Page 2 Portland O b w rv « r Thursday, Juna 14.1978
EDITORIAL/OPINION
Fighting for the right
On Friday U.S. District Judge Donald S. Voor
hees will give an opinion on whether the anti
busing referendum passed by the voters of
Washington is constitutional.
Measure 350, which was sponsored by the
"Citizens for Voluntary Integration Committee,”
was a response to the Seattle School Districts'
comprehensive desegregation program. The
measure requires school districts to assign
students to the nearest or next nearest school to
their home.
The refreshing thing about the suit is that the
Seattle, Tacoma and Pasco School Districts are
suing in federal court to block the state from en
forcing the measure.
Here is the Seattle School District in court to
fight for the right to continue an equitable
desegregation program. In the meantime, the
Portland School Board was so frightened by the
Washington initiative and the remote possibility
of a similar initiative here that they refused to
even discuss compulsory cross-busing.
Win or lose, the Seattle School Board has the
courage to fight for equal educational opportuni
ties for all its students. Next door, a frightened
and timid Portland School Board has joined the
opposition and will also find itself in court — but
fighting against equal educational opportunities
for its students.
Where is Portland State?
What is the role of the university in the Black
community? That is a question that has never
been answered by Portland State University.
In the white community the role of the univer
sity is more clearly defined. The university
provides teaching, research and culture.
Every week this newspaper receives numerous
press releases from universities and colleges in
the Oregon system. From Oregon State Univer
sity are items on research in forestry, agriculture,
lawn and garden care, wind energy, nutrition and
oceanography.
From the University of Oregon come stories
about research in social science, psychology,
music, education, architecture, anthropology,
etc. For example, minority students in architec
ture made several trips to Portland, meeting with
local residents, to design land use plans for the
Eliot neighborhood.
Out of the Medical School comes extensive re
search on cancer, lung disease, and other health
related problems.
In the center of the urban environment is Port
land State University — with an opportunity to
become involved with the Black community —
and with the minority communities — in research
and planning in the areas of economic develop
ment, housing, school integration, health plan
ning, planning with the elderly minorities. The
needs are there — the problems are crying to be
solved. The money is available. Where is the
University?
Where are the PSU schools of Social Work,
of Urban Studies, of Education? Right here in
Portland, the professors and students of PSU
could find the best laboratory in the world. Be
sides offering a much needed service, they could
gain invaluable experience in working with the
bureaucracy, fighting city hall, organizing com
munities, experiencing disillusion and disappoint
ment.
Where is the university? That is the question
that will be asked in coming months as the
Education Center is closed Will PSU — which is
supported by all of our tax dollars — become a
more visible and viable influence in the com
munity? Or will it fade away?
Letters to the Editor
Likes festival
Insult to Aaron
To the Editor:
To the Editor:
shall Hank Aaron in the o fficia l
Rose Parade on the premises o f the
M em orial Coliseum. The u n fa ir
omission was insulting'.!!!
Who can explain or apologize for
such conduct??????
There are many people o f good
will in Portland, and I believe they
are shocked at what happened
Saturday, June 9th.
Radio KXL and the Rose Festival
Association need to tell why there
was no introduction o f Grand Mar
Thank the Lord for our beautiful
Rose Festival Parades, etc. the past
65 years; Portland is truly blessed I
hope some day to see one o f our
beautifu l Black young ladies
crowned ‘ ‘Queen o f Rosaria.”
Signed,
Mrs. Osly J. Gates
Sincerely,
Mrs. C. Louise Harris
Rose Festival charged with racism .. . again
(Continued from page 1 column 6)
complained about an editorial in the
John Adams High School newspaper
— “ The lack of black in bedsheet
white” . Hannon wrote the school,
stating that the Unity editorial w rit
ten by student Greg Hough showed a
“ lack of adult leadership and direc
tion within the school’ s journalism
program” and that the editorial was
filled with inaccuracies.
