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Volume39,Number9 WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. THURSDAY, October 25, 2012
Worth the Waft
First-day early voters endure two hours in line
BYLAYLAGARMS
THB
The early voting season started out with a bang on Oct.
18.
Hundreds of voters converged upon the Forsyth
County Government Center, braving long lines for the
privilege of being among the fust in the county to cast
their votes in the 2012 General Election.
Forsyth County residents could play a more pivotal
role than ever in the upcoming election, according to the
Associated Press, which reported this week that Forsyth is
one of 106 swing-voting communities in battleground
states that voted for then-President George W. Bush in
2004 but sided with President Barack Obama in 2008.
According to the AP, these counties could (day an integral
role in whether President Obama is reelected or replaced
with Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. Thirteen of
North Carolina's 100 counties made the list. In addition to
Forsyth, Bladen, Buncombe, Caswell, Cumberland,
Granville, Hyde, Jackson, Martin, Pitt, Wake, Watauga
See Voters on A3
Pbotoa by Layla Garros
Gail Robinson
Lillie Bacote
i??^???JMA. , l
Pluto by Layta Garnu
Front row (from left): Cancer survivors Sally Rutt, Gina Frank, Patricia Brown Kinnard and Eusebio Velez
with Livestrong trainers Rachel Shoffner (far right) and (back row, from left): Robert Edwards, Latisa Tatum
and DeShaun Love.
Class helps cancer survivors live stronger
BY LAYLA GARMS
Twenty-seven-year-old Eusebio Velez's testicular can
cer and the months of treatment that followed it may have
robbed him of his physical strength, but it couldn't shake
his resolve to live life on his own terms.
"I want to live life. I want to experience the good with
the bad," said die Bridgeport, Conn, native, who was diag
nosed in June 2011. "I don't know what the future holds,
and that's what's exciting about life, and until the end, it's
worth fighting for. I would be foolish not to fight."
The Winston-Salem State University alumnus dreams
.
of completing the master's degree he had started at UNC
Greensboro prior to his diagnosis, and becoming a social
studies teacher in die future, but for right now, Velez said
he is concentrating on restoring his physical strength, as
one of four members of Winston Lake Family YMCA's
inaugural Livestrong class. The 12-week program is
designed to help post-treatment cancer survivors regain
some of the physical vigor cancer treatment often
depletes.
"We're definitely working on stamina, balance and
coordination," said Livestrong Coordinator and Trainer
See Sui ?l?i? on AM
Diva Breaks
a Sweat
PfcMoby Layb Oanna
Singer and reality show
star Trina Braxton poses
in her workout gear last
week. Braxton, who
recently released her first
solo single, was the fea
tured guest at a
Zumbathon breast cancer
awareness fundraiser in
Clemmons Friday. Read
more on page Bl.
Photo* by Layla Garnu
Isaott Wilkerson (center) poses with fans Robert
Smith and Carol Vogler.
? ?* -a ? ?
Black migration
author draws
large crowd
BY LAYLA GARMS
TOE CHRONICLE
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson came
to town this week.
She addressed audiences at Reynolda House on
Sunday and at the Central Library on Monday. Her book,
"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's
Great Migration," was die featured book for Forsyth
County Public Library's popular On the Same Page com
munity reading program. Her talk before a packed house
of more than 150 in the library
auditorium Monday served as I
the culmination for the pro- ?
gram, which began in I
September.
Wilkerson, a former bureau I
chief for The New York Times, |
spent IS yean conducting inter- I
views with more than 1,200 I
Americans about the 55-year |
period known as the Cheat |
Migration, when millions of i
African Americans fled abhor- ^
rent racial conditions in the
South to start new lives in the y
North and West. A critically I
acclaimed national bestseller, I
"The Warmth of Other Suns" is H
said to be the most comprehen- I
sive work on the movement, I
which extended from 1915- I
1970.
"This is a stray that had not I
fully been told in part because E
the people themselves did not H
feel safe to tell it, because the |
people themselves had
endured such pain that they did
Cryttml Holland
Elnora Gore
not want to burden their children or anyone else with it,"
she said. "I just view it as a healing experience. This is a
way of allowing their voices to be heard."
Wilkerson, a Washington, D.C. native who serves as a
journalism professor and director of Narrative Nonfiction
at Boston University, said she was inspired to write the
book because her own parents were part of the Great
Migration, but were closed-lipped about their experiences.
"My parents never talked about it," she related.
"Wherever it would come up, my mother would just say,
'I left that place a long time ago. I didn't look back."'
The experience of writing the bode and sharing what
she learned from others who were a pari of the movement
with her mother allowed her to establish a closer connec
tion with her family's story, Wilkerson revealed.
"I learned things that I didn't know about my own
family through the process," she explained. "It was a way
that she (my mother) could begin to process what she had
been through ... it made it safe for her to talk about, and
it kind of validated it. That's the value of being able to cre
ate a safe space for discussion, which is the goal of all of
this."
The self described "southerner once removed" likened
See Wtrim on All
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Homecoming-goers fete trailblazing nursing class
BY TODD LUCK
THB CHKONICLB
Winston-Salem State University's very first nursing class
was feted during last week's Homecoming.
The nursing program at WSSU, then Winston-Salem
Teachers College, was established in 19S3 by an act of the
Oeneral Assembly in response to a state nursing shortage.
Thirty-three students enrolled in WSSU's first class. Twelve
of them would graduate in 1937 and go on to long careers in
See Nance on All
Pinna by Todd Lack
Class of
19 5 7
Alumna
Sadie
Webster with
her former
instructor
Gwendolyn
(Andrews,
right.
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