University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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Mid-Air Crash A light plane flown by a student pilot collided with a commercial jet- liner 3,000 feet above San Diego ' s Lindberg Field September 25th, sending both crafts crashing into a fesidential area, it was America ' s worst air disaster. One hundred and fifty people were killed, including all 136 people aboard the Pacific Southwest Air- lines jet, the student pilot of the Cessna 172, his instructor, and 13 people on the ground. The planes collided about 9 a.m. PDT and plunged to the ground, smashing through a dozen homes in a quiet residential neighborhood five miles from the airport. Courtesy of United Press International A naming Pacific Southwest Airways Boeing 727 plunges toward the ground, moments before crashing into a residential area of San Diego, Calif The jetliner and a student pilot ' s rented plane collided in a ball of fire, with the collision and crash killing at least 150 persons. Pool picture by Frank Johnson of the Washington Post via Wide World Photos. Guyana The vat of death sits on a plank walkway at the People ' s Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, vith the bodies of some of the more than 900 victims of the murder-suicide plot on the ground. The vat contained an ade drink laced with cyanide. In what was possibly the largest recorded mass suicide in history, 913 members of the People ' s Tem- ple, a religious cult, followed the or- ders of would-be messiah Reverend Jim Jones and drank from a vat con- taining cyanide laced Kool-Ade. Jones, who shot himself after his followers drank the poison both will- ingly and unwillingly, apparently felt threatened by the visit of Congress- man Leo J. Ryan to Guyana. Ryan was investigating reports of abuses of cult members. Ryan and four companions were ambushed and killed as they attempted to leave Jonestown. Jones had promised his followers a close big family that transcended both race and class barriers and lived in a celebration of God while working to transform society. Jones and his family lived in the South American jungle on a com- mune, where they raised most of their food themselves. Jones was alleged to have abused many cult members sexually, men- tally and physically. Some cult mern- bers who refused to drink the poison were held as it was poured down their throats or shot to death. The incident spurned a rash of books on the atrocity as well as new investigations into existing cults and articles on the psychology behind cults. 24

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Dukakis-appointed forty member committee, replacing them with anti-ERA, anti-abortion conservatives. But in April, Governor King was scheduled to meet students at UMass. The Costs of Quality Education , a panel discussion spon- sored by the UMass School of Education was a part of the week ' s education forum. Howev- er, the Governor made his journey to North- ampton instead, to visit Leed ' s Dam. King was quoted as saying he feared that he might have a pie or other debris thrown at him and his staff. The majority of students at the University feel that the Governor is much too conserva- tive in his view, thereby affecting the quality of education. After all, if the University of Massachusetts is managed by the State, should not the State take pride in its facilities and not cater to the private universities in the area? This is one question the Governor and his administration should look into, for if the Governor says, Everything I ' m for, the peo- ple are for, then the Governor should re- evaluate his position on several issues and not just the issues of his close business asso- ciates. Mark Curelop The Duke ' King Calls the Shots Of all the news events during the 1978-79 year, none sparked as much interest on the UMass campus as the raise of the legal drinking age. What began as campaign promise of Governor Edward King turned into a reality as the bill to raise the drinking age quietly appeared in the Boston Statehouse. Students across the state quickly mobilized to protect their common form of entertain- ment. Various measures were intro- duced that would have raised the age from 18 to 19, or from 18 to 19, then to 20 and then to 21. In the midst of the controversy, four teen- age girls were killed in a town out- side of Boston when the car one of them was driving crashed. The alco- hol level in the 17-year-old driver ' s blood was the highest ever recorded in the state, as proponents of the raise were quick to point out. Fac- tors in the incident that were conve- niently ignored were that the girl ' s older sister bought the excessive amounts of liquor and that the girl had been stopped for drunk driving once before, but had her license re- stored. Persons against the increase said