Oregon Advance Times_1968-04-04

Teacher Job Promotion Chance Eyed Portland has few 1',egro school teachers and those few have little chance of moving into administrative positions. These points were made last week to School Supt. Melvin Barnes by a group of concerned citizens from the Albina area, They asked for change. Barnes said r-.egro teachers' interest in advancement to administrative posts would get special attention. Those meeting with him were Mrs. Lizzie Sheppard, Walter Morris, Shelley Hill of the Urban League and John Gates of the N/IACP, Hill s aid Negroes often do not apply to Portland for teaching positions because they feel they cannot move up even though they have an educational background in administration. He said Portland has lost many p;ood teache rs because of this an<.1 he nruned a num– be r who hqve left Por tland and gone to other school systems where they were re– warded with better jobs, The names of some Neg.. roes with master's and even doctor's degrees who were shunted into grade school teaching were cited. Com– mittee members said that until a few years ago a Negro teacher was not employed in the Portland high schools, even when qualified. Barnes said this was no longer true. The only Negro now em– ployed in an administrative position in Portland schools is Mrs. Martha Jordan - and she is not a school dis– trict employee · but rather is part of the federal Head Start program. Mrs. Jordan is in charge of the Early Childhood Edu– cation Program. There are now about 82 Negro teachers in the Port– land public schools, an in– crease from 68 employed last September, Barnes said all can be con– sidered for advancement but they need to make it known that they are interested in moving from classroom work into administrative position~. Barnes was asked to out– line the ways th~ schools go about recruiting NP.gro teach– ers. He said two personnel officers - both of whom are white - are charged with recruiting all teachers. In addition to these two, for– mer Portland teachers fre– quently send in the names ,of prospective teachers or encourage them to apply. He said the Urban League has sent in a number to be in– terviewed. Barnes J;aid a Negro teach– er applicant has a better chance of being employed than does a Caucasian appli– cant because so few Negroes apply. The Oregon ADVANCE Vol.1,No.10 7141h N. E. Alberta, Portland, Oregon Thursday, April 4, 1968 Gov. McCall Visits Albina Gov. Tom McCall visited in the Albina community last week. He called on Boise Elementary Sch·ool and invited the children to visit him in the capitol in Salem. He also called on a number of agencies in the community. M,·Call visited the offices of the Advance Times and com– plimented the ,staff on the good job it is doing. With him 011 his visits was Cecil Walton and Chalmers Jones from the community. Southeast Uplift Set Southeast Portland, which has many of the poverty prob– lems of Albina, but is largely white rather than largely Negro, is going to get its own locally developed program of help which may be much like Model Cities. The City Council approved the idea Tuesday, And the chairman of the Portland De– velopment Commission, Ira Keller, said that if the council told it to, the commission would make the necessary survey of jobs andotherprob.. !ems. The program grew out of the insistence on the part of the people of Southeast Port– land that they should not be left out of planning for im– provement. They tried io get the Model Cities boundaries changed so they would be in– cluded, When that failed, they sought a plan of their own, locally developed and handled. Commissioner Francis lvancie led the proposal in the council meeting for what is being called Southeast Up– lift. Portlander Wins Date With 'Moms' Floyd N. Booker Jr,, whose picture was displayed in last week's issue of The Advance Times as a con– testant on the TV show Dating Game, turned out to be the winner of The Big Date, Booker won a four-day va– cation at Acapulco, Mexico, with ·a beautiful lady com– panion, of course accom– panied by a chaperone, The date turned out to be with "Moms" Mahley, famous TV and night club entertainer, Bill McCoy Says Action Possible Powerful Dramatic Event Presented by Modus Quan Bill McCoy, a programdir– ector for Providence Child Center, has filed for city com– missioner Position No. 1. "It is time that we face t!1e problems of an urban com– munity and act," McCoy said. "And that's why I'm in the race, to bring attention to the problems and to show that a course of action is available,'' McCoy is the chairman of Citizens for Better City Government, the sponsoring organization of the initiative petition to limit to two the number of terms that can be held by elected city officials. He is also a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Establish a Police-Com– munity Relations Program, a memb-er of the Linnton Com– munity Center board of dir– ectors, a member of the Ore– gon Social Welfare Associa– tion, the American Veterans' Committee, NAACP, Christie School Board, North Branch YMCA Board and past chair– man of the Advisory Board, Catholic Family Services. McCoy, his wife Gladys, and their seven children re– side at 6650 N. Amherst. His wife has a masters degree in social work from Portland State College and is employed by the Vancouver Public Schools. ''Man has captivated me. Man is so weak and man is so funny and man is so lov– able. There is so much I want to give to man, not be– cause he knows me, but be– cause man needs so much to be given to him • • • If there is something to be given, it should be given." These were the words of Aaron Dumas, artist, musi– cian, writer and orator. A young man who passed through Albina last week with his dramatic ensemble, ''Modus Quan." ''Our theatre exists auto– nomously. It is its own structure," Dumas explained about the integrated company of dancers, musicians and actors who provided an in– tense evening of Black Cul– ture for the Albina commu– nity. They are not professionals. They have ''love for their art, but not so much love as to starve for it," their spokesman observed. Seven– ty-five percent of the troupe is affiliated with the univer– s ity in one way or au.o r , but none is majoring in