Page A4-The Chronicle. Thursday, May 30, 1985
Winston-Salem Chronicle
Founded 1974 ^^
\
ERNEST M. Pin, Publisher
NDUBISI EOEMONYi ALLEN JOHNSON
Co-Founder Executive Editor
ROBIN ADAMS
ELAINE L. PITT Assistant Editor MICHAEL PITT
Office .Manager Circulation Manager
OUR OPINION *"
The monkey hustle
House Bill 565, which last week passed in a legislative
committee by a 12-8 vote ? but only after being watered
down almost beyond recognition ~ is an insult to the
political integrity of the black community. It would have
been better to leave the bill, which would help local
minority builders get city contracts, as it was and accept
defeat rather than be insulted with what amounts to the
monkey hustle.
Black folk know what the monkey hustle is. It's when
someone tries to make a fool of you and doesn't even try
disguise the fact that he's trying to make a fool of you.
White Democrats, or rather "Republicrats," as Chroni
cle guest columnist. Carlton Holland once labeled
Democrats who hustle black votes but have no real interest
in what benefits black voters, have done it to us again. The
white Democrats in our legislative delegation have spent
more time and energy destroying the enabling legislation
than lobbying for its passage.
They forgot about doing what is right and instead chose
to make the bill palatable to the opposition ? at almost
any cost.
We know that compromise and negotiation are perhaps
the two most important ingredients for passing legislation.
However, everything was given up when the bill was
amended in committee and nothing substantial was gained.
At the very least, if the opposition insisted on a
10-percent cap for required minority participation, then it
shouldn't have limited the bill to only two projects
/j a ? ? t - ? - - -
vaowniown development and tne coliseum). Or, if it was
going to limit the bill to the two projects, then it should
have removed the 10-percent cap and left that decision to
the aldermen, who should be making it in the first place.
But when you're doing the monkey hustle, you don't
have to make those kinds of considerations. The bill even
assumes that the coliseum bond referendum is going to
pass, hence, absolutely no respect for black voters.
Now the ball rests squarely in the black community's
court. As Jim Brown told Richard Pryor as Bryor lay in a
hospital bed nearly burnt to a crisp, "Wnatcha gonna
do?"
We ask the black community now, "Whatcha gonna
I do?"
The trade Mr
From cosmetics to office furniture to hair care to even
/ automatic weapons, minority businesses strutted their
:i stuff last week and made valuable contacts at the Fourth
Annual Minority Trade Fair.
In one well-organized swoop, the fair addressed the
- special needs and problems of minority-owned concerns,
helped create stronger ties between potential corporate
customers and minority businesses and gave minority
firms the chance to show their wares.
The fair's seminars encompassed such pertinent topics
as city-county purchasing, purchasing techniques, adver:
tising and sales and marketing skills.
Ironically, the fair began on the very day that a bill that
would increase minority contractors' business with the city
narrowly survived a state House committee after being
rendered toothless by an unprecedented nonlocal amendment.
A - * *?
/aiiu even more ironically, a seminar addressing such
legislation had to be cancelled at the fair, unbelievably
enough, for lack of interest.
- If only the legislators ? Democratic and Republican who
fought that bill could have been on hand at the fair,
just maybe they might have better understood what the bill
was supposed to be about: opening doors of opportunity
to businessmen who are not part of the "good old boy"
network and who simply want the chance to work hard
and prove the worth of their products and services.
The trade fair also dramatized the value of partnerships
? in mis case an encouraging, and we hope, more than
cosmetic bond among black entrepreneurs, white-owned
businesses, the Chamber of Commerce (particularly its
Minority Business Council) and the city.
The trade fair isn't all it can be. It would be nice to see
more booths next year, as well as more people visiting
them. But the fair is growing fast, and the people who
have continued to nurture it from infancy deserve a round
S / of applause, espcially its coordinator, Melvin "Rip"
\ Wilkins.
IMEMUT.MARGARE
Hunt: Will h
As a child growing up in
Winston-Salem, I can recall on
many occasions hearing my
mother and other elders talking
about the unfortunate case of
~Clyde Brown.
