Charlotte lawyer says
UNC system is racist
By DKLBRA MclNTYRP:
Staff Writer
"Some of the comments that I’ll
make tonight will be critical of UNC,”
said Julius Chambers, a former
member of the UNC Board of
Governors.
Chambers, a Charlotte lawyer and
president of the NAACP Legal
Defense and Education Fund,
recently spoke to about 100 people in
Memorial Hall.
Desegregation, Affirmative Action,
the Bakke controversy, and human
rights were topics he addressed.
Chambers resigned from the Board
of Governors in September. He
questioned the Board’s effectiveness
in dealing with racial desegregation.
“The administration does not meet
the needs and desires of Black
citizens of the state and they are
unwilling to abandon past policies and
adopt means necessary to insure
Black stay, " Chambers contended.
The University began by pur
posefully excluding Black citizens
from higher education, added
Chambers. Fewer than 18 per cent of
minority students are enrolled at
UNC, he said.
“But just looking at the number of
Black students enrolled without
looking at the number of Black
students who are qualified to enroll, I
think, misses the point,” Chambers
added. HEW guidelines received by
the University say that the University
System should increase Black
enrollment by 150 per cent.
“The board argues that there are
not enough intelligent Blacks to be
admitted to the system and that those
who are prefer to be with their own
brothers and sisters at predominantly
Black schools. The fact is that more
than 80 percent of the Black students
who try to get into the university
system have run into one problem or
the other. One typical problem is not
receiving sufficient aid.
“Can we say all schools are racially
desegregated? Can we say all schools
are open to all citizens?,” asked
Chambers. “How many Black faculty
and staff members are here at UNC?
How many are tenured each year?”
Those problems are not being
addressed as it should. Chambers
said.
Four Blacks fare well
By LONZA HARDY JR.
Co-Editor
Handshaking, l)ackslapping and hugging
overcame the residences of four Black
politicians November 8. Bob Drakeford,
William “Bill” Thorpe, Ted Parrish and
Braxton Foushee, all Blacks, were vic
torious in their bids for seats in local
government.
Bob Drakeford made history as he
became Carrborc’s first Black mayor. A
member of the Carrboro Conmunity
Coalition (CCC), he defeated his opponent,
John Boone, by capturing 57 percent of the
votes.
“We did it, folks, and it feels great,” the
new mayor-elect told his cheering sup
porters. “It took a lot of hard work, but we
did it.”
Out of a total of 1,807 votes reported cast
in the Carrboro mayoral race, Drakeford
received 1,020 to Boone’s 787. In one area,
the University Lake precinct, he unof
ficially defeated Boone by more than a 6-1
margin. That precinct is considered a
primarily Black and student precinct.
Also in Carrboro, Braxton Foushee, a
member of the CCC, won his bid for a seat
on the Board of Aldermen. He received
1,052 votes, 36 more than second-place
winner, Doug Sharer.
Foushee said transportation was the key
issue in the Carrboro campaigns. “From
here we are going to move on and expand
the bus system because that is what the
people told us to do,” he said.
In Chapel Hill, Bill Thorpe, whom many
said was the hardest campaigner of all,
was victorious in his bid for a seat on the
town’s Board of Aldermen. Unofficially, he
received 3,860 votes, enough to become the
first-place vote-getter among seven
candidates who struggled for the four
empty seats.
“It feels great. I worked the hardest and
I wanted to win,” Thorpe said as he
highlighted what he called a “sweet”
victory. “I must have talked to everybody
in Chapel Hill during my campaign.”
Thorpe, who attended at least one BSM
general body meeting, several con
ferences in the BSM office and one Upendo
worship service, reminded everyone
during his campaign that he lost the
election two years ago by a mere 46 votes.
“If I’m defeated this time,” he had said in
a Black Ink interview, “I will not try
again.”
Ted Parrish was able to garner one of
three open seats on the Chapel Hill-
Carrboro school board. He was a key
figure in organizing the highly successful
Pine Knolls Tutorial Program in the area.
. A
Chambers: Administration does not meet needs of Black citizens.
Homecoming Queen
History repeats itself
For two consecutive years, a
Black Homecoming Queen has
been named at UNC—but not
without struggle.
Cheryl Anita King, a fifth-year
pharmacy student,succeeds Sheri
Parks as the second Black
Homecoming Queen in the history
of the University. Elections were
marred, however, by allegations
that questionable procedures
were used at the polling sites.
They included the failure of
elections personnel to ask for
student ID’s, the absence of
printed ballots in favor of blank
slips of paper, and the posting of a
campaign poster at the Un
dergraduate Library polling site.
Black students also questioned
the posting of a photograph of the
candidates at the undergraduate
polling site, noting that it made
white students doubly aware of
the fact that King was Black.
Finally, the point which raised
perhaps the greatest controversy
was the fact that students voted
by writing a number which
corresponded to their chosen
candidate on a slip of paper. King
and fellow candidate Ann Clarke
were candidates six and nine,
respectively. Critics felt that the
numbers could easily be confused
in the tallying process.
Despite these criticisms,
however, Carolina Athletic
Association President David
Royle insisted that a new election
would not be held.
“If we believed something were
wrong,” he said in a Daily Tar
Heel interview, “we would wither
rerun the election or call in the
people concerned. There is no
doubt—and I say this absolutely
categorically—about who the
winner is.”
A Saturday morning re-vote
was held.
“It was very unstructured and I
was disappointed that it was
carried on in such a loose man
ner,” said King of the elections
procedure. “It hurt me to know
that I was campaigning for
something that I really wanted to
win and that it was conducted in
such a manner.”
“^Black religion can redeem America^
By LONZA HARDY, JR.
Co-Editor
"Black religion is the only religion in
American history that does not condone
injustice,” contended Dr. Herbert
Edwards, associate professor of Black
Church Studies at the Duke University
Divinity School.
Dr. Edwards spoke to a highly spirited
Morehead Planetarium audience
November 9 on the topic, “Black Religion
and Huroan„Relatj9ns.".^His appearance;'
along witfi sever^ of'ius students, was co
sponsored by the Black Student Movement
and the Campus Y.
Calling Black religion a survival religion
and a religion of the oppressed. Dr.
Edwards said that the only way America
can be redeemed is through the Black
church. Every other religion, he said, is
either too capitalistic or wrongly provides
theological and theoretical justifications
for inequalities that exist.
"Other religions in the country- explain
■ why TWO,r folks have to-be n^^streat^
feladc* ^religion siays ‘
they shouldn’t be. They explain why Black
folks ought to wait until everybody else is
employed before they get a job. Black
religion sees religion as a means of
breaking down every barrier to full par
ticipation.”
Dr. Edwards said that one of the
peculiar things about Black religion is the
tremendous power invested in the Black
preacher—a kind of power and authority
that no other clergy in America had ever
had. This power, said Edwards, is
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I ’• ^ ‘^'fhe |x)Vv'feF'aiifi'Authority that thb Sack'“‘
preacher has lost is traceable not so much
to the competition of the secular
professions,” claimed Dr. Edwards, “but
to the Black preachers’ attempts to
imitate white religion and to deny his
heretage with hopes of gaining ac
ceptance."
This religion that many Blacks attempt
to imitate is too sophisticated, cultured
and refined, Edwards claimed. “White
folks start church at 11:00 and quit at
.Ji-,P9-,If t,he .^pirit,idpf5n’t,find a way to
1,1; ^12:00, then so