it is the parent ' s responsibility to monitor the behavior of their chil- dren, and the state ' s responsibility to create stiffer penalties for drunk driving and provide more education about alcohol use and abuse. The controversy reached a zenith when the perpetrator of the bill. King, was invited to speak on cam- pus during an educational forum. At the last minute the governor opted to visit a dam in Northampton in- stead, because, he told a reporter. Remember Who in ' 82 Boston, March 8 — Gov. King holds up drinking age bill after signing it into law at the Statehouse. The bill raised the drinking age in Massachusetts to 20-years-old, effective in April. We didn ' t want to get pie on our suits. Demonstrations on campus and in Boston proved fruitless, and on April 16, 1979, a 20-year-old drinking age went into effect. The effect on traffic fatalities, which the increase was supposed to prevent, was not known but the increase had obvious effect on campus bars. Splits between low- er and upper classmen were predict- ed, as well as increased drinking in the dormitories. Under-age students left campus in May thinking of ways to obtain fake I.D.s The photo speaks for itself. 23

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Black History Week A people ' s history cannot be sole- ly presented as an academic en- deavor. It is a living account that not only narrates past events but rein- forces feelings of self-worth. It pro- vides a context wherein people see themselves as makers of history. The academic acceptance of Black Studies cannot in and of itself pro- vide this crucial ingredient. The institution itself must recog- nize its responsibility for hundreds of years of neglect towards a people that have contributed so much to the development of civilization and culture. American educators pride them- selves and their institutions of high- er learning with creating the best education that the world has to of- fer. Despite the supposed great strides made since the 1785 Com- mon School system, the 1862 Mor- rill Land Grant Act (which helped es- tablish the Massachusetts Agricul- tural College, now UMass, and the 1954 court case Brown vs. Board of Education, American education so- cializes all who are under its influ- ence to think as Europeans. Their curriculums are designed to create productive members of the free enterprise system in the European tradition. For the supposed minority popula- tions in this country, however, the overriding need is to recover from their education. To offset the self-destructive ef- fect on blacks in educational institu- tions, black instructors were forced to implement Black History Week. Black History Week was not new. Queen Mother Moore The need to re-educate blacks to the feelings of self-worth were recog- nized decades ago. In 1915 the au- thor of The Miseducation of the Ne- gro, Carter G. Woodson, created the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. By 1926 he estab- lished Negro History week. He was not alone in this endeavor. Arthur Schomburg, a black Puerto Rican who came to the U.S. in 1896 and was a regular lecturer for the Univer- sal Negro Improvement Association, founded the Negro Society for His- torical Research. He also estab- lished the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature and History, opened at Fisk University in 1926. In the spirit of this tradition, the Afrikan-American Students Associ- ation at UMass sponsored Black His- tory month. The concern of the Afro-Am society was with history as a living science and presented those who lived it from every medium within our reach. Victor Goode of the National Conference of Black Lawyers reviewed the long history of legal lynching that has gone on, de spite the supposed safeguards of the constitution. Ruby Dee and Ozzie Davis utilized the medium of poetry and stories to convey the pleasures and pitfalls of black life in America. New education- al systems were reviewed by Profes- sor Hetty Fox of New York, while Na- home Nahaliel of Chicago lectured on the principles upon which rela- tionships operate. Black historical tradition was further enhanced by the arts, with a concert by UMass Professor Archie Shepp, while our experiences were masterfully con- veyed through dance by Patti O ' N- eal ' s Dusk Dance Ensemble and Eno D. Washington ' s Dance Company, featuring Pan-Afrikan dance forms. Black History Month is a people ' s memory — racism in this country has caused millions to lose the knowledge of a great past. Without that knowledge, an intelligent course for the future cannot be charted. Black History Month is a moderate medicine for an extreme illness — racism and Eurocentric education. For those who can boldly plot the future, the mandate is clear: educate with the truth or be inun- dated by the lie. Tony Crayton Ruby Dee and Ozzie Davis 25