art. Dumas, at 22, is the oldest of the group and the most committed to finding his own creative voice. "l want to write and write and write ••• I'm an artist and 1 love the arts. The reason I give myself to art is I want to give all of my– self to people. We are all Pre-School Cooperative Considered Nex Yea 1·he Albina Art Center is contemplating a cooperative pre-school for the next school year, involving the tod– dlers and parents of the com– munity, A special planning meeting will be held Wednesday, Ap– ril 11, at 7:30 in the Centzr to develop interest and itieas for the pre-school. Tentative plans describe ~ school staffed by one volun– teer co-ordinator and at least three volunteer teachers on a regular basis, plus the ro– tating assistance of at least 20 mothers (or fathers) will– ing to give one morning or afternoon each week to the nursery. Working mothers who could not contribute their time could contribute a small amount of money for milk and snacks. One schedule discussed was a combination of two two– hour sessions, 9:30 to 11 :30 a.m. and l to 3 p.m. The children whose mothers worked would stay through both sessions and bring their lunches, Interested working mothers could arrange for babysitters before and after school hours. The non-working mothers could send their children to as many of the IO weekly sessions as they wished, but their children would e:o home during the noon hour, At a previous meeting, mothers, teachers and an AAC board member agreed that a cooperative pre-school would be advantageous as a way of involving parents, especially mothers, in , their children's early education and socializa– ~ion; it wr,uld create the op– portunity to draw on a wider range of activities, ideas and materiala; it would give work ing mothers a chance to turn babysitting into a more cre– ative and enriching exp.!ri– ence for the child, Redditt to Head Group for Teens Sam Redditt Jr. is presi– dent of the Youth Activities Coordinating Committee, the group sponsoring the new Sev– en of Diamonds Teen Club. Other officers are Vollie Manning, vice president; Ro– bert Nelson, secretary-treas– urer; Mrs. Lizzie Sheppard, assistant secretary-treas– urer; and Nathan Proby, James H, Mitchell and Paul Knowles, directors. This is the group that will help direct the teen center proposed by Proby, He will be the director. Among the current needs is money to help meet the costs of the center so it will be able to interest young people, insignificant, but, as long as somebody cares for us, we stay." "Modus Quan" - the phrase is Dumas' invention - cannot be easily defined, but has to do with personal expression, "compassion and, at certain times, love." As a theatri– cal event, Modus Quan was intense, involving and de– scriptive of the beauty and power of black people. Dumas has contributed poetry he describes as "one hundred percent me," and his plays depict characters "one hundred percent them– selves as I see them." The white liberal, the black mili– tant, the Negro moderate, are treated with satiric but not unloving care. Dumas draws many details from the local and national landscapes, using refer– ences - to Jefferson High School, model school pro– gram, Birmingham - that are (Continued on Page 8) Women Bill C-Cap Head Frank Fair, director of Operation Contact of the Community Action Program, and two young men from Youth Opportunity School will be the featured speakers April 10 at a Portland League of Women Voters meeting, The meeting will start at 10:30 a,rn. at Westminster Presbyterian Church, N. E. 16th and Hancock. The morning program under the leadership of Mrs, Hardy Myers, Jr,, will cover the Model Cities Program, an updating of civil rights legis– lation and a summary of the President's Commission on Civil Disorder report. A special briefing for unit reporters will be held at 9:30 a,rn. on the long-standing study items of the Portland League, Mrs, Gerald Cogan will update fluoridation, Mrs. Dale Barker will discuss Home Rule for Washington, D, C,, and Mrs, 0, G, Rogers will speak on the Liberty Amendment. Chairman and moderator of the briefing will be Mrs. Jack O'Halloran. Members of her committee are: Mrs, Sh e Id o n Sp 1 e 1ma n, Mrs. Susan Fergison, Mrs, Wil– liam Williams, Mrs. Marvin Hines, Mrs, Brooks Gunsul and Mrs. Lorenz Schultz, City Hull Will Come To People The Portland city admirus– tration is going to hold a series of neighborhood meet– ings so citizens can tell their troubles .vithout having to go to City Hall and try to find someone to listen. The meatings will be set up by Russell Peyton, execu– tive director of the Portland Human Relations Commis– sion, at the direction ofMayor Terry Schrunk. Peyton said the basic idea behind the meetings was this: "There ought to be a place where the people can meet with representatives of the executive branch of their government." The first meetings are ex– pected to be held in the city's southeast district, perhaps Brooklyn, where there are many poverty problems. Art Stubbs of the Portland Action Committees Together (PACT) has been asked to arrange the meetings. Peyton said representaLives of the city administration are to be on hand ·to hear the people tell what they want and don't want, then to have a second meeting later at which city representatives would report on what was be– ing done to meet the people's requests. Peyton said he expected the people would talk about such things as police protec– tion, the help from the Sun– shine Division, garbage col– lection, rat control and other problems of dally life. Stubbs said he. thought the mayor and the councilmen ought to attend so the people would know they actually were reaching the ears of the people who can do something about the problems. Peyton said he woule1 try to arrange for the City Hall representatives to be some– one who can see to it that people charged with provid– ing city services actually do them, Peyton, who has no staff to assist him in setting up the meetings, said the funda– mental problem probably was this: "The citizens have lost the abllity to be heard. After a while, they don't even try," The neighborhood meetings, sometimes referred to as "little city halls," are aimed at giving citizens assurance that they can be heard.