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89 -NUMBER 8
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2010
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30
''f^AACP elects Rosyln
Brock, 44, as youngest
board chairman
By Jesse Washington
NEW YORK (AP) - The NAACP elected a health care ex
ecutive as its youngest board chairman Feb. 20, continuing a
youth movement for the nation’s oldest civil rights organiza
tion.
Roslyn M. Brock, 44, was chosen to succeed Julian Bond.
She had been vice chairman since 2001 and a member of the
NAACP for 25 years.
t Brock works for Bon Secours Health Systems in Maryland
|as vice president for advocacy and government relations, and
spent 10 years working on health issues for the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation. She joins Benjamin Todd Jealous, the 37-year-old
CEO of the NAACP# as leader of the 500,000-member orga-
I iization.
Brock said she plans to focus on pushing for policy changes
o eliminate inequality, strengthening the relationship between
he national and local NAACP branches and holding people
iccountable.
“It’s not always what someone is doing to us, but what we
ire doing 'for ourselves,” Brock said in an interview.
The departure of Bond, 70, after 10 years as board chair
man marks a turning point for the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored Pepole.
Bond came of age in the segregated South, helped found
the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and was on
the front lines of the protests that led to the nation’s landmark
civil rights laws. He is a symbol and icon of “the movement,”
''Which was a defining experience for older generations.
In recent years the NAACP has endured criticism that it is
old and out of touch. Then Bond brought in Jealous, then 34,
as the NAACP’s youngest CEO, and endorsed Brock’s bid for
’^oard chairman.
’ The selection of young leaders “is deliberate, but it’s also
fortuitous,” Bond said. “We are lucky to have had this conflu
ence of a young CEO and a young chair. I don’t think we plot
ted and planned that in 2010 the stars would align this way.”
. Brock was selected in a vote by the 64-person NAACP
board. Her opponent was Rev. Wendell Anthony, leader of the
NAACP’s Detroit chapter, who withdrew Fb. 19 after he was
not re-elected to his seat on the board.
Brock graduated from Virginia Union University and has
an MBA from Northwestern, as well as master’s degrees in
health care administration and divinity.
Many conservatives question the need for an NAACP and
say that an association for the advancement of white people
would be considered racist.
Brock said the NAACP has erroneously been classified as a
black group; “We are not. We are a multiracial, multiethnic or-
'ganization. So as we move into our second century, our desire
is to cast our net broader.”
“'People of color’ or 'colored people’ really speaks to those
jwho are falling through the cracks ... who feel locked out,”
Sshesaid. .
j She said the nation was at a pivotal moment after electing
the first black president.
i “I’d be the first to say that at the NAACP we have to ac-
|knowledge how far we’ve come as a nation in terms of race
'relations, but also in that acknowledgment, understanding that
- we’re not where we ought to be, but vve thank God we’re not
Jwhat we used to be.
“We need to draw a line in the sand and say thank you,
[{.America ... but also challenge America that we still have much
E more work to do.”
MS. ROSYLN M. BROCK, NAACP BOARD CHAIR
Holder: Path paved by 2nd
black solicitor general
By David N, Goodman
DETROIT (AP) - Eric Holder said Feb. 17 he owes his job as the
nation’s first black attorney general to the path paved by the second
Atrican-American to become solicitor general, Wade McCree Jr.
Holder didn’t address two high-profile Detroit cases during his
speech; the prosecution of “underwear bomb” suspect Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab and his department’s probe of the FBI’s Oct. 28 fatal
shooting of Luqman Abdullah, imam of a Detroit mosque, during a
raid.
Holder spoke to about 500 people at the Federal Bar Associa
tion’s annual social justice award luncheon named for McCree and
later attended the installation of Eastern Michigan U.S. Attorney
Barbara McQuade.
Holder said he was a “young and idealistic lawyer” in the U.S.
Justice Department when President Jimmy Carter named McCree
solicitor general, the federal government’s chief lawyer in cases be
fore the U.S. Supreme Court.
Holder said when Carter appointed McCree, he was a prosecutor
in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section.
“I was fresh out of law school, a young and idealistic attorney,”
Holder said, “and Wade McCree embodied the qualities that I, as a
young African-American, hoped to emulate as a lawyer.”
He said each generation has “people of principle” who have “tri-
umphed over the evils” of their time to “help create a better Amer
ica.”
“Each of us has walked through a doorway of possibility that
these leaders pried open,” he said. “I have walked through doors
opened by Judge McCree and stand on his shoulders. We have a
responsibility to ensure that this progress continues.”
As solicitor general in 1976-81, McCree argued the 1978 affir
mative-action case involving white medical school applicant Allan
Bakke, as well as issues over the release of President Richard Nix
on’s Oval Office tapes.
Before that, McCree was a judge on the U.S. District Court in
Detroit and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. He
taught at the University of Michigan after leaving federal service
until his death in 1987.
Obama-Black Farmers -
USDA reaches new
settlement with
black farmers
By Ben Evans
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration on Feb. 18 an
nounced a $1.25 billion deal with black farmers that could end a years-
long stalemate over alleged racial discrimination by the Agriculture
Department.
If approved by Congress, it would be the second round of damages
stemming from a class-action lawsuit the govemment originally settled
in 1999. The new money is intended for people who were denied ear
lier payments because they missed deadlines for filing. The amount of
money each would get depends on how many claims are successfully
filed.
NAACP - Durham Branch
Monthly Meeting
February28:
Covenant Presbyterian Church
2620 E. Weaver St.
Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, Pastor
For more information call 682-4930
President Barack Obama initially called for the $1.25 billion in his
budget last year, but the request stalled in Congress as disagreements
persisted over the amount of funding and the structure of the settle
ment. Agriculture Secretary Tom 'Vilsack said the Feb. 18 agreement
should pave the way for congressional approval and get money flowing
soon.
