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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (March 16, 1983)
V M » *. í> lì I - f^nflj » Krs Frances Schoen-Xewepaper Roo» U n iv e rs ity e t Oregon L ib ra ry tu s rn e , Oregon 07403 LU School Board election Police brutality suit filed Below Pag«3 PORTLAND OBSERVER USPS 959 680-855 March 16, 1983 Volume XIII, Number 23 250 Per Copy < £ « r P iM a tin g Co . / « « Front pickets Turner by Lanlla Duke Grassroot News. N. H ' — Tuesday night, M arch IS , the Portland Chapter of the Black United Front (BUF) sponsored a march protesting Tina Turner, who has performed in apartheid South A fric a . Over 33 blacks and whites took part in this demonstration in front of the Starry Night nightclub at N W 6th and Burnside, where Ms. T urner was performing. Ronnie Herndon, co-chair of the B U F , explained the F ro nt's posi tion: "T in a Turner is unfortunately one o f the few black entertainers who have performed in South A f rica. in spite of the fact that broth ers and sisters who are suffering there have requested entertainers to stay out o f South Africa. The gov ernment uses the presence o f enter tainers to legitimize the oppression of black people. The United Nations has passed three or four resolutions asking artists not to go to South A f rica. Black leadership in this coun try has also made that request. H ow ever, T in a Turner and a few others have accepted this blood money from South A frica." The bottom line regarding any performer is money. I asked Hern don whether i f he were offered 150,000, w o uldn't he perform . " N o , I wouldn't. It's just like ask ing Jews to accept money for per forming in front of Hitler. At some point in time you have values which cannot be bought or sold. This is one of those situations." Herndon says his concerns are that performers get the message that, " I f you go to South Africa and lake part in the oppression o f our people, we are going to do every thing in our power to draw attention to that fact and encourage people not to support you artistically or culturally." However, the manager of Starry Night, Larry Hurwitz, sees it differ ently. " I don't think this march will do anything for anybody in South A fric a . It w ill not raise the con sciousness of people in Portland to the issues of South Africa. People in Portland already have their minds made up about South A fric a and this march w ill not decide any thing." Hurwitz was concerned about the peacefulness o f the demonstraton. But the night proved he had more trouble from an intoxicated patron than from the marchers outside The marchers' chants ranged from "You sold your soul for South A frican g o ld ," to " T in a Turner, stay out of South A frica." This was enough to turn away a few couples and one man stood outside trying to sell his tickets. " I didn't know she had performed in South Africa. I'm here to enjoy myself and I can't en joy myself knowing the person on the stage has perform ed in South Africa." Many patrons who were slopped going in either d id n 't care about Turner performing in South Africa or wouldn't have come if they knew about the dem onstration earlier. One marcher staled, "Black people got Tina Turner where she is today. If she was to go live in South Africu she couldn't walk down the street, let alone perform on stage. What she did is a blow to the brothers and sisters who are struggling over there, black people internationally, and brothers and sisters in the States.” Tina Turner did not make herself available for comment. At least she knows that some o f her people aren't too concerned about her "Rolling in the River." Fentress seeks new murder trial Spring la haral And Chela«« Stowers, 2. takes advantage of a sunny day to go for a ride. (Photo: Richard J. Brown) Corporations reconsider S. Africa by Carole Collins, Pacific News Service W A S H IN G T O N . D C . — Long relegated to the idealistic margins, the campaign for "divestm ent" in South Africa is gaining ground to day in the real world of U.S. high fi nance— for reasons which include sound business sense, as well as moral principles. For better than a decade, Amer ican critics of apartheid have been working to end U.S. corporate and investment links to South A frica, often to little effect. In the last 12 months more headway has been made than in the previous 12 years. The turnabout has come primarily because church and labor groups, community and anti-apart heid organizations, have united their somewhat disparate objectives around a common new strategy: using the tremendous weight of pub lic money to bring pressure on