January 24, 1990
Portland Obacrvrr ■ Page 3
Mark and Ramon: True Friends
To Your Good Health IV:
More From
African-Americans
by Professor McKinley Burt
Every so often. I ’m able to write a
column that really gets your attention and
so it was last week when I described my
social security-financed Medical Educa
tion projects (the lean machine—Tri-Met
and Pay Phone). It was not only the grass
roots segment of the population that re
sponded, but two industries and a founda
tion made inquiry, I expressed my appre
ciation to all for their interest, but was
quick to point out that, not being naive, I
was quite cognizant that with a small staff
(including a stenographer and a liaison
person to interface the infrastructure), I
could easily double or triple my produc
tion. Particularly, feedback could be imple
mented in terms o f monitoring and main
taining statistics.
The declining health conditions in this
country, not only form inoritiesbutforpoor
people in general, have provoked alarums
in many areas. In October Meharry M edi
cal College in Nashville, Term, hosted a
national conference focused on the grow
ing threats to the health status of low-
income Americans. On Dec. 6th a national
satellite teleconference on “ The State of
Black Health Care” downlinked to local
town hall enclaves across the country, in
cluding Portland. Issues addressed have
ranged from the need for health education,
greatly disproportionate infections of cer
tain types to closing of urban (and rural)
hospitals and the lack of health insurance.
But I would also give a great deal of credit
to all those caregivers from the communi
ties who have arisen to man the barricades.
Locally, and among others, let me cite Ms.
Mariah Taylor of the North Portland Nurse
Practitioner Clinic and Dr. Jewell L.
Crawford, Family Physician.
A particular area of concern (and hope)
to me has been that great proportion of
Black high school graduates—and drop-
outs-w ho in no way will have the opportu
nity to acquire a college education. But
when you examine the backgrounds of those
Black Inventors I write about-m ost of
whom had equivalent, or less preparation—
it becomes apparent that since genes don’t
change in two generations, these contem
porary youths are capable of the same level
of contribution to industry and technology.
What is needed is intensive escalation of
' skills in reading, writing and comprehen-
- sion; that and a special type of orientation
that involves an understanding o f the in fra
s tru c tu re —what it is and how you relate to
it. For 6,000 years the world’s great innova
tors and engineers have come from these
ranks, with or without going into a more
formal structure. Toward designing a pro
gram to this end I have been writing and
talking to industry, government agencies
and congressional committees. By 1991 I
should have something going; A college
component follows on.
Let me cite this achievement by a Black
high school graduate:
This is an autobioeraphy o f an ex
traordinary Black man who struggled,
against overwhelming odds and achieved
international recognition in a highly
sophisticated fie ld in which he had no
formal education or certification. It is
also the fascinating story o f the genesis
o f much o f modern cardiac surgery and
o f crucial investigations into the nature
o f shock. It is, finally an account o f
Alfred Blalock’s discoveries and contri
butions and his methods o f training
surgeons.
Vivien T. Thomas, a hieh school
eraduate. was awarded an honorary
doctorate by the Johns Hopkins Univer
sity and was made a member o f the
medical schoolfaculty in recognition o f
his contributions to the development o f
cardiovascular surgery and to the edu
cation o f young surgeons.
Over the years at Vanderbilt and
particularly at Hopkins, Thomas helped
to train a group o f surgeons, including
Henry Bahnson, DentonCooley, Rollins
Hanlon, M ark Ravitch, and David Sa-
biston, who are currently leaders in the
American surgical community.
Trained in laboratory techniques
by Alfred Blalock and Joseph W. Beard,
Thomas remained Blalock's principal
technician and laboratory chief fo r the
rest o f Blalock's distinguished career.
Thomas very rapidly learned to operate,
to do chemical determinations, and to
carry out physiologic studies. He be
came a phenomenal operative techni
cian, able to do complicated experimen
tal cardiac operations totally unassisted
and to devise new ones. Pioneering
Research in Sureical Schock and Car
diovascular Surgery is o f value to car
diac surgeons, Surgical researchers and
technicians, and scholars interested in
Organizing Meeting For City-
Wide Coalition For Martin
Luther King, Jr. Blvd.