In a statement, Obama said the deal would bring “these long-ignored
claims of African-American farmers to a rightful conclusion.”
“I look forward to a swift resolution to this issue, so that the families
affected can move on with their lives,” Obama said.
Vilsack said the deal should close a “sordid chapter” in USDA his
tory in which blacks often lost land or went deeply into debt after being
denied loans and other aid that routinely went to their white counter
parts.
John Boyd, a key plaintiff organizer and head of the National Black
Farmers Association, initially balked at the $1.25 billion last year, say
ing it would take more money to satisfy all the claims. But he said Feb.
18 that he and others agreed to the total because the case has dragged
on for so long.
“Many of the farmers have already died waiting for justice so I
thought this was the right thing to do,” he said.
The original lawsuit is known as Pigford, named after Timothy Pig
ford, a black farmer from North Carolina who was among the original
plaintiffs. Under the 1999 settlement, the government paid out more
than $1 billion to about 16,000 farmers, mostly from the South.
Most claimants opted for expedited $50,000 payments that required
a relatively low burden of proof. Boyd and others have pushed for an
other round of damages because thousands of people said they didn’t
know about the settlement and missed deadlines for filing.
The new agreement calls for a similar process in which claimants
can win damages without going to court.
Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli said claimants can seek
fast-track payments of up to $50,000 plus debt relief, or choose a lon
ger process for damages of up to $250,000. Estimates on the number
of potential claims vary widely, but some expect about 65,000 - which
would set average payments at roughly $20,000.
The Feb. 18 announcement comes as Boyd and others had become
increasingly critical of Obama, arguing that he was paying lip service
to the issue and not living up to a campaign promise to fund it. It also
represents a shift from the Bush administration, which resisted paying
new claims.
Roy Merrick, who tried unsuccessfully in the early 1980s to start a
catfish farm on his property in Natchez, Miss., said Feb. 18 he was glad
to hear he might get some compensation. He said he could never get
USDA officials to pay him much attention when he'tried to get a loan
- even thought many of his white neighbors got federal help to build
successful catfish ponds.
“Had I been able to secure money back in those times I might have
been able to do more for my family,” said Merrick, 67, who instead
went into home painting and repairs.
fThe costs of the ideological crusade in Wake County Schools
Hi By Chris Fitzsimon N.C. Policy Watch
R The damage to Wake County from the efforts of the new resegrega-
iponist Gang of Five majority on the board of education became quantifi-
raWe Feb. 16, as the taxpayers lost $15 million and the community lost
' Ihe dedicated leadership of School Superintendent Del Bums, whose con-
B'^ience wouldn’t let him stay on as the nationally recognized system was
^ismantled.
Burns* announced his resignation at the beginning of Tuesday’s (Feb.
.16) meeting, a move that startled the board and the audience and prompted
jGang of Five Chair Ron Margiotta to call for an immediate recess.
( Burns didn’t say much in his statement but his point was clear as he
Cited the direction and the decisions of the board and that he “could not in
Jgood conscience continue to serve as superintendent.”
1 Board member Ann McLaurin said Bums’ decision was a terrible loss
[Tor the schools and the community and told reporters that Bums simply
pouldn’t go along with the Gang of Five’s priorities, which include abol-
tshing the system’s national recognized diversity policy and returning to
[^segregated schools.
Margiotta said he hoped the new board’s decisions were not the reason
Horns is leaving and even said he might try to talk him into staying. Gang
ofFiver John Tedesco said he had hoped Bums would stay and “work on
building a new vision for students and education in our community.”
But Bums had no interest in a vision even Tedesco now admits will cre
ate as many as 20 high-poverty and overwhelmingly segregated schools in
a system where no schools are currently failing.
Surely Tedesco and Margiotta can see through their crocodile tears and
understand that a man who dedicated 34 years of his life to improving pub
lic education would not want to end his career watching the school system
he loves fall victim to an ideological crusade.
The leaders of one advocacy group that supports the Gang of Five said
“everyone’s best interest is served” by Bums’ resignation, an odd state
ment considering that 94.5 percent of the parents who responded to a re
cent survey said they were satisfied with their child’s school.
Maybe it’s time to call the new majority the Gang of Five and a Half
Percent.
Fittingly, after Bums’ resignation, the board displayed its arrogance
and poor judgment, voting 5-4 to waste $ 15 million of taxpayer money by
abandoning the proposed site of a new high school in Northeast Raleigh,
which also means hundreds of high school students will spend another two
years in trailers while a new site is prepared.
Abandoning the site and all the work to prepare it was a campaign prom
ise of the four Gang of Fivers elected last fall and they blindly stuck with
it, despite a recommendation otherwise by a group of 19 experts from the
city, county, and state formed to evaluate the proposed site and alternatives
suggested by new board members.
The numbers presented by the group’s report and the staff of the school
system were clear. The current site of the new high school may not be per
fect, but it would take $15 million and at least two more years to build the
school somewhere else.
Confronted with the numbers again Feb. 16, the Gang of Five simply re
fused to believe them, challenging the credibility and at times the integrity
ofthe staff, and chose to plow ahead with a new site anyway.
Ann McLaurin pointed out that $15 million is a lot of money in a budget
crisis when schools can’t afford textbooks and teacher assistants.
But that doesn’t matter. This is a crusade remember, not a reasoned ap
proach to making the best decisions for Wake County.
That was clearer than ever Tuesday when the people of the county lost
not only $15 million, but something far more important, the steady and
dedicated leadership of a superintendent who refused to be part of destroy
ing 30 years of progress.