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1 ! tiilillttilllllinlihililMltll MILS 08/£0/95 WILSDM LIBRORY N C COLLECTION UNC-CH CHPPEl. HILL *»CHWIL NC 27514 ClHl C2.H VOLUME 87 • NUMBER 27 DURHAM, NORVH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2008 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30 CENTS Jesse Helms never changed on civil rights opposition By Gary D. Robertson RALEIGH (AP) - Jesse Helms forever changed North Carolina politics and the conservative move ment. The former senator did it without ever changing much about himself. There is perhaps no better ex ample of Heims’ unwavering com mitment to his beliefs than on the issue of race. Helms was a staunch opponent of the nation’s civil rights movement, where he.joined the likes of Alabama Gov. George Wal lace and South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond in a fight to keep outsid ers from meddling in what he called “the Southern way of life.” But those two giants of Southern politics would come to temper their views on race and civil rights, while Helms never did. He died July 4 at age 86, having never seen any need to apologize or deviate from his views. “I can’t think of many other ex amples of major opponents of the civil rights movement that didn’t modify their view on civil rights,” said William Link, a professor at the University of Florida and a Helms biographer. “He was very much a man of the times and his generation of North Carolina whites (who)' grew up with segregation.” Helms’ take-ho-prisoners brand of politics, combined with a strict stubbornness on social issues and a fieiy desire to defeat Communism, endeared him to conservatives. His defiance of the establishment, com bined with a political machine that refined the art of direct-mail fund raising, helped Helms transfijrrrT North Carolina into a tvyo^^aiiy state and turn the Souflrinto a Re publican stronghpld. His greater political accom- plishmen>6ame in a year when his natpe^idn’t even appear on the bal- Helms’ decision to back Ron ald keagan s upsian bid agauiM President Gerald Ford in 1976 led the struggling California governor to an upset win in the North Caro lina primary, setting the stage for his eventual White House win four years later. “In one sense, the role that Jesse played in that one primary 32 years ago was key to electing a president • which was key to Reagan, which was key to America winning the Cold War,” said Carter Wrenn, a longtime political operative in the Helms machine. Throughout his five terms in the Senate, Helms took offense at ac cusations he was racist. He spoke often of his good relationships with blacks and pointed to the black members on his staff. He insisted he opposed the Civil Rights Act because he didn’t want the federal government intervening in state matters. He considered the civil lights movement to be either cor- tupt or self-serving, Link said. ‘I felt that the citizens of my community, my state and my region of the country were being battered by this new form of bigotry,” Helms JlJote in his 2005 memoir, “Here’s where I Stand.” “I simply could not ^^y in the face of this assault ■and I didn’t,” years, he was joined in that by Thurmond, Wallace and others. They entered politics a little oarlier than Helms, but each pro- ^sed the same commitment to smtes rights as the Jim Crow-era 0 segregation slowly succumbed 0 court decisions, legislation and 0 anging attitudes about race in the South. But time and political expedi- ocy mellowed their views. After 0 attempted assassin’s bullets left j!” P^talyzed, Wallace was elect- ^.fvemor a fourth time in 1982 Help of black voters as he ' ^ to a populist message. Thur- "’ond served in the Senate for 48 years, ultimately becoming the first Southern senator to hire a black aide. Thurmond also voted to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday, a decision to which Helms was bitterly opposed. Helms led an unsuccessftil fili buster in 1983, arguing the Senate rushed debate and had not reviewed thoroughly King’s purported links to communism. “My decision was based on the facts, not on personality and certainly not on race,” Helms wrote in h is memoir. Helms didn’t worry much about what others viewed as race-baiting, mostly because every si>i years he proved he didn’t need to change his wa|« to keep getting elected. He never won more than 55 percent of the vote, but his coalition of Repub licans and so-called “Jesscicrats” - conservative, white Democra^ts who voted for the GOP in federal (Continued On Page 2) Emma Jack^un, a toth giader truiii itie Christian Faith center Geauty Queens - Former Miss Glack LSA Kaiilah Alien Harris and the new Miss Black Academy, is n North Carolina Central University’s “Students Making USA Elizabeth White pose together to celebrate the passing of the crown. See Story on Another Science Success Story” (SMASS). See story on page 13. 4, (Photo By Lafayette Barnes) 'A Touch of Sugga': Diabetes in the African American Community North Carolina Central University Department of Theatre is producing another in a series of Howard L. Craft plays on health subjects that are of special interest to the African-American com munity. “A Touch of Sugga” portrays the struggle for one African-American man and his family to manage diabetes. “A Touch of Sugga” will be on stage at the University Theatre in the Farrison-Newton Com munications Building on the comer of Fayetteville and Lawson Streets. Admission is free and per formances are scheduled for July 18 and 19, and July 25 and 26, at 8 p.m. and July 20 and 27, at 2 p.m. Doors and information booths open at 7 and 1 p.m., respectively. For more information, call 530-6761 or 530-7776. According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes doubles the risk of dying of heart dis ease or stroke. Director and NCCU Associate Professor Karen Dacons-Brock says that the play is an entertaining way to get across a deadly serious message. “It’s all about taking personal responsibility for managing your health,” says Dacons-Brock. “But Howard always uses humor in his plays to help people hear that message.” LaVeme Reid is NCCU’s associate dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and consults to the largest initiative funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to address diabetes. Project DIRECT. “Diabetes has reached plague proportions in this country but especially so for African Ameri cans,” says Reid. “As many as 2.8 million African-Americans live with diabetes but almost half of them don’t even know they have the disease. In North Carolina, the statistics are even worse. We’re eating ourselves to death!” Fortunately, the way forward is clear. Reid points to the critical role of public health education to make the science simple. Anne H. Skelly, professor of nursing and principal investigator for “Symptom-focused diabetes care for older African-American women,” at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has concluded a successful intervention study that resulted in significantly improved blood glucose control for 180 African-American women aged 55 to 85 with type 2 diabetes. “We should have been doing this years ago,” said Skelly. Her low-key, educational strategy eases the pressure to lose weight and exercise, by refocusing on “healthy eating and moderate physical activity for the person with diabetes but also, for the entire family.” Home monitoring of blood glucose and medication are also critical components to the regimen but Skelly achieved weight loss and symptom reduction as a consequence of minor behavior changes like “parking the furthest away from the store, counting steps, and monitoring food choices and portion size.” The EXPORT Outreach Research Program of the Julius L. Chambers Biomedical Biotechnol ogy Research Institute and the Department of Theatre at North Carolina Central University have collaborated to present “A Touch of Sugga” to increase awareness of the importance of diabetes Irving W. Truitt plays the lead in NCCU’s produetion of the How- management among African Americans. The production is funded by the EXPORT grant awarded ard L. Craft play “A Touch of Sugga” concerning the impact of dia- Julius L. Chambers Biomedical Biotechnology Research Institute from the National Institutes betes on one African-American family. of Health to address health disparities in the North Carolina Triangle comiViunity. id : : j M : ; i j !
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