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)LUME 71 - NUMBER 41
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA — SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16,1993 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE:30 CENTS
1 •• vV.'Il ' i
ilice A. Le'on Higgingbotham, Jr., second from left, chats with Irving Joyner, associate dean, NCCU
School, far left; Mary E. Wright, dean of the NCCU law School; and Chancellor Julius Chambers,
cc Higgingbotham spoke at the Law School.
Ifter Drought, Grant Comes
or Farmers’ 5-Year Survival
laid Bullock, a small Sampson County farmer,
that this would be the year he would earn a
St profit from his farm operations. As one of a
breed of young, African American farmers,
4 had hoped to cash in on new markets that are
teing developed for profitable alternative crops,
lock took his meager life savings along with a
farm operating loan to plant high value crops
as yellow squash, zucchini squash, green
js, 4weet com. cucumbers and watermelons.
;ver, because of the drought, Bullock’s dream of
ss wilted under the hot summer sun.
ih Carolina was declared a "disaster area"
ise of the drought. This did make fanners
lie to receive federal assistance. But that will not
lOugh to keep many African American and other
! farmers from losing their farms, said James P.
Jr., executive director of the Durham-based
I Carolina Coalition of Farm and Rural Families,
said that even with federal disaster assistance,
Irought will cause fanners who were already in
leto go under. Unfortunately, a disproportionate
ier of these farmers are minorities."
in effort to find solutions for this problem, the
Farmers Home Administration recently
•need that it was awarding the Coalition a
DO grant to develop a 5-year strategic plan for
ssing the needs of socially disadvantaged
(ts in North Carolina; Green says this grant will
Ms group, giving an opportunity to work with
BIS, universities, government agencies and other
groups around the state to plan for the
val of minority and limited resource farmers,
says the resulting plan must be truly
rehensive in that it must address all major issues
fleet the lives of small farmers. "This plan will
Jily address what the Coalition can do to help, it
Ktablish a coordinated service delivery model
rill involve the participation of all governmental
Mprofit service providers,
ttn says the plan must address the farmers’ need
iccess to capital, technical assistance and
flon, production planning and coordination,
hsiness development opportunities, domestic
utemational marketing opportunities, and legal
lance.
unsays this summer’s drought culminates more
decade of substantial declines in the state’s
lily farm population. Over the past ten years,
lalf of the state’s minority farmers went out of
1. It has been widely predicted that, at the
»l rate, there will be no African American
ts left by the year 2000.
spite the dismal statistics, Archie Hart is
optimistic. He is a special assistant to the state’s
commissioner of agriculture, Jim Graham, and
coalition board member. He says that new business
opportunities can be developed to sustain existing
farmers and attract young, beginning farmers. The
key. Hart says, is that farmers must have access to
capital, access to markets, and access to technical
assistance and educational opportunities.
The Coalition has already organized small farmers
to take advantage of new marketing opportunities
with major retail and wholesale buyers. The coalition
has established a shipping point facility in Duplin
County. Green says this facility serves as a central
point where area farmers can bring their crops to be
washed, graded, packed, cooled and shipped to major
buyers.
However, according to James Hartsfield, the
Coalition’s marketing specialist, this summer’s
drought slowed the movement of produce through the
facility. "Our farmers had crops to literally dry up in
the fields."
The Federal Disaster Program will be the saving
grace for many of these fanners. Green said. He said
that the Coalition and Land Loss Prevention Project
have sponsored a series of workshops to show
farmers how to take advantage of the Federal
Disaster Program. Green was quick to add, however,
that "our farmers cannot become dependent on
handouts...we must continue to develop new agri
business opportunities."
Green said the Coalition is currently working with
Job American Management Export, Ltd., an export
management and marketing company to develop new
opportunities in the areas of food processing,
institutional marketing and exporting. The Newport
News, Va.-based company is currently involved in
marketing food products internationally, including
countries in Africa, the former Soviet Union and
Japan.
Oswald Brown, chairman of Job America’s Board
of Directors, said that the company is in the process
of developing an agri-business industrial park
somewhere in rural North Carohna. Sites currently
being considered are in Warren, Hertford and
Edgecombe counties.
Green said the project will provide stable, new
markets for North Carolina’s minority and limited
resource farm community in addition to creating jobs
and generally stimulating economic development in
rural North Carolina. He said the project is also
important because is gives "poor farmers and factory
workers the chance to share in ownership and control
over a major business development project. Now
that’s economic empowerment."
Denny’s Tries To Shake
Stigma of Racial Complaints
By Jim Clarke
Associated Press 'Writer
SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) —
After months of defensively ans-,
wering discrimination charges at
some of its restaurants, Denny’s top
managers are zealously embracing
diversity.
The managers say a plan to
strengthen the company’s image
preceded the bad publicity that sur
faced a feW months ago, giving the
taint of bigotry to a chain of 1,500
eateries that bills itself as family-
friendly, 24 hours a day.
But they also acknowledge events
have dragged Flagstar Cos.,
Denny’s $3.7 billion parent, to the
front of American businesses con
fronting racial and ethnic
hostilities.
This summer, Flagstar shook up
the top management of Denny’s,
installing three executives consid
ered particularly sensitive to work
place diversity.
