2A
NEWS / The Charlotte Post
Wednesday, December 31, 1997
‘Volatile’ race relations spurred Ferguson to action
Continued from page 1A
wonderful choice,” said U.S. Rep.
Mel Watt (D-N.C), a former
Ferguson law partner. “I am
delighted about this choice. I
think he deserves to be the news
maker of the century. If you go
Imck and look at all of the things
that have happened in Charlotte
in the last 10, 20 or 25 years,
Fergie’s presence will be there.
“You are honoring him for what
he did this year, but he has been
there all these years tmd just
stayed the course.”
■ Watt said he was not surprised
that Ferguson chaired the race
summit Leadership Team.
• “He got thrust out front,” Watt
said. “He had positioned himself
,^hind Bill Simms as the person
>vho would take leadership.
jFergie got thrust into that posi-
ttion of necessity, not by choice.
iThat’s generally the way Fergie is
•going to be. He has been there,
Jalways the kind of right hand
Jperson, behind the scenes person,
Jeverybody went to for advice.”
J Ron Leeper, a former Charlotte
JCity Coimcil member and now
Jconstruction company owner,
'said Ferguson deserves selection
•as Newsmaker of the Year.
r “He has been a trailblazer in
rthis community,” Leeper said.
(“This year, he got recognized for
(it, but for many years he has been
{involved in fighting for issues
{affecting the African American
{community.”
{ Leeper said Ferguson was a
{natural leader for the summit.
{ “I have been in many private
•meetings with him,” Leeper said.
•“I always saw the side of him that
•tried to make sure all sides of any
•issue were heard. I’ve seen him
{play the peacemaker. That’s the
^person I know him to be.”
j N.C. Rep. Pete Cunningham
|(D-Mecklenburg) called
{Ferguson’s honor “excellent.”
{ “I congratulate him and I con-
(gratulate you on having made
{him your choice,” Cunningham
jsaid. “He has consistently been
jone of tbe few black professionals
{who has been consistent with his
i involvement with the NAACP,
the Legal Defense Fund, the
Black Political Caucus. He is
{involved heavily with the Anita
JStroud Foundation.”
! Madine Fails, executive direc
tor of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Urban League, called Feguson’s
honor “great,”
“The Urban League is very
pleased with The Post’s selec
tion,” Fails said. “Mr. Ferguson
has worked in this community a
long time, sometimes in the pub
lic eye, sometimes out of the pub
lic eye, in the quest for equal
opportunity and justice.”
Ferguson now lives in the
Providence Woods community in
southeast Charlotte with his
wife, Barbara. A son, James
Ferguson III, also attended
Columbia University Law School
and has joined his father’s prac
tice. Another son, Taj, is a student
at N.C. Central University, his
father’s alma mater. A daughter.
Kali, is a student at UNC
Greensboro.
Ferguson’s activism isn’t limit
ed to Charlotte, or the U.S., for
that matter. For years, he has
provided business and legal
training in South Afnca.
“The experience I have had
teaching trial skills to lawyers in
South Africa, since 1986, has
been very important to me,”
Ferguson said. “I primarily
worked with black lawyers. That
has given me the opportunity to
see race relations in another con
text. It has given me a broader
perspective on race problems
here. I have watched that strug
gle from apartheid to the non-
racial society they have now.”
Ferguson is also chairman of
the National Institute for Trial
Advocacy, a group of lawyers that
teaches lawyers how to perform
in the courtroom. He is a member
of the national board and execu
tive committee and general coun
sel to the National Civil Liberties
Union and a member of the board
of governors and executive com
mittee of the N.C. Bar
Association. He chairs the race
relations commission formed by
the N.C, Bar Association and the
N.C. Association of Black
Lawyers.
This year was filled with issues
both in and out of court which
required someone of Ferguson’s
strong-willed, but reasoned
nature. He settled a lawsuit with
the city of Charlotte in the 1993
shooting death of Windy Gail
Thompson for $550,000, but
James Ferguson and his son, James III, practice law together
keeping the community focused
on the issues involved when an
officer shoots an unarmed sus
pect. He notes for example that
most often the officer is white and
the victim is black.
“If I think back to beginning of
the year, I did a column in The
Charlotte Observer and was talk
ing about how volatile our race
situation was in Charlotte,”
Ferguson said. ‘They were
seething and at some point the
pot would boil over. I said we
need to put race at the top of
agenda. We needed to take a look
at where we were.
