By Harry Murphy

The Atlanta archdiocese’s main liaison man with the poor it its only Negro priest, Father Aloysius R. Clarke.

He’s the director of the eight-month-old Office of Urban and Rural Concern (OURC), a part of the Department of Catholic Social Services. He’s got his hands full and desperately needs volunteer help.

The directorship of Father Clarke, a native of Washington, D.C., and a priest for 10 years, grew out of a 1967 decision by this country’s bishops to have a task force in each diocese devoted to city problems.

Father Clarke, educated at Fordham University and St. Paul Seminary in Newton, N.J., came to Georgia in 1967 as a St. Pius X teacher. He became director of OURC when it was established July 1, 1968.

Atlanta’s poverty fighters welcomed the slim clergyman with open arms. “They were glad just to find someone who was concerned,” he said of Economic Opportunity Atlanta (EOA) personnel. “They would assign workers to cover each poor neighborhood with me, pointing out problem areas.”

The Urban League and Community Council of the Atlanta Area also helped the boyish priest get his bearings.

Since his orientation period, his main efforts have been toward channeling concerned Catholics’ energies into areas of need.

This has ranged from spending an hour or two driving, to clearing land for a ghetto playground.

EOA supplies a list of the needs and Father Clarke attempts to supply people to fill the needs.

Mrs. Francis Hines of Christ The King is coordinator of volunteers

Father Clarke operates out of Our Lady of Lourdes Church at 25 Boulevard NE, about a half-mile south of where a riot broke out after a Negro youth was shot by a white man a couple of years ago.

A little farther south is Cabbage Town, an area of intense white poverty.

“It’s hard to decide where to begin,” he said, “but I believe that the Lightning and Markham areas are those with the most intense need.”

Lightning is just across Northside Drive from Vine City. Its general boundaries are Simpson, Northside, Hunter and Marietta Street. Markham is just south of Lightning.

“The city is condemning a lot of the houses in there and there is a great need to get those people out into some kind of better housing,” he said.

Several parish circles work with the priest in driving and contributing food on a regular basis. “I want individuals and groups to be able to do what they want to do; whatever they feel comfortable in doing. Some people would feel out of place going into a shack and helping someone, but they would be glad to help out some other way.”

Many Catholic employers call him with job vacancies. “They often are willing to pay more than the going rate to help someone in a high unemployment area who really is in need, someone who is in a pinch,” he said.

He has initiated steps to establish a day care center in the Lawrenceville area of Gwinnett County. “Many industries have jobs open for women if we can provide care for their children and transportation to the jobs,” Father Clarke explained. “A Catholic and some Protestant churches are already doing this on a scattered basis, but we hope to coordinate the efforts,” he said.

He is active in the Urban Training Organization of Atlanta, started by the Presbyterian Church but now ecumenical in nature.

This group conducts training sessions of just about any type and for just about any group who will be helpful in the needy areas. This includes providing seminarians and others with an insight into what ghetto life is like; acquainting clergymen with Atlanta’s government, politics and economics, and giving ordinary persons training so they can relate to the poor and not be repelled by their ignorance, apathy and dirt.

On his own, he has conducted courses in Negro history for teens and preteens.

He’s involved with Pioneer Developers Enterprises, a nonprofit, Christian ministers’ association to assist in the establishment of black businesses. “There is some disagreement about whether this is the right approach,” Father Clarke said, “But I think it will help. It will assist the little man who wants to establish a business.”

The director has visited parishes outside the Atlanta area for some insight into rural poverty. “It’s generally isolated in the rural areas, but it’s there,” he said. “Because it’s isolated, it’s even more difficult to fight. It’s hard, for instance, to get all the people together who are eligible for welfare, but aren’t getting it. They don’t know they’re eligible or they have no way of getting down to register for it.”

No problems have yet arisen because of his color, he said. “The very poor are glad to get help from anyone. A black hand reaching down to help pull them up is better than no hand at all. If there is any resentment, it hasn’t been evidenced.”

Father Clarke hopes to establish a welfare rights organization on Boulevard and a place where home management courses can be taught.

He wants to explain his office’s work to pastors and priests, and to have them encourage their parishioners to recognized the rights of fellowmen and to assist them.

He wishes for at least one nun to work fulltime with poor women and for religious nurses to teach health and hygiene courses.

A small space is being readied in Perry Homes for a youth center. The low-cost city housing project has 1,000 units and is growing. It is considered one of the most potentially explosive ghettos.

“There are no outdoor or indoor play areas,” Father Clark said. “It has the second highest juvenile delinquency rate in the city and the school absenteeism rate is enormous.

Fifty-three per cent of the homes have women as heads of household and many of them work, leaving their children to fend for themselves, to go to school or not.

“We hope to have a center where they can come, and some young people there to whom they can relate, who will help them with their homework and other problems, who will teach them the value of continuing their education. Hopefully, there will be cultural as well as recreational activities. Many of them can’t relate to their subjects or their teachers, so they drop out.

“We’re working with a number of kids. One has run away to New York and Florida and has been caught stealing…There’s a lot of glue-sniffing going on…” His voice trailed off and he looked weary. (Where do you begin?)

The parents don’t have the knowledge to prepare their kids for school, he said. They’re behind when they start and by their second or third year, they’re usually hopelessly behind.

Father Clarke is on a special school absenteeism board combating the problem. It includes two psychiatrists, juvenile probation officers and others active in the field.

He also is a member of the Metropolitan Atlanta Housing conference whose purpose is to increase low-cost housing, encourage open housing and stabilize neighborhoods when they become integrated.

Father Clarke’s a busy man.

Care to help?