Tuesday, January 30, 7 p.m., King
Neighborhood Facility, 4815 NE 7th
You are invited to send a representa
tive to discuss establishing a city-wide
coalition to defend Martin Luther King
Boulevard.
Whether or not your organization would
join such a coalition, please come to share
your thoughts and plans for fighting the city
ballot measure, which would revert MLK
Boulevard to Union Avenue.
Many major civic leaders have spoken
out in recent days in support of MLK
Boulevard, from themayor, to the Chamber
of Commerce, to the Oregonian, to Black
community leaders. But the strength of the
petition drive, the outcome of initial (unsci-
entific)polls, and the San Diegoexperience
(which reversed an MLK Boulevard nam
ing by 70%) suggest that we’ll need an all-
out campaign to defeat the ballot measure
on May 15th.
No matter what we think of the city
council process in naming Martin Luther
King Boulevard, a referendum vote against
it will signal rejection of an African-Ameri
can martyr and a national hero. It will be
taken as an insult in the Black community.
It will send a message o f growing racism in
the City of Roses.
We hope you will join us in taking the
high road, in defending the memory and
dream of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. Let us take this opportunity to
spread the word of human dignity, social
justice and all that Dr. King stood for. Let
us show ourselves and the nation that Port
land is proud of Martin Luther King.
“ I have the audacity to believe that
people everywhere can have three meals a
day for their bodies, education and culture
for their minds, and dignity, equality and
freedom for their spirits.” Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.
the history o f medicine, the history o f
science, American and Black Studies.
$24.95. December 1985.
O f course we are all not this good, but
oh so many could be employed at far above
the minimum wage and MacDonalds level
that has been forecast for them. Let us move
on to our medical contributor of the week:
Dr. Percy L. Julian (1899-1970):
M illions o f sufferers fro m Arthritis, a
crippling disease, owe their comfort
and health to the "soybean chem ist"
who brought the healing drug cortisone
within their reach. His outstanding con
tributions to the fie ld o f organic chem
istry include the synthesis o f the drug
physostigmine and the extraction o f
important hormones from the soya bean.
The grandson o f a form er slave,
Percy Julian was bom on April 11,
1899. He was one o f a fam ily o f six
children whose father, James Sumner
Julian, was a railway mail clerk. That a
good education was part o f the Julian
fam ily tradition is shown by thefact that
his two brothers went on to become
physicians and his three sisters all won
m aster's degrees.
Louis Haber;
Black Pioneers o f Science
Dr. Julian’s high school training (Ala
bama State Normal School for Negroes)
was so bad that when he was admitted to
DePauw University in Indiana it was as a
subfreshm an. However, when he gradu
ated four years later in 1920 he was Phi Beta
Kappa and class valedictorian. After re
fusal at top white graduate schools he taught
chemistry at Fisks University fortw o years.
A fellowship to Harvard launched his great
career and from there he went on to a Ph.D.
in Vienna.
After winning accolades from leading
scientists all over the world for his work in
synthesizing the healing drugs found in
plants, America denied him a position of
professor as head o f a chemistry depart
ment (DePauw). He was given employment
at the Glidden Paint Company where over
the years he developed almost as many
useful chemical and medicinal processes as
the renown Dr. George Washington Carver.
As with all the great Black scientists we
must always wonder how much more this
great genius could have contributed. Even
so he found much time and energy to sup
port the Dr. Martin Luther King from the
beginning.
High school students who are
Interested In applying for $1,000
college scholarships should request
applications by March 16,1990 for
Educational
Communications
Scholarship Foundation, 721 N.
McKinley Road, Lake Forest, Illi
nois 60045. To receive an applica
tion, students should send a note
stating their name, address, city,
state and zip code, approximate
grade point average and year of
graduation. Sixty-five winners will
be selected on the basis of aca
demic performance, involvement
in extra-curricular activities and
need for financial aid.
