Pag« 2 Portland Obaarvar Oacam bar 6. 1979
EDITORIAL/OPINION
Appoint a Black to PDC
and the Highway Commission on projects such
as the Union Avenue re-development a conflict
for two brothers who are also involved together
in a construction firm.
There are and has been many seeming con
flicts of interest in PDC and other agencies--but
it is only important when the man in question is
Black.
PDC is a very visible agency in Albina -- having
demolished much of what was once a residential
area. Probably no other neighborhood in the
state has been so consistently leveled by govern-
m ent--the Coliseum, Emanuel Hospital, the
Fremont Bridge, the freeway, the school district
administration building, etc., etc.
PDC also is the agency that - with Model
Cities and other federal funds - rehabilitated
many Albina homes. They sometimes allowed a
sloppy job, as well as coercing, abusing and
threatening residents.
PDC is still a dirty word w ith many Albina
residents who recall the abuses. Perhaps there
have been changes, but some of the reputation
remains.
A Black person on the Commission, one who
lives and works in the neighborhood and has
daily contact with those who will be most effec
ted by PDC policy and procedures, is long over
due.
Kenneth Dixson w ould serve w ell on the
Commission. He has no "conflict of interest".
Commissioner Jordan is right in promoting his
appointment.
Last week Commissioner Charles Jordan again
com plained that the Portland Developm ent
Commission has no Black representation. This
was triggered by Mayor Connie McCready s
refusal to appoint Jordan s nominee, Larry
Jackson, because she considers him to have a
conflict of interest. The Council appointed a
white.
Jordan then nominated Attorney Ken Dixson,
but that appointment has not yet been filled.
Do conflicts of interest apply only to Blacks?
Larry Jackson is involved in a company that
might bid on the citywide cable television fran
chise. a contract that has nothing to do with the
Portland Development Commission.
On the other hand, most of the PDC Com
missioners in recent years have been involved in
the building trade, banking interests or are
married to persons in these fields. These persons
are directly involved in trades that do business
with PDC.
For example, a controversy rose a couple of
years ago when the Tom Walsh Construction
Company received a Housing Authority of Port
land building contract although it was not the
lowest bidder. PDC had financed and developed
the property and sold it to the Housing
Authority. The award was based on what was
considered to be a better design, but the mem-
besrhip of Bob Walsh on PDC looked suspicious
to some.
Bother Tom is a member of the State Highway
Commission. Is the close relationshop of PDC
HUNGER
by N. Fungai Kumbula
A recent CBS evening news broad
cast focused on the world hunger
s itu a tio n . The statistics were
staggering: between a third and half
a b illion (300,000,000-500,000,000)
people c u rre n tly face starvation
around the w o rld — th a t’ s the
equivalent o f one and a half to two
and a half times the population o f
this entire country. There have been
cases o f starvation on a massive scale
in the past several years. Bangla
Desh, Pakistan, India, Ethiopia and
the Sahel region o f West Africa im
mediately come to mind.
The Ethiopian drought o f 1973 so
enraged the Ethiopian students they
ended up overthrowing their govern
ment. Then Emperor Haile Selassie
I, Elect o f God, King o f Kings, Lion
o f Judah, had run the country as a
fiefdotn for fifty-eight years (1916
1974). His rule was unquestioned
and as far as he could recall, there
had never even been the slightest
challenge to his authority. He had
become something o f a demi-god.
W ith the d ro ug ht o f 1973,
however, came a very abrupt change.
About a m illion Ethiopians are said
to have perished. Instead o f in fo r
ming the world and seeking inter
n atio na l assistance, the Selassie
government sought to keep the world
from fin d in g o u t. Supposedly,
Selassie was too ashamed to let the
w orld know that his people were
starving. Consequently, by the time
the w orld found out and in te r
national aid begin to flow in, the
damage had already been done.
Enraged, the students took to the
streets in the most massive demon
stration the country had ever seen.
After several months o f ever larger
dem onstrations
and
bolder
challenges to Selassie’ s feudal rule,
the arm y stepped in and dumped
him. In one short week, he went
from the Conquering Lion o f Judah
to just a common prisoner. But, he
was so senile by this time -he was 0-
80-up — that u n til he died a few
months later he was unaward that he
was no longer the Emperor.
Back to the news broadcast: the
reasons given for this much suffering
were:political, “ guns before butter”
poor communications and so forth
and so on. The political reasons were
the most interesting: the broadcast
singled out Pakistan’ s development
o f a nuclear weapon while millions
o f Pakistanis were starving. Also
mentioned was Ethiopia where, ac
cording to the newscast, the food
was distributed only to those with
Soviet leanings.
What was interesting about this
newscast was not so much what it
said as what it left out. There was no
m ention, not even in passing o f
either Rhodesia, South Africa or the
United States o f America. Politics:
In Rhodesia’ s seven year guerrilla
war, starvation has come to be a
frequently employed tool.