Clyde Brown was afhandsome
young black man who was killed
in the gas chamber of North
Carolina for allegedly raping a
white woman.
Today, practically every black
person and some white people
who remember strongly believe
. that Clyde Brown was an innocent
man. Many people have
openly speculated that if there
was a rape, it was committed by a
close relative of the young
woman.
The Clyde Brown story is
powerfully imbedded in the
minds of black citizens of
Winston-Salem who are 50 years
of age and older. Many of those
who remember have made contributions
to the Darryl Hunt
Defense Fund, and they have
been alarmed by the startling
similarities between Darryl Hunt
J r? ?
anu viyuc oiuwii.
These similarities have raised
ominous questions in my mind.
Will Darryl Hunt die in the gas
chamber like Clyde Brown?
1 strongly believe that Darryl
Hunt is an innocent man. The
physical evidence found on the
scene does not match up with
Darryl in any way. Darryl Hunt
has had 14 polygraph tests administered
by outside, independent
operators and he has passed
Duncan: Edi
To The Editor:
In the interest of responsible
journalism, your readers have a
_ - l_ A A - AI_
ngni 10 me iacts.
I regret your interpreting my
opposition to the quota bill as being
racially motivated. As a
woman in government, 1 am
fighting daily for programs which
are of considerable benefit to
minorities and women, and just
yesterday I voted against a bill
which would have adversely affected
both those groups. Incidentally,
I voted with Rep. Dan
Blue, a black legislator for whom
I have the greatest respect.
For the record - and this can
be corroborated from a tape of
the Local Government II meeting
- I never made the statement that
I was opposed to the quota bill
because "only one white man was
on the board." That was hearsay
and taken out of context. Nor
can the opposition be purely partisan,
since Democratic aldermen
voted against it, and Sen. Marvin
Ward criticized Rep. Annie Ken
nedy for changing the language
of the bill without consulting
members of the delegation. If
you will check with Rep. Kennedy,
you will learn that I was the
only Republican who signed the
bill in its original form. However,
I requested that my name be
removed when I discovered the
bill was not identical to the one
for which I had voted. That bill is
on record at the clerk's officc
here at the General Assembly.
Moreover, Democratic
legislators all over the state are
I ? I'M SICK OF THIS MEM
o Hio libo n?i
'V MIV Iiav v/lj 1
' J
THE GUEST COLUMN
By LARRY LITTLE
every-single one.
The- obvious?question - that
comes to mind is why is Darryl
Hunt still being held in jail? Why
*
Darryl Hunt
is he likely to die in the gas
chamber? My own opinions are
these:
Darryl Hunt is a scapegoat. I
believe that the police bungled
this case from the very beginning,
when they went to the wrong area
of town in response to a phone
call reporting the crime. The
tremendous media coverage of
such an atrocious crime! has fueled
the public wrath, and thus someone
must pay, and pay in
blood.
-V I
wriai was trr<
CHRONICLE LETTERS
Our readers speak
opposed to the quota bill because
they believe contracts would be
let to out-of-state businesses
rather than to local people. As a
matter of fact, I had previously
learned that the Board of
Aldermen had made aggressive
efforts to promote the awarding
of these contracts to local minority
businesses, but simply did not
have enough bids to fill their
goals of approximately 10 percent.
S
In my opinion, if we utilized
the "urban enterprise" concept,
which in the long run could lead
to an increase in minority
businesses, it would be of greater
value to our black community
and allow more bids from within
our own city and state.
I am more than willing to do
everything in my power to assist
minorities. Unfortunately, irresponsible
articles like yours do
more to polarize all of our
ADfAf F&0 7DACT/A
vrvinu mi irvnrri^,
f
ie Brown?
* ?
The state has three or four
witnesses who will attempt to put
Darryl Hunt on the scene of the
crime and one witness who will
testify that he saw Hunt
assaulting Deborah Sykes. My
own investigations lead me to
suspect that much of this
(v\^^V v 'x\^y^-k0M
Clyde Brown
te^imony will be proven to be
outright lies motivated by the
large, tempting rewards offered
in this case.
