in January of 1971. He was re-elected to two additional terms. 'Since we will be starting the required “election procedures" for new officers and board members, I felt that the No minating Committee and the community at large should be informed that I do not seek re-election." Casson stated, “There comes a time when one must evaluate and set goals and priorities for himself and his family, and for me that time has come.” However, I take this means to inform you, and to make it perfectly clear for the record, that I am not being pushed out, for I could run again, and have confidence that I could be e'.rrted. “Six years is a long time, and I have are used on ail federally funded highway tried to serve well and represent NAACP I construction. He was recently appointed pastor of A .M .E. Church in Everette, with dignity and respect locally, region Washington. ally, and at the national level." Casson also urged that the community “Mine is a record I am proud of." The branch election process - which support the national NAACP in its time will choose all officers and an executive of crisis. The organization has had to board - begins with the October 17th raise $1.6 million cash to appeal a Missis meeting, at which a nominating commit sippi judgement. Although the money tee will be selected. The nominating was not raised in time the AFL-CIO and committee will report at the November others made loans to meet the quota. A meeting and the election will be held in temporary injunction by federal court postponed payment. December. I f this bond must be paid, this will tie “We are looking forward to hosting the NAACP National Convention. I wish up all of the NAACP’s operation funds the new branch leadership well and 1 am and the loans must be repaid. If every Black American had contri proud that I was able to play a small part in making the dream of hosting a National buted 15 cents, the $.16 million would have been raised with ease, but this was Convention here a reality.” Casson is Civil Rights Director for the not the case. Members and friends of the U.S. Highway Department in Portland, NAACP still have time to contribute to responsible for insuring that minorities the survival of the organization. Harper recruit* minorities for PFD U m vators ta her district- [Photo: Daa Long] Candidate meets voters face-to-face Jane Cease, Deomocratic Candidate for the State House of Representatives in i District 18. is a strong proponent of per sonai canvassing during the political campaign. “Not only do people get a chance to meet me, and evaluate my «stands on a person-to-person basis, but I get a firsthand working knowledge of their major concerna,” Cease said. "It's the beet way of doing your political home work - the best way of becoming a truly "representative” representative." J i 1 open-ended survey conducted during the primary campaign, the Cease campaign discovered seven major issues of concern in the district. The most pressing concern of citizens in her area is the environment. “People were worried about questions of energy resources and conservation, nuclear safety, land use. mass transit, the pro blem of motor vehicle emissions testing, population growth, water and air quality, solid waste disposal and recycling,” Cease stated. Following hard upon the environmen tal question were issues involving Human Resources, included Senior Citizen pro grams, child care, child support pro grams, welfare reform, youth employ ment and Health care. Government was a third sea of inter est, and voters stressed the need tor careful spending, the desire for new faces and talent, improved responsiveness in (Please turn to p. 5 col. 3) dear and unmistakeable difference hy Bayard Rustta More than anything else it is the elec tion of the president which determines whether Black Americans will go forward or backward. The Black struggle for equality, after making impressive gains during the nineteen-sixties, has been at a stand-still for the past eight years. But this November Black Americans will have a unique opportunity to get things moving in the right direction again. The problem is that even many of the victims of present policy - the teenager who can't find his first job, the worker who has been laid off - are saying it doesn't make any difference who is elect ed. This cynicism is understandable after eight years during which government policy has seemed only to make things worse, but it couldn't be more wrong. For without the right kind of President, things will continue to get worse. In a race that is extremely close there are clear and unmistakable differences between presidential candidates Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. They differ not merely in style and personality, but in their approach to the basic issues con fronting the nation. On every important issue - from the cities to taxes to health care - Carter is obviously superior. President Ford is running on a record which deserves to be thoroughly repudi ated. His platform flaunts an ultra-con servatism and disregard for human problems that was out dated when it was the creed of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Analysis Ford's election would mean the contin uation of policie initiated under Richard Nixon that have been diaastrous for all working Americans, and especially for Blacks. Nearly eight million Americans are unemployed, two and a half million more than when Ford assumed office. And there is little hope of improvement