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Ik d? Page 2 Portland Observer May 4, 1989 EDITORIAL CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL SAMSONS AND DELILA: SLAVERY IN GEORGIA by Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. To the shock and abhorrence of thousands of persons throughout the world, the unfolding situation in Waynbesboro and Louisville, Georgia where Sam sons and D elila Manufacturing Plants are located reveals working conditions resemble abject slavery. For the more than 650 workers, most of whom are African American women, the inhumane management practices by the owner, S.Lichtenburg and Company Inc., has led these workers to cry out for help. The headquarters and showroom of S. Lichtenburg and Company, Inc. are located on Filth Avenue in New York City. It isestimated that the total annuai sales of this company have now grown to over S27 million. Since 1965, this company has manufactured curtains and draperies at the Samsons and Delila plants located in rural Georgia. Not only are the working conditions intolerable, but racist policies are also commonplace when the management consistently promotes non-African American persons to the few highest paying jobs at the factories. In fact in Louisville, Georgia where the Delila plant is located, there is a Slave Market in the middle of the town which serves as a living monument to the era in which Africans were sold as chattel. Now the descendants of these African slaves are receiving slave-like treatment at the hands of up-South, modem slave masters. In response to the often brutal atrocities committed against any of these workers who would dare to speak out against the exploitation at the Samsons and Delila plants, the overwhelming majority of these workers recently defied the intimidation of the company by voting to unionize. The workers voted to join the amalgamated Clothing an Textile Workers Union (ACTWU). On January 19, 1988, they filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a union election. On April 15, 1988, workers at Samsons and Delila voted 413 to 185 to join the union. It was as great victory for the workers and for the trade union and human rights movement in this nation. Now over a year after that election the S. Lichtenburg and Company, Inc. refuses to recognize the union in violation of state and federal civil rights and labor laws. Georgia Congressman John Lewis, Michigan Congressman John Conyers and many other members of Congress have come forward to demand justice for the workers of Samsons and Delila. We in the church and civil rights community must not allow these workers to stand alone. No form of slavery and brutality should be tolerated. As we prepare to begin the 1990’s, the situation in Waynesboro and Louisville, Georgia demands a national outcry and outpouring of support and solidarity with our sisters and brothers at the Samsons and Delila plants. We should join with the Amalgamated Clothing and Testile Workers Union in efforts to dismantle the drapes and curtains that conceal the racism and exploitation at these slave plantation plants in Georgia. A victory for these workers will be a victory for all who struggle for justice, freedom and human dignity. ART, YOUNG PEOPLE AND BUSINESS Submitted b) Tom tlumpson The recent flap about spending money for art instead of jail space in prisons has raised questions about when art is appropriate in public places and when it is not. Cascade Business Center thinks we have a place where art, and the kids who make it, have a place. The halls of Cascade Business Center Corporation the small business incubator on Van couver Avenue is one of those places. 1 was looking at our high ceiling, sunlit hall one day and thinking that it would be a great place for art and for an interior designed project. I had also been looking for a way to involve the youth of the neighborhood in our busi ness enterprise center. The hall, the art, the youth all sort of came together and presto! we had an idea. One call to Sherry Brockman, art teachers at Jef ferson High School and we had our selves a project! Ms. Brockman jumped at the chance to do an interior design project with her art students. She also volunteered to provide artwork for our offices on a rotating display basis. It’s good too. And believe me I had misgiv ings. But the students; talents arc de serving of the best places in town for display. We talked to Mr. David fox of a firm called Zcphyrsmith which specializes in interior design of large spaces. They volunteered to provide Sherry with ideas on hanging the design work. Pacific Development Corporation, has provided funds to Cascade for im provements to the building to attract businesses. I called Randis Brewer, Mar keting Director at Pacific, and asked her if she thought this m ight be a worthy use of Pacific’s generous contributions. She said it sounded like a great way to attract business and link the community through the schools into our center. On May 5th, the tiny model which was built by the art students as part of the design process will be transformed into interior art on a much larger scale, Cascade is providing the