OPINION
The Chronicle i
617 N. Liberty Street
336-722-8624
www.wschronicle.com
? 40;
/
Ernest H. Pitt
Donna Rogers
Elaine Pitt
Publisher/Co-Founder
Managing Editor
Business Manager
Our Mission
The Chronicle is dedicated to serving the
residents of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County
by giving voice to the voiceless, speaking truth
to power, standing for integrity and
encouraging open communication and
lively debate throughout the community.
50 years later,
Voting Rights Act
under attack
2015 has been a year of milestones, from an
African-American president of the United States
marching in the re-enactment of the final march from
Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to Confederate
flags being taken down off government property.
Today (Aug. 6) is another milestone. It is the 50th
anniversary of the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights
Act into law.
President Lyndon Johnson signed the measure
into law on Aug. 6, 1965. The law was designed to
overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels,
especially in the South, that prevented African
Americans from exercising their right to vote under
the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, such as paying a poll tax. It is consid
ered among the most far-reaching pieces of civil
rights legislation in U.S. history.
Who would have thought that 50 years later,
African-Americans would be again fighting for the
rights our forefathers gained through blood, sweat
and tears?
On Monday, July 13, the trial in the lawsuit N.C.
NAACP vs. McCrory began. It ended Friday, July
31. This trial challenged the repressive acts of the
North Carolina General Assembly to roll back voting
rights gained under the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The
lawmakers acted in 2013 after the U.S. Supreme
Court gutted part of the Voting Rights Act. Chief
Justice John Roberts said at the time that times have
changed, so Section 4(b) - which contains the cover
age formula that determines which jurisdictions are
subjected to preclearance based on their histories of
discrimination in voting- is invalid and needs to be
revised. Congress has yet to revise it.
On July 30 in Winston-Salem, the Southern
Poverty Law Center (SPLC) held a screening of a
documentary it made, titled, "Selma: The Bridge to
the Ballot." It focuses on the participation of high
school students and teachers in Selma in events that
led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act becoming law. (It
will be shown again at the Winston-Salem Urban
League on Friday, Aug. 7 at 9:30 a.m.)
What was striking about this documentary was
how young people took a stand, even though they
couldn't vote. As they walked out of their segregated
high school to protest, they held signs that advocated
for their parents, seeking the right for them to regis
ter. They were arrested along with adults and sent to
jail.
Fifty years later, those students are adults in their
later years of life. Fifty years later, their counterparts
in North Carolina see the government pass a law to
suppress the voting rights gained over 50 years. Why
do older African-American people anywhere have to
grapple with the basic right of voting all over again?
Because the same elements and mindset that want to
keep African-Americans from voting are still around.
A discussion on voting rights was held after the
SPLC documentary was shown. One African
American man in the audience said he was only 3
years old when the 1965 Voting Rights Act was
signed, but he has faced racist comments on the job
in 2015. He said a white co-worker, who is the same
age as he is, told him that racism would go away if
African-Americans didn't create it.
The Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president of the
N.C. NAACP, revealed in a Forum piece in The
Chronicle last week that the N.C. NAACP received
an email note that said:
"blacks should not hold so much hate about their
past as slaves confederate flags and historical mon
uments. they should rather embrace their past. If it
had not went the way it did, u would still be in Africa
dying of hunger, aids and ebola.think about it. slav
ery was your ticket to the best country in the world..,
yet u bitch, wine and complain .barber enough is
never enough. I don't think blacks really hate items
from the past, rather I think u people hate your
selves" [actual grammar, spelling and punctuation
used]
These racist views remain in the minds of people
and governments in the United States of America and
North Carolina. So. the fight for voting rights contin
ues.
Will it still be going on 50 years from now?
OkWlOTbok
THE BITE OUT,
0ESKTIOH/
.wof
TvA^hi OMaUCtfj
Wis?
/ sSRhiW1. \(
\ iTtfJ v
|NJQT1MG(MS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Register to vote
and go to polls
for victory
To the Editor:
We won one battle, but we have
three more to fight!!!
The confederate flag came down
the pole.
Gentrification is still up the pole.
The confederate flag came down
the pole.
Gerrymandering is still up the
pole.
The confederate flag came down
the pole.
Voter suppression is still up the
pole.
We won one battle in bringing the
confederate flag down but we have
three more battles to win. We can
only declare victory when we register
and go to the polls in record numbers
and vote in 2016!!!
