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December 19-25, 2007 ™ Vol. 12 Issue 46
TEXAS’ Widest Circulated and Read Newspaper with a Black Perspective
www.aframnews.com
Houston - Galveston - Texas City - Missouri City - Conroe - Woodlands - Huntsville - Beaumont - Port Arthur - Grove - Orange - Lumberton - Liberty - Cleveland - Livingston - Crockett - San Antonio - Mexia - Gatesville - Bellmead Austin - Brenham - Hempstead - Prairie View - College Station - Bryan - Killeen - Temple - Waco - Dallas - Irving - Fort Worth - Arlington - Waxahachie - Elgin - Round Rock - Harker Heights - Copperas Cove - Ennis - Corsicana
Black Power Fear deters Merry Xmas must connect Recent tragedies cannot be called isolated incidents by the media PAGE 2
Roundup from the
Lone Star Hoods
AUSTIN- Gov. Rick Perry appointed Richard Knight Jr. of Dallas to the Texas Southern University Board of Regents for a term to expire Feb. 1, 2011. Knight is the managing partner of Pegasus Texas Holdings L.L.C. and served as city manager for the City of Dallas and as a member of the University of North Texas Board of Regents. Knight is a board member of the Dallas Children’s Medical Center, Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, and Fort Worth Black Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member and past vice president at-large of the International City Management Association and is a former chairman of the board of Goodwill Industries and the Dallas/Fort Worth Minority Business Council. DALLAS- The Black Academy of Arts and Letters presents the 25th Annual Black Music and the Civil Rights Movement Concert: A tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. All TBAAL singers and dancers have the opportunity to sing background vocals and dance with award winning gospel artist, Karen Clark Sheard and Roz Ryan from the television sitcom, “Amen.” All rehearsals will take place at TBAAL, Dallas Convention Center Theater Complex on the corner of Canton and Akard Streets. Rehearsals begin Thursday, January 3, 2008. For more information, call (214)-743-2400. See LONE STAR page 3
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Quote of the Week
“I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven’t melted.” -Jesse Jackson
ROY D. MALONSON
African-American News&Issues
Merry Christmas Can Black consumers impact “X-mas”?
HOUSTON- Nobody is “Blacker” than me (when it comes to my community’s economics, education and politics), and for that reason alone, I was overjoyed when Carol Mims Galloway positioned herself to shake up HISD’s board. Not to mention Jolanda Jones’s victory ideally returns the City Council at Large Position 5 seat to its historical origin. History literate African-Americans might recall that the late City Councilmember Judson Robinson, Jr. was the first Black to win a city-wide office in 1971. In 1978, the city expanded the council to 14 (nine districts and five at-large) members, but Robinson remained the only at-large Black councilman. Not only was he re-elected nine times, prior to term limits, but his wife Margarita inherited the position after his death. And the Robinsons era became a dynasty when Judson III succeeded his mother. As great as that was for symbolic “Black Power,” the reality is that the City Council is a political Tro-
BUD JOHNSON
African-American News&Issues
Black Santas like the one that visits Shirley Ann’s Black Art & Kollectibles each year notwithstanding, a 1968 economy strategy is no longer effective See BLACK POWER page 3 in the 21st century’s post-affirmative action era.
Photo by Roger Jackson
January’s MLK parade in S.A. wrought with rich history MARIO SALAS
African-American News&Issues
SAN ANTONIO- With the MLK March coming up in January it might do well to explain how the historical event was started and to “Know Why You’re Marching.” In the late 1970s, Reverend R.A. Callies, his family, and church members began an effort to honor Dr. Martin Luther King by beginning a fund drive to raise a statue at the corner of North New Braunfels and East Houston Street. Every Saturday, over several years, Rev. Callies stood at this intersection with donation cups and the blaring speeches of Dr. King being played Christmas Day was always a very special holiday that held much more significance for the late Joseph Theobald and Lucy Portier Wiltz family insofar on December 25, 1929 God gave them a beautiful baby girl, that they named Mary Marjorie Wiltz. She lived a long and wonderful life which was celebrated on Oct. 29, 2007 at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, 1401 Fidelity. The Mass of Christian Burial was officiated by Rev. Lowell Case, S.S.J. and participants were: Hilda L. Witlz, Dr. Dana Wiltz-Beckham, Constance Washington, Rachel White, Christopher Barnes, Adrianna Clark, Rosa Williams, Pat Stevenson, Dr. Black, Helen Wiltz and Jael Miller. Active pallbearers were: Dr. Christopher Brown, Joseph C. Witlz Jr., Michael Maltie, Dr. Huey P. Beckham Jr., Matthew Brown and Joseph McCullough. In addition Shadow Pallbearers were: Joseph T. Witlz, Louis Myers Jr., Gregory Henry II, John Walls, Brian McCullough, Dexter Clay, Christopher Below, Aaron T. Witlz, Alison Tom, Joseph Wiltz, Regi-
