Atlanta Daily World

REVIEWING THE NEWS
BY
WILLIAM GORDON
Fumbling The "Political Ball"

Negro Americans have long remained in the forefront as fighters for citizenship privileges, and doing so, they have encountered bitter and costly battles. Through the long hard fight for racial freedom. we have acquired several of the most valuable American heritages.

The right to the ballot is among those priceless heritages for which we have paid so dear a price. It is pathetic that many of us, even today fail to realize the importance and significance of the potential strength gained through the proper use of this heritage. So reluctant we have been in our vision and prospective, that we often let the most valuable opportunity slip right out of our grasp.

Negro citizens in Augusta. Ga. lost such an opportunity December 7. when they went to the polls to elect nine new members to serve on the City Council. The mistake was made in fumbling the "political ball" at a most ideal time as an opportunity to place a member of the race into a strategic position in public office.

The political blunder in Augusta can be traced to the lack of interest on the part of Negro voters and complete negligence among some for mere shiftlessness.

To blame the whites for this slip-up would be entirely out of place. For this time, the whites did not keep the Negroes away from the polls. They had the same opportunity to exercise their constitutional rights through use of the ballot-a right given them by the courts in recent years.

For the first time in the history of Augusta, Negroes served in the capacity as managers and clerks, exercising the same official authority and maintaining the same official status as whites working in opposite booths.

The idea however, that the average voter really understands the problems of American government today, is one of agreeable fiction that has come down to us from pioneer days. These problems are becoming more and more complex and the average citizen has to be far more wide awake in order to acquire the things necessary for his community.

The group in Augusta is not alone in this political blunder. There are millions of eligible Americans who never register and millions more who register but never vote. In state and local elections the percentage is found to be much higher than those on a national basis.

To have the right to vote and not use it seems far from using logical reasoning as American citizens. Citizenship has now become an absolute requirement for voting.

The situation at Augusta should be a lesson to all of us who say we desire the right to the ballot.

We had the opportunity at Augusta and fumbled the "political ball."

Such a chance may never come to us in Augusta again. Let's try to profit from the Augusta mistake.