materials to hang the art work, the pizza and the pop. Sherry and here Jefferson Students will provide the creativity and the la bor. It should be a lot of fun. Drop by and see the project in creation or come later and gaze upon the finished prod uct. This is a good example how busi ness, our schools, and our community can get together for the benefit of all. We look forward to fostering more partnerships like this. Unfortunately, the story has a downside. They are cutting back the art program at Jeffer son so these kinds of projects may be as hard to come by as art in jails. It’s too bad. We havejustdiscovcredhowmuch of an asset the Jefferson program can be to us. ERVER P O R T IA OREGON’S OLDEST AFRICAN-AMERICAN PUBLICATION Established in 1970 L e o n H a rris/G e ne ral Manager Alfred L. Henderson/Pubiisher Gary Ann Garnett Joyce Washington Business Manager Sales/Marketing Director PORTLAND OBSERVER is published weekly by Exie Publishing Company, Inc. 525 N.E. Killingsworth St. Portland, Oregon 97211 P O. Box 3137 / O P IN IO N BENNETT’S DC DRUG WAR MISSES THE POINT Recently President Bush’s National Drug Czar, William Bennett, an nounced a 100 million dollar multi-year program to rid the nation’s capital of the drug trade. The struggle to control the lucrative profits from drugs has erupted into open warfare in Washington, D.C. which has now emerged as the new murder capital of America. Embarasscd by the sprectre of the capital to the free world drowning in drugs and overwhelmed by crime and violence, the Bush administration has sent forth its shining white knight, William Bennett to save the day. Bennett’s solution - hire massive numbers of new police officers, build more prisons and lock up hundreds, even thousand o f n e n n le if n e e d h e in improve the image of the nation’s capital. No doubt this approach meets with the approval of nervous and anxious federal officials who don t want the word out that the watchdog of democracy in the world cannot safeguard the freedom of its own citizens in its own capital. Ordinary citizens in the affected neighborhoods are also prone to see any program that can reduce the terror in their lives as worthy of consideration. All of us must certainly be concerned with stopping the scourge ol drugs in Washington, D.C. and around the country. Cocaine, crack and heroine are ripping apart the fabric of our communities. The greatest damage is being done in Black and Latino neighborhoods. We should want and must have the full and complete enforcement of the law to prosecute those who are producing, peddling and profiting from drugs in our neighborhoods. To sec more police, more prisons and more prisoners alone as the solution misses the point. According to data compiled by the American Friends Services Commit tee, in the last ten years the population in the United States increased by 10%. However the prison population during this same period however, more than doubled. During a decade which has been hailed as the greatest period of uninterrupted prosperity in American history, America also experienced a boom in new prisoners and new prisons. Why has there been such a dramatic explosion of drug use, crime and violence? The Reagan era produced prosperity for some and misery, poverty and prisons for large numbers of growing economic underclass in America. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. No matter how much policy-makers, law enforcement officials and the public at large try to ignore it, poverty breeds crime and violence. Cut of for diminish, legitimate opportunities lor people to grow and develop and people will find alternative to grasp tor the “ good life” . Lawrence W. Sherman of the Crime Control Institute recently made the following observation about the crisis in Washington D.C. "First the affluent people who buy the drugs help to create the huge demand lor crack. Second, there is such inequality that those in the underclass view selling drugs as the only way to success.” . America can build as many prisons as its “ prosperity” can alford and lock-up countless numbers of new prisoners, but until the question of meeting the needs of the dispossessed is addressed, America will be unable to build enough prisons to contain the multitude that arc being criminalized by the nation’s policies of neglect. All of us must come to understand that only through a equitable sharing of the wealth, resources and access to opportunity can we genuinely create a safe and just society. Anything else will simply miss the point. AMERICA GOES WILDING The racial hatred that spews forth from every institution is the fuel that drives America— backward. Everywhere we hear that Black people, in particular young African American men, are less-lhan-human savages. Listen to what is being said about Harlem teenagers who arc being questioned regarding the rape and beating of the woman jogger in New York City’s Central Park last week. “I don’t know if it was out of control for these types of kids,” said the chief prosecutor for the Family Court Division ol the city’s Law Department. “ I think that kids like this,: he said, ;givcn what I would call their predatory