James J. Hankins
Wilmington, N.C.
Forsyth County
should approve
funds for new
Konnoak
Elementary
To the Editor:
The construction of a new
Konnoak Elementary School facility
is a major concern, not only for the
Konnoak School family, but also the
Christ Lutheran, Covenant
Presbyterian, Konnoak Baptist,
Konnoak Hills Moravian, and
Konnoak Hills United Methodist
Congregations.
Built in 1956, the school is in
disrepair and deals with air quality
issues caused by its aging HVAC
system and failing roof. Almost one
fourth of its more than 750 students
are housed in "temporary" mobile
classrooms, some dating back to the
1990s.
In 2006, funding for the school's
replacement was cut from a county
bond referendum package, when
approval fell short of the school dis
trict's needs. Last January, nine
years later, school officials reiterated
the school's replacement is overdue.
The Forsyth County Board of
Commissioners is responsible for
providing funds for this $18.9 mil
lion reconstruction. This spring, the
board raised the county's debt serv
ice ceiling to 18 percent, creating the
possibility of providing these funds
immediately. The board has yet to
approve the building cost and may
subject approval to the contingency
of a 2016 bond referendum, delay
ing construction at least until the
summer of 2017. If so, a new build
ing could open no sooner than fall
2018, twelve years after officials
identified the critical need for
replacement.
Our neighborhood has tolerated
an insufficient and unhealthy school
building far too long, and the gov
erning boards of our five congrega
tions invite our neighbors across
Forsyth County to ask the
Commissioners to approve the con
struction cost for Konnoak School
without further delay.
The Christ Lutheran Church
Board of Deacons; Don Murray,
Pastor
The Covenant Presbyterian
Church Session; Laura Gay lor, Clerk
Konnoak Baptist Church Board
of Deacons; John Bishop, Pastor
The Konnoak Hills Moravian
Church Joint Board of Elders and
Trustees; John D. Rights, Chair
The Konnoak Hills United
Methodist Church Administrative
Board; Randy Manser, Pastor
Work to overturn
high court's
gay marriage
decision
To the Editor:
The recent controversial decision
by a sharply divided (5-4) Supreme
Court to concoct a Constitutional
"right" to homosexual "marriage"
won't be the last word on the sub
ject. The ideologically based, politi
cally biased decision, which basical
ly puts heterophobic homosexuals
on the same level as nornial hetero
sexuals, so flies in the face of reason
that it will eventually be overturned
by more intelligent, less biased
judges.
Thinking people have known for
centuries that homosexual activity is
immoral and a bad legal precedent.
The ancient and primitive Greek and
Roman societies once valued homo
sexual activity, but people ultimately
U.S. Supreme Court
wised up and deprecated it. Plato,
for example, wisely and logically
opposed it as unethical. Would that
some Supreme Court Justices were
as wise as Plato on this subject.
As female minds in male bodies
and male minds in female bodies are
sure signs that something went
wrong somewhere (in nature and/or
nurture), so homosexual minds in
heterosexual bodies are also sure
signs of mind/body mismatches, are
sure signs of disorders. To put obvi
ous disorders like homosexuality on
a par with normal heterosexuality is
clearly absurd. To equate homosexu
al "marriage" with heterosexual mar
riage is nonsensical.
Someday in the future people
will look back at this regressive,
inane decision and wonder, "What
were they thinking?" (or IF they
were thinking). In the meantime, it's
up to decent ethical people to work
to overturn it. Let's get started.
Wayne Lela
Downers Grove, Illinois
We Welcome Your Feedback
Submit letters and guest columns to let
ters? wschronicle.com before 5 p.m. Friday
for the next week's publication date.
Letters intended for publication should be
addressed "Letters to the Editor" and include
your name, address, phone number and email
address. Please keep letters to 350 words or
less.
If you are writing a guest column, please
include a photo of yourself, your name,
address, phone number and email address.
Please keep guest columns to 550 words or
less. Letters and columns can also be mailed
or dropped off at W-S Chronicle, 617 N.
Liberty St., W-S, NC, 27101; or sent via our
website, www.wschronicle.com.
We reserve the right to
edit any item submitted for
clarity or brevity and
determine when and
whether material will
be used.
We welcome your
comments at our
website.
Also, go to our Facebook ?
page to comment. We are at
facebook .comJWSChronicle.
Send us a tweet on Twitter.
We are at twitter.com/WS_Chronicle.