TICKERTAPE

Jet, July 12, 1999 by Simeon Booker

Confidential: The first Black diplomat to speak the language and be assigned to Soviet matters William B. Davis felt sad when few non-Whites showed up at the sold-out Washington reception or NYC Carnegie Hall concert to honor the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin, Russia's famed Black poet.

Davis, now retired, says the absence of Blacks showed the vast gap between the minorities of the two countries and how little is known of the man who earned a reputation for freedom fighting long before Harriet Tubman ... Edging up in the nation's capital, South African Ambassador Sheila Sisulu was recently honored by Howard University Prexy H. Patrick Swygert, who admired how women guests wanted "to touch the flesh" of the daughter of the man who spent time in prison with Nelson Mandela." ... Although he hired Rosa Parks on his staff after she was forced to leave Alabama, Detroit Rep. John Conyers refused to get into the limelight when the civil rights queen was given congressional honors on Capitol Hill ... When she graduated from Maryland's Prince George's County high school, Monique Celeste Hayes established a worthwhile record-she did not miss a single day of school from kindergarten through grade 12 ... Only Black lawmaker to receive a full-page in the souvenir program of the annual Hill baseball game was North Carolina Rep. Mel Watt, the pitcher who last year won the most valuable player award. Others on the team are Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois and William Jefferson of Louisiana ... A Congressional disclosure index showed that California Rep. Julian Dixon owned five rare coins, the value of which was not cited.