“As I look back over the past
year, I think we have begun to do
that. The police shootings...!
believe we have begun to take a
different look at how we deal with
those situations. *
Ferguson said the race rela
tions conference was sorely need
ed.
“ “It was important for me per
sonally to be involved,” Ferguson
iMuseum a monument to African Americans
{Continued from page 1A
. »
{ the University of Kansas.
5 During road trips as a coach at
{North Carolina Central
{University, McLendon had to
direct bus drivers to restaurants
where he knew the players were
• welcome.
! “We even knew which filling
t stations to stop at and which not
« to,” he said. “It was a game.”
^ The nation has made much
! progress since then, but black
J Americans still should know
j what occiured, McLendon said.
^ Records, paintings, posters,
J sculptures and a civil rights
• exhibit also can be found at the
• museum in southwest Ohio.
“Our mission includes documen
tation of this history nationally,”
said Vernon Courtney, assistant
museum director.
From William Lawless Jones
came a collection of 2,000 jazz
records.
“I wanted everybody to enjoy it,”
said the retired Army colonel from
Cincinnati. “Jazz is actually AfVu-
American classical music and it’s
part of the Afro-American culture.
I wanted young people to know
that and not get carried away
with all of this hippity hop stuff
that is here today and gone
tomorrow. This is serious music.”
Rep. Clarence Brown, R-Ohio,
introduced legislation for the
museum in 1970. In 1977, the
National Park Service chose the
old 88-acre campus of Wilberforce
University as its site, and the
Legislature appropriated $3.5
million to build the museum in
1978. It was chartered by
Congress in 1980 and was opened
in 1988.
About 50,000 people, most of
them schoolchildren from Ohio,
Indiana and Kentucky, visit the
museum each year.
McLendon’s story is one of suc
cesses as well as segregation.
After persuading the National
Association for Intercollegiate
Athletics to open its national tour
naments to blacks, McLendon
Haitians can stay in U.S. for another year
4 Continued from page 1A
$
9
{already frail govermnent.
; The immigration law revisions
' that Clinton signed last month
» granted amnesty to Nicaraguans
• and Cubans who have been in the
• United States since Dec. 1, 1995,
and allowed them to apply for
status as legal permanent resi
dents.
Guatemalans and Salvadorans
who applied for asylum on or
before April 1, 1990, would be
considered for a suspension of
deportation under the less strin
gent rules that existed before the
1996 immigration legislation.
The presidential authority that
Clinton exercised has been
invoked only rarely.
President Bush granted protec
tion to Salvadorans in 1992, to
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when I was a senior in high
school. I started a group with
desegregated Asheville. I deter
mined what I wanted to do was
go into law. In high school, black
lawyers showed me that was the
way to bring about social
change.”
“What I foresee for the future is
...a shift coming where greater
emphasis has to be placed on eco
nomics....We’re not just talking
about jobs in management. I’m
talking about creating wealth,
creating jobs from within the
black community and creating an
attitude among blacks and
whites where blacks wiU have
services and goods to offer that
whites who have not been con
sumers of black services before
win begin (to buy). Dollars will
flow both ways.
Ferguson said he expects to
continue the legal battles for
equal rights and justice he has
fought most of his life.
“You have plateaus, but no vic
tory ever stays won,” he said.
“You find yourself fighting battles
over again. We are back in 1997
asking the court to re-open
Swann.”
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said. “It was different from par
ticipating as an advocate.”
Ferguson said chairing the
Leadership Team “was a chal
lenge I was willing to take up
because is so important that any
thing I could do I was willing to
do. Any member of the team
could have done it.”
Dealing with issues of race have
been at the center of Ferguson’s
life.
“I have to look at everything 1
do as part of a continuum that
started for me when I was very
young,” Ferguson said. “I first got
involved in trying to do some
thing about race when I was in
junior high school and I was in a
group called the Greater
Asheville Youth Group. It was an
interracial group, with blacks,
whites and Jews. We talked
about bettering race relations,
even in that day of stark racial
segregation. Then in high school,
I got involved in another way.
The sit-in movement started
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took a coaching job at Ifeimessee
State University to try to inte
grate athletics on a national level.
He led the school to NAIA cham
pionships in 1957, 1958 and 1959
while posting a record of 142-18
there.
McLendon and other black stu
dents at KU were not welcomed
on the school’s basketball team or
in the gymnasium’s swimming
pool.
When he pursued his master’s
degree at the University of Iowa,
McLendon had to find housing
off-campus and was not permitted
to sit down in the schools cafete-
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