WILS 08/i20/9:
WILSON LIBRARY
N C COLLECTION
UNC-CH
CHAPEL HILL
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NC
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94 - NUMBER 7
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2015
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30 CENTS
Mass Moral March’
brings thousands to Raleigh
By Gary D. Robertson
RALEIGH (AP) - Still work-
. toward substantial victories
the ballot box and the legis-
jre, demonstrators opposed
Republican policies within
rth Carolina demanded again
3. 14 that laws be repealed
it they say harm the sick, the
hr and minorities.
Thousands of people joined
state NAACP and other advo-
:y groups that helped stage the
i annual “Moral March on Ra
sh,” which led through down-
m streets before ending in
nt of the old Capitol building,
e terminus is deliberate, since
:ir unhappiness rests with the
,s passed by the GOP-led leg-
iture and Republican Gov. Pat
:Crory since 2013.
Those policies spawned the
[oral Monday” movement, in
ich about 1,000 people were
ested in non-violent protests
he legislative building and the
I Capitol.
But the policies haven’t
raged - lawmakers have re
ed to expand Medicaid to
yer more of the working poor,
leries of election law changes
pain on the books and the
’nimum wage remains at $7.25
: hour. And the Republicans
nain in firm control of the
neral Assembly following the
14 elections, losing only two
its overall.
The Rev. William Barber, the
tvement’s founder, said civil
iobedience would resume in
Jeigh after Easter if the legis-
ure failed to change their ways
dreverse course.
“I’ve come to announce today
■ can’t be quiet- not now, not
er,” Barber, the state NAACP
esident, told the crowd in an
[passioned speech. “We want
ir leaders to put away your par-
an arguments - do what is right
r the people.”
Demonstrators from across
e state came with a long list of
ievances and demands, ranging
>m restoring a state earned in-
me tax credit to stopping rules
rill taking effect for fracking,
bortion rights and labor groups
50 were represented.
Groups making up the move-
ent have had partial success in
e courts, where judges have
tick down portions of an abor-
>n law and last October up-
ided North Carolina’s consti-
tional amendment prohibiting
ine-sex marriage.
The state Supreme Court
ans oral arguments this week
i a law giving taxpayer-funded
ants for children to attend pri-
itc school, while lawsuits chal-
nging the 2013 election law
aling back early-voting and
iding same-day registration go
trial this summer.
The Rev. Robin Tanner, a
nitarian Universalist church
istor in Charlotte, plans a state-
octioned wedding March 15
ith her partner, the Rev. Ann
larie Alderman. Turner said
terturning of the gay marriage
nendment was just one, impor-
nt step.
“We need to keep marching for so many other people in our state who are still denied justice,” Turner
said as she and Alderman marched. “Marriage equality is not the promised land.”
Event organizers predicted 30,000 people in their march application with Raleigh city officials. As in
2014, Raleigh police didn’t provide a crowd estimate. But the number of people at Saturday’s (Feb. 14)
event was certainly smaller than last year’s march, when changes under GOP rule were fresh and an elec
tion year added urgency.
While 2014 participants took up three blocks of Fayetteville Street, they filled barely a block and a
half of the same street on Saturday, Feb. 14. Barber disagreed with the crowd assessment, but wrote by
email, “we never judge the power of the movement by sheer numbers but by the depth of the crowd” in
their resolve.
The event also included a call to unity after the slayings of three young Muslims in Chapel Hill last
week. Farris Barakat, the brother of the slain Deah Shaddy Barakat, told a pre-march rally good has come
from the tragic deaths, but the public must speak out against anti-Muslim bias.
“Maybe we haven’t collectively stood up yet to say that Muslims are Americans, too,” Barakat said.
Then an imam delivered a call to prayer before the march began.
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama interact with Hilton
banquet server Kitty Casey during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Wash
ington Hilton in Washington, D.C., Feb. 5. (Official White House Photo by Pete
SAM JONES
House votes to honor
1965’s Selma marchers
with gold medal
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
ouse has voted unanimously
create a Congressional Gold
Mal to honor those who en-
tred police violence as they
arched for civil rights 50
tars ago in Selma, Alabama.
The gold medal is the nu
m’s highest civilian award,
he bill now goes to the Senate.
Shooting suspect slams
religion while defending liberty
By Allen G. Breed and Michael Biesecker
CHAPEL HILL (AP) - If his Facebook page is any indication, Craig Hicks doesn’t hate Muslims. An
avowed atheist, his online posts instead depict a man who despises religion itself, but nevertheless seems
to support an individual’s right to his own beliefs.
“I hate Islam just as much as Christianity, but they have the right to worship in this country just as much
as any others do,” the man now accused of killing three Muslim college students stated in one 2012 post
over the proposed construction of a mosque near the World Trade Center site in New York.
