Page 2 -T h e Portland Observer - December 26,1990
R S
...And Justice For All
by Angelique Sanders
Mama, You
Ought to See
All the Xmas
Trees Out
Here!
J J
/ \
lhe lawns stay green all
JL
year.” That’ s what I wrote
home wr n I first came to the Pacific
North-.
?nage high school drop
out fro
ciiis, M issouri, the adven
ture ha.l begun
w orking as a track
n hand for the South
ern Pacific Railroad. High up in the
W illam ette National Forest above Oak
Ridge or Eugene, the m ile post read
” 8;' ’ : lies • San Fransisco.” (Time:
Late 1930’ s).
(.)!'
the “ Perspectives” col
umn is -.’i out in the “ boonies” (boon-
docks This period was a prelude to the
acUvit ■ 1 described in the previous co l
umns. A t ‘home’ one could work across
the M ississippi River in Decatur, Illino is
during summer school vacation for $18 a
five and a half day week on the Wabash
Railroad - w hile if you shipped out to
Oregon you could make the fantastic
sum o f $32 a week. And during the
want« - i . r . el snow drifts, twenty-
hour
e you sending home
as mu«.h a> $500 in a month.
Y o u would have to emerge from a
trap door in the ro o f o f the little cabins
furnished for quarters - coal stoves to
cook on and huge tin tubs for baths and
washing. The ice boxes were fashioned
to the porches o f the cabins w ith log
chains - but, s till, hungry bears would
sometimes come up at night, rip them
loosr
C. ... -y the works down into the
canyon to break open and feast. A t the
end o f a shift o f clearing snow from the
switches o f a ‘house track’ it could be
d iffic u lt getting home. W alking on top
o f the drifts you had to sweep newly-
fallen snow from the roof in order to find
the trap door.
W orking on the track in winter was
a very hazardous a ctivity, for falling
snow m uffles almost all sound. You
cannot hear a train w histle (steam) or the
clarion blast o f a streamliner diesel. A
‘ safely man’ would stand beneath the
warning semaphore (which could not be
seen through the driving snow). When
he heard a warning click (barely) he
would plod down the line o f men, slap
ping each on the back. It would seem
only seconds later that a 70 m ilc-an-hour
passenger train would swoosh by, bound
down grade for Portland. (Interestingly,
a black man from Iowa invented a sig
naling device for use IN S ID E TH E
EN G IN E C A B , so that a locomotive
engineer could determine i f the track
ahead was clear o f trains — even if snow
or rain obscured the semaphore.
There is one thing I wish to bring to
your attention, for it relates to the em
ployment situation o f young people to
day - and to many social traumas from
education to gangs. L ike most late teen
agers o f those days, I knew how to oper
ate several dozen types o f machinery
and equipment. And because o f a thor
ough grounding in the basics (math and
language), I could read and interpret
detailed instructions - and could carry
out many tasks unsupervised. This back
ground was rather typical o f the times -
even for many who went no farther than
the 8th grade.
I totaled up this ‘equipment savvy’
at one time: back hoc, welder, truck
driver, leather cutter, steam cleaner, freight
handler, chicken pluckcr (smiles), com
pressor operator, push cart delivery o f
coal and ice, freight checker, landscaper
assistant, grinder, clerk, porter, bellhop,
dishwasher, pinsetter, miscellaneous
equipment in foundries, and much else.
ational Council of Negro Women
Marks 55th Anniversary with
Unusual Dinner
The National C ouncil o f Negro
women :• ma king their 55th A nniver
sary A«
nonth o f December w ith
using dinner many w ill
da
Icon, re lie f to the usual fare.
Y e rei ently mailed invitation promises
“n
iwded reception, no hairdo, no
no rubber chicken, no
;:
iu in for speaker, no concerns where
your contribution w ill go, no child care...”
and so on.
the nationally-based organization rep
resenting over four m illio n women has
organized a “ Stay-At-H om e-dinner” in
honor
its t ending in 1935 by legen
dary eA ator i
civil rights leader mary
M A ■««'3. dm , Mrs. Bethune founded
hile serving as the first
Vriean-American advisor to a U.S. Presi-
lent. then Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Through activities such as The Black
Family Reunion Celebration, the NCNW
is regarded by many as the prim ary
advocacy group w orking on behalf o f
African-Am erican women and families.
The Black Fam ily Reunion Celebration
has attracted over three m illio n partici
pants during annual weekend gatherings
in six m ajor U.S. cities. The contribu
tions raised through this campaign w ill
aid in funding the five year old public
event dedicated to fostering self-help
solutions and positive images o f Black
fam ilies. A d ditio na lly, programs relat
ing to leadership training for women,
human rights advocacy, child care, health,
assistance to women in developing A f r i
can countries and other fa m ily activities
w ill also benefit.
