VOLUME 95 - NUMBER 2
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2016 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENT
Goals Of NCNAACP
'It’s Our Time, It’s
Our Vote’ Campaign
Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday is celebrated Jan. 18.
See events on page 3.
Trial in suit against Ferguson-Florissant district to begin
By Jim Salter
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Problems with racial bias have already led to reforms of Ferguson’s police depart
ment and municipal court. Next week, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union will argue in
federal court that a school district serving Ferguson students also needs an overhaul of the process for
electing board members.
A federal trial started Jan. 11 in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of the Missouri NAACP and
three residents who live within the Ferguson-Florissant School District in north St. Louis County.
The suit alleges that the district’s practice of selecting the seven school board members at-large makes
it more difficult for black candidates to win election.
It was filed in December 2014, just months after 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black and
unarmed, was fatally shot during a street confrontation with white Ferguson officer Darren Wilson. A St.
Louis County grand jury declined to charge Wilson, who resigned in November 2014.
Brown’s death led to several protests, was a catalyst in the national Black Lives Matter movement and
prompted a federal investigation into the city’s police department and municipal court. The U.S. Depart
ment of Justice’s scathing report, released in March, led to the resignations of Ferguson’s city manager,
police chief and municipal judge, and resulted in several police and court reforms.
The Ferguson-Florissant School District serves about 12,000 students in parts of 11 municipalities.
While the residents of the district are nearly evenly split between black and white, 77 percent of students
are black, in part because many white parents send their kids to private and parochial schools.
Five of the district’s seven board members are white. Members serve staggered three-year terms and
are chosen at-large in April elections.
The ACLU believes the process violates the Voting Rights Act, and blacks would be better served by
election by ward or subdistrict.
“Under the circumstances of this district, at-large voting has the effect of diluting African-American
votes and making it more difficult for them to elect candidates of their choice,” according to ACLU at
torney Tony Rothert said.
In a statement, school district attorney Cindy Ormsby said Ferguson-Florissant’s practice of electing
board members at-large mirrors that of most districts in Missouri and does not violate the Voting Rights
Act.
By Cash Michaels
Contributor
It was announced on Dec. 1 st ,
the sixtieth anniversary of the
day civil rights icon Rosa Parks
refuse to sit in the back of a
Montgomery, Ala. bus. And it is
with that spirit, says NCNAACP
President Rev. William Barber,
that the “It’s Our Time, It’s Vote”
campaign will move forward in
2016 registering record numbers
ofNorth Carolinians to vote, and
mobilizing them to the polls.
The campaign, led by the
NCNAACP and the Forward
Together Movement, has been
underway now for just over a
month. A few weeks ago, black
newspapers represented by the
NC Black Publishers Association
and the National Newspaper
Publishers Association joined
forces with the NAACP in North
Carolina in the major 2016
voter mobilization effort, and
to promote the upcoming 10th
Annual Moral March on Raleigh/
HK on J People’s Assembly on
Saturday, Feb. 13 th in Raleigh.
More than 80,000 people
from across- the state and nation
participated last year.
Rev. Barber says there are
over 180 coalition partners
representing from civil and
economic to environmental and
educational rights advocacy
involved in the nonpartisan
campaign. The NC Council
of Churches has also joined
forces in the GOTV (get out to
vote) effort. Leaders in North
Carolina’s Hispanic community
are also members ofthe coalition.
Per the NCNAACP, over
120 adult, youth and college
branches statewide are involved,
and the overall training for the
campaign is being conducted by
the state civil rights organization
and Democracy North Carolina,
a nonprofit, nonpartisan public
policy advocacy group.
“Our goal is long-term, issue-
based voter registration, voter
education, voter mobilization,
and voter protection,” said Rev.
Barber.
The “It’s Our Time...”
campaign is just one prong
of the NCNAACP’s voting
rights battle. Ever since the NC
Legislature passed the 2013
Voter ID law that effectively
rolled back previous voting rights
expansions, the NCNAACP and
The NCNAACP is also waiting on the ruling from the federal
judge in Winston-Salem involving same-day registration/early
voting, heard last July. Same day registration and early voting are
still in effect until that ruling because the US Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals issued an injunction maintaining it.