given present policies. In the last year alone, the number of Americans living in poverty increased by more than two million. Since 1970 Black unemployment has averaged more than 10 per cent. Today nearly one out of seven Black workers can't find a job. The gap between Black and white income which was nar rowing in the sixties is growing again. The average Black family is worse off than it was six yecrs ago. I t would be bad enough if Ford had simply followed a wrong course of economic action. But what is worse is that he seems totally oblivious to the human and social cost of unemployment. Rather than being a leader in civil rights, Ford has attempted to exploit racial tensions for political advantage. Overall, his per formance has been dismal. He has substi tuted obstructionism for program. He has shown no capacity for the imagination and viuon needed to inquire and unite the American people. In contrast to Ford's insensitivity and lack of sympathy for the poor and unem ployed, Jimmy Carter offers compassion and* understanding. Carter forged an admirable and courageous civil rights record as governor of Georgia. He pro mises to be a dynamic and aggressive President who can work effectively with Congress to pass much needed legislat- tion. (Please turn to p. 6 col., 3) Larry Harper, 28, a resident of Port land for two years was recently ap pointed by the City of Portland as Minor ity Recruiter for the Fire Bureau. Larry was born in Detroit, Michigan, attended college in Pasadena, California, and when asked why he chose Portland, said, “I felt that opportunities for Blacks here were better.” Larry was chosen above 6 other appli cants for his present position after spend ing fourteen months as a firefighter. Harper explains that there are oppor tunities for Blacks in the Fire Bureau, but only for those that are both interested and willing to put out. As Minority Recruiter, Larry will assist minorities in their training as well as recruit them. “The Fire Bureau can be a very rewarding career and offers many fringe benefits.” Harper goes on to say, “but it takes dedication and is very de manding.” There are certain requirements to be met such as: age for non-veterans - 21 through 25 years; for veterans - 21 through 30 years. A person would have to pass a written examination, physical exam and an oral interview. M r. Harper states that there are numerous fringe benefits and the starting salary is $1,007.07 per month upon entrance and increases annually to peak out at $1,475.07 as a firefighter. Larry is a member of the International Association of Black Professional Fire L A R R Y H A R PER Fighters and recently attended their fourth Biennial Convention held in San Diego, California, September 24th through October 1st. The Northwest region is represented by only Portland and Seattle. Names in the News Ivaa Cannady, Los Angeles real estate man, son of M r., and Mrs. Edward Cannady prominent Portland pioneers., has donated many issues of The Advocate and his Mother’s scrapbook to the Oregon Historical Society. Mrs. Cannady was the first Negro to be admitted to the Oregon Bar. Mrs. Edith Harrison is administrative vice principal at Roosevelt High School. Mrs. Harrison will travel with the women’s athletic teams and coordinate some social functions. A Teacher Corps graduate, former teacher at Tongue Job Corps, and researcher at Grant High School, she brings varied experience and an interest in young people to the posi tion. LeRoy Randolph celebrated his seventy-third birthday, October 17th. The remarkable M r. Randolph is active on the usher board of Bethel Church and is a member of the senior citizens. Mrs. Helen McCollogh visited in Port land for three weeks and has returned to her home in Houston, Texas. Lillian Spiller and Nellie Folwkes arrived Sunday from Houston, Texas. All three ladies are sisters of Mrs. Alice Robinson, Jewel Bowman and Manie Murphey. Those in Charge of the Annua*. Banquet of the Railroad Senior Citizens to be held October 29th at the M att Dishman Center, hope to make this year’s event the best ever held. Recovering nicely at their respective homes are Annabelle Caldwell and Lenore Gaskins. Tamela Woods, currently a Freshman at Oakwood S.D.A. College, Huntsville, Alabama, graduated in 3 years from Wilson High School. She left early in August to visit a friend in Denver, Color ado and proceeded on to Chicago, Illinois for the funeral of her paternal grand father and to visit relatives. Before she arrived at Oakwood she stopped by Taft, Oklahoma to visit her aunt. Tamela, the daughter of M r. and Mrs. Herman Wood, sends word that things are going well and she is enjoying the new school year but she misses home and friends. Mrs. Alfred Cox Sr. and her son have returned from an extensive trip in the East. I t’s not too late to register to vote Hundreds face imminent executions by Jon Stewart (PNS) By Christmas 1976, Leon Troy Gregg, 27, may already have become the first man to have been legally executed in the U.S. in almost 10 years. Gregg - whose name is engraved on the Supreme Court’s historic July 2nd. 1976, decision on capital punishment (Gregg v. Georgia) -- shares the pale green death row cells of Georgia's Reidsville State Prison with 31 other condemned men. All lost what may have been their last and beat constitutional challenge to the death penalty on October 4th, 1976. On that date, the Supreme Court refused, in a casual two sentence an nouncement, to reconsider