U.S. banks and corporations active in South Africa. The results have been impressive: •O n January 4, the Massachusetts legislature easily overrode outgoing governor Edward J. King’s veto to pass the strongest state pension fund divestment bill in the nation. Some $120 million invested in firms doing business in South Africa is at stake. •O ne week before, outgoing Michigan governor W illiam M illi ken signed into law a bill banning investment by state educational in stitutions in companies operating in South Africa. • In late October, conservative Grand Rapids, M ichigan— home Three School by Bob Lothian During their tenure on the Port land School Board, Steve Buel, Bill Scott and Forrest Rieke were at (he center of the stormy political battles — closure o f Adams and Jackson High Schools, firing o f superinten dent Blanchard, several boycotts or ganized by the Black United Front and the Tubman Middle School sit ing controversy— which shook Port land's sleepy school district to its foundations and sparked commu nity interest in education as never before. Buel is one o f the four board members— Buel, Herb Cawthorne, Wally Priestley and Sarah Newhall — who for the most part supported the Black United Front’ s efforts to redefine school desegregation and other educational issues important to the black community. Rieke and Scott were often on the opposite town to Gerald Ford and to many Dutch-Americans with church and ethnic ties to Afrikaaners—adopted a policy prohibiting the deposit of idle municipal funds in banks lend ing to South Africa, or to U.S. com panies doing business there. • Last June. Philadelphia became the first m ajor U .S . city to pass, with strong bipartisan support, a pension fund divestment bill. Soon after, W ilm ington, D e l., passed a similar b ill, and on January 4, Councilman John Ray introduced another in the nation’s capital. Increasingly, these developments dovetail with the concerns of some in the business world itself. A First N ational Bank o f Chicago stock holder, during the Bank's 1980 annual meeting, noted that some (Please turn io page 4 column I) This Thursday Robert W arren Fentress will be sentenced for a mur der he claims he did not com m it. Fentress, black, was convicted on February 4, 1983 o f the murder of Carolyn Frances Williams, white. The conviction, which took the all-white jury 214 days to determine, was based on little evidence— the testimony of a witness who did not see the murder and the conflicting testimony o f his "com m on-law w ife," Gilda Moffett. Fentress' attorney, W endell R. Binkland, will ask for a retrial based on new evidence— a witness who corroborates another who was never called to testify. The investigation that led from the report o f an injured woman at 6:45 a.m . on June 26, 1982, to Fentress’ tria l on January 24th, 1983, reveals many constitutional questions. Police officers arriving at the scene, NE Sacramento and Union, were told by the ambulance crew that they had found Ms. Williams dead, face down, with both arms under her, clutching her purse. Sev eral persons reportedly had been at the scene: a white man driving a small dark car who said he had tele- phoned the report; a black woman 30 to 40 years of age wearing a win ter coat; a black bus driver; a tall, thin black man driving a van; a young white man driving a Honda; a black man driving a gold Pontiac wearing a gold-colored shirt. The ambulance people and the police assumed Ms. Williams died of natural causes; the fact that she had been killed by a bullet to the head was discovered later by the coroner's office. On June 30th Robert Fentress learned that the police were seeking a person who was at the scene, driv ing a blue van. He called the Police Bureau and was interviewed in his home. Fentress told the police that he had been to Cleo’s and to an after- hours place with his girlfriend, G il da M o ffe tt, and they had driven down Union Avenue heading for breakfast at Lions. When he saw Ms. W illiam s on the sidewalk he parked on Sacramento. He spoke to the man who had called the police and remained on the scene until the body was removed. He said Ms. M o ffe tt remained in the car. They agreed that he was wearing black pants and a blue shirt; he provided Polaroid photographs of himself to aid the investigation. On July 7th, Fentress kept an ap pointment for another interview at the police station. He was informed that he was not under arrest and there was no intention of arresting him that day, only of obtaining in fo rm atio n on what he saw at the scene of the murder. Two days later the police detect ives discovered that Fentress was