Meanwhile, Jan. 25 th is When the NCNAACP will be back in
court to argue the unconstitutionality of voter photo identification.
Last June, state lawmakers softened the requirement of using only a
government-issued photo ID while voting, realizing that they could
lose in court.
(Continued On Page 14)
George White
George Henry White (Image
courtesy of National Archives
and Records Administration)
Rep. G.K. Butterfield
CBC Chair
Duke University to honor
NC black congressman
George White
NEW BERN (AP) - Duke University is planning a ban
quet later this month to remember George Henry White,
the last black U.S. representative in Congress at the turn
of the 20th century.
The Sun-Journal of New Bern reports the banquet will
be held Jan. 29, marking the 115th anniversary of White’s
farewell address to Congress. In that speech, he said
blacks were bidding a “temporary farewell to the Ameri
can Congress” but that they would “rise up some day and
come again.”
White served two terms, leaving Congress in 1901. It
took 28 years for another black representative to follow
him.
U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield will be the keynote at the
Duke banquet. Butterfield is a former justice of the N.C.
Supreme Court and chairman of the Congressional Black
Caucus.
Sergeant in NYPD chokehold death
faces departmental charges
Lilah Steadman, 3, embraces President Barack Obama as her sister, Addison,
4, gazes up at the President while holding on to her mother, Emily, following a
promotion ceremony for their father, Military Aide Lieutenant Colonel Andrew
Steadman, in the Oval Office, Jan. 8. His mother Bonnie Steadman and brother
Ryan Steadman, center, also attended. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
its partners have gone to state
and federal courts to challenge
its constitutionality.
“We have called for
an injunction against the
implementation of the voter ID
[law], because even though we
have won a lot of concessions
from the state, and forced them
to change the original [law] that
they had through our protests
and legal action, it is still quite
confusing...misinformation has
gone out into the community...,”
Rev. Barber says.
“We’re still headed to court
because of the constitutionality
of the law itself, because we
already know from the Texas
case that Voter ID on its face
is unconstitutional. The courts
have pretty much said that.”
Rev. Barber also indicted
that the NCNAACP will be
appealing the 2011 redistricting
case after the NC Supreme
Court in December upheld the
skewed voting districts the
Republicans in the NC General
Assembly created that “stacked
and packed” black voters into
limited districts so that they
could dominate close races with
white Democrats.
By Colleen Long
NEW YORK (AP) - A sergeant has been stripped of her gun and
badge and charged internally in the July 2014 chokehold death of
Eric Garner, the first official accusation of wrongdoing in the case
that helped spark a national movement on the role of race in policing.
New York Police Department Sgt. Kizzy Adonis was one of the
supervising officers at the scene of Garner’s death on Staten Island
during an arrest on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. She
was not part of the team out investigating that day but heard the radio
call arid was nearby and responded to the scene. Adonis is black and
so was Garner.
Officials said Jan. 8 that Adonis was charged with failure to super
vise, an internal disciplinary sanction. Sgt. Ed Mullins, the head of
her union, called the charge ridiculous and political.
“She didn’t have to go there - she chose to go there to help out
and look what happens,” he said, adding it was Commissioner Wil
liam Bratton, not Adonis, who is to blame. “This incident stems from
failed policies that ultimately led to the death of Eric Garner.”
The encounter, caught on video by an onlooker, spurred protests
about police treatment of black men.
Garner, an asthmatic father of six, was seen yelling, “I can’t
breathe!” 11 times before losing consciousness. The medical examin
er found the chokehold contributed to his death. Coupled with police
killings of unarmed black men elsewhere in recent months, the death
became a flashpoint in a national debate about relations between po
lice and minority communities.
No one has been charged criminally. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who
is white and who applied the hold, remains on desk duty. A grand jury
refused to indict him on criminal charges. The chokehold is banned
under NYPD policy; Pantaleo has said he was using a legal takedown
maneuver called the seatbelt.
(Continued OnPage 14)