94-NUMBER 14
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2015
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30 CENTS
Economic Recovery
Eludes Black Workers
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Senior Washington
Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) -
he slow-moving, uneven eco-
omic recovery continues to
ude black workers and some
•onomists predict that even
jth a falling unemployment
te, at the end of 2015, blacks
ill still be further away from
ill recovery than whites.
A recent study by the Eco-
imic Policy Institute (EPI), a
/ashington, D.C.-based think
increases in the share of workers
employed,” also known as the
employment-population ratio or
EPOP ratio.
The study continued: “On
the other hand, declining unem
ployment in those states without
increasing shares of workers em
ployed may suggest workers are
simply dropping out of the labor
force.”
Valerie Wilson, director of the
Program on Race, Ethnicity, and
the Economy for EPI, analyzed
2014 data for the unemployment
rate, the EPOP ratio, and the
long-term unemployment rate,
and said that using the unem
ployment rate to determine the
health of the labor market may
be overstating the progress of the
economic recovery in the U.S.
“Between 2013 and 2014, the
annual black unemployment rate
declined most in Arkansas (6.5
percentage points), Indiana (4.6
percentage points), and Tennes
see (3.6 percentage points). Of
these, only Arkansas
(Continued On Page2)
M AYA
ANGELOU
A bird doesn't sing
because it has an
answer, it sings because
it has a song.”
ink focused on low- and mid-
le-income families, said that
the fourth-quart of 2014, the
ational unemployment rate for
bites was “within 1 percent-
■.■e point of pre-recession levels,
fhile the black unemployment
ate was 2.4 percentage points
igher than it was at the end of
007.”
The report also explained
at, “True labor market im-
ovements are more likely in
ose states experiencing both
remployment declines and
Obama family
worships at
historic Baptist
I church in Virginia
By Stacy Anderson
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia
\P) - President Barack Obama
id his family are attending Eas-
r services at the Alfred Street
aptist Church in Alexandria,
irginia, which says its his-
iry goes back to the time when
homas Jefferson was in the
/hite House.
According to the church’s
.ebsite, the Alexandria Bap-
st Society was formed in 1803
Some young people who were at the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist church Eas
ter Egg Hunt. See photos on page 12.
Author, poet, actress, and champion of civil rights
Dr. Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was one of the most dy
namic voices in all of 20th-century American literature.
The book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an auto
biographical account of her childhood, gained wide ac
claim for its vivid depiction of African-American life in
the South.
The stamp showcases artist Ross Rossin’s 2013 por
trait of Dr. Angelou. The oil-on-canvas painting is part of
the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s collection.
In the bottom left corner is the following phrase quoted
by Dr. Angelou: “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an
answer, it sings because it has a song.” Above the quota
tion is her name in black type. The words “Forever” and
“USA” are along the right side.
Children’s author Joan Walsh Anglund told The Wash
ington Post that she originated the sentence.
“Yes, that’s my quote,” Anglund, 89, said Monday
night. It appears on page 15 of her book of poems A Cup
of Sun, published in 1967.
The bright red-colored sheet also includes a short ex
cerpt from Dr. Angelou’s book Letter to My Daughter. It
reads: “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
Art director Ethel Kessler designed the stamp.
The Maya Angelou stamp is being issued as a Forev
er® stamp in self-adhesive sheets of 12. Forever stamps
are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail®
one-ounce price.
Issue Date: April 7, 2015
(hen members split from an
ther church in the Northern Vir-
inia city, and a slave was bap-
zed that year as its first black
lember.
Three years later, black mem-
ers established the Colored
laptist Society as a “conjoined”
hurch.
In 2000, President Bill Clin-
)n visited Alfred Street a few
ays before the November elec-
on as he sang with the gospel
hoir and appealed for a large
arnout of black voters for Vice
’resident Al Gore in his race
gainst Republican George W.
lush.
US state lacks evidence,
frees man after 30 years
By Kim Chandler
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) - A man who spent nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row walked free two days after prosecutors acknowledged
that the only evidence they had against him couldn’t prove he committed the crime.
