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VOLUME 91 - NUMBER 25 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2012 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30
Study: NC minorities get
Durham native Nathaniel “Rex”Purefoy, right, h
still is a photographer and still a performing cowboy.
(See story on page 2)
NC death penalty bias law
heading to governor
By Gary D. Robertson
RALEIGH (AP) - The Republican-led Legislature gave final ap
proval June 20 to a bill limiting the use of trial statistics for people
on North Carolina’s death row who received another way in 2009 to
prove racial bias in sentencing.
The measure now goes to Gov. Beverly Perdue, who vetoed other
legislation last December that would have essentially voided the Ra
cial Justice Act. This time, it appears the General Assembly has veto
proofmajorities in both chambers.
The Senate finalized its passage with a vote of 30-18 in favor of
the House’s rewrite of the bill. The House approved the bill last week
with the help of five Democrats. Perdue spokesman Mark Johnson
said the governor will review the bill when it reaches her desk. She’ll
have 10 days to decide whether to veto the bill or let it become law.
The Racial Justice Act directs judges to reduce a death-row in
mate’s sentence to life in prison if they find race was a significant
factor in a convicted murderer receiving a death sentence or in the
composition ofjurors hearing a case.
Opponents say the changes gut the intent of the law, but many
of the state’s district attorneys have said the Racial Justice Act has
clogged up the court system and delayed the carrying out of capital
punishment in North Carolina. Nearly all the 150-plus inmates on
North Carolina’s death row filed for reviews under the law, including
white defendants convicted of killing white victims.
The bill makes clear that statistics alone cannot prove race was a
significant factor.
“They have really defeated the legitimate purpose of what this law
was,” said Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, at the beginning of the Sen
ate debate. “We don’t want to see racial bias tainting our courtrooms.
I think everybody agreed to that. The question that we have before us
in this bill is how are we going to manage that.”
The law caps the period oftime which death penalty statistics can
be used to prove racial bias to effectively 12 years around the murder
(Continued On Page 7)
more scrutiny in stops
By Michael Biesecker
RALEIGH (AP) - A review of data on traffic stops in North Caro
lina finds law enforcement officers are twice as likely to conduct
searches of vehicles driven by minorities than whites.
Researchers for North Carolina Advocates for Justice reviewed
state data collected on more than 13 million traffic stops conducted
between 2000 and 2011. In addition to the higher risk for being
stopped and searched, the data showed blacks and Hispanics are al
most twice as likely as whites to be arrested following a traffic stop.
Dick Taylor, the chief executive of the trial lawyers’ group behind
the study, supports the creation of a broad-based commission to
study the issue of racial and ethnic disparities in how laws are en
forced on the state’s roads and highways.
“When you are stopped, you are more likely to have a negative out
come if you’re Hispanic or African-American,” Taylor said. “The
disparities are there. We need to look in a serious way at why that is
the case.”
The data used in the report was collected by the law officers them
selves, following the passage of a 1999 state law intended to moni
tor racial profiling.
The new report was quietly sent in March to Gov. Beverly Perdue,
Attorney General Roy Cooper, legislative leaders and other state
policy makers, many of whom Taylor said he and other members of
the lawyers’ group have met with. The report became public June 22
after a copy was obtained by The Fayetteville Observer.
Taylor said the group kept the results of the study quiet, recogniz
ing the sensitivity of the topic. While he stressed that the Advocates
were not suggesting the state’s law enforcement agencies are institu
tionally racist, he said the data does raise troubling questions that
need to be addressed, possibly with new training and educational
programs.
The group’s report cited other recent studies have focused on racial
disparities within North Carolina’s criminal justice system.
Black youths are three times more likely than whites to be referred
to the state’s juvenile courts, and once in the system three times
more likely to be sent to a juvenile correctional facility or trans
ferred to adult court.
Blacks make up 57 percent of the state’s prison population, but only
22 percent of the state population as a whole. Blacks are twice as
likely as whites to be sentenced to prison for drug crimes, with the
disparity growing even wider in some North Carolina jurisdictions.
In Wilson County, for example, blacks charged with drug offenses
are 10 times more likely to be sent to prison than whites charged
with similar crimes, according to the report.
Perdue spokeswoman Chris Mackey said the administration had
arranged for members of the advocacy group to meet with the Gov
ernor’s Crime Commission, which could potentially provide money
for further study.
Cooper’s spokeswoman, Noelle Talley, said the attorney general
agrees more study is needed of the roots of the racial disparities
reflected in the data.
