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The Chronicle
Volume41,Number3 WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. THURSDAY, September 25, 2014
Employees
want a
proactive
boss
BY T. KEVIN WALKER
THE CHRONICLE
Employees of the Forsyth
County Department of Social
Services took full advantage of the
opportunity to provide input into
the search for the agency's next
executive director, calling for a
leader who will be open to sugges
tions and criticism and will knock
down barriers within DSS and
build bridges
outside of it.
The
Forsyth
County DSS
Board, whose
five members
are expected
to hire the
new ED by
the end of the
year, held
four forums
this month to get feedback from
agency employees and the general
public. Board Chair Evelyn Terry, a
Democrat who represents the coun
ty's 71st District in the General
Assembly, said the two staff-only
forums on Sept. 11 were well
attended. Staffers also made up the
bulk of attendees at the two public
forums on Sept. 18, which, com
bined, drew about 25 people. The
board had also solicited input via
an online survey that officials say
had been filled out by about 200
people before it was taken down
last week.
"We have had very good feed
back," said Terry.
Reginald D. McCaskill of the
Northwest Piedmont Council of
Government was seemingly the
only non-DSS employee at last
Thursday's evening forum. He said
the next executive director should
push employees to be more active
in the community. Earlier in the
day, he had attended a training ses
sion for social services providers
and said DSS was conspicuous in
its absence.
"Connect to the community ...
to the people they serve!" he urged.
Veterans of the agency liked
McCaskill's sugg'eslton. One long
time employee said the -agency was
visible in the community 15 to 20
years ago, but that directive had
somehow changed in the last 10
years.
Another employee suggested
that the next executive director
needs to launch a one-person pub
lic relations campaign to disabuse
the public of long-held notions of
those who receive DSS services.
She said the myth that able-bodied
DSS clients stay home all day
watching television is long overdue
for correction.
See DSS on A 7
Terry
A Place at the Table
Ministers want to engage community in talks about Ferguson and other topics
BY T KEVIN WALKER
rtffi CHRONICLE
The Ministers' Conference of Winston-Salem and
Vicinity will kick off a series of
town hall forums with one about
police and community relations - a
timely topic in the wake of the
events that roiled Ferguson, Mo.
"Can (Ferguson) happen here?
Sadly, of course it can," Ministers'
Conference President Rev. Willard
Bass, assistant pastor at Green
Street Church, told members of the
media Tuesday at Emmanuel Baptist Bass
Church. "The Ministers' Conference
of Winston-Salem and Vicinity believes it is time to be
Sec Ministers on A3
Robert Cohen/St. I ouis Post-Di^patch/MC'I
Family members touch Michael Brown's copper-top vault during his
burial at St. Peter's Cemetery in Normandy, Mo.
Photos b> Todd l uck
Winston-Salem's
own Patrick
Douthit, aka 9th
Wonder, gives a
lecture at Wake
Forest University
last week.
Below: WFU's
Interim Director
Office of
Multicultural
Affairs Wesley
Harris sports a
'The Hip-Hop
Fellow' t-shirt.
1
Hip-hop scholar drops
knowledge at Wake
BY TODD LUCK
I Hi CHRONKX1
Patrick Douthit, aka 9th
Wonder, offered locals a taste of
what it was like to teach hip-hop
at Ivy League Harvard
University.
The Winston-Salem native
returned home on Sept. 12 to lec
ture and screen "The Hip-Hop
Fellow," a documentary about
the time he spent teaching at
Harvard in 2012. Filmmaker
Kenneth Price was also on hand.
"The Hip-Hop Fellow" -
Douthit's actual title at Harvard
- is Price's second film about 9th
Wonder. His first, the 2011 fea
ture-length documentary "The
Wonder Year," let viewers "see
what makes (Douthit) tick and
what his world is like."
"He was just a real dynamic
renaissance man, and I've
always been a fan of his music,"
Price said.
It was during a screening of
"The Wonder Year" at Harvard
that Douthit was approached to
be the Hip-Hop Archive and
Research Fellow, a position with
Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois
Institute at the Hutchins Center
for African and African
American Studies. The Institute
is headed by Henry Louis Gates
Jr., whom Douthit described as
"probably one of the greatest
intellectuals of our time."
Douthit has taught at Duke
and is now teaching "Hip-Hop in
Context" and leading the Hip
Hop Institute at N.C. Central, a
university he attended. He said
college students are the same
everywhere, but some things set
Harvard students apart.
"The thing about Harvard is
it's the mecca of thinking. It is
arguably one of the number one
places on the planet to learn," he
said. It's the number one
place on the planet to create a
job. Most people go to school to
get a job; Harvard students go to
school to create a new job or to
be the CEO of the job."
After graduating from Glenn
High School. Douthit headed to
NCCll with the intentions of
studying to become a history
teacher. His love for hip-hop led
him to leave College early and
devote himself to music. He
became the producer of the
group Little Brother, which
gained him critical acclaim for
See Douthit on 48
-r <
II
Ihii
? i
Son of the Godfather has his say
Photo by
Kevin Walker
D a r y I
Brown
signs a
book for
a local
reader.
BY T. KEVIN WALKER
THE CHRONICLE
The James Brown biopic "Get on Up" is a modest hit.
Tens of thousands of people have seen it, helping the film
gross slightly more than its $30 million budget. Daryl
Brown, the son of The Godfather of Soul, has yet to buy
a ticket and likely won't even cough up a few bucks to
rent it.
"For what ?" he asked with a tinge of indignation.
See Brown on \2
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