Satoday, December
SscBsa
$te$MCffi&MhB&
2j1975
B
j..
j'
-
y
'av.yvAv.-c..
,
Vl:S8aA)L--
.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Lester Strong, Ted Grove, Pep. David Scott,
TO "C0OQD30BATE DEED- SHOT CELEBRATE BICE J T E
By EDWARD SMITH
-
ATLANTA
The Georgia
Black Legislative Caucus is
spearheading a drive to place a
monument in the states' Capitol
to 33 Blacks who served in the
Georgia legislature during
Reconstruction.
The drive
by
the
is
part of an effort
Black
caucus bicentennial campaign is
not a celebration.
"To us it (Black participation
in the bicentennial) must be the
history of a movement of Black
people, not a celebration, but an
emancipation,' said Scott.
campaign's activities
in America
Blacks.
'It
is right
question
and proper to
whether
we (Blacks)
should celebrate the
bicentennial.
We were subjected
to the most debase treatment,
brought here to build a land of
freedom, enslaved by another
people," said Scott. He said the
To
and
program, agreed.
"Blacks have been robbed of
their heritage. It (the oratory
contest) would motivate our
young people to do research to
find their identify," Grove said.
He said the top three finishers in
the contest will receive a partial
scholarship to a Georgia college
or university.
opportunity
bicentennial) to
future," Scott said.
Lester
Affairs
Strong,
Community
Director,and ofa
here,
member of Grove's committee,
said,"the logo grew out of
(television) series I wanted to do
on Blacks in the American
WSB-televisi-
Revolution."
Grove, a local
who heads a task force
committee that is designing the
Theodore
"We are not celebrating the
has bicentennial. What we are
doing
this been done to honor a Black
is commemorating
the
said Georgia Rep.
politician,'
deeds of Black
outstanding
David Scott,
of the
in Georgia and the
caucus efforts to place the people
said Grove,, whose
country,"
monument in the Georgia state
committee
is primarily
house.
composed of area Black
historians, artists, writers - and
Scott is chairman of the task community workers.
force formed earlier this year by
Grove said, among other
the
caucus headed
by Rep. Ben Brown,
things, the committee is
developing an oratory contest
Scott said Black participation for Georgia high school students
in the bicentennial has become a on the topic "Blackness and the
"national dilemma' for many Bicentennial."
'No where
Grove said the committee has
also contracted to place placards
depicting Blacks prominent in
Georgia and the United States
history in buses across the state,
and is preparing a series of radio
vignettes describing the deeds of
famous Blacks.
Caucus' attorney,
Bicentennial Task Force to
dramatize the role Blacks have
played in the development of
the United States.
and BARKSDALE MARKS
us.
Black
in
the
bicentennial it
an
participation
mancipation,
not a
celebration."
it was also Grove's committee
that designed the task force's
logo. The red, white and blue
logo, featuring the lace of a
Black man and the words, "Lest
We Forget" on it, will serve as
the general theme of the caucus'
bicentennial
campaign, Scott
said.
"We feel that it says
something to every Georgian and
.every American of every race
and religion about the deep and
abiding belief, faith and struggle
of Black people In America,
past, present and for the
Bicentennial Task Force
got wind of what WSB and I
were doing and they were
impressed by the idea. They
decided they wanted to use it in
what they were doing," Strong
said.
(of the
try and get
something for our people."
However, several prominent
Whites in Georgia have said they
would not like to see the Black
lawmakers
get the
'"opportunity" to place
monument in
then-planne-
d
the
Capitol.
Former Gov. Lester Maddox,
who first rose to national
acclaim when he chased Blacks
out of his restaurant here,
charged the Black caucus is
"asking for not
superior
opportunity,
equal
opportunity" in wanting to
Strong said all of the art work place the monument in the
on the logo was done by WSB Capitol.
artist Virginia Staples.
But Scott argued, ' You'd see
' What's unique about faces of men who fought under
Virginia working with us is the the Confederate flag on these
fact that she can trace her family walls. Many of those politicians
tree back to the Revolution - her clamored for political support
forefathers fought the British, from the Ku Klux Han. What
she's white,' said Strong.
about the 33 Black legislators
during Reconstruction."
Strong said though many
'
Blacks, initial impression of the
Scott said there is no other
caucus' bicentennial efforts may group of Americans who
be outrage" because of the way personify the principles of
Blacks have been treated in this democracy more than Blacks.
country, the task force hopes
"The Black people of
'they can see through that
outrage and say that's the way it America wrote with their own
is, but we have' made some Mood in the dust of this nation
what Thomas Jefferson and
sizable gains in America."
Scott agreed, and said Blacks Patrick Henry merely wrote with
should use their outrage pens and ink on a piece of
productively to "seize the paper," he said.