The jury may be all-white. I 0
believe that the district attorney,
Donald Tisdale, will do
everything in his power to keep
black people off the jury. The
jury composition will be the most
critical factor in the trial. If prospective
black jurors state that
they have already made up their
Please see page A11
pvrtnn vihlo
citizens than anything else. I hope
your readers will repudiate them.
Ann Q. Duncan
State House of Representatives
39th District
Raleigh
A note of thanks
To The Editor:
I would like to say thanks to
the black aldermen for their
stand on the coliseum project.
We are proud of them for stan
ding up for more black participation
in Winston-Salem construction
projects.
Alderman Larry W. Womble is
right ? we, the black community,
need jobs. We, the black voters,
put these aldermen in office to do
just that ? to see that we, the
black community, get part of the
action. If they are not looking
out for the black community,
then they should not be in that
position and will not be in that
Please see page A12
/
CHILDWATCH
There's famine
in America, too
By MARIAN W. EDELMAN
Syndicated Columnist
WASHINGTON - "Inside the
remnants of a house, alongside a
dirt road .... lived a family of 13
people .... No food was in the
house. The babies had no milk
.... Only the flies which crawled
on the face of the smallest child
seemed to be well-fed. The
parents were not; they had not
eaten for two days. The children
had eaten some dried beans the
previous evening."
A tragic scene from a droughtplagued
Third World nation? An
historic glimpse of America during
the Great Depression?
No. This is a portrait of an
American family today, living in ?
the heart of some of our nation's
richest land, the Mississippi
Delta. A group of doctors came
across this family, and many
others like it, as_they traveled
across America last year to find
out the extent of our hunger problem
in this nation.
Even to men and women who
are used to seeing human suffering,
what they found was very
disturbing. The recently-released
report of the Physicians' Task
Force on Hunger in America says
that "hunger and malnutrition
are serious problems in every
region of this nation."
- It is hard to put exact numbers
on this problem. But the Task
Force report estimated that
malnutrition now affects roughly
half a million American children.
Up to 20 million Americans may
be hungry at least for some
period of time each month. Low
birthweight among babies and
growth failures among children,
among other medical problems
linked to inadequate nutrition,
are particularly serious among
low-income families,' ^he report
says.
Hunger is now a "national
health epidemic" that is "more
widespread and serious than at
any time in the last 10 to 15
years," the doctors tell us. And
it's getting worse. Requests for
emergency food are up all around
the country. In Texas, such requests
tripled between 1983 and
1984. In Wisconsin, requests
doubled. The Connecticut Food
Bank, located in New Haven,
hoped that 1,200,000 pounds of
food would be enough in 1984.
They distributed 1,800,000
pounds.
The Physicians' Task Force
cites three main reasons for the
spread of hunger. First, the holes
in the government programs that
were set up to prevent hunger,
such as food stamps. Second, the
devastating economic recession
of the early '80s, which threw so
many Americans out of work.
Finally, they blame the harsh
Reagan administration cuts in
human CPrvir#?? nrnoramc Ji"?
........... u?a l?vu W^l 01110) 111'
eluding a 1982-85 reduction of
$12.2 billion in food stamps and
child nutrition.
"Little Regina, a listless
4-year-old who sat before her
empty plate at a North Carolina
day care center, is experiencing
growth failure because she gets
little to eat outside the program,"
says the report.
Hunger's rise can be traced to
"clear and conscious policies of
the federal government," according
to the Task Force. It is up to
us to reverse those policies. We
must let our congressional
representatives and our senators
know that we want them to
strengthen government programs
whirh ran h^ln
'ivic " ipv UUI IIUU^CI .
food stamps, the Women, Infants
and Children Supplemental
Feeding Programs and school
lunch and breakfast programs,
among others.
The most wealthy nation on
earth can afford to fill Regina's
plate. We must make sure Congress
budgets the money to do so.
Marian Wright Edelman is president
of the Children's Defense
Fund, a natlondKvoice for
children. \
?