The editorial follows:
“ Three weeks from now. Rose
Festival Princess Lynn Talton will
stand before thousands and rep
resent Adams High School in the
1979 Queen’s Coronation.
“ At first glance, Lynn would seem
to have all the qualifications needed
o f a worthy'representative during
that ceremony. She is bright, friend
ly, energetic and popular. With all
that to her credit, our Princess also
happens to be black. So, if past Rose
Festival history can be considered
any kind o f guide, the chances are
that Lynn Talton w ill not walk away
from the June I C oronation as
Queen o f Rosaria.
“ The fact is that Portland has had
an official Rose Festival for nearly
three quarters of a century and there
s till remains to be a black Rose
Festival Queen.
“ O f course, large factors have
played roles in dictating this fate.
For one, it seems that there has been
the presence o f a black student on
the court for just slightly under a
third o f the 71 Festival years. Also,
the ratio o f Princesses in the last
two decades has been very strongly
white over black. So, since the Rose
Festival Association says it keeps no
file on past Princesses’ racial
backgrounds, what reasons can
anyone find to suggest that the lack
o f a black queen is due to anything
but coincidence? Plenty o f them.
One need not look any further than the
Festival’ s voting o f a Queen. This
task is done every year by the
Rosarians, an overwhelming white
organization who, if not consciously
bias toward black Princesses, must at
least be guilty o f bias that is sub
conscious. L e t’ s face it, human
behavior in modern society has
taught us that whites w ill be more at
tractive to whites, with the same
going for blacks and other minorities
to their own races. I f the voting body
is bedsheet white, how can a black
Princess be elected in this or any
year?
“ That question has been raised
before, right here at Adams, in the
early 1970’s, this school refused to
let the Rose Festival plant a
tra d itio n a l rose garden here in
protest o f an all-w hite Rosarian
membership. Back then, Adams
even voted against having a Princess
at all, claiming the whole procedure
was “ sexist” . Since that time, the
protesting on our part has been
eliminated. Maybe th a t’ s not so
good.
“ And what about last month's
W ilson incident? This was sup
posedly a circumstance plagued by
disorganization, but doesn't it sound
suspicious when a black student wins
the Princess election and is forced by
the school’ s administration into a
runoff with the second place white
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Whatever happened to nuclear moratorium?
by Chuck Johnson.
Sanford E. Pitler,
and Peter Bergel
We are members o f the Trojan
Decommissioning Alliance, legisla
tive aides to Representative Wally
Priestley, and authors o f the
“ nuclear m oratorium ** b ill, HB
2570. We have maintained silence on
the treatment o f that b ill by the
Oregon Legislature. However, now
that the b ill has been essentially
killed by the Senate Environment
and Energy Com m ittee, we have
decided to break that silence.
We drafted several bills for sub
mission by sympathetic legislators;
one o f these bills was HB 2570, the
nuclear m oratorium b ill, which
would delay construction o f new
nuclear plants until the problems of
storing radioactive waste arc solved.
Public support for HB 2570 was
massive. According to Represen
tative Nancie Fadeley, there has
seldom been a bill which generated
such enthusiasm; there were literally
thousands o f supporting letters, tele
grams, and phone calls; over 2,000
persons attended an April rally en
dorsing the bill; editorials supported
the concept o f HB 2570 from Port
land to North Bend to Medford; and
an independently conducted poll
showed 80% o f Oregonians in favor
o f a moratorim until a safe method
o f waste disposal is found. On May
7th, in response to this support, the
House voted 36 to 24 to adopt an
amended version o f HB 2570 and
sent the bill to the Senate.
In the Senate, it was referred to the
Environment and Energy Commit
tee, a group whose membership
Senate President Jason Boe had
already stacked with a clear pro-
nuclear m ajority: Senator Hanlon
from the district in which the Trojan
Plant is located; Senator Jcrnstedl
from the would-be Pebble Springs
area; Senator Powell in whose
district Teledyne Wah Chang pro
duces an im portant element fo r
nuclear plants; and the pro-nuclear
Senators Day, Groener, and Ripper.
Because a majority o f the Senators
on the floor (17) were willing to vote
for HB 2570, the six pro-nuclear
E&E Committee members voted to
hold the bill in committee and deny
the Senate its vote, even after
backers offered a 2-year moratorim
as a compromise.