A ll by the age o f seventeen. It m u s t.>
realized, o f course, that in those days
child labor laws were weakly enforced,
and that many employers had none o f the
applicable insurance. But you were always
busy after school and on weekends -
little time for nonsense or mischief.
Back to the mountains and forests o f
Oregon. Another thing that you wrote
home about was, “ You just think we’ ve
got mountains back there in the Ozarks -
those arc hills, believe me.” On the
mountains there was both tragedy and
comic relief. Men secured a ‘ grub stake’
for the future, and others died. Some
went on to become craftsmen and pro
fessionals and other stayed on the job
until retirement — or ‘ fell in their traces’ ,
the railroad often burying them up when
no relatives could be located.
I remember the time wc sent "P e te ”
down the mountain to get some liquor at
Oakridge, 70 miles away. Hopping
freights was the usual means o f transpor
tation and when he did not return the
same evening, we went looking for him
early the next morning. Pete had gotten
to Oakridge all right, but had gotten
drunk in town before hopping a freight
back w ith a big sack o f wine and whis
key. We found him where he had fallen
o ff a flat car, his leg cut o ff just below the
knee. He had stuck the stump in the
snow and packed it in lightly. And there
was Pete, stoned, singing at the top o f his
voice, ‘ ‘ What took you so long” he ex
claimed. Relieved somewhat, we de
manded, “ What happened to the booze,
man?” (he survived).
And then, too there were the “ happy
g irls ” who rode freights to the railroad
and logging camps on paydays - b ring
ing ‘ happiness’ and, sometimes, fa m il
iar ailments. In later years I was to meet
several in Portland or Los Angeles —
proper, sedate matrons with respectable
holding in rental units and/or a “ good
man. ’ ’ A quick w ink or smile and then to
pass on in the play o f life. A ffirm ative
action and non-discrimination before its
time.
“ People who keep their
word are trusted and ad
mired. People who do not
are regarded like garbage.
Those who break their word
often never get another
chance.” L. Ron Hubbard,
one of the most acclaimed
and widely read authors
of all time
McMurphy's
Buying Appliances
Working or Not
288-3233
PORTL
ERVER
Joyce Washington
Operations Manager
Gary Ann Garnett
Business Manager
Leon Harris
Editorial Manager
The PORTLAND OBSERVER is
published weekly by
Exie Publishing Com pany, Inc.
4747 N.E. M.L.K., Jr. Blvd.
Portland, Oregon 97211
P.O. Box 3137
Po; land, Oregon 97208
(503) 288-0033 (Office)
FAX#: (503) 288-0015
The Portland Observer can be
sent directly to your home for
only $25.00 per year.
Please fill out, enclose check or
money ordr, and Mail to:
Subscriptions
Portland Observer
PO Box 3137
Portland, Oregon 97208
POSTMASTER Send Addr««« Changes to: P ortland Observer, P.O. Box 3137,
P ortland, OR 97208. Second class postage paid at Portland, Oregon
The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions Manuscripts and photo
graphs should be clearly tabled and will be returned If accompanied by a self addressed
envelope All created design display ads become the sole property of this newspaper and
can not t>e usee in other publications or personal usage, without tho written consent of the
genera manager, unless the client has purchased the composition of such ad 1990
PORT1AND OBSERVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE
OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED.
Subscriptions $20. OO p er year in the Tri-County area; $25 00 all other areas.
The Portland Observer - Oregon's Oldest African-American Publication - Is a member
of The National Newspaper Association - Founded In 1885, and The National Advertis
ing Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc., New York, NY.
address
city, state
zip-code
Thank You For Reading the
Portland Observer
as several other states) a letter, telling
them my proposals for rcfonn, and hoping
it makes a difference. I never expected
my column would result in a clean,
happy, just, non-racist environm ent for
Portland: my hope is that it has caused
people to T H IN K , and to FF.F.I..
Outside o f m y colum n, I have
had the opportunity to enter your house
via my articles, and to share various
experiences o f mine, many that I ’ m sure
you were present at yourself: from the
Janet Jackson concert, to the N ike con
troversy (when PUSH came to town);
from reviewing albums, movies, con
certs, and books, to meeting (and loath
ing) Tom and John Metzger, from the
school district's meeting on abolishing
the CBES test, to the current Portland
Public Schools boycott; from the vio
lent demonstrations when Bush and
Quayle came to town (on separate days),
to the peaceful antiwar protests. Justat-
tending these events wasn’t what made
this year so rich and fu ll: it was being
able to bring these events to you, and
share the emotions present, so th a t-
w hile you couldn’ t always be th ere-yo u
could always feel as though you were.
Thank you, once again, fo r lis
tening and sharing in m y life. I wish you
the best o f luck in 1991...I w ill be there
w ith you.
• • * • *
I see a parallel between those picketing
B ill’s K w ik -M a rt and the boycott in
Brooklyn o f the Korean markeL Thumbs
up, picketers!