The governm ent, firs t o f Ian
Smith and now o f Abel Muzorewa
has been known to burn people’ s
crops and destroy their livestock if
they are suspected o f aiding the
guerrillas. Once self su fficien t in
terms o f food, for the first time this
year, the people are worried about
starvation all because o f government
interference. Smith and Muzorewa
cannot win the war so they take it out
on the civilians. And Muzorewa is
still a practising bishop!
As i f th a t’ s not bad enough,
M uzorewa has been sending his
planes into Mozambique and Zam
bia blowing up vital communications
facilities and food producing farms.
This has forced Zambia into depen
dence on Rhodesia and has given
Muzorewa a stranglehold on Zam
bia. He is therefore applying
pressure on Zambia’s president Ken
neth Kaunda to stop supporting the
Patriotic Front guerrillas or he will
starve Zambia to death. He is trying
to do the same in M ozam bique.
M illions o f fellow Africans are in
dire danger o f starvation and it’ s all
thanks to the good bishop.
The omission o f South A frica is
even more curious and more
distressing. One o f every two Black
children born in the homelands dies
before the age o f five due to
kwashiokor (malnutrition). The ones
who survive are generally scarred for
life and all because o f South A frica ’ s
system o f apartheid. A t the same
time, South A frica’s whites enjoy the
highest standard o f living anywhere
in the world (except maybe Liechen-
stein) o ff the exploitation o f those
same Africans. Somehow CBS did
not see fit to mention this.
In the good old U.S. o f A. there
were impassioned pleas fo r an in
crease in defense spending recently
while there were calls fo r cuts in
every other sector. So defense spend
ing went up again while the number
o f people sliding below the poverty
datum line increased. A lm ost
everyday one reads distressing stories
about the plight o f sharecroppers in
the South, old folks living on dog
food, old folks and poor families in
the Black neighborhoods having
th e ir u tilitie s turned o f f fo r non
payment o f bills and other families
being thrown o ff the welfare rolls.
As one speaker on a streetcorner put
it: “ It used to be ‘Two chickens in
every pot and tw o cars in every
garage.’ Now it might as well be:
‘Two M-16s on every porch and two
tanks in every driveway’ .” We might
starve but we w ill be ready!
Fungai Kumbala can be heard
Fridays on K O A P -T V on A r t
Alexander's show, " T C B ” . Kum-
bale's segm ent, “ On A fric a " w ill
be aired at 7:00 p.m .
The untold Mississippi story
By Norman Hill
Executive Director
A. Phillip Randotph Institute
Cawthorne explores boundary changes
(Continued from page I col. 6)
school is poor. You can never have
‘ volunteerism ’ when parents are
forced to move th eir children
because they d o n 't get q u a lity
education. This is intolerable.
“ When every Black ch ild is
assigned to a desegregated school --
and I ’m not tied to the 50-50 ratio --
and can move to other schools for
special programs, then this is what I
mean when 1 say ‘ voluntary’ .”
The new desegregated school w ill
be designed to serve the children who
reside in the attendance area, but will
be open to any white child who wants
to attend on the basis o f space
available. The ECE four and five
year old classes should serve the
children living in the attendance area
and in the cluster. ‘ ‘ I believe there
are white families who would tran
sfer their children in order to have an
integrated experience, providing the
program is good.”
The achievement level o f the
A lb in a schools must be raised.
‘ ‘ Steve Huel and I have discussed this
in the Board's curriculum and in
struction comm ittee and are
designing a process so we can look at
what is happening in those schools.
The A lb in a schools s till rank in
achievement tests at or near the bot
tom o f the district. I don’t accept the
district's usual explanation that this
is because o f the socio-economic
level.”
“ Sarah Newhall and I are starting
a series o f meetings with parents and
w ith s ta ff to fin d out why Black
students are d is p ro p o rtio n a te ly
suspended and expelled. Then we
w ill determine what policy changes
need to be made.”
Regarding the two plans submitted
by the desegregation/integration
committee o f which he is a member,
Cawthorne said, “ Working under a
very re strictive tim e fram e, the
desegregation integration committee
work cannot be taken as anything
near a final product - it is not even
something agreed to by the commit
tee itself. We ‘ agreed’ to discuss it
with the community. If you look at it
as preliminary - as a process — it is
not too bad. It does present some o f
the issues that need to be discussed.”
The reaction o f the Black com
munity to the plans was swift, with
the Black U nited Front q u ickly
denouncing the plan.
“ I got the clear message not to
mess with Adams and 1 understand
that message. I would like for people
to push for a stronger program at
Adams. I have problems with it, but
I think it could be strengthened if the
students in the Adams feeder schools
were not recruited out at an early age
and not allowed to return.
