14A
NEWS/The Charlotte Post
Thursday, April 17, 1997
Tuskegee experiment leaves suspicions
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Blacks who are familiar with
the infamous Tuskegee
syphilis experiment are less
inclined; than whites to partic
ipate in health research pro
jects, according to a soon-to-
be-published study by a
University of Alabama profesr
sor.
“African Americans need to
be involved in these research
studies,” said Lee Green,
assistant professor of health
studies at Alabama. “There
may be some differences in
how we respond to treatment,
and we need to know that. If
we are not part of these stud
ies, we can’t get that informa
tion.”
In a recent interview. Green
said he believes Clinton’s
apology will help bring closure
to the incident, which has
helped to fuel a mistrust of
government in the black com
munity. 'That, in turn, should
pave the way for greater par- ■
ticipation by blacks in health
care clinical trials. Green said.
As part of his 1994 doctoral
dissertation. Green conducted
a telephone survey of 421
adults in Jefferson County,
Ala. He sought to study the
effect of the Tuskegee syphilis
experiment on health research
activities among blacks.
'The study, which Green said
will appear in an upcoming
issue of the Journal of Health
Education, showed that blacks
in general reported less inter
est in participating in medical
research because of their
knowledge of the Tuskegee
experiment, and that black
males in particular were espe
cially skeptical.
“This distrust and suspicion
continues to hamper health
promotion and health educa
tion efforts, particularly HIV
and AIDS education,” the
study said. The distrust exist
ed across age,' gender and edu
cation levels.
“This finding seemed to sup
port other studies which have
shown that African Americans
make less use of health ser
vices, and are least likely to
seek preventive health care,
and are less likely to use ser
vices such as health informa
tion seminars, health screen
ings and promotions compared
to whites,” the study said.
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Zaire is still shaky under Mobutu
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KINSHASA, Zaire - Shops
were closed, streets deserted
and the city eerily silent today
as millions in Zaire’s capital
observed a one-day general
strike to demand President
Mobutu Sese Seko’s ouster.
Soldiers who last week vio
lently dispersed an opposition
march kept a low profile
today, restricting themselves
to patrolling key intersections
and firing shots into the air to
break up a crowd outside
opposition leader Etienne
Tshisekedi’s house. No
injuries were reported.
The strike increased pres
sure on Mobutu in his last
major stronghold in Zaire,
where rebels have seized half
of the country and said they
are advancing on the capital
itself,
“We want change - we’re
willing to accept anyone, even
the devil should he arrive, if it
will bring change,” said Willy
Kashama, a Kinshasa resi
dent who heeded the general
strike.
Struggling to hold onto
power as the rebels close in,
Mobutu fired Tshisekedi last
week and named an army
general to replace him as
prime minister. Tshisekedi
had sought to undermine
Mobutu’s 31-year rule by dis
missing Parliament and
scrapping the constitution.
Amid the political turmoil
last week, rebels had stopped
fighting for three days to give
Mobutu time to think over
their demand for his resigna
tion.
“We want him to leave the
country and then we can nego
tiate a cease-fire,” rebel
spokesman Bizima Karaha
told reporters Sunday in the
eastern city of Goma. “They
want war, and they will get
it.”
Laurent Kabila’s forces have
been fighting for seven
months to topple Mobutu.
They now claim to have
reached the city of Bandundu,
155 miles northeast of the
capital.
Rebels took Lubumbashi,
Zaire’s second-largest city, on
Friday. Red Cross workers
cleared bodies Sunday from
the airport, which was Httered
with wrecked vehicles and
spent cartridges.
After considerable interna
tional pressure, Mobutu said
over the weekend he was will
ing to meet rebel leader
Kabila face to face - “if he
asks politely.”
Karaha, however, said the
rebels still want Mobutu’s res
ignation.
Black park proposed
in Wilmington area
By Aaron Hoover
STAR-NEWS OF WILMINTON
WILMINGTON - H.D.
Hales doesn’t have a college
degree in history or archaeolo
gy, and he isn’t a descendant
of the people who once lived in
an all-but-forgotten black set
tlement in New Hanover
County.
But Hales, a Pender County
developer, is a long-time
champion of turning the
remains of Pocomoke into a
state or national park.
The site west of U.S. 421
near Sutton Steam Plant is
historically important and
must be rescued from oblivion,
he says.
But with such monuments
as the Moores Creek National
Battlefield nearby, it’s also
the right thing to do.
“African Americans have
been here as long as we have,”
he says. “I reckon you call that
basic decency.”
Hales, 50, speaks with the
drawl of the country-born
Southerner he is.
Originally from Sampson
County, his family moved to
New Hanover County in the
1930s. His family lived in a
now-vanished home on the
Pocomoke land.
But he has strong memories
of Pocomoke’s vacant build
ings and the tales of people
who lived there.
“Your daddy, your granddad-
dy, knew them. You hear talk
about them. It’s almost like
you knew them,” he said.
So little remains of
Pocomoke today, you might
notice only the live oaks and
pines.
Hales tromps through the
woods, stopping frequently to
rebuild the settlement in his
mind’s eye for a visitor.
“The barn was sitting this
“We have decided we won’t
give Mobutu another chance,”
he said.
Japan has evacuated some of
their citizens from Kinshasa.
U.S. Ambassador Daniel
Simpson said there was no
heightened readiness for an
evacuation at the U.S.
Embassy.
Meanwhile, the airlift of up
to 100,000 Rwandan refugees
from the jungles of Zaire to
their homeland will begin late
this week, said U.N. refugee
agency spokesman Peter
Kessler.
A small outbreak of a mild
strain of cholera among the
refugees should not delay in
the evacuation, Kessler said.
The outbreak has sickened
150 people in the camps in
recent weeks and killed nine,
Kessler said.
The Rwandan Hutus fled to
eastern Zaire in 1994 after
extremists among them
slaughtered at least 500,000
minority Tutsis.
As Zairian rebels seeking to
oust Mobutu have moved west
- backed by the Rwandan
Tutsi-led government and
fighting armed Hutus as they
went - refugees have fled
deeper into the jungles of
north-central Zaire.
Despite food and medical
aid, many refugees are dying
in makeshift camps strung out
along the Zaire River, Kessler
said.
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way. It was like this right
here,” he says, his hands box
ing out an imaginary founda
tion in the scrub.
He comes to a place in the
woods where he says a church
stood, a site oddly barren of
trees and other growth.
“I don’t know why. Nobody
knows,” he says.
Though Pocomoke remains
somewhat mysterious, it is
known to have existed from
the Civil War through at least
the 1930s.
Mariel Rose, a University of
North Carolina at Wilmington
anthropology student who
studied the town, believes it
was linked to rice plantations
that once thrived along the
Cape Fear before the Civil
War. After the decline of the
plantations, which needed
hundreds of slaves to main
tain numerous ditches, freed
slaves stayed on.
Hortense Moss, one of many
residents Ms. Rose inter
viewed, told her she remem
bered her mother and grand
mother cooking for employees
of the Pocomoke Guano
Factory in later years.
Ships returning with logs
from the Caribbean were filled
with guano for ballast, and
workers fill sacks with it suid
sold it as fertilizer.
Moss remembered Pocomoke
having 30 households, a livery
stable, a stage line, and a
restaurant.
Hales says Wilmington resi
dents depended on Pocomoke
residents to maintain the
road.
As he walks, he points out
small holes in the sandy soil
where artifact hunters with
metal detectors have worked.
While he scorns the hunters
as “scavengers,” he says
Pocomoke remains a rich his
torical site.