Its’ Time To “Heal Our Land:” African
Americans Must Build for a New Tomorrow
Jonathan Bulter, the popular South
A frican guitarist and vocalist, in pre
scribing a cure for the pain and agony o f
the apartheid system, sings the compel
ling lines, “ we must heal our land.”
Since Africans arrived in Am erica we
have faced the challenge o f building
com m unity out o f deverse peoples up
rooted from our original cultures by
slavery. The ever present reality o f ra
cism and brutal economic exploitation
has always complicated the vital task o f
forging a common peopleness and com
m unity as Africans in America. We
have never quite been welcome here,
but somehow, Africans in America have
taken the basic strengths that we brought
w ith us from our ancestral homeland
and struggled to survive and sustain
ourselves as a people.
Whether it was the Black church
and the mutual aid and benevolent so
cieties which grew out o f the black
church;” the “ A frican Free Schools”
which wc evolved to educated our own
children when white society refused to
do so; the organizations o f resistance
which we crated to fig h t against slavery,
segregation and discrim ination; or the
Black press as an independent voice to
articulate our own interest and needs;
the magic o f our music; or their enormous
strength o f the African fam ily, A frican
Americans have engaged in a perpetual
struggle to survive and build/sustain com
m unity. O bviously the struggle to build
com m unity has been ongoing given the
nature o f the United States as a racist
and exploitive society.
The horrendous depth and m agni
tude o f the crisis we now face makes it
imperative that A frican Americans con
sciously focus on the need to continue
the vital process o f com m unity build
ing. A frican Americans arc s till largely
unwanted, unwelcome and increasingly
not needed in this country. Witness the
recent increase in im m igration quotas
which w ill allow 400,000 skilled (mostly
w hite) and wealthy people to come into
the United States.
The U.S. s till prefers to bring in
people from foreign lands instead o f
investing the resources required to up
grade the “ s k ills ” and “ w ealth” o f
Africans in Am erica. W ith the excep
tion o f a small number o f acceptable or
sym bolic Blacks who are included so
that the masses can be excluded (in clu
sion for exclusion), this is s till incon
venience to be tolerated. O nly our exer
cise o f POWER prevents our total o b lit
eration in this country. We are s till or
own best hope for the survival and de
velopment o f A frican Americans.
So we too must heal our land, our
people, our comm unity. A frican A m eri
cans must counter the abuse and neglect
Reese’s Oil Company
POCTlflftjtte«YK
Name
Deadlines for all submitted materials:
Articles: Monday, 5 p.m. -- Ads: Tuesday, 5 p.m.
jo y , and what they would like to see in
my column in the future, as well as how
they felt about an event, o r even what’s
going on in there lives. This column is
fo r you, and for it to be complete, it
helps to hear your perspective.
This year has been a rich one
for me at the Observer: I ’ ve experi
enced a wide range o f events, and met a
wide range o f people. M y column “ This
Week In H istory” at the beginning o f
the year (fo r the new readers, that col
umn traced the history o f significant
m inority events, for the particular week
o f the issue) brought me much joy:
plowing through old newspapers (I found,
for instance, the first-ever issue o f the
Portland Observer, dated December 16,
1938) and literature was not only fasci
nating, but 1 learned a lot more about
black history than I could ever have
found by sim ply reading books: mostly,
because it gave me an actual feel o f the
times rather than sim ply stating what
happened. “ ...And Justice For A ll” has
provided me w ith the opportunity to
pursue anything that interests me, and
that I think w ill interest readers, to truly
pursue justice fo r all. The vision that
* ‘keeps me at it ’ ’ is symbolized by a p ic
ture by m y desk at work: it is o f M arlin
Luther King, Jr., and it reads: “ I f a man
hasn’t found something he w ill die for,
he isn’ t fit to liv e .” And I would die fo r
justice, so I fin d my column more than
suitable: it is my soapbox, it is my way
o f w ritin g the entire comm unity (as well
Wish You A Happy Holiday
Best Price In Town
7 Days Service
287-2121
(USPS 959-680)
OREGON’S OLDEST AFRICAN AMERICAN PUBLICATION
Established in 1970
Alfred L. Henderson
Publisher
Though 1 try to express my
love all year long to those who mean a
lot to me, sometimes I s till manage to
neglect to thank everyone enough for
the jo y they’ ve brought m e-how ever, at
the end o f the year, I try to make up fo r
these shortcomings. Now, I ’d like to tell
my readers (though I try to respond to
those who write me) “ thank you” for
taking the time to share my thoughts and
feelings throughout the year, by reading
my column.