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Portland Observer
PORTLRSb^ERVER
I
Mark may have been there without his
“ visionary friend,” but he was there in
heart. Just like Mark has been there for
Ram os’ family and for him at his bedside.
You can find Mark at the University's
Hospital on a regular basis or whenever the
team is not on the road.
Wise beyond his twenty iour years,
Mark Bryant has come advice cor procras
tinators or people whomakeexc uses for not
taking care of business when they are sup
pose too, especially young people.
“ I had to sit down and reflect on my
life after this incident,” he said. “ I said
that I ’m just going to keep working hard
and make sure that I do the best I can all the
time. People put off until tomorrow what
they can do today. I try to take care of, as
much as possible, business today because I
might not have the opportunity tomorrow."
S hort Shakes: Word from my sources
in New York suggest that the knicks are
very unhappy with the play o f point guard
Mark Jackson. Rod Strickland is playing
real tough this season. Jackson, apparently,
is not a big fan of coach Stu Jackson.
Seattle needs a point guard and so does
Charlotte. My source suggest that they
would like to resolve the tension soon. You
heard it here first...
Portland O bserver!
'The Eyes and Ears o f the Community"
Leon Harrla/Goneral Managor
Back in college, both had fantasized
about competing against each other in the
NBA, but playing on the same team was
beyond any expectations. Ramos signed as
a free agent with the Blazers and in many
ways, Bryant was mostly responsible for
him wanting to come to Oregon. He had
received a taste of the Pacific Northwest
when him college team participated in the
Final Four (Seattle - 1988).
Once Robert Reid was waived by the
Blazers, both men realized that they were
teammates again. The uncertainty of cuts
and trades were gone for the moment. The
12 man roster was finally settled. Again,
thetw oofthem startedtodream . Dreaming
about their return to the New Jersey Mead-
owland, the place where everything started
and where they are heros to many. Mark
and the Blazers made the trip January 14th.
Ramon did not. The dream of a homecom
ing was deferred.
It seemed like a lot of people were
looking forward to both of us coming back
to New Jersey together,” said Bryant.
“ Everyone was asking about bim and many
people sent their blessings or prayers to
him. It was real hard going back there by
myself.”
' SCHOLARSHIP
DEADLINE
CREED OF THE BLACK PRESS
Allrod L. HendareotVPubUsher
By UUytses Tucker, Jr.
The streets of South Orange, New Jer
sey have produced a variety o f lifestylea,
many of them undesirable in the eyea o f the
law. For a young man, Mark Bryant, power
forward/Trailblazers, has seen a lot of life.
He talks about how people in his old neigh
borhood and family fell victims of crime,
drugs, and lost hope or stopped chasing
their dreams. Bryant knows adversity and
pain. He admits that learning from other
mistakes helped to elevate him to where he
is today, a strong person.
Despite his experiences growing up in
the urban jungle, Bryant said that nothing
compares to the pain he felt when he learned
that Ramon Ramos, his longtime friend and
college teammate at Seton Hall, had been
critically injuried in a car accident
“ There’s nothing that can compare
with the hurt,” he said. * ‘This is by far the
greatest tragedy ever in my life. You never
know what’s going to happen with your
life. It can be very short. You just never
know when your card is going to come up.
Things are going real good for Ramon.
H e’s responding well to treatment and the
doctors are real up on him. Actually, he
really surprised all of the doctors. Ramon
is a big strong fellow. He will be a lrig h t"
Ramos remains in serious condition
but he has improved slightly and his coma
is lightening. According to neurosurgeons,
Ramos has a 75 percent chance o f regaining
awareness over the next two months. If he
does that, he has another 75 percent chance
to live independently. It is only remotely
possible that he will return to the NBA. He
remains unaware of his environment, but
showing an increasing level o f function.
He is still unable to respond to verbal
commands and does not actively interact
with anyone.
This past summer, Bryant and Ramos
went head to head for the final spot on the
Blazer roster. The battles were classic and
their friendship cemented by the intense
competition. Both understood that basket
ball is a business. So, neither took it
personal. They spent large amounts of time
together, ate together, and more impor
tantly, they dreamed together.
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