Days after the shooting deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha,
21; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, a nuanced and sometimes contradictory portrait is
emerging of the man charged in their slayings.
Police in Chapel Hill said they have yet to uncover any evidence that Hicks, 46, allegedly acted out of
religious animus, though they are investigating the possibility. As a potential motive, they cited a dispute
over parking spaces at the condo community where Hicks and two of the victims lived.
Hicks’ court-appointed lawyer, Stephen Freedman, said he could not comment on the case. Flicks was
being held without bond.
In often publicly posted Facebook rants, Hicks was brazen about his disdain for all faiths. In one post
regarding specific texts from the Quran, the lewish Talmud and the Bible about battling nonbelievers, he
wrote: “I wish they would exterminate each other!”
But he was just as passionate about personal freedom and liberty - championing an individual’s right
to worship or not worship, legal abortion and gay marriage and, perhaps most fervently, the right to own
and bear arms. If he has a creed, it’s the Second Amendment.
“I guess after the horrible tragedy early this week in Arizona, all Glock pistols will officially be labeled
’assault weapons,”’ he wrote following the January 2011 assassination attempt on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords. "While I never cared for Glocks personally, it stinks that anyone would blame a firearm rather
than the operator of such firearm for such a terrible act. I think I’ll start blaming McDonalds for my
weight problem, Christianity for the Ku Klux Klan, and Islam for terrorism.”
One post included a photo of a revolver and the warning: “If you are anti-gun, defriend me NOW!!!”
Search warrants filed in court Friday listed a dozen firearms taken from Hicks’ condo unit, including
four handguns, two shotguns and six rifles - one a military-style AR-15 carbine - and a large cache of am
munition. That's in addition to a pistol the suspect had with him when he turned himself in.
Hicks’ 20-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Sarah Hurley, told The Associated Press that
she shut him out of her life permanently years ago “for not only disrespecting the religious beliefs of oth
ers but bashing them on social media.” She verified that the Facebook page the AP reviewed was Hicks’,
whom she refuses to even call “father.”
He and Cynthia Hurley, who lives outside of Raleigh, were divorced about 17 years ago. She told the
AP that back then, Hicks’ favorite movie was “Falling Down,” the 1993 Michael Douglas film about a
laid-off engineer who goes on a shooting rampage.
She described a man who showed her no compassion, but didn’t recall him having any particular ani
mosity toward Islam or other religions. Of Christianity, she said. “He went there and did that and chose
not to.”
“Even after we divorced, we prayed for him every day,” said Hurley.
An Illinois native, Hicks moved to North Carolina in 2005. He married again several years later, and
he and new wife Karen set up house in her two-bedroom condo in the quiet Finley Forest neighborhood
of Chapel Hill. Online, he called Karen “my better half’ and “the most wonderful woman in the world,
she puts up with me.”
“I am very lucky,” he told one Facebook friend. “She’s incredibly smart also, but she must have a
couple wires crossed somewhere to be with me!”
In a news conference after her husband’s arrest, Karen Hicks claimed to be as baffled as anyone about
how a man who loves the Pittsburgh Steelers, the United States Constitution and dogs - especially his own
black and brown mutt, Rocky - could have done something so vicious. She was adamant that the shoot
ings stemmed .from a long-simmering dispute over parking at their condo complex, not the victims’ faith.
NCCU to Retire Sam
Jones’ Jersey March 5
North Carolina Central University will retire the jer
sey of alumnus and Boston Celtics legend Sam Jones dur
ing a ceremony between the NCCU women’s and men’s
basketball games against rival North Carolina A&T on
March 5 inside McDougald-McLendon Gymnasium.
One of the greatest NBA players of all-time, Jones
played at NCCU from 1951-54 and 1956-57, and remains
the school’s second-leading career scorer with 1,745
points in four seasons under head coaches John McLen
don and Floyd Brown.
Born in Wilmington, North Carolina and a high school
graduate of Laurinburg (N.C.) Institute, Jones was chosen
by the Boston Celtics with the eighth overall pick in the
first round of the 1957 NBA Draft.
His 12-year career with the Celtics included 10 NBA
Championships, five All-Star Game appearances and
three selections to the All-NBA Second Team. Nicknamed
“Mr. Clutch,” Jones amassed 15,411 points, an average of
17.7 points per game, 4,305 rebounds and 2,209 assists in
871 contests.
Jones was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Bas
ketball Hall of Fame and the NCCU Athletics Hall of
Fame in 1984, as well as the North Carolina Sports Hall
of Fame in 1969. He was selected to the NBA 25th An
niversary All-Time Team in 1970, and was later-named
among the top 50 players in NBA history as a member of
the 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1996.
For tickets to the March 5 ceremony and NCCU vs. NC
A&T basketball doubleheader, visit NCCUEaglePride.
com or call the NCCU Ticket Office at 919-530-5170.