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Depiction of Africans Elicits AT&T; Apology

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From Associated Press

American Telephone & Telegraph Corp. apologized Thursday after workers and a civil rights group complained about a drawing in this month’s employee magazine that uses a monkey to depict Africans.

The drawing, which appeared on a games page, shows characters on several continents conversing by telephone. All of the characters are human except the one in Africa, which is a monkey.

The company said the drawing, done by a free-lance artist and submitted by an outside design firm that produces the magazine, slipped by its editors.

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Mary L. Peeler, executive director of the North Carolina chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, complained about the drawing this week in a letter to AT&T; Chairman Robert E. Allen.

The group is “truly appalled at the humiliating and offensive way AT&T; has chosen to depict persons in Africa,” Peeler said in her letter. “This picture is highly offensive to Africans, to African-Americans and to many AT&T; employees and customers.”

Walter Murphy, AT&T;’s director of corporate information, said the company also was appalled.

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“We and everyone here at AT&T; could not be more dismayed that this kind of thing could have gotten by us,” he said.

Murphy said AT&T; no longer is using the artist who drew the illustration and that the New York-based design firm that produces the magazine has dismissed one of its production managers.

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