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VOLUME 94 - NUMBER 27
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2015
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
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NC hotel to refund service charges
paid during CIAA tourney
CHARLOTTE (AP) - A Charlotte hotel will refund the service charge that people paid for food and
drink in its lounge during the CIAA basketball tournament, the N.C. Attorney General’s office announced
Monday.
The statement from Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office said the Ritz-Carlton reached an agreement
with the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and Cooper’s office on July 1.
Under the agreement, the hotel will also notify customers of special service charges in the menu and
have servers remind customers in the future. The Ritz-Carlton will donate $75,000 to the CIAA Scholar
ship Fund, and pay the N.C. Department of Justice $5,000 for consumer-protection efforts.
Consumers who visited the Lobby Lounge at the Ritz-Carlton in Charlotte during the CIAA tourna
ment last February complained that an extra service charge was unexpectedly added to their bills.
Following complaints from consumers, the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division began
investigating the charge.
The hotel apologized for the service charge, saying it didn’t intend to offend customers and the gratu
ity was distributed to the servers who worked the event.
The CIAA is the oldest African-American athletic conference in the nation. Charlotte Regional Visi ¬
The Amy E. Kelly Education Foundation gives out scholarships to deserving
students. They are part of the Walltown Community From left to right are three
recipients of scholarships. Kelly Moore, Geniece Bey and Ashley Bey. They were
enjoying the Walltown Reunion Picnic. See photos on page 6.
Slavery Linked to School
Segregation in South
By Jazelle Hunt
NNPA Washington Corre-
spondent -
, WASHINGTON (NNPA) -
There is a direct correlation be
tween the geographic concentra
tion of slavery and today’s K-12
school segregation, according to
a new study.
The study, “How the Legacy
of Slavery and Racial Composi
tion Shape Public School Enroll
ment in the American South,”
appeared in the publication Soci
ology of Race and Ethnicity, the
official journal of the American
Sociological Association.
According to the study, coun
ties in the Deep South that had
large enslaved populations cur
rently have the highest levels of
racial segregation between pub
lic and private schools.
“This is fundamentally still a
White flight process. We tested
whether or not White students
were leaving public schools to
attend private schools because
they were better schools. That’s
not the case,” said Robert L. Re
ece, a doctoral candidate in the
sociology department at Duke
University and co-author of the
study.
I “They’re leaving public
schools because of integration,
because there are Black students
in these schools; [and] because
slavery created conditions that
normalize segregated schooling
in these areas.”
Reece and co-author Heather
O’Connell at Rice University
examined Census and National
Center for Education Statistics
data along county lines in states
that were original members of
the Confederacy: Alabama, Flor
ida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missis
sippi, North Carolina, Texas, and
South Carolina.
After Brown v. Board of Edu
cation, a wave of private schools
washed across these and other
states in defiance of integration.
Because this White flight was a
response to Black students en
tering previously-White public
schools, Reece and O’Connell
expected there to be more private
schools in places that had been
particularly attached to slavery.
Instead, they found that the
correlation rested in the level of
use of private schools, not the
number of schools.
“We argue that the social
structural legacy of slavery may
separately affect the use of pri
vate schools by amplifying their
legitimacy as a means to escape
integrated public schools,” the
DILL NcB,
Robert L. Reece, doctoral candidate at Duke Uni
versity and co-author of the study. (Courtesy photo)
study stated. “The strongly demarcated social hierarchy associated
with the legacy of slavery may make the use of private schools more
likely among Whites, regardless of the number of private schools.”
In other words, there weren’t necessarily more private schools in
counties that had had high concentrations of enslavement, but the
school segregation in these areas was stark.
Reece and O’Connell explain that high enrollment and racial seg
regation in private schools in the Deep South was, and still is, partly
a result of “racial threat” - the rise of Black students and families
in a given county or public school, which then leads to White flight
and greater Black-White disparities. To test this hypothesis, they
analyzed the same data for counties in the “Upper South:” Arkansas,
Delaware, Kentucky, North Carolina, Maryland, Tennessee, Virgin
ia, and West Virginia. Their results suggested no link between racial
threat and racial school segregation in the Upper South, while show
ing a statistically significant link in the Deep South.
The study noted, “The Deep South was much more reliant on the
plantation economy and is argued to have subsequently developed a
more rigid set of racial politics that remain in place today.”