Ray Hinton was 29 when he was arrested for two 1985 killings. Freed on April 3 at age 58, with grey hair and a beard, he was embraced by his sob
bing sisters, who said “thank you Jesus,” as they wrapped their arms around him outside the Jefferson County Jail.
Hinton had won a new trial last year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that his trial counsel was inadequate. Prosecutors on April 1 moved to drop
the case after new ballistics tests contradicted those done three decades ago. Experts couldn’t match crime scene bullets to a gun found in Hinton’s
National Archives
digitizes Little Rock
Nine film
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -
’he National Archives has digi-
ally remastered a film about the
.ittle Rock Nine for the anniver-
ary of its Academy Award win
or best short documentary 50
'ears ago.
The Arkansas Democrat-
lazette reports that it’s the fifth
ilm the archives’ Motion Picture
’reservation Lab has restored to
inema quality. The film will be
town at the National Archives
ater in the spring and is avail
able online.
The archives says the 18-min-
te film, titled Nine from Little
lock, was never intended for
American viewers but was
town in hundreds of cities
iround the globe. The film fol-
ows the lives of several of the
line black students years after
Shey integrated Central High
chool in Little Rock.
The film is narrated by one of
le Nine, Jefferson Thomas, who
ied in 2010.
home.
“I shouldn’t have sat on death row for 30 years. All they had to do was test the gun,” Hinton said.
The state of Alabama offered no immediate apology.
“When you think you are high and mighty and you are above the law, you don’t have to answer to nobody. But I got news for them, everybody who
played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God,” Hinton said. “They just didn’t take me from my family and friends. They had every
intention of executing me for something I didn't do,” Hinton said.
Hinton was arrested in 1985 for the murders of two Birmingham fast-food restaurant managers after the survivor of a third restaurant robbery identi
fied Hinton as the gunman. Prosecution experts said at the trial that bullets recovered at all three crime scenes matched Hinton’s mother’s .38 caliber
Smith & Wesson revolver. He was convicted despite an alibi: He had been at work inside a locked warehouse 15 minutes away during the third shooting.
“The only thing we’ve ever had to connect him to the two crimes here in Birmingham was the bullets matching the gun that was recovered from his
home,” Chief Deputy District Attorney John R. Bowers, Jr. told The Associated Press on April 2.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that Hinton had “constitutionally deficient” representation at trial because his defense lawyer wrongly
thought he had only $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to rebut the state’s case. The only expert willing to take the job at that price struggled so much
under cross-examination that jurors chuckled at his responses.
Attorney Bryan Stevenson, who directs Alabama’s Equal Justice Initiative, called it “a case study” in what is wrong with the U.S. judicial system. He
said the trial was tainted by racial bias and that Hinton, an impoverished African-American man, did not have access to a better defense.
“We have a system that doesn’t do the right thing when the right thing is apparent. Prosecutors should have done these tests years ago,” Stevenson
said.
The independent experts Stevenson hired to re-examine this evidence after taking on Hinton’s case in 1999 “were quite unequivocal that this gun
was not connected to these crimes,” he said. “That’s the real shame to me. What happened this week to get Mr. Hinton released could have happened
at least 15 years ago.”
Stevenson then tried in vain for years to persuade the state of Alabama to re-examine the evidence. The bullets only got a new look as prosecutors
and defense lawyers tangled over a possible retrial following the Supreme Court ruling.
The result: Three forensics experts could not positively conclude whether the bullets were fired from Hinton’s revolver, or whether they came from
the same gun at all, according to the state’s request to dismiss the case against Hinton. Bowers said the “bullets were so badly mutilated that they did
not have the necessary microscopic markings to make a conclusive determination.”
Hinton was one of the longest-serving inmates on Alabama’s death row, and is one of the longest-serving inmates to be released in the United States.
But Stevenson said there are many others behind bars who were convicted “based on bad science.”
“We’ve allowed too many people to assert things in court that are not credible or reliable, painted over with this kind of scientific expertise which means there could be a lot
of wrongful convictions,” Stevenson said.