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The Atlanta City Council last week took another step to keep its young people out of harm's way. In addition to a four-month-old curfew, the council's public safety committee recommended approval of an ordinance banning children under 15 from selling merchandise on the streets or in public places. Assuming that many of the victims were lured by the killer's promise of a job, plainclothes policemen cruising in unmarked cars have been observing black children as they play. Says Public Safety Commissioner Lee Brown: "These kids are different from white people in that they frequently have to do more for their families. They are out more, working or running errands." Counters Councilwoman Carolyn Banks, who sponsored the ordinance: "We're at the point now where a person's life, a child's life, is more important than a couple of dollars."
In a gesture reminiscent of the Iranian hostage crisis, people throughout the nation are starting to wear ribbons of various colors as a symbol of their concern for Atlanta's children. In Cincinnati, for example, the Ohio Black Women's Leadership Caucus is urging citizens to wear green armbands (to signify life). At week's end, the Atlanta office of the N.A.A.C.P. called for a 24-hour prayer vigil for people of all denominations at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip. Coretta Scott King, widow of the slain civil rights leader, last week called for a series of "moratorium on murder" marches around the country, starting with one last weekend from the Georgia state capitol to the Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel at Atlanta's Morehouse College. Said King: "We are determined to project an assertive, nonviolent alternative to the fear and despair which has gripped our community." Still, a higher priority obviously remains: catching the source of that fear and despair before the toll climbs higher.
—By Ellie McGrath
Reported by Joseph N. Boyce/Atlanta