wanted on a 1977 fugitive warrant from Cook County, III., involving a murder investigation. At this point the police put a stakeout on Fen tress’ home on 7th Avenue and also discovered that Gilda M o ffett had an appointment with her parole o f ficer on that dale. As Fentress drove Ms. M o ffe tt to her appointm ent, police arrested him and took him to the booking facility. While the arrest and events that followed were taking place, police searched Fentress’ home and car and placed a wire tap in the house A gold Pontiac G T O was towed to the police garage and searched Gilda M o ffe tt was arrested and held for five hours. She stales that she was threatened with parole vio- (Please turn Io page I I column 1} oard members seek reelection "west side” o f the voting, repre senting the viewpoint of solid busi ness pragmatism and cost efficien cy. A ll three are up fo r reelection March 29, and (he outcome will in fluence whether the board continues its current trend away from activism toward moderation. Buel, a sixth-grade teacher and Southeast Portland resident, has been a consistent supporter o f the Black United Front in that organiza tion's quest to have the school sys tem accomodate the needs of black students. A characteristic stand was his dramatic walkout two years ago in protest of the board's attempt to appoint a non-board member as chairman o f a desegregation com mittee. Buel and Herb Cawthorne later wrote the desegregation plan which came out of this effort. An obvious m ajor question for the Board, Buel feels, is what to do about Jackson High. " It was closed totally unfairly," and should be re opened, he said. "Unemployment is bad enough; Portland doesn't need any more clo sures," he said, "and you're not go ing to hear me talking about cutting back on special programs." Buel feels the system could save money and maintain a quality pro gram through attrition— not filling vacated positions, and by shifting resources away from inefficient management back into the class room. "There's way too much mon ey in the middle management area, those people should be out teach ing," he said. Other priority issues, according to Buel. are working toward equity in allocating resources to elementary schools, drug and alcohol abuse. and school financing which spreads the tax burden more equitably. A nother concern is the mix o f technical and liberal arts education. " D o we leach literature or computer technology?” he asked. Buel feels that his strongest op ponent. Bill Panaretos, is running against his record o f support for black community issues. " H e came after me six months ago, and that makes a real statement as far as (he black community," he said. "W e 're like night and day; we’re absolutely different," said Panare tos, comparing himself to Buel. A banker who lives in the West Sylvan area. Panaretos said his race against Buel boils down to one word — "competence,” but slopped short of calling Buel incompetent. A competent board member, ac cording to Panaretos, is prepared for meetings, makes "decisive, ob jective decisions," and is articulate. "They should be talking about the goodness in the schools, not the badness," he said. The board's shift toward modera tion is a "positive change," accord ing to Panaretos, who said, " I would like to see that trend con tinue." Administration is the busi ness of the board, he said, not social activism. " I feel that the board of education should be like the board of a corporation." Regarding the confrontation be tween the board and the Black United Front, Panaretos said. " I don’ t think creating tension helped solve the problem." If a demonstra tion during a board meeting seemed likely, " I wouldn't tolerate i t . . . .1 am for peace and law and order, and firm negotiation,” he said. " I think Tubm an should be at B oise," he said, because from a "strictly dollars and cents" stand point, it would be too expensive to remodel Eliot. Keeping the budget in control is high on his list, and it would involve "selected cuts" and "possibly more closure of schools." Panaretos felt that the decision to close Jackson was made unfairly, but he is not in favor o f reopening now. " I don’t think the west side can support three high schools,” he said. Panaretos* experience includes membership on the School Closure Committee, the Citizens' Advisory Committee selection panel for Area I and 2 schools and the C itizens’ Budget Review Committee. He favors the closure of Jackson High becaue he contends there aren't enough students in the area to warrant keeping it open P o rt land's declining student population (Please turn to page U column /)