“ We also got the message that we
can’ t make Boise an E arly
C hildhood Education Center. We
w ill have to talk to the Boise and
Adams communities to see what op
tions are available and what they
want to do.”
Cawthorne would like to see the
Black comm unity push for better
programs at Adams, Jefferson and
Grant. “ For the past fifteen years
Black people have gotten more
education; there are many younger
people with college degrees and good
positions. I would like to see them
get in and develop programs that
would put Black adults in to the
schools where they could have more
contact with youngsters in a way that
helps them academically.”
This would require the staffs in
these schools to relate to the stud
ents and depend on the community
for resources to upgrade the schools.
The administrators would have to be
more receptive to the community.
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O f all the Black p o litic a l gains
d urin g 1979, none was more
significant or more encouraging than
the little-noticed breakthrough in a
most unlikely state-Mississippi
Long regarded as one o f the few
remaining bastions o f racism, crude
conservatism and widespread pover
ty, Mississippi has finally embarked
on a kind o f political reformation.
The old tactic o f pitting poor Blacks
against poor whites has given way to
a new alliance o f m in o ritie s and
working people. As a result, the state
which gave 87 percent o f its votes to
Barry G oldwater in 1964, and 63
percent to George Wallace in 1968
has now elected W illiam Winter, a
racial moderate, as its new governor.
Black people, who voted in large
numbers, played a crucial role in
electing Winger, the same candidate
who was defeated twice abefore
because o f his so-called “ race-
m ixin g " views. But even more im
p o rta n t, Blacks scored tru ly im
pressive gains in the Mississippi State
Legislature.
Before this year’ s election, the
House o f Representatives, which has
122 seats, had only 4 Black members,
o nly 3 percent o f the to ta l. The
situation in the State Senate was
worse--only 1 Black member. And
this was in a state whose population
is 37 percent Black.
This year, however. Blacks elected
11 new state representatives fo r a
total o f 15, a threefold increase. The
results in the state senate elections
were somewhat disappointing, but
even there Blacks picked up an ad
ditional seat. While Blacks are still
seriously under-represented in the
Mississippi legislature, the victories
o f 1979 provide a solid foundation
for ruture progress. Moreover, this
year’ s successful campaigns taught
Black Mississippians several im por
tant lessons.
First, Black people learned once
again that their political strength is at
a peak only when they unite with
other groups. In many instances, the
new Black legislators won many
w hite votes, votes fro m w orking
people who realize that the basic
dividing line in America, and even in
M ississippi, is the economic line
rather than the color line. W hite
people voted for Black candidates
because those candidates were
pledged to support programs and
policies designed to benefit all
people, most especially lower-income
and w orking people. In short,
economic self-interest won out over
primitive racism.
Second, M ississippi elections
proved
that
massive
voter
reg istra tion and get-out-the-vote
drives in Black com m unities can
make the difference between victory
and defeat. In virtually every district
won by Black legislative candidates,
the Black turnout had increased sub
stantially over past elections. And it
was these new voters, many o f them
once too frightened to register, who
provided the margin o f victory for
Blacks.
F inally, when Black people are
co nfid en t o f their own p o litic a l
strength, as they were in Mississippi,
they can begin transforming even the
most backward and oppressive
governments. W ithout confidence
and hope, people become mired in
pessimism and apathy, both o f which
are powerful weapons in the hands
o f people who believe in the old
lin e ,"if you’ re Black, keep back.”
Perkins recruits for State Department
^Continued from Page 1 column 3)
well as with people who do not look
like themselves."
Dr. Perkins has already been in
Seattle and in Los Angeles and find
both cities ready and hospitable to
some o f his ideas for future contacts
with them. In Los Angeles, although
Mayor Tom Bradley had to be away
on another engagement, he had
made arrangements for Dr. Perkins
to "in te ra c t" with the Los Angeles
City Council.
" I found the Council receptive to
some ideas as to how we can help
African legislators-by bringing them
here, (to L .A .) to study American
practices.”
W ith all his travel and living in
such exotic lands as Taiwan where he
met and fell in love with his Chinese
wife, in Thailand where their elder
daughter was born, or in Japan
where the second daughter was born,
Perkins dreams (now and then) o f
living again in-Portland.
Dr. Perkins, during his brief o f
ficial visit to the city, was a house
guest in the home o f his long time
friends, M r. and M rs. W ilson C.
Walker.
Friends and members o f the Links,
Inc. were invited to meet and to " in
te ra c t” w ith D r. Perkins at the
ta lk e r
home
d u rin g
the
distinguished v is ito r's stay. The
Links Committee for International
Trends and Services were hostesses
for that evening event. Committee
L hairm an is M rs. Geraldine
L hristian. Link president is Mrs.
Cleinentyne Guy.
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