mm
11A
REGION/The Charlotte Post
1
Thursday, May 25, 2000
Boycott still on, NAACP says
Continued from page 10A
“If the flag was offensive on the
dome, it’s offensive on the pole,”
said Nelson Rivers, a former S.C.
NAACP chairman who serves as
national field operations director.
“What did we march for _ just so
they can fly the flag in our
faces?”
About 1,700 people registered
to attend the Freedom Fund din
ner, which was moved from the
State Fairgrounds to a private
facility because of the boycott.
Bond was flying to Baltimore
after the event to honor the boy
cott and avoid a stay in South
Carolina.
State Executive Director
Dwight James dechned to say
how much the Freedom Fund
dinner raised; however, tickets
ranged from $75 a plate to up to
$5,000 for a corporate-sponsored
table.
Bond told the group that the
first time he was invited to speak
in Columbia as a young civil
rights leader in the 1960s, mem
bers of the Legislature were
opposed to allovring him to speak
at the University of South Car
olina.
. “Back then I wondered, “Was
there something wrong with me
or was it them?’ “ Bond said.
“Now, I know it was them.”
Bond advised NAACP mem
bers to shun complacency
because polls show that most
Campus
censorship
Continued from page 10A
ihg offensive about the picture,”
he said.
Hall says that although he has
been confronted by officials before
concerning previous editions of
the paper, he was startled to find
out their discontent resulted in
confiscation of the papers.
(“It shows a certain amount of
shortsightedness when you have
a president who in her installa
tion speech talked about her
vision and wanting the college to
be equal of other colleges,” he
said. “One of the things that you
have to, as a college institution, is
uphold certain values and rights
and privileges that go beyond just
image.
“It’s very disappointing and
very surprising to see an admin
istrator or vice-president, no less,
walking across campus with stu
dent newspapers. I could just
imagine what it must have looked
Hke. That’s something that an
authoritarian, a dictator, would
do. And it’s very disturbing
because that’s the best issue the
students have done.”
Unfortunately, St. Aug. is not an
exception of administrative’s
scrutiny over college newspaper.
Ed Boyce, editor of North Car
olina Central University’s paper,
The Echo, wrote in a column last
month that school staff and
administrators complained about
what was covered on campus.
Censuring campus publications
isn’t new, but it’s becoming more
prevalent at black colleges.
Clark Atlanta University’s
paper. The Panther, was stripped
of school funding for three years
because it pubUshed a stoiy about
toxic materials being used in art
classes. Since then the paper has
been censored to report only the
positive. A recent issue featured a
proposed 5.9 percent tuition hike,
in which one student supported
the increase and no one spoke
against it. Other articles included
a profile of a new dean of students
as well as a speaker for Black
Histoiy Month rounding out the
cover- while the staff refrained
from covering students protesting
last spring or a former adminis
trator suing the school for firing
her because she had inquiries
about the financial mismanage
ment in the student-aid office.
“The tone has been set,” assis
tant editor Dena McClurkin said
in published reports. “We choose
to censor ourselves to hold onto
our money, so we’re unable to
write anything hard-hitting or
investigative.”
But St. Aug’s scrutiny is not
restraining HaU from pubhshed
ah accurate newspaper, despite
its unpleasantness.
white
Americans
believe
discrimi
nation is
in the
nation’s
past. It’s
too easy
for people
to believe
that the courts and the govern
ment will protect civil rights, he
said.
“Jim Crow may be dead, but
John Rocker is alive and well,”
Bond said.
Bond said flag supporters are
trying to rewrite history and it’s
up to the NAACP to challenge
them.
“When the defenders of the flag
distort history, when they tell
hes and say it’s nothing about
slavery, they help perpetuate the
myth that racial prejudice has
disappeared,” he said. “They
have rewritten the past. Now
they want to rewrite the present.
‘Where else on the face of the
earth do the losers get to fly the
flag as if they’d won the war?”
National attention helps down flag
By Leigh Strope
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLUMBIA - The NAACP
threatened to boycott, protesters
demonstrated and the Legisla
ture tried to craft a compromise
to remove the Confederate flag
from South Carolina’s State-
house dome.
Though the landscape is all too
famihar, the year was 1994. And
the flag continued to fly, even
weathering another attempt at
removal three years later.
The scene has been repeated in
the last year. Only this time the
flag is coming dovm July 1.
What changed? A crucial
Republican presidential primary
held in the midst of the debate.
“That brought a lot of focus and
attention to it that perhaps oth
erwise wouldn’t have been
there,” said House Speaker
David Wilkins, a Greenville
Republican who previously want
ed to keep the flag flying.
“The longer we allowed this
issue to linger, the longer we
allowed outsiders, particularly
the outside media, to define who
we were as South Carolinians
and as a state.” .
The Legislature agreed last
week to remove the flag and fly a
square Confederate banner at
monument in front of the State-
house. The NAACP and some
black lawmakers oppose the com-^
promise because they say the flag
would be too visible. ;
I
The Confederate banners
hanging in the House and Senate
chambers also will be removed. ■
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