Florida restaurant executive Ron
Petty, 48, was named Denny’s
chief operating officer. Norman
Hill, 51, was recruited away from
Perkins Family Restaurants, where
he had been vice president of hu
man resources. Joe Russell, 50, a
consultant and former personnel
executivfc from Control Data Corp.,
will oversee random testing in
Denny’s California restaurants.
Petty is white. Hill and Russell
are black.
Russell’s appointment was part of
a settlement with the U.S. Justice
Department, which investigated
discrimination allegations in that
state. He also will lead a diversity
training program for the entire
chain. Hill will oversee Denny’s
field hiring.
The company also agreed with
the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People to
hire more minority managers,
award 53 minority-owned fran
chises by 1997 and steer more than
$700 million in business to
minority-owned suppliers.
(Continued On Page 3)
NAACP FREEDOM FUND DINNER PLANNING COMMITTEE
The Durham Branch of the NAACp will host its annual Freedom Fund Dinner on ^Saturday, November
20, at 7 p.m., at the W.G. Pearson Cafeteria on the campus of North Carolina Central University. The
honoree for this occasion will be Benjamin S. Ruffin, community leader and civil rights advocate. This
event will feature "The Men of Distinction" and entertainment. The Freedom Fnnd Dinner is open to the
Durham community. Tickets are $25 per person and may be obtained by contacting the Durham Branch
Office at 682-4930.
It’s Not So Easy NOT Being
Cop To The World
SCUSSINQ BANQUET DETAILS for the NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner are Pb
~ Iwrs 0-r) Frankie Perir, Brenda Scarborough, President James Black and
*(» by Ray Trent)
By Walter R. Mears
AP Specila Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) — Succes
sive presidents, their diplomats and
leaders in Congress have repeated
the denial almost word for word
while accepting, unavoidably, a
world role that doesn’t quite fit the
disclaimers.
There is no easy way out because,
as retired U.N. Ambassador Vernon
Walters observes, while the United
States shouldn’t be the world’s
policeman, he would not want to
live in a world with no police at all.
Still, police officers don’t get to
pick the alarms they answer.
U.S. policy-makers can, and Pres
ident Clinton has told the United
Nations that it must, know when to
say no if Americans are to say yes
to worthy peacekeeping missions.
On his terms, that must include
answering a clear threat to peace,
with set and well-defined objec
tives, a firm timetable and end
point, and financing that doesn’t
leave all the bills for Washington.
With that list of conditions, plus
the need for congressional support,
the administration will always have
grounds to refuse a role in a U.N.
mission. But outright refusal is in
creasingly difficult for the only su
perpower in the post-Cold War
world.
■’The United States cannot be the
world’s policeman, but also cannot
turn a blind eye to the world’s
problems," Clinton said earlier in
the Somali operation. In presiden
tial farewell, George Bush
renounced the policeman’s role,
saying it is supported neither at
home nor abroad — but adding that
the United States must promote
democratic peace because there is
no one else to do so.
The admonition and the assign
ment arehot e^ily put together.
When U.S. frocks are committed
abroad, so too is the prestige of the
United States, its full faith and
credit, in the words of former
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.
The commitment doesn’t hinge on
the numbers; recall President John
F. Kennedy’s, description of the
outnumber^ U.S. garrison in West
Berlin during a 1961 Cold War
crisis as hostage to America’s in
tent to defend the city.
The latest U.S. mission, to Haiti,
stirred political misgivings and
congressional criticism even before
Monday when the landing of about
170 Americans was put off because
another vessel took their pier while
a gang of toughs disrupted arrival
arrangements on shore. That appar
ently was sanctioned by the milita
ry regime that is supposed to be
yielding power next month.
About 700 Americans are due to
be part of that U.N. operation, most
of them training and engineering
specialists. Some members of Con
gress warn that the mission could
put lightly armed Americans in a
very dangerous situation, might
embroil them in another police ac-
tion.
Sen. Bob Dole, the Republican
leader, complained that the opera
tion did not follow the four condi
tions Clinton had just set at the
United Nations, and said it ought to
be dropped.
The administration said the Haiti
mission involves important U.S. in
terests, including the risk of another
flood of boat people seeking Amer
ican asylum unless a stable, demo
cratic government takes charge.
It is a training and reconstruction
assignment But the lines are fine
ones. Secretary of State Warren
Christopher demanded the Haitian
army help, not hinder, the .UJJ.
"mission for peace." But the same
statement carefully noted that
Americans were not being sent to
"perform a peacekeeping mission."
And, as critics point out, the
original Somalia mission was fam
ine relief, not peacemaking or pa
cification. i
The administration had o^ered to
send American troops to Bosnia to
join an international effort to en
force a cease-fire, if the civil war
ring sides agree upon one. Dole
said the Somalia crisis probably
precludes that unless Clinton makes
a compelling case he hasn’t heard
yet.
The U.S. forces in Somalia are
part of a 30-nation U.N. force, but
Clinton pointed out the linchpin
role the United States takes when it
becomes part of such operation.
"Make no mistake about it, if we
were to leave Somalia tomorrow,
other nations would leave too,"
Clinton said. "Chaos would
resume, the relief effort would stop
and starvation soon would return.
"Our own credibility in world af
fairs would be undermined at the
very time when people are looking
to America to help promote peace
and freedom in the post-Cold War
world," he said.
That points to the difficulty of
defining the U.S. role while deny
ing that it is to police the world.
ExdnsiwiPreview
1994 ^mesde Cars
By ihc editors of CAR »»>d DRIVER
See Insert