The tactics employed to kill HB
2570 were undemocratic. The fu ll
Senate was denied a chance to vote
on the issue. Instead o f HB 2570,
Governor Atiyeh, the utilities, and
pro-nuclear legislators want to sub
stitute a meaningless one-year
“ m o ra to riu m ,” SB 899, which
wou'd permit Pebble Springs to be
sited before the public has a chance
to vote on a moratorium initiative
planned for the fall o f 1980, and
before the next Legislature convenes.
Governor Atiyeh then put pressure
on the House. Six o f the nine
Republican members who originally
supported 2570 — Representatives
Schoon, Zajonc, Cam pbell, Van
Vliet, Lombard, and Rutherford —
changed horses in mid-stream, sud
denly refusing to back anything but a
one-year moratorium. They cited as
reasons the Governor's threatened
veto and a disinclination to “ embar
rass” him.
The death o f HB 2570 must be laid
at the door o f the Governor, for his
unwillingness to compromise and his
refusal to wait for the electorate to
speak; at the door o f the six pro-
nuclear members o f the Senate E&E
Committee, for ignoring the demon
strated preference o f a majority of
Oregonians; and at the door o f the
six Republican House members who
placed the Governor's “ embarrass
ment” above their own sense o f civic
duty.
The electorate will have its chance
to speak in the 1980 initiative and
legislative elections. We hope it
won’ t be too late.
TransAfrica flexes muscles
by N. Fungai Kumbula
On Capitol H ill in Washington,
there's a lobbying group called
TransAfrica, the only pro-A frica
lobby in the country. TransAfrica
was born slightly more than a year
ago and today has become a group o f
quite considerate clout.
Over the past few years, Africa has
become very prom inent in the
thinking o f American legislators.
One can easily trace the development
of this thinking from the days when
Africa was still very much a Mystery
Continent to today when the U.S. is
engaged in “ peace e ffo rts ” in
Southern A fric a and an “ im
provement o f ties” with the rest of
•the continent. Africa has suddenly
become im portant not only as a
source o f raw materials (among them
oil) but also as a market for manu
factured goods and as an area o f in
fluence. The East-West tug-of-war
has been mostly waged over Africa
lately.
It was amidst this burgeoning
popularity that T ransA frica was
born. Specifically, its aim is to speak
up for Africa, lobby for pro-Africa
causes and fight anti-African legisla
tion. The past few years have seen
the C IA involvement in Angola, the
two Zaire wars, the Soweto
uprisings, the endless Nam ibian
headaches and, Rhodesia, just to
mention a few examples. So, Trans-
Africa has been kept hopping almost
from the word go.
Randall Robinson, the executive
director and Richard Hatcher, the
chairman (the same Richard Hatcher
who is the mayor o f Gary, Indiana)
have provided outstanding leader
ship considering the organization is
so young. For operational funds,
TransAfrica has to rely on donations
and whatever fundraising events they
can come up with. So far, most of
TransAfrica's lobbying efforts have
been aimed at the White House.
At a recent fundraising dinner and
dance in Washington, the topic on
the agenda was sanctions against
Rhodesia. The Senate had just voted
to repeal these sanctions and
recognize the puppet regime o f
Bishop Muzorewa. Referring to this
vote, Robinson charged that the
“ U.S. was sliding towards support
of the internal settlement. I f Carter
heeds that advice, he is not going
back to the White House in 1980.”
Mayor Hatcher made the all impor
tant point that Black Americans can
make a difference in shaping U.S.
African policy.
TransA frica had joined forces
w ith the Washington O ffic e on
Africa to head a “ retain sanctions”
campaign directed at church, union,
liberal and civil rights constituencies.
The idea was to explain the short
comings o f the so-called elections
recently held in Rhodesia. The argu
ment the other side had been making
was that now that Zimbabweans of
all races had “ freely elected a
government o f their choice," we
should recognize that government
and support it.