nature, are people who, given the chance, would do something like this again. There really isn’t any way to control them— at least we haven’t found it in the juvenile justice system.” Something very terrible happened in Central Park that night. But we cannot let the senstionalizing salesmanship of the mass media and the pious hypocrisy of the politicians trick us into using our outrage at the de humanization of this young woman as an excuse to dehumanize OTHER HUMAN BEINGS who because they arc Black— arc violated and brutalized every day of their lives. This is not meant to condone in any way what happened on that terrible, ugly night. But if we want to do something about it, we need to understand how it is that people— young people like our children, like my children come to prey on other people. How is it that we as a society, this country called America, is producing young people who go “wilding”? Who brutalize and terrorize to gel their kicks? or to prove their manhood.’ I don’t believe we can begin to address those questions until we understand that it is not only young Black Men who go wilding. They are, in fact, usually the victims of the institutionalized wilding of the racist marauders. This is a wilding society. And wilding is a respectable activity— when it is conducted by the while corporate owners of America. W.E.B. DuBois has taught us that racism isn’t about having something bad happen to you every day, or every week. Racism is living with the possibility that something bad could happen to you just because you arc Black—any time. Our young men are being driven crazy with rage and fear by that knowledge. Black and Latino young people have virtually no job prospects while financial assistance for higher education is being cut to the bonc.People don’t have homes to live in and have been shoved out onto the streets; thousands arc dying of AIDS while diseases like tuberculosis— long be lieved to be eradicated— arc claiming new victims at a terrifying rate. We must root out the bi-partisan corrupters who thrive personally and politically on decadence and who hypocritically scream bloody murder when their own policies come back to haunt them. Our lives, and the lives of our children and grandchildren, arc what’s at stake. Portland, Oregon 97208 (503) 288-0033 (Office) Deadlines for all submitted materials: Articles: Monday, 5 p.m., Ads: Tuesday, 5 p.m. The PORTLAND OBSERVER wstcomss freelance submissions. Msnuscrsits and photographs should be dearly labeled and will be returned it accompanied by a sett-addressed envelope All created designed display ads become the sole property 0» the newspaper and can not be used In other publications or personal usage, without the written consent ol the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition ol such ad. 1989 PORTLAND OBSERVER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE O R IN PART W ITHOUT PERM ISSION IS PROHIBITED. Subscriptions: $20.00 pw v— i In Ih * Tri-County area L Tho PORTLAND OBSERVER Orogon « oldest Alrican American Publication- n a member ol The National Newspaper Association - Founded in 1885, The Oregon Newspaper Publisher« Association, and The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publahers. Inc.. New Vorti CALL PORTLAND OBSERVER FAX # 503)288-0015 “ THE EDUCA TIONAL UNDER CLASS” guages. Approximately 80 percent of all ap plicants interviewed by Motorola, Inc., fail an entry-level examination which requires seventh grade English. Dr. Manning Marable Alone The Thousands of people are applying for Culvr Line jobs as cashiers and bank tellers who In the 1980s, sociologists have popu cannot do simple arithmetic. Thou larized a new term which describes the sands of high school students are un permanent poverty of millions of poorly able to read the simplest instructions. trained and uneducated residents of the Meanwhile, the new jobs generated by urban ghetto - the “ underclass.” This high technology increasingly demand terminology suggests that millions of the ability to operate computers and to poor people, mostly Blacks and Lati analyze complex data. The gap is stead nos, are so thoroughly marginalized by ily growing between the technical quali the lack o f , decent schools, health care fications and academic background and other institutions that they become necessary for such jobs, and the actual virtually irrelevant to the process of level of abilities for millions in the educational underclass. production. Many exist at minimum Part of the solution would appear to wages or less, or via semilegal or extra legal means, such as hustling, drugs and be the recruitment and retention of highly petty crime. I have a number of reser motivated and excellent teachers in the vations about the term “ underclass” , public school systems, especially in the in part, because it tends to underesti sciences and mathematics. One fourth mate the centrality and utility of racism of all public school instructors will re in perpetuating empoverished condi tire in the next 15 years, and a high percentage of younger teachers who are tions for people of color. If an economic “ underclass” does discouraged by low pay