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NEWS^e Ciatlstte $at
Tuesday, December 22, 2005
Historic hospital may get second life
Continued from page 1A
In grooming the idea, Cook
hopes the building will accept
a role in the current scheme of
things like it did years ago
when blacks w^« not accept
ed into mainstream hospitals.
Report:
1898 N.C.
not was
planned
^AFF REPORTS
WILMINGTON - Race
riots that led to the overthrow
of this city’s government in
1898 was actually an insur
rection that white suprana-
cdsts had planned for months
to strip black residents of
their rights, a state commis
sion concluded.
The violence in Wilmington,
which resulted in the deaths
of at least 22 black people,
‘Svas part of a statewide effort
to put white supremacist
Democrats in office and stem
the political advances of
black citizens,” the 1898
^^^lmington Riot Commission
concludes in a draft report.
Afterward, white suprema
cists in state office passed
laws that disenfranchised
blacks until the dvil rights
movranCTit and Voting Rights
Act of the 1960s.
“Essentially it crippled a
segment of our population
that hasn’t recovered in 107
years,” said Harper Peterson,
a commission member and
fonner mayor of Wilmington
“It’s a nugor ev^t that went
unnoticed.”
At the time of the violence,
black men in North Carolina
had been able to vote for
some three decades as part of
Reconstruction following the
Civil War, said Jeffrey Crow,
deputy secretary of the state
Office of Archives Eind
History, which researched the
report.
The United States abol
ished slavery in 1865.
But within a year of the
insurrection, the General
Assembly was controlled by
Democrats and had passed
the first s^jegation law that
ended voting ri^ts to blacks.
The General Assembly
established the commission
in 2000. Its draft report was
opened for public comment
last we^
Some commission members
have su^ested financing his
torical exhibitions about the
riot and its consequences,
portraying it in school history
texts and developing econom
ic interests in affected areas.
In addition, the state
should issue some sort of
apology for its inaction, said
Irving Joyner, vice chairman
of the commission and a law
professor at North Carolina
Central University
On the Net:
Riot Commission:
www.ah Acrstate.ncjis/1898-
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But they knew they could
find relief at St. Agnes.
Cook said there are still
vast needs in the black com-
mimity today that the build
ing could pday an important
role in addressing.
“We want to make it some
thing to broaden its appeal,”
he said.
Cook hopes that people will
be willing to support the com
munity service concept of the
project as much as they are
willing to invest in the brick
and mortar part of the initia
tive. He estimates the raio-
vation will cost appreodmate-
ly $6 million to $8 million. T)
add the allied health pre^am
services, an additional $3
million to $4 million would be
needed.
The eight-member board
has created a 501(c)3 non
profit in order to accept dona
tions.
“We already have the struc
ture to collect money,” Cook
said. “We hope to attract
more attention fiom philan
thropists, and the state and
the federal governments.”
The group will also apply
for federal grants. Alumni of
the college and the hospital
have been active in the
process too.
One of those alumni mem
bers is Martlia Hudson, 81, of
Raleigh. Hudson was the
head nurse of pediatrics at St.
Agnes.
Hudson became a nurse to
try to find a cure for her sis
ter’s sickness. She said her
sister was simply the wrong
color at the wrong time to
receive better care.
Hudson credits St. Agnes
for her success as a nurse,
which is why she decided to
become a member of the
board.
The sight of the dilapidated
building often brings her to
tears.
“It has a lot of history to it,”
she said. “It means a lot to
me. The main goal of the hos
pital was to make people bet
ter and get them back on
their feet. People don’t realize
what St. Agnes has gone
through”
was ^74
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