its decision to permit the death penalty for murder under certain statutory conditions. While the court's decision to approve the death penalty applies to only three states (Georgia, Florida and Texas) with 147 death row inmates, attorneys for the N AACP I^egal Defense Fund believe the court's green light will probably open the door for another 100 140 executions in up to 14 other states with death statutes Ironically, the large number of prison “People haven't been thinking about similar to those upheld in July. ers on death row last spring -- nearly 600 these issues for 10 years,” says Deborah Several hundred other death row - was in part the result of a backlash the Levy, director of the American Civil Li inmates will remain in legal limbo in Supreme Court's 1972 Furman decision. berties Union's death penalty project. states such as California (56 on death, That ruling declared all death statutes “Capital punishment is understood as row), where the constitutionality of the one of those questions that belongs in then in practice unconstitutionally cruel statutes is uncertain. debate class," she adds. “I t hasn't been a and unusual because they allowed judges David Kendall, attorney for the reality and people haven’t thought about and juries unlimited, arbitrary and NAACP, says Gregg and 21 other in "freakish" discretion in determining who what it means for society to take life.” mates in Georgia, Florida and Texas, would live and who would die. Levy believes that at least one exe whose rehearing petitions were specifi Such wide-open discretion had resulted cution will probably have to take place cally denied October 4th, represent “the in glaring racial and economic inequities before people get aroused enough to turn cases furthest advanced procedurally. In in the use of the death penalty. these cases executions could come as * the tide back. “I think that when we come Between 1930 and 1967, when Louis to that actual execution,” she says, early as six to eight weeks.” Joe Monge became the last person to be “people are going to turn away from it Within days after the July 2nd court legally executed, 3,869 persons were just as they did 10 years ago.” decision - the week of the nation's bicen either hanged, shot, gassed or electro The sheer number of people on death tennial observance - workers at Reids cuted in American prisons. row may itself have an impact. ville State Prison began rewiring the Of them, 64 per cent were Blacks, who “We’re not talking about one or two electric chair. constituted roughly 13 per cent of the executions a year, like in the sixties." population. says Levy, “or even a couple of dozen a Decision sparks New Debate Nine out of 10 of the 455 persons exe year, like in the fifties. We’re talking cuted for rape during those years were about hundreds a year, which we haven't The imminence of an actual execution Blacks. had since the thirties." in this country has unleashed a clamor And nearly all those on death row have In fact, the number of death row pri over the legal and moral issues of capital been poor -- and consequently poorly soners in Georgia, Florida and Texas punishment reminiscent of the early represented by counsel in most cases. alone exceeds the total annual execution 1960s, when crowds gathered for all-night In efforts to redress such imbalances toll in the U.S. for any year since the vigils at prison gates to protest following the Farmaa decision, 35 states 1920s. executions. der, such as rape, airline hijacking and drafted new death statutes along two robery. lines: some required mandatory death for Observers predict that by this time certain crimes (presumably removing all next year at least 35 states will have discretion and arbitrariness), while others, such as Georgia's, set up judicial constitutional death statutes. procedures requiring judges and juries to Will Inequalities Persist? hear all aggravating and mitigating cir cumstances in each case before passing Abolitionists contend that even the sentence. new death statutes requiring case-by Despite the rapid pace of death sen case limited discretion will fail to prevent tencing under the post-Furman statutes, the discriminatory use of the death penal no executions were possible until the ty- Supreme Court stated what kind of University of Pennsylvania sociologist statutes are constitutional. Marc Riedel reported last spring that the This summer's ruling finally ended the percentage of non-whites sentenced to major uncertainties by declaring death had risen fom 26 per cent to 52 per mandatory death sentences unconstitu cent in the four years since the 1972 tionally cruel and unusual punishment Furman decision. He also found that (thus sparing some 300 death row while most murder victims are non inmates), while upholding the constitu whites, death sentences are most often tionality of statutes requiring limited, declared in cases involving the murder of directed discretion. a white by a non white. Following the July ruling, nearly all of “It's clear," says the NAACP's Kendall, the 18 states with uhconstitutional death “that even a constitutional stutute can be statues began revising their law» in applied unfairly or unconstitutionally." accordance with the Georgia statute. Kendall says future constitutional The court will decide later this term on the constitutionality of the death penalty challenges in individual cases will be (Please turn to p. 3 col. 3) for crimes other than first-degree mur