and poor work exist, its perpetuation and expansion ing conditions will quit. It won ’ t be long before a new form of are largely guaranteed by the tragic situation in our public schools. At a “ segregation” will exist to threaten the lime when oureconomy is demanding a prospects of millions of Black youth. higher level of technical ability, mathe There won’t be the Jim Crow signs of matic and scientific skills for the labor “ white” and “ colored” to preserve force, fewer young people are being job discrimination. Instead, the new academically prepared. The Wall Street segregation of the twenty first century Journal recently documented a scries of could be the division between the edu disturbing facts about the educational cated “ haves” and the uneducated “ have nots.” Those who lack scientific, underclass. In many states, the drop out rate for mathematical and computer skills are nonwhite high school students 50 per already disproportionately nonwhite. cent. Across the United States, 3,800 The struggle for expanded federal ex teenagers drop out of school every day. penditures for student grants and im And of those students who stay in schools, proved public schools is directly linked millionsdon’t receive any serious train to the economic future of Black Amer ing in algebra, geometry, biology, English ica. composition, history or foreign lan- PERSPECTIVES BLACK GENIUS- WHITE COVER PART IV By McKinley Burt The beauty, the cultural significance, and the wisdom of African literature has scarcely been touched in my writings here. Throughout the ages it has been immense, so I continue in hope that many readers will follow up these leads. May they find new reassurances of our genius and, also, read the old classics from a new perspective that is without their white cover. We must be able to answer readily such ‘put downs’ as found in M ontet, E ternal Egypt (P.220)! “ Egyptian literature should not be made to appear insignificant though being compared to G reek literature. Egypt had no writers to equal Hom er, P indar Sophocles or Herodotus. ..and the style bare....no flow of inspiration,” What a horrible, ugly aspersion to be cast by a noted historian who knew better, but it is quite ‘typical’. Just last week I cited the Famous white covers who acknowledged the influence of two great African thinkers, Esop (Esop’s Fables), and Lokm an (the w riter honored by M oham m ed The Prophet). These noted covers ranged from Aristotle and Socrates to Julius Caesar and Shakespeare. As we continue here, remember the quote from Encylopedia Britannica(1958 ed.,vol.l p.131); “ It was not until the gods of Egypt (and the Sudan) were accepted by the G reeks that there appears any ceremony which can truly be called dramatic.” Well, Well, Well! Keeping that in mind, we may refer to two great African poets and dramatists who have had a tremendous influence upon the w orlds’ literature and philosophy. The first is P indar, bom in 522 BC in Africa near the city of Thebes, a place that Homer described as one of tlx.' seven wonders of the ancient world. Pindar’s writings and style had great influence upon the Greeks who had come to Africa for schooling-and who took their learning home to set up schools of their own. Pindar rejected all that was crude and immoral in their primitive ideas about God and Man, introducing the idea that m an was the sinner (see p.79 .Soper, The Religions of Mankind). Our second African scholar and playwright is Terence at the time of Roman hegemony over Egypt and the Sudan.His writings not only had great influence during this early era, but translations were brought to Renaissance Europe by the culture-bearing M oors from North Africa (along with science and mathematics). His works were crucial to this period of cultural enlightenment which brought Europe out of its D ark Ages. In 1564 Terence’s text was listed in curricula for England’s schools (as was the work of Esop. T.W. Baldwin of the University of Illinois (1947) tells us that the two main European playwrights who were exposed to and influenced by Terence were” Shakespeare and Moliere” , and that four Shakespearen plays were influenced by his works: As you like it, Love’s L abor Lost, The M erry Wives of W indsor, and Othello. Again, did they tell you that in school? Dr. Edward L. Jones of the University of Washington,a Black Scholar whose articles have been published in the Portland Oregonian, has to say in his book Profiles In African Heritage. “ Now is the time for Black scholars, playwrights, actors and literary critics to start their own research and’write their own books about Terence.” In a lighter vein, we quote this interesting statement found next to a photograph of an Egyptian wall painting. (p.144, Ancient Egypt, Time-Life Books): Comic strip art was popular in the New Kingdom and included this whimsical papyrus intended as a hum orous com m entary on the breakdowm in the old social order....art, once reserved mainly for religious purposes, came to be used also as an instrum ent of social protest.” Well, Well, 4000 years before Doonesbury! A C H IE V E R S Support O ur Advertisers! Say You Saw It In The PortlandObserver!