Attacker of Five Belles Remains Free
Three Bennett coeds have re
portedly been denied the right to
file a formal complaint against a
known assailant.
Thomasina Stallings, Belinda
DeFoor and Loretta Callender say
they have been either physically
attacked or harassed by the same
man both on-and-off-campus
within the last two weeks. As of
this writing, all three have been
denied the right to file formal
complaints and/or secure a war
rant against Michael Long, the
alleged assailant.
According to Thomasina, her
ordeal with Long began about a
year ago. “I was walking between
Barge and Reynolds and this guy
was standing over by the bushes
and said hello. I returned his
greeting and he said, ‘Come here
b—h,’ she said. I told him that I
didn’t appreciate him calling me
that. He repeated it again along
with some other obscenities and
we got into a terrific argument.
That was the first time that he
threatened to kill me and he has
repeated the threat each time he’s
seen me since then.”
Tommy says her second con
frontation with Long occurred on
March 14 when she went down
town with two other Bennett stu-
ents, Loretta Callender and
Kathy Liddy. She said, “He
(Long) was standing over by the
theatre on the other side of the
street with two other guys and
they began whistling at us. So in
order to avoid any other harass
ment, we spoke. But that didn’t
work. Instead he ran across the
street, continued arguing and hit
Loretta in the face.
“We then went into Wool-
worth’s to call the police and he
followed us in there. He continued
cursing and the manager came
over and asked him to leave. He
cursed the manager out and then
left.”
During this time, Kathy had
left to try to locate a policeman.
She returned with a policeman
who told Stallings, Callender and
herself to walk out of the store
and to keep walking in the hopes
of decoying Long and capturing
him. “We did as the officer said,”
said Tommy, “but the attempt
was unsuccessful. The officer then
told us that the most we could do
was to report the incident and
go home.”
Later on that evening. Long be
gan calling Thomasina at a near
by service station where she is
employed as a cashier part time.
She said, “He called and threat
ened to shoot me in the leg three
times. He continued to call every
fifteen minutes and threaten me.
He threatened to come up to my
job and get me.” Afterwards,
Tommy says she reported the
complaints to a different magis
trate and that a formal summons
for Long was drawn up.
Stallings says she did not hear
from Long until two days later
when he appeared on her job
waving the summons papers at
her and repeating obscene threats.
She says he argued for about fif
teen minutes and left. “He still
continued to call me in the dorm,”
continued Stallings.
“Finally I called my mother
and told her about the situation
and she called the Greensboro Po
lice Department. The next day a
policeman came to my job and
asked me a lot of questions con
cerning Long such as did we ever
have another sort of relationship
before this and had I done any
thing to anger him. I told him no.
The officer then told me that
Ixing could be charged with com
municating threats. He left and
that was the last I heard concern
ing his (Long’s) prosecution.”
Since then, Stallings says Long
has phoned her in an attempt to
apologize but she has refused to
talk.
Long’s next attack on a Ben
nett student occurred within the
same week that Sailings, Liddy
and Callender attempted to press
charges against him. Belinda De
Foor says that she was assaulted
by Long on her way to Holgate
Library on campus. She said, “I
was en route to the library with
another friend when this guy
jumped out of the bushes. He de
manded to know the whereabouts
of Kathy Liddy. When I told him
I did not know he punched me in
the eye. I went to class and after
ward I went to report the inci
dent to campus security.
“It took me over fifteen min
utes to locate a security guard and
when he returned with me to the
library Long was still there. He
told the security guard ‘Yeah I
punched that wh— in her face
and I’ll punch you too.’ He left
after this and I went to a doctor
about my eye. Afterward I went
to the magistrate’s office and at
tempted to file a complaint but
the magistrate refused to issue a
warrant. He said that Long had
too many complaints issued
against him already.’
Long reportedly tried to issue a
complaint against Stallings, Liddy
and Callender on the grounds of
harassment saying, “They’re noth-
(Contlnued on Page 3)
Greensboro, N. CL
1-5) 1'^
FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1977
BENNETT COLLEGE, GREENSBORO, N. 0.
VOL XXXVIII, NO. 9
Black Poet Concerned Over Merger
by Joyce Bass
You can sum it up in one sentence. It was
a beautiful evening with Nikki. The Student
Union Advisory Board of A&T hosted Nikki
Giovanni as guest lecturer.
