mMMiiti
brief nnew
'Pressure' frees
Wilmington 10's
By
Rev. Ben Chavis
By
Askia Muhammad
Askia Muhammad
According to authoritive sources at ABC-TSports, loquacious sportscaster Howard Cosell may
be the only "minority" group member on Roone
line-uArledge's Monday Night Football
for a while. The network tried out former footballer
and mucho-machactor Fred Willaimson, who did
work out for ABC as a football color commentator ...
... But even more irksome than ABC's having no
blacks on the air during its weekly broadcast of a
sporting event dominated by black athletes, is the
low incidence of blacks in important
a
jobs. For the second year in a row, I counted
only one black face out of more than 30, when Monits technical crew
day Night Football shovved-of- f
after the last regular season game. An ABC spokesperson told me that the reason so few blacks are
employed in those technical jobs is the slow turnover
on this the network's No.
sports show. Most
are veterans, the source said, of more than
10 years in the same jobs ... Who told NFL Players
Association director Ed Garvey that the football
league is the only "monument to racism"?
... February is supposed to be the month of
Brotherhood Week, but we've been deluged with racism complaints. Marguerite Gamble, for example,
wants to become a doctor so badly that like Allan
Bakke she is suing a state university medical school.
But there the similarity ends. Gamble is frustrated,
angry and hitter because she was unfairly expelled
from the University of Minnesota medical school
after completing two and a half vears of a three year
program. After suffering racial abuses throughout
her career at the university and then finally being
dismissed for refusing a psychiatric exam, Gamble is
suing the school, with support from the local
NAACP. National Lawyers Guild, and the National
Baptist Convention. Marguerite Gamble Future Doctor Fund. Como Ave. Station P.O. Box 80065 St. Paul,
Minn. 55108 ...
... Another Washington who won the hearts of
many people in the "Chocolate City." Sue Simmons,
is already being seen in New York on WNBC-TV- ,
rather than on Washington's NewsCenter 4. Simmons
will he right back at home, though, during her high
school days, she lived in a Greenwich Village apartment upstair, above a night club ...
... Questions about some of what Chicago publisher
Ibn Sharrieff did in Tripoli. Libya at the 10th anniversary of that country's revolution, last Sept. 1,
can be directed to Presidential Brother Billy Carter.
Carter met Sharrieff during their visits to celebrate
the 10 years of progress in that oil rich country, since
Col. Muammar Qaddaffi led a
bloodless revolution overthrowing that country's
monarchy. Carter, once affectionately referred to by
some reporters as the First Family's "First Yahoo," is
a reformed alcoholic and is campaigning to help his
brother win
... Carter told a few reporters
talking informally at the White House last month,
that he "hated to give it up" when finally forced to
stop drinking, but that people everywhere empathize
with him for his battle with alcohol. Besides, he quipped, his drinking was probably the reason he got so
"all you reporters," he
much favorable publicity
joked, "are drunks"
... For the third time since; 1971. actress-write- r
Saundra Sharp was chosen as one; of 1979's Outstanding Young Women of America. Sharp starred in
the ABC-tmovie "Hollow Image" and wrote the
play "The Sistushs"
Black Panther Party
Bobby Seale has
established a
consulting agency in
Washington, and written a hook. He hopes to apply
successful Panther Party tactics
including his
Oakland mayoral campaign experience
to the task
ot improving opportunities for black advancement in
all areas. Seale is a member of the working group of a
newly formed committee on business opportunities
for
in the Arab world. National
Association of Arabl Americans 1825 Connecticut
Ave. N.W. Suite 211. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202)
...
ir
cheer went up in the lounge Ht
Washington's National Airport when
the Rev. Ben Chavis stepped from
Eastern Airlines flight 538 from
Raleigh, N.C. that Friday evening last
December, symbolizing that the
ordeal of the Wilmington
10 was finally drawing to a close.
"I'm glad to be back in the nation's
capital," he told his cheering supporters who had come to greet him,
"but I'm still a political prisoner, I'm
not free." Chavis was released by
North Carolina prison officials on
parole, after seven years in jail.
Chavis' release came at a time when
the United States sorely needed to improve its world image on human rights
and political prisoners. He said that
the real reason he was released was
"because the government of North
Carolina and the U.S. administration
were under a lot of national and international pressure."
A
"It
of the
very hypocritical
ask
for
to
of
release
government
hostages in Iran while they have
political hostages in the U.S.," the
31 year-old
United Church of Christ
minister said.
Chavis and eight other black men
and one white woman were convicted
in 1972 of conspiring to incite a riot
and arson charges, stemming from
allegations of discrimination by black
students in Wilmington who had been
bussed to a formerly all white school.
"My great joy is tempered by my
determination to work for vindication
and some repartion for this act of
is
political imprisonment," D.C. Congressman Walter Fauntroy said at the
airport. "Rev. Chavis is now our
foremost authority on human rights."
"This is my home too," Chavis said
at the airport. "I'm not in exile in D.C.
I'm at home wherever black people
are." He said he will go back to his old
job as Washington: office director of
the United Church of Christ's Commission on Racial Justice.
There will be a tew restrictions on
his parole, Chavis said, and he plans
to go back to North Carolina "very
soon." While in prison. Chavis had
been attending Duke University divinity school on a study release program,
and was locked up only at night.
o
behind-the-camer-
ILi
of Iranians in America." They issued a
position paper urging Ayatollah Khomeini to release the 50 American hostages then held in the U.S embassy in
Tehran.
"We understand the hostility of tin;
Iranian masses toward the former
shah and toward the United States
which set him up as a puppet, armed
him and trained his vicious Savak
secret police force." The document
said.
The position paper also called on
Israel to withdraw from Arab territories occupied in 1967. The paper also
said the United States should recognize
the Palestine Liberation Organization
as the legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people.
on the cover
Harold Esannason of Black
International Leisure at the world from
n
11,000 feet up on the famous
illusin
Switzerland,
peak
trating our February theme: Black
Skiers on the slopes.
Mat-terhor-
on the inside
Artist, writer Mel
Tapley penned our
fine cover story, and we've compiled
our second annual Front Page People
list, this time in honor of the 1970s,
with a few faces we wish we could
forget thrown in for good measure.
administration
g
"to end its harassement
National Scene Magazine Supplement
January, 1980 Vol No. 10 Published
by L.H. Stanton Publications, Inc. 507
Fifth Avenue, New York N.Y. 10017
Address
(212)
editorial correspondence to above address. Not responsible for unsolicted
manuscripts or art work. L.H. Stanton,
Founder-Publishe- r:
Roy Kemp, Associate Publisher-Advertisin- g
Manager;
Askia Muhammad, Editor; J,A. Gross,
Graphic Artist. Reproduction- permission is granted (unless otherwise indicated), provided that the article
reprinted carry the following notation.
"Copyright (date) National Scene,
Reprinted.by permission;" This should,
be followed by a .listing 'showing
Vol : No
and date article was
published in National Scene., Please
forward a copy of reprinted article to
above listed office.
.
867-089-
protest shah
week-lon-
1
The Rev. Ben Chnvis
Black ministers
Calling the Deposed Shah of Iran a
"criminal" more than 1,200 black
ministers demanded that he be deported from the U.S. back to Iran,
before he fled to Panama. It happened
Naon the final day of the
tional Black Pastors' Conference in
Detroit in December.
The ministers also urged the Carter
p
i
867-084-
9.
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v
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non-prof-
797-775- 7
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crew-membe-
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Sue Simmons
Soundni Shorp