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Julian Bond Representative, District 136 162 Eurahlee Street, S.W. Atlanta, Georgia 30314
Committees
EDUCATION Transportation INSURANCE Surety & Title STATE INSTITUTIONS & PROPERTY
[State of Georgia seal]
The House of Representatives Atlanta, Georgia March 22, 1968
Dear Friends:
This is another issue of my newsletter. We hope this will give you some idea of what I have been doing, and that you will try to let me know what you want done. If you know others in your neighborhood who would like to receive this newsletter, please send me their names and addresses.
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We are still concerned about city services - street paving, garbage collection, street lights - and so on. If you have any complaints in this direction, please let me know.
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I have asked Governor Maddox to veto a very bad bill the legislature passed this year. This bill will let the state of Georgia sue to collect money paid to people on welfare after they die. In other words, if someone has been on welfare for 10 years and buys a small house, when he dies, the state will be able to sue to get the house to sell it. I think this is one of the worse things the legislature has ever done, and I hope the Governor will veto the bill.
Also, I am concerned about the Atlanta Housing Authority. As you may know, the Negro legislators tried to make some changes in the Housing Authority, but could not. They have been holding secret meetings--a policy which I feel is not appropriate for public organizations. After five months of delay, however, the Authority has agreed to an "open door", first-come-first-serve policy in housing project admissions.
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Now that the legislative session is over, I want to give you some idea of what the legislature did and what bills I supported and which ones I tried to defeat.
All of us, of course, were vitally interested in passing House Bill 1592 that would have split the 3rd Ward and could have provided our community with two new Negro aldermen and a Negro member of the Board of Education. The city aldermen fought this bill and ex-Mayor Hartsfield managed to persuade some of the Fulton County Senators not to support it. It failed by one vote in the Senate.
I was also disappointed that my bill, House Bill 1616 (introduced with Rep. Ben Brown) to require that half of the aldermen run from their wards instead of city-wide was defeated. The city fought this bill, too. If it had passed, Negroes in five of the city's wards could have elected Negro aldermen.
I supported House Bill 1587 to increase the powers of the Mayor, which was also defeated; I supported House Bill 1079 to outlaw discrimination in state employment; House Bill 1095 to abolish capital punishment in Georgia; House Bill 1644 which would have made it illegal to discriminate in selling or renting homes; two bills which would have provided tenure for teachers in Atlanta and the rest of the state; and Senate Bill 248 to enlarge the Atlanta Housing Authority and require that one member live in public housing.
In addition I worked to support House Bill 912 to make it illegal for a policeman to physically injure anyone when it is unnecessary; House Bill 861 to increase workmen's compensation and House Bill 926 to increase unemployment compensation; a bill that increases the number of days before a tenant can be evicted; a bill to require that all seventh grade students have tests for contagious diseases; a bill to provide equal pay for equal jobs performed by men and women; a bill to require that election officials post a large sign outside polling places; a bill to allow dispossessed tenants to have their furniture placed in storage; a bill requiring that a minimum wage of $1.60 be paid to all workers; a bill to allow the Fulton County Board of Elections to print sample ballots; and some others. Sadly, the best of these bills did not pass. I hope next year we will have better luck.
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Part of our difficulty this time was that some legislators did not wish to cooperate with us, and that the city fought us on one or two bills. Hopefully, through increased voter registration, we will be able to bring about some changes during the legislative races this summer and fall and the city elections in 1969.
Sincerely, [signed] Julian Bond Julian Bond