The bond I have shared with
this com m unity w ill never be broken,
nor w ill I forget it. A t the happy mo
ments, like covering rallies and celebra
tions, and other com m unity events, to
covering the tragic moments, such as
witnessing the g rie f at pickets and
murders...and sharing my g rie f or jo y
with my readers: you are all my c o n fi
dants, my unseen friends. Being a re
porter, to me, is like being a doctor: I ’m
there at birth, I ’m there at death, and I ’ m
there in-between. I share in the happi
ness and sadness, trying to find the line
between legitimate public interest and
exploitation. And when you, the mem
bers o f the com m un i ty , can ’ t be there fo r
a certain event, I am happy to know that
I can go in your stead, and show you
these events through my eyes, as I saw it
and felt it. Thank you fo r listening to me
and sharing my emotions, as w ell as
w riting me and calling me. I enjoy
hearing from the com m unity and fin d
ing out what people enjoyed/didn’ t en
Oregon’s Minimum Wage Increases
January 1,1991
Oregon’ s m inim um wage w ill in
crease from $4.25 an hour to $4.75 an
hour on January 1,1991. This is the third
o f three m inimum wage increases ap
proved by the 1989 Legislature. The two
previous increases took place on Sep
tember 1,1989 when the m inim um wage
went from $3.35 and hour to $3.85 an
hour and then to $4.25 an hour on Janu
ary 1, 1990.
Commissioner o f Labor and Indus
tries M ary W endy Roberts notes that the
passage o f this 1989 legislation e lim i
nated the Federal Fair labor Standards
A ct exemption under state law. This
meant most employees in Oregon must
be paid the higher Oregon minimum.
The Bureau o f Labor and Industries en
forces Oregon’ s m inim um wage law.
The federal minimum wage increases
from $3.80 an hour to $4.25 an hour on
January 1, 1991.
Federal provisions for a subm ini
mum “ training wage” for teenagers who
have not worked before and a “ tip credit”
as an offset fo r the m inim um wage do not
apply in Oregon.
“ M y advice to employers is to as
sume that your workers are covered by
state law requirements o f overtime and
w orking conditions, and the $4.75 m in i
mum wage,” said Roberts.
“ Employers w ith questions should
call our technical assistance unit in Port
land at 229-5841. We want employers to
gel the inform ation they need to comply
w ith the law .”
S till exempt arc students employed
by a prim ary or secondary school that
they attend, casual babysitters and some
domestic workers.
Oregon w ill have the highest m in i
mum wage o f any state in the nation until
Alaska’ s $4.75 m inimum wage kicks in
A p ril 1, 1991. Right now Washington
DC has an array o f industry specific
m inim um wages ranging from $4.25 to
$5.85 (dry cleaners) an hour.
o f the racist exploitive state in the U.S.
w ith a passionate com m itm ent to have
concern, compassion and tender, love
and care fo r our people. W e cannot
leave the children unattended, unedu
cated and detached from fa m ily. We
must overcome the recklessness and
callousness o f a w ild ing generation o f
young people by demonstrating w ith
deeds o f care and kindness that we are
absolutely w ild about them. They are
our future.
We cannot leave the flo w e r o f our
manhood and womanhood to waste away
in American’s’s prison warehouses. They
are the victim s o f the violence that be
gets violence, the crimes that beget crime.
They are our brothers and sisters, our
fa m ily and we must fig h t fo r their re
lease and prepare a H O M E fo r them
when they return.
Finally, we must heal our land, our
community because we must prepare to
fighL America must be put on notice
that we w ill not fa ll prey to her schemes
o f neglect and genocide. W e w ill not die
or go away. It is a decadent Am erica
which must die and out o f its demise
must rise a new nation. A nd it is we,
who have suffered most, who must lead
the resurrection o f a new and humane
society. Africans in Am erica must heal
our land, our com m unity so that we
m ight live to build a new tom orrow.
Tobacco Co.
Launches New
Initiatives
to discourage
Smoking Among
Youth
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and its
fellow members o f the Tobacco Institute
today announced new initiatives to dis
courage young people from smoking.
‘ ‘We don’ t want young people to smoke,
and we don’ t market our products to
young people,” said James W. Johnston,
chairman and ch ie f executive o ffice r o f
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. “ The T o
bacco Institute’ s new program w ill make
it more d iffic u lt for children to have
access to cigarettes, and we support it
wholeheartedly,” he said.
The new initiatives expand the sys
tem o f voluntary restraints the tobacco
industry has adhered to for nearly 20
years.
“ Time and again, studies have shown
that young people cite the influence o f
friends and fam ily as the reason they
began sm oking," Johnston said. “ The
Tobacco Institute’ s new programs w ill
help parents counter those influences,
and w ill make it more d iffic u lt fo r c h il
dren to buy cigarettes.
“ They w ill also demonstrate what
we as an industry have said fo r years:
that we don’t market to children, we
don’ t advertise to children and w e’re
w illin g to put into place voluntary pro
grams that w ill help keep children from
smoking,” Johnston said.