The evening began with a welcome by
Clarke “Magoo” McGriff, chairman of the So
cial Affairs Committee, followed by the intro
duction of the speaker by Denise Meeks, a
member of the Social Affairs Committee.
Known as a lecturer, poet and author, Ms.
Giovanni began by addressing the large audi
ence of students about her own personal con
cerns for the proposed merger between A&T
and UNC-G.
She said that such a merger between the
two state-supported schools may not affect us
as students now, but it will affect our little
brothers and sisters and whether or not our
children will have an A&T to go to.
“Black students are competing on irrelevant
levels. I think that the real level on which we
have to compete is academics,” said Ms.
Giovanni.
She said that across the nation black stu
dents are capable of doing whatever they want
to do, but it amazes her what they choose
to do.
“We can spend an awful lot of time learn
ing the words to all the latest songs, but we
Nikki tells it like it is.
photo by Joyce Bass
can’t name 3 important dates in black history,”
said Ms. Giovanni. She said we wouldn’t have
known what happened in North Carolina if it
hadn’t been for “Roots.”
“In 23 years we will be living into another
century. You are no longer in an industrial age,
in case nobody told you. You are living in the
atomic age,” said Ms. Giovanni.
The idea of mankind is changing, but Ms.
Giovanni is afraid that black students are not
changing with it. She said that we aren’t con-
ceptionalizing as to what will be happening in
30 years.
“I had a discussion once with a student,
and it disturbed me. I asked him if he knew
where he was going to be in 20 years. He said,
well I can’t think about where I’ll be in 20
years ’cause I’m hungry. So I told him, well I
know what you’ll be doing in 20 years, you’re
going to be hungry,” said Ms. Giovanni.
She said that we must do something for our
selves. It is not sufficient that we are making
decisions for ourselves. We must decide where
we want to be; where we want North Carolina
to be and where we want the United States of
America to be and where we want the world
to be.
Ms. Giovanni said we need our book learn
ing and arrogance. “So often the old folks say,
yeah you got all that book knowledge and no
common sense. Well, damn it, we need our book
learning and our arrogance. We need those
black people who feel they should conquer the
world. We need our common sense and our book
learning,” said Ms. Giovanni.
She said that we spend all too much time
not thinking and too much of our time decid
ing that we’re not going to think.
“You’ll be sitting alone in your room and
you won’t even share a thought with your
roommate, not that she’s interested,” said Ms.
Giovanni.
She warned that if we conduct our lives
with disassociation, we will become adults who
disassociate. She said that we must take a
chance on living our lives now.
“If you care about anything at all, you
have to care about yourself. And if you care
about yourself, one of the things you have to
understand is that you have to get out of
Greensboro, you have to get out of North Caro
lina and you have to get out of the United
States of America. You’ve got to learn that
there is a world beyond the world as you know
it. And if you don’t start now, you never will,
because you’ll become afraid,” said Ms. Gio
vanni.
She said that if we let fear stop us now,
we’ll be 50 years old and still afraid. We must
understand that there is something out and
beyond what we know, and what we don’t
know. Ms. Giovanni said that we must look out
for our own experiences.
(Continued on Page 4)
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New "welcome" to the Dining Hall.
photo by Joyce Bass
Cafeteria Decides
No I.D., No Meals
by Kool-Aid Bartley
Despite pork chops every
Monday, students cutting the
line, shortage of silverware,
no salt and pepper shakers,
students are faced with hav
ing to show both I.D. cards
and meal books in order to be
served their meals.
Why the sudden change?
James J. Scarlette, business
manager of the college had
these comments, “Ten percent
of the students have claimed
they lost their meal books.
We do know that there have
been unauthorized people eat
ing in the dining hall. The
only way we can be certain
that the people who are eat
ing are authorized to do so is
to check for the I.D. cards
along with the meal books.”
Scarlette went on to say
that he knew of several in
stances where students who
are not living on campus were
eating in the dining hall.
“There are also students who
have withdrawn from the col
lege and are living in the city
that still continue to use their
meal books,” he added.
When asked if a sticker of
some sort could be placed on
the back of the I.D. cards to
(Continued on Page 4)