on a microphone. Callies was successful in having the statue built, but it was during a time that the State of Texas did not honor Dr. King with a state holiday. Local radical grassroots leadership would soon change that. Between 1978 and 1980 about 50 community members came together and began what has since become one of the largest marches in the United States. This initial group of people saw what they were doing as a parade. These fifty people marched from Martin Luther King Middle School to the place where the statue now stands via Houston Street, a different route than what is traveled today. It was
MARY MARJORIE WHITE
December 25, 1929-October 22, 2007
nald Below, Ernest McCullough Jr. and Ken D. Killingsworth. Walter Stell, Joseph Robicheaux, George Simon, Ernest McCullough Sr., Dr. Harold Stafford, Dr. Eugene Hickman, Curley Joseph, Joseph H., David C., Dr. Phillip G., Dr. Charles and Ellsworth Wiltz were honorary pallbearers for Mary, the fifth of her parent’s nine children born in Parks, Louisiana. Mary attended Holy Rosary Institute High School in Lafayette Louisiana, where she received her high school diplo-
to become a vehicle to continue the legacy of the King movement by honoring him through addressing the current problems of the day, which included discrimination, poverty, war, unemployment, and other social issues. Many of the original marchers included Rev. R.A. Callies and family, Corine Duncan, T.C. Calvert, Bettye Roberts, Rick Greene, Mario Marcel Salas, Rev. C.C. Houston, Lillian Sutton Taylor, Rev. Christopher Griffin, Vashon Byrd, Jessie Mae Hicks, Bobby Roberts, George Clark, John Stanford, John Inman, John Allen, William Boyd, and many others, including veteran members of the local civil rights movement coming from chapters of SNCC, the NAACP, the Black Panthers, and other organizations. This initial effort did not enjoy community-wide support, nor was ma. She then traveled to Houston, Texas and she was united in Holy Matrimony to the late Roxie H. White. From that union, one son was born, Craig Anthony. Mary was a devoted wife for 49 years. She entered into the Radiology Technology Program at Jefferson Davis Hospital in Houston, Texas. There, she worked as a radiographer from 1952 to 1966. She then went to work for Ben Taub Hospital where she retired in 1990. During her 38 years in the Hospital District, she had an award named after her. The “Mary Marjorie White Radiographer of the Year Award” was established in 1990 to annually award an outstanding financially challenged Radiographer student at Ben Taub. Mary also had a talent for cooking and baking. She decided to go back to school and obtain certification in Wedding Planning and Consulting at San Jacinto Community College, became an entrepreneur and formed a partnership with Barbara Stell. Mary was an active member of Our Lady Star of the
The NAACP states: “AfricanAmericans continue to contribute more than 700 billion a year to the economy - and a substantial amount of those hard earned dollars are spent in stores like Target. We are serious about holding companies accountable for respecting the value of African-American customers. Economic empowerment isn’t just a financial issue, it’s a civil rights issue.” Although the foregoing excerpt from a very ominous article that was recently posted on blackgiveback’s Web site selectively targeted a specific store, it’s apropos to address a nettlesome question that African-American News&Issues feels obligated to answer for economically depressed African Americans that won’t have a Merry Christmas. History records that made in American African consumers effectively used selective buying campaigns, and other methods of See WHITE CHRISTMAS page 3
it very popular, as many in the Black and minority bourgeois saw the work of King concluded. It received very little press coverage, but the marchers continued in all types of weather. In the early 1990s one such march involved freezing temperatures and sleet. Participants believed in the King dream of world peace, an end to discrimination, militarism, and empowerment of minority communities. Eventually many of those early participants went on to establish Frontline 2000, a civil and human right organization. This group spearheaded the demand for a Martin Luther King, Jr. state holiday by traveling to Austin, Texas, in 1991, and meeting with then speaker of the Texas House, Gib Lewis. Under the threat of a Texas boycott against a City of Houston bid for a See MLK PARADE page 6
Sea, where she utilized her spiritual gifts as a Eucharistic Minister, Lady of Prayer and Lector to work diligently and faithfully in the numerous affiliations in which she served. She served as President of the Sodality Society, a member of St. Vincent De Paul Society, Bazaar Committees, 55 and Alive Club, The Drexel Society, Vocation Awareness Group, Knights of Peter Claver Ladies of Auxiliary, Catholic Daughters of America and the Inez Y. Bowman, Chapter No.2, Ladies of Grace. She was preceded in death by her husband; her parents; one brother, Patrick Wiltz, and two sisters, Vivian Wiltz and Adrianna Wiltz. She leaves in God’s care a loving son Craig Anthony White and daughter-in-law, Laurie White; three grandchildren; Dr. Christopher Brown, Matthew Brown, and Rachel Catherine White; two brothers, David C. Wiltz (Delores), Joseph Howard Wiltz (Theresa deceased); three sisters; Inez Narcisse, Lucy McCullough and Barbara Wiltz and a host of nieces, nephews, family and friends. TX-1