“We urged continued collaboration with state leaders and legisla
tors, and inclusion of more stakeholders, especially those involved
Register
To
Vote
in the criminal justice system at the community level, including law
enforcement, prosecutors, judges and other members of the criminal
justice system,” Talley said.
Staff and wire reports - Gunnergy Sgt. Mack haynes was hon
ored as a Montford Point Marine, the segregated training camp
during World War II. He was tapped by Rep. DavidPrice in a
letter to him.
The original Montford Point Marines - the first African-
Americans to join the Corps from 1942 to 1949, when black
troops were finally allowed into the ranks. Segregated, they
trained aboard what is now Camp Johnson in Jacksonville. The
black Marines were barred from entering many establishments
in town, forced to work and train harder than their white coun
terparts, and faced with discrimination and prejudice from fel
low troops and from outsiders.
And now, top Marine leadership is calling for a formal recog
nition of their service. Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos
told a gathering of the National Naval Officers Association re
cently that he wanted to award the Montford Point Marines the
Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest award given to
civilians in recognition of distinguished deeds or service.
“Spread the gospel that the Marine Corps is a force that has
changed,” Amos said to the group. “We’re not in 1942 anymore.”
Black Colleges and the Black Press Revive Old Partnership - Clockwise, 2nd row, are: NNPA
Chairman Cloves Campbell; President of Xavier University, Norman Francis; Fort Valley State
University President Larry Rivers; Florida Memorial University President Henry Lewis III; Rev.
R.B. Holmes, South Carolina State University President George Cooper (retired); Virginia Union
University President Claude G. Perkins; Tuskegee University chief of staff Tamara Lee (interim);
and Clark Atlanta University President Carlton Brown. NNPA Photo by Freddie Allen.
Black Colleges and the Black Press
Revive Old Partnership
By Freddie Allen
Washington Correspondent
NNPA News Service
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - It was a reunion of sorts. The presidents of seven black colleges met black
newspaper publishers for a breakfast consisting of French toast, eggs and bacon. The setting was the an
nual convention of the National Newspaper Publishers Association here. And the goal was a familiar one
- explore ways to strengthen a unique partnership that
predated the modern Civil Rights Movement.
The relationship between Black colleges and the Black Press dates back to 1944, when Frederick
Patterson, president of Tuskegee Institute and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of what is now Bethune-
Cookman University,
Established the United Negro College Fund, a federation of private black colleges. Patterson utilized
the Black Press to garner support for and increase the visibility of the fledgling organization and to also
alert blacks to the financial struggles of the 27 HBCUs sprinkled across the South at the time.
In the book, “Envisioning Black Colleges: A History of the United Negro College Fund,” Marybeth
Gasman noted the significance of the relationship between black schools and the Black Press to the sur
vival of higher education in the back community:
“According to Morehouse president Benjamin Mays, the UNCF required the support of the Black
Press including the Pittsburgh Courier, the Chicago Defender, the Baltimore Afro-American, the Atlanta
Daily World and the New York Amsterdam News during this time as well as any time the Fund was ask
ing for support: “It was important because all Negroes were reading and they were seeing how important
it was, that the Negro colleges needed the Fund - You can’t get along without the media.”
According to UNCF’s Web site, the organization has raised more than $3.3 billion and assisted in
excess of 400,000 students attend college. Only the U.S. government has distributed more money than
UNCF on higher education for African Americans.
“Frederick Patterson] broached that idea through the Pittsburgh Courier,” said Raymond H. Boone,
editor and publisher of the Richmond Free Press. “If it were not for the Black Press of that period, it’s a
good chance that the idea wouldn’t have taken off. White papers were not publishing news about Black
people and black institutions in a positive way.”
Now, as the federal government cuts education funding to colleges and universities and threatens to
double the interest rates on student
loans, black college presidents are again turning to the Black Press for support.
“In the four years I served as president, we lost 50 percent of our state appropriations,” said George
Cooper, recently retired president of South Carolina State University. “The budget decreased from $26
million to $11 million.” Ninety percent of the freshman students entering South Carolina State are eli
gible for Pell grants, said Cooper, meaning that their combined family income is less than $30,000.
Cooper suggested that the Black Press can help HBCUs convey their commitment and mission of
providing access to opportunities to parents and students.
Black colleges and universities make up 3 percent of the higher education institutions in the U.S. but
nearly 25 percent of the baccalaureate degrees are awarded to African-Americans, said Cooper.
Cooper also said that the Black Press can also explain federal legislation affecting black colleges and
students, including a proposal that could have doubled interest rates on subsidized Stafford college loans
(Continued On Page 7)