VOLUME 93 - NUMBER 26
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2014
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30
Hagan wants Tillis apology over
'Traditional Voters’ Remark
RALEIGH (AP) - Dem
ocratic U.S. Sen. Kay
Hagan urged her Repub
lican challenger une 18 to
apologize for comments he
made two years ago on a
television show when dis
cussing GOP efforts to at
tract voters from minority
groups.
Hagan said House
Speaker Thom Tillis was
wrong to separate black
and Hispanic North Caro
lina residents from what he
called the ''traditional pop
ulation of North Carolina”
and the U.S.
"As an elected offi
cial, Speaker Tillis sets the
wrong example by clas
sifying some North Caro
linians as traditional and
implying others are not,
and he should apologize
for this offensive comment
immediately,” she said in a
release.
Tillis, the GOP nominee
facing Hagan in Novem
ber, isn’t apologizing for
the comments, which re
surfaced in a report on the
Talking Points Memo po
litical website. Campaign
manager Jordan Shaw said
Tillis believes North
Carolina Republicans need
a message that resonates
with all residents.
Speaker Thom Tillis
Tillis “believes the phi
losophy of growth and hard
work and freedom has ap
peal to people across North
Carolina, whether they are
natives of the state or new-
comers and regardless of
their demographics,” Shaw
said in an email. Hagan
said Tillis was dismissing
North Carolina as being a
diverse state.
Tillis’ comments, made
on the Carolina Business
Review show on public
television, responded to a
question about the Repub
lican Party’s future. The
interviewer asked about the
shift of Hispanic voters to
(Continued On Page 3)
Nicholas Perkins
. President Barack Obama, with First Lady Michelle Obama, greets a young boy
during the Cannon Ball Flag Day Celebration at the Cannon Ball powwow grounds
during a visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Reservation in Cannon Ball, N.D.,
June 13. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
SPAULDING
NC party chairman
says he erred on
Cooper comment
RALEIGH (AP) - A 2016
hopeful for governor and a North
Carolina Democratic Party cau
cus are unhappy with comments
made by the party chairman they
say favored potential gubernato
rial candidate Attorney General
Roy Cooper.
Ken Spaulding and the par
ty’s African-American Caucus
have written Chairman Randy
Voller complaining he referred
to Cooper as the “next governor”
when Cooper spoke June 7 at the
party’s Jefferson-Jackson Din
ner.
Spaulding is a Durham attor
ney who is black and announced
his bid for governor last sum
mer. Cooper says he’s planning a
gubernatorial run but hasn’t an
nounced he’s in.
Voller said Monday his com
ments were a mistake and a slip
of the tongue and shouldn’t be
considered an endorsement. He
says he wants a constructive
dialogue on the 2016 race but is
now focused on electing Demo
crats this year.
Join The
NAACP
Fayetteville State alumnus
gives $1 million to school
FAYETTEVILLE (AP) - An alumnus of Fayetteville State Uni
versity is giving a $1 million gift to his alma mater’s fundraising
campaign.
Chancellor James A. Anderson announced that Nicholas Perkins
gave the gift in support of the $25 million “Campaign for Fayetteville
State University: From a Proud Legacy to a 21st Century University.”
Perkins is a 2003 graduate of Fayetteville State, and is president
and founder of Perkins Management Services Co. of Charlotte.
In October 2012, Perkins donated $100,000 to FSU’s School of
Business and Economics. The money is being used to train young
entrepreneurs.
Perkins said the most recent gift is in response to the financial dif
ficulties faced by many historically black colleges and universities.
He said he wanted to do his part in making sure that Fayetteville State
continues to thrive.
Sotomayor: Affirmative action
options don’t work
By Kevin Freking
WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice Sonia
Sotomayor rejected on June 22 the notion that alterna
tives to affirmative action such as income or residency
could achieve similar results in diversifying the nation’s
colleges and universities.
When asked whether other “less fractious” measures
could achieve similar results for schools, she said that sta
tistics show the alternatives simply don’t work.
Sotomayor strongly backs affirmative action and wrote
the dissent in April in a 6-2 decision that upheld a state’s
right to outlaw the use of race in determining admissions.
Sotomayor is the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court
and graduated from Princeton University. She said her
alma mater could fill its freshman class with students who
scored perfectly on undergraduate metrics, but it chooses
not to do so because it would not create a diverse class
based on standards the school considers important for
success in life.
She also pointed out that some students boost their
prospects for attending a school based on their family’s
history.
“Look, we have legacy admissions. If your parents or
your grandparents have been to that school, they’re going
to give you an advantage in getting into the school again,”
Sotomayor said. “Legacy admission is a wonderful thing
because it means even if you’re not as qualified as others
you’re going to get that slight advantage.”
Sotomayor participated in the rare television interview on ABC’s
“This Week” as she promotes the paperback edition of her book, “My
Beloved World.”
Settlement in Central
Park jogger case
By Jonathan Lemire
NEW YORK (AP) - All but closing the books on one of the most sensational crime
cases in New York history, the city has agreed to a $40 million settlement with five men
who were falsely convicted in the vicious 1989 rape and beating of a Central Park jog
ger, a city official said June 20.
The official had direct knowledge of the agreement but wasn’t allowed to discuss it
publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The deal still
needs the approval of the city comptroller and a federal judge.
The five black and Hispanic defendants were found guilty as teenagers in 1990 in the
attack on a white woman who had gone for a run in the park.
They served anywhere from six to 13 years in prison before their convictions were
thrown out in 2002 when evidence connected someone else to the crime.
More than a decade ago, they brought a $250 million civil rights lawsuit against po
lice and prosecutors.
Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement that the proposed settle
ment signifies “a monumental victory” for the men and their families.
“It is also a victory for those in the community that stood with them from day one
and believed in their innocence in this case,” Sharpton said. “As supporters, we were
viciously attacked for standing with them, but we were on the right side of history.”
The attack on 28-year-old investment banker Trisha Meili was one of the most notori
ous crimes in New York City history and came to be seen as a lurid symbol of the city’s
racial and class divide and its rampant crime. It gave rise to the term “wilding” for urban
mayhem by marauding teenagers.
When Meili was found in the brush, more than 75 percent of her blood had drained
from her body and her skull was smashed. She was in a coma for 12 days, left with per
manent damage, and remembers nothing about the attack.
The AP does not usually identify victims of sexual assault, but Meili went public as a
motivational speaker and wrote a book.
Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, both 14 at the time, Antron McCray and
Yusef Salaam, 15, and Korey Wise, 16, were rounded up and arrested. After hours of
interrogation, four of them gave confessions on video.
At the trials, their lawyers argued the confessions were coerced. At the time, DNA
testing was not sophisticated enough to make or break the case.
In 2002, a re-examination of the case found that DNA on the victim’s sock pointed
to Matias Reyes, a murderer and serial rapist who confessed that he alone attacked the
jogger.
Then-District Attorney Robert Morgenthau stopped short of declaring the five in
nocent but withdrew all charges and did not seek a retrial. The statute of limitations for
charging Reyes had run out; he is serving a life sentence for other crimes.
The case that stood as symbol of urban lawlessness became instead an example of a
colossal breakdown in the legal system.
Jonathan C. Moore, a lawyer for the five men, declined to comment, as did a spokes
woman for the city’s Law Department.
Andrew G. Celli, a lawyer who took an interest in the case submitted a brief in the
litigation, welcomed news of a settlement.
“A settlement this large, this dynamic, will have an impact,” he said. “It will cause
police and prosecutors to think a bit more carefully about the ramifications of a particu
lar investigation.”