Andrew Young, the U.S. A m
bassador to the UN and one o f the
student? Then, after much confu
sion, embarassment and specula
tion, the ru n o ff is not even held
after all? It is hard to believe that
the people in charge at W ilson
could be so inept that they would
miss the rule clearly stating a Prin
cess w ill be chosen solely on her
having the most votes. There could
be something more to it than
disorganization . . . only a very small
percentage o f Wilson students are
black.
“ To charge that bias exists within
the Rose Festival, one is relying on
suspicion-based evidence. It's d if
ficult to get any concrete fact about
whether an organizaton is against
minorities or not. But there's enough
evidence to believe that a black Prin
cess will never be elected Queen un
der the present circumstances.
"Perhaps there is no validity in
bombarding this larger-than-all-of-us
organization with accusations. But
until a black queen is elected, there
will always be those who use ‘ Rose
Festival’ and ‘ racist’ in the same
breath.”
Hough’ s editorial does have one
error. The Rose Festival Queen is
selected from the slate of Princesses’ by
a panel o f judges. In much the same
tradition as the School District uses
to name its Citizen Advisory Com
mittee members — a board member
appointing a committee to choose
the members — the Rose Festival
Association has a member appoint
the judges who select the Queen. So,
although Hough had his facts a little
twisted, the results are the same.
School supports editor
Adams principal C o llin Morse
supported Hough, and the faculty
gave him a vote o f confidence.
Not the School Board
At the Monday night school board
meeting, board member W ally
Priestley moved that the board ask
Hannon to identify and substantiate
the numerous inaccurate statements
or to apologize to the student, the
school and the school district. The
motion met with silence from his
fellow board members and failed for
lack o f a second Priestley also asked
his fellow board members to reap
praise the school district’s role in the
Queen selection as again the request
was denied.
six speakers at the fundraising event
welcomed the campaign along with
several other administration officials
concerned about the potential for
disaster the Senate's sanctions end
ing vote portended. An end to sanc
tions, they concede, would hurt
U .S .-A frica relations and further
erode the U.S.’ s credibility in Africa.
These jo in t T ra n sA fric a —
Washington Office on Africa cam
paign apparently paid o ff hand
somely when a few days later
President Carter announced that, for
the time being anyway, sanctions
would stay in effect. He said the
Administration had determined that
so far there had been no real transfer
o f power as the conservatives claim.
As expected, Muzorewa roundly cri
ticized this decision.
The work of TransAfrica. Wash
ington Office on Africa and all other
groups that are concerned about the
Rhodesia dilemma is far from over.
Senate conservatives are still expect
ed to look for other ways to push for
a repeal o f sanctions. TransAfrica
will, therefore need a lot o f support.
It is a well known fact that in rep
resenting the interest o f Africa and
her people, TransAfrica is providing
a service on behalf o f Black
America, a most essential service.
Letters
to
T ra n sA frica
and
donations, when possible would
show them that they are not alone in
this war against a massive conserva
tive onslaught on our sisters’ and
brothers’ survival.
the parade, described the floats and
bands, and gave the interesting but
insignificant details, failed to in
troduce the Grand Marshall.
The M anure Car
Then, to the chagrin o f many pa
rade watchers, Aaron and his wife
were not up front where the Grand
Marshall belongs, but in the words
o f one bystander they were assigned
to “ the back of the bus.”
The lim ousine carrying the
Aaron’s followed a group o f horses
and the ever present “ Pooper
Scoper.” Not only did the Aaron’s
car have to stop repeatedly to allow
the removal o f horse feces from the
street, but they literally greeted the
cheering crowds w ithin the sight,
sound and smell of horse manure.
Hank Aaron Slighted
Hank Aaron, baseball’s all-time
home run king was invited to be
“ Grand M arshall" o f the Grand
Floral Parde, the high point o f the
annual Rose Festival.
Spectators who paid to watch the
pre-parade ceremonies and the
parade as it passed through the
Memorial Coliseum waited in an
ticipation for the introduction o f
Aaron and his wife. According to
some disappointed patrons, the in
troduction never came. The public
address announcer, who introduced
the many guests and participants in
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