HUME 94 - NUMBER 24
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DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2015
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
Republican Tax Plan Would Take Money
From Durham for Rural Counties
MISS HARMONY CROSS
Former Miss NCCU Crowned
Miss Black Philadelphia USA
taony Cross, who reigned as Miss NCCU during the 2012-2013
wiiyear, has been crowned Miss Black Philadelphia USA. Cross
Jwrk With young adults to help them develop skills in personal
elopment, goal setting and achievement. She also will represent
iadelphia in the 2016 Miss Black Pennsylvania USA Pageant.
Miss NCCU, Cross developed the Lady Eagle Development Men-
ing Program, which builds sisterly supportive relationships among
t-year female students to assist with college transition. Cross also
inded NCCU’s Annual Women’s Empowerment Symposium. The
lual event uplifts the NCCU female population through healthy
iversations with world-renowned speakers and entertainers. In
14, Cross appeared as an HBCU Campus Queen in Ebony maga
le.
ring her tenure at NCCU, Cross was active as a residential life
listant, Student Activities Board Recreation Committee co-chair,
listant coordinator of the Eagle Village, Pi Alpha Alpha National
inor Society member, Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society member, Uni-
rsity Honor’s Program, and NCCU track and field team.
e earned her bachelor’s degree in public administration from
iCU in 2013 and then obtained a master’s degree from Temple
uversity. Currently, she works as a student affairs administrator at
idener University.
Closing Achievement Gaps
Requires More than Education
Reform
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent
ASHINGTON (NNPA) - Education reform alone isn’t enough to
ose achievement gaps between blacks and whites, according to a
w report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
le study by EPI, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on
e needs of low- and middle-income families, analyzed how key
dial and class factors work to diminish student achievement. Those
laracteristics include parenting practices, single parenthood, irregu-
rwork schedules, lack of access to primary and preventive health
re and lead exposure.
ala Morsy, a lecturer from the University of New South Wales in
(dney, Australia, said that even though politicians understand that
oily and community characteristics affect student performance,
ey don’t understand how to address its impact.
Ihough not all lower-social-class families have each of these char-
iteristics, all have many ofthem,” Morsy said in a statement. “Push-
ig policies that address these social class characteristics might be a
ore powerful way to raise the achievement of disadvantaged chil-
ien than school improvement strategies.”
ducators should still be encouraged to support strategies such as im-
roving access to early childhood care and education, school-based
alth centers and after-school and summer opportunities, the report
iggested, but those programs must be pursued in conjunction with
macroeconomic policies like full employment, higher wages, and
able work schedules,” that also help to nurture children.
irental engagement and an educational home environment are criti-
llto fostering student achievement.
Wording to the Education Department’s Early Childhood Longitu-
inal Study (Kindergarten Class of201-2011), black parents reported
■ average of 44 books in the home, less than half the number given
I white parents (112). Black parents also spend about 40 percent
ss time reading to their young children compared to whites and
lack mothers are “two-thirds as likely as white mothers to read to
Idlers daily,” according to the EPI report.
arental engagement and home environment can be life-changing in
lose preschool years and research shows that poor families, inde-
endent of race, can take steps to make sure that their children don’t
>se ground to their financially-stable peers.
Low-income parents of children in Head Start who spend more time
lading to their children, visit the library more often, keep more chil-
ren’s books in the home, and begin reading to their children at
Continued On Page 6)
By Emery P. Dalesio
RALEIGH (AP) - Leaders in the
North Carolina Senate on June
10 floated a new round of cor
porate and personal tax cuts, un
veiling a plan that reduces state
revenues by a further $2 billion
over five years.
The plan would raise money
in other places by beginning to
charge sales tax on veterinary
services and repairing personal
property like furniture and appli
ances. Big nonprofit institutions
like hospitals will see their spe
cial treatment reduced and pay
more in sales taxes.
The package responds to pleas
by Gov. Pat McCrory to expand
and extend a tax break used to
lure job-creating companies that
was due to expire after this year.
But lawmakers want to alter the
formula so that the biggest ben
efits go to businesses that land in
rural areas where unemployment
rates are higher.
“What you see is a fairly signifi
cant compromise on a whole lot
of different ideas,” said Senate
leader Phil Berger, R-Rocking-
ham.
McCrory spokesman Josh Ellis
said the governor’s staff was re
viewing the proposal.
The General Assembly cut taxes
in 2013 and legislative fiscal ana-
Ex-South Carolina
police chief: Retrial in
black man’s death
By Bruce Smith
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -
When a South Carolina jury first
heard the case of a former small
town police chief who shot and
killed an unarmed black man,
the trial lasted six days and the
jurors deliberated for 12 hours
before telling the judge they had
deadlocked.
On Monday, Richard Combs,
the white former police chief
of Eutawville, will be retried
on a murder charge in the May
2011 death of Bernard Bailey.
Bailey died outside the small
community’s town hall, which
also houses the town’s one-man
police department.
At the time of Combs’ indict
ment last December, the case
drew comparisons to the shoot
ing of a black man in Ferguson,
Missouri, and the chokehold
death of a black by police offi
cers in New York City.
At Combs’ first trial in Orange
burg in January, his attorneys
had unsuccessfully argued it
should be moved. They cited
publicity surrounding the case
after weeks of protests nation
wide over the killings of blacks
by white law officers, adding it
made it impossible to get a fair
trial there.
Since then, there have been
other similar cases which have
drawn headlines, including the
April shooting of Walter Scott,
who is black, by a white North
Charleston police officer. That
shooting was captured on cell-
phone video.
Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson
this month approved a defense
request for a change of venue,
moving the trial to Columbia in
Richland County about 35 miles
away. The case will be heard by
Circuit Judge Brian Gibbons of
Chester with jury selection set
to begin Monday.
If convicted of murder, Combs
could face 30 years to life with
out parole. During the first trial,
Dickson also allowed the jury to
consider voluntary manslaugh
ter. Any conviction on that
charge could be punished by
two to 30 years in prison.
(Continued On Page 6)
Senators propose cutting the personal income tax rate from 5.75 to 5.5 percent next year while more earn
ings would go untaxed. A married couple’s first SI 7,500 of income would face zero state taxes in 2017,
up from $15,000 now.
North Carolina had a three-tier income tax system for decades in which the highest earners paid a higher
tax rate than the middle class and working poor. The 2013 tax cuts converted that into a flat rate paid of
5.8 percent by all taxpayers. Those at the top end of the income scale who had paid the highest 7.75 per
cent rate saw their total income tax burden reduced by a quarter. Low-income taxpayers paying 6 percent
got a more modest cut.
Senators now are proposing to allow more deductions, including restoring one for medical expenses after
many seniors were shocked by higher tax bills this year.
The Senate plan also would follow through on earlier plans to reduce the corporate income tax rate to four
percent next year and three percent in 2017.
Big nonprofit corporations that are now able to avoid paying sales tax on the first $666 million they
purchase will see that exemption narrowed to their first $15 million. Owners of aircraft would see the
maximum sales tax they’d pay increase from $1,500 to $5,000.
The legislation incorporates a previously proposed plan to redistribute collected sales taxes from affluent
cities and vacation destinations like Dare County to poorer, rural counties. Taking sales tax dollars away
from the communities where they’re collected and allocating the money based on per-capita residents
would mean more revenue for most of the state’s 100 counties while urban counties like Durham and
Mecklenburg could see less.
Parents, staff and students tour the White House Kitchen Garden on the South
Grounds of the White House after participating in a “Let’s Move!” event prepar
ing and eating a garden harvest with the First Lady in the East Room of the White
House, June 3, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
'No Greater Pain’ than Burying your
Murdered Child
By Zenobia Jeffries
Special to the NNPA
DETROIT - Most women say there is no greater pain than to bear a child, I say there is no greater pain
than to bury one. - Andrea Clark, founder, Mothers of Murdered Children
Three Detroit youths were shot in one incident last month. One died. Two were critically wounded. Their
ages range from late teens to early 20s. According to the Detroit Police Department: “Three (B)lack
males were sitting in a red Pontiac G6 when an unknown (B)lack male driving an unknown black vehicle
pulled up, got out of the vehicle, walked to their vehicle and started firing shots.”
No further information was given. The suspect had not been apprehended at press time.
“No parent should have to bury their child. It’s not the natural order of things,” says Andrea Clark,
founder of local organization Mother of Murdered Children.
Yet, increasingly thousands of mothers and fathers across the country have joined the growing number of
parents who suffer from losing a child to gun and other physical violence. Many of the victims under 25
years of age have been killed by members of their own communities, others by law enforcement officers
sworn to protect and serve them.
SPECIAL REPORT
Detroit topped the list of most dangerous cities for the second year in a row with a violent crime rate of
2,072 per 100,000 and murder rate of 45 per 100,000. And although overall violent crime numbers are
down in the city emerging from bankruptcy, homicides are up 14 percent. There was nearly a homicide
a day in March - more than 20, according to the Detroit Police Commission. There have been 113 homi
cides in the city so far this year.
More than 80 percent of Detroit’s 700,000 residents are African American. It is joined by cities such
as Chicago, Philadelphia, Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore, Md. that have predominately or large numbers of
Black citizens, and high crime rates.
According to the Washington Post, U.S. police officers have shot and killed 385 people in the past five
months, a rate of more than two people a day.
With the killing of Eric Gamer by a New York police officer who choked Garner to death, followed by
the shooting-death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, countless other killings of Black males and protests of
injustice over their deaths have headlined media broadcasts and publications - as well as flooded social
media sites, for nearly a year. ...
The mission of MOMC is to prevent violence through education and proactive intervention with children,
young adults, families and community organizations. Frustrated with the lack of support and resources
in their communities, MOMC joined similar organizations nationwide in the nation’s capital recently to
lobby for policy to end gun violence (and homicides) in the U.S.
The other organizations included Mothers In Charge Inc., WAMD “Women Across America Making
a Difference; PEACE - Parents Encouraging Accountability and Closure for Everyone; and Mothers
Against Gun Violence), along with residents from their communities will gather at the Lincoln Memo
rial’s Reflecting Pool for The Standing for Peace and Justice Rally calling on lawmakers to declare gun
violence/homicide - a public health crisis.
Homicide is the leading cause of death among young African American males between 14 and 25 years
of age. Such information is rarely included in the national debate about the epidemic of gun violence in
America, says Clark.
Gun violence has claimed the lives of more than 30,000 men, women and children in recent years, ac
cording to the Centers for Disease Control. Killers, the CDC reports, used guns to murder 11,000 people
in 2016 in the U.S., the latest year for which statistics are available. Twenty thousand others used guns
to commit suicides that year and 73,000 were rushed to hospital emergency rooms for gunshot wounds
Clark’s son, Darnell, was killed in April 2011. He was taking pictures for a friend’s birthday at a
(Continued On Page 6)