Although the researchers focused on the former Confederacy, they
make it clear in their writing that this type of segregation happens ev
erywhere - but in different ways and for different historical reasons.
“Everyone [in America] had a connection to slavery. Like New
York, for example - a lot of plantation investment money came out
of New York, from Wall Street,” said Reece. “We’re measuring how
this one specific type of racial inequity was grown and protected in
this area. School segregation exists in other areas, but the history is
just different.”
As the nation changes demographically, with young children of
color already the majority in their generation, Reece asserts that race
relations will not change much without examining and targeting
these roots.
The study is part of a developing field of social science research on
the legacy of slavery that examines the system’s social and economic
consequences. Reece and O’Connell hope to advance the field and
encourage others to study history as a path toward correcting present-
day racial inequality in communities all over the United States.
“What we’re trying to demonstrate is that history mattered. The
history of slavery matters,” Reece says. “We can’t really understand
the social determinants of things like segregation, and poverty, and
income disparity without taking a long pause and historical look at
what has been happening.
tors Authority spokeswoman Laura White says the tournament had a $50 million economic impact in the
Pictured L to R: NCCU Chancellor Debra Saunders-White, U.S. Attorney
General Loretta Lynch, Dean Phyliss Craig-Taylor, NCCU School of Law and U.S.
Rep. G. K. Butterfield
U.S. Attorney General Hosts Civil
Rights Roundtable Meeting at North
Carolina Central University
U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch hosted a civil rights roundtable meeting at
North Carolina Central University School of Law to address the current issues facing
citizens. The topics discussed included human trafficking, hate crimes, voting rights,
school safety and community-police relations.
“It is truly an honor and pleasure to host this important conversation with our 83 rd U.S.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch,“ said Chancellor Debra Saunders-White. “Holding a
conversation on civil rights here at North Carolina Central University School of Law has
profound significance as NCCU has nurtured some of the greatest civil rights advocates
and champions for justice.”
During the two-hour event, Lynch discussed various civil rights matters with Triangle
area leaders from education, religion, law enforcement and community activists. She
also acknowledged that recent events in the South have evoked painful memories of the
past and emphasized her commitment to pursuing justice against hate crimes and civil
rights abuses.
“While we cannot guarantee the absence of hate, we can guarantee the presence of
justice. We can do that,” said Lynch. “I am committed as attorney general to making
good on that guarantee.”
Participants from NCCU were: Chancellor Debra Saunders-White, Dean Phyliss
Craig-Taylor and Professor Irving Joyner, North Carolina Central School of Law.
Equal protection protests lead to arrests at NC legislature
By John Moritz
RALEIGH (AP) - More demonstrators at the North Carolina Legislative Building were arrestee
Wednesday after advocating equal protections for gays, immigrants and the uninsured in the wake ol
recent Supreme Court rulings.
General Assembly police placed six demonstrators in plastic handcuffs following a rally in the rotund,
between the House and Senate chambers. The six refused to leave with the larger crowd after police tolc
them they would be subject to arrest once the building closed at 5 p.m.
The chief of the General Assembly Police did not immediately return a call requesting details about
charges for the six protesters. State NAACP president the Rev. William Barber attended the rally, but was
not among those arrested.
Affiliated with the North Carolina NAACP and the “Moral Mondays” movement, the protesters callee
on the General Assembly to expand Medicaid, pass anti-discrimination laws for gay and transgendei
people and offer in-state tuition to immigrant students not in the United States legally.
Earlier July 1, Barber and House Minority Leader Larry Hall, D-Durham, held a news conference
demanding the state’s Republican leaders accept federal funding to expand Medicaid, or come up wit!
their own plan to close the coverage gap.
“We’re going on a summer vacation for all intents and purposes and we have a major issue that has
not been resolved,” Hall said.
The House and Senate will not meet next week for the Fourth of July holiday. Gov. Pat McCrory
signed a continuing resolution June 30 extending budget negotiations until August 14.
Last week the Supreme Court effectively legalized gay marriage in all 50 states and upheld a key
component of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.
Chris Sgro, the executive director of Equality NC praised the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decisior
at the rally and criticized the General Assembly for passing a law allowing some court officials in North
Carolina to refuse to perform marriage duties if they have sincerely held religious objections to gay mar
riage.