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OLUME 94 - NUMBER 30
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2015
NCCU Earns Top 10 Position on 2015
Historically Black Colleges and
Universities College Choice Rankings
North Carolina Central University (NCCUI is ranked
nth in the country among Historically Black Colleg-
■ and Universities by College Choice, an independent
line publication for college-bound students and their
milies.
The top-10 listing cites NCCU’s research endeavors
I areas such as biomedicine, mathematics and health
cience, as well as its School of Library and Information
iences, which has produced more African-American
rarians than any other higher education institution.
“NCCU is honored to consistently receive top ranking
long universities throughout the country,” said NCCU
lancellor Debra Saunders-White. “It is an indication
the confidence in this historic institution’s ability to
spare students as 21 st century scholars and to prepare
:m for successful careers.”
The 2015 Ranking of Historically Black Colleges and
diversities by College Choice was based on responses
■ college freshmen concerning factors leading to their
ollege decision. The Higher Education Research Insti-
ite at the University of California, Los Angeles lists
2015
■PbesTM
HISTOmCALLYBlACK
COLLEGES G
UNIVERSITIES
among those factors academic reputation, financial aid,
overall cost and post-college employment rates.
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TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
Gov. McCrory signs
bill protecting
Confederat
Monuments
By John Moritz
'RALEIGH (AP) - Under pressure to take ae
on from groups on both sides of the Confederate
/in bo Is debate, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCro-
1-esponded July 23 by signing a much-debated
onuments bill that critics said would protect
Jifederate memorials.
In a release sent by the governor’s office, Me
mory said he had issues with the bill for removing
gal control over monuments deemed to com-
emorate “an event, person or military service
at is part of North Carolina’s history.” It would
ke an act of the General Assembly to remove
.ch a monument.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER
K.
First in Follies
NORTH
Moral Monday leader
inspires protests,
arrests and action
GRAPHIC - N.C. POLICY WATCH
But ultimately McCrory, a former mayor of Charlotte, said the bill’s “goals” were worthy of his signature.
I Democrats wanted local officials and the North Carolina Historical Commission to have authority over such monuments. House Demo-
ats launched a long floor debate in protest of the bill earlier in the week, at times eliciting frustrated responses from Republicans who sup-
tried memorials honoring Confederate veterans.
’Also on July 23, advocacy groups delivered a petition with more than 13,000 signatures to the governor’s offices in the old Capitol build-
■ urging McCrory to use his executive authority to halt the sale of specialty license plates bearing the image of the Confederate Flag.
McCrory responded with another release, repeating his past statements that he wants to stop issuing the plates, which have been sold to
are than 2,000 supporters of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. But he says he thinks the law requires him to wait for General Assembly
Iroval. At the same time, legislative leaders say it is the governor’s decision.
“He needs to show a little leadership. Certainly legal ambiguity is not something that’s prevented him from taking legal action before,”
(d Kevin Rogers, a spokesman for Action N.C., one of the sponsors of the petition.
The North Carolina NAACP had scheduled a press conference on July 24 at their offices in Durham urging McCrory to veto the monu-
Sits bill and end the sale of the Confederate license plates. It was not immediately clear how McCrory’s signature would affect their plans.
GOP official juxtaposes images of KKK, Hillary Clinton
RALEIGH (AP) - The chairman of the North Carolina Republican party has posted Twitter photos juxta-
sing images of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Ku Klux Klan.
Hasan Harnett posted the images on the social media site Thursday. One shows Klansmen surrounding a
rning cross; the caption says the KKK was created as the militant wing of the Democratic Party. The sec-
lid photo shows Clinton winking.
IWRAL-TV in Raleigh says Harnett declined to comment July 27. North Carolina GOP Executive Director
add Poole told the station Harnett wouldn’t give interviews. But Poole says that as the organization’s first
ack chairman, Harnett believes it’s important to learn from history.
[Clinton’s campaign didn’t respond to the station’s request for comment.
North Carolina Democratic Party spokesman Ford Porter says the comments encapsulate the GOP’s in-
immatory rhetoric.
Hasan Harnett
Say NO to the ^Democrat Lies “Libe'a Agenda ■•'BlackLivesM.atter
-KeepGodFust
HARNETT
By Martha Waggoner
GOLDSBORO (AP) - The Rev. William Barber walks gingerly
with a cane, in a hunched-over posture, yet here he is on a recent
Monday, leading 3,500 protesters on a downtown street.
He says God must have a sense of humor to call on a man who has
such difficulty walking to lead the Moral Monday protests that began
in North Carolina two years ago.
Barber's speeches and his throwback tactics - in vogue again fol
lowing several deaths of black men at the hands of police - draw
comparisons to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. More than 1,000
demonstrators have been arrested for civil disobedience in North
Carolina since Barber, president of the state NAACP, started the leg
islative protests.
The demonstrations have spread to at least half a dozen other
states and given him minor celebrity status. Supporters wear “I went
to jail with Rev. Barber” buttons. Barber has been jailed five times
himself.
“What 1 know is what we are in is a time when we can’t afford to
be silent,” Barber said, perched against a tall stool in his office at his
church in Goldsboro. “We are battling for the soul and consciousness
of this country.”
The protests target conservative politics and Republicans, who
took control of the North Carolina Statehouse and governor’s of
fice in 2013. and cover everything from redistricting to labor laws to
women’s rights, gay rights and the environment. Moral Mondays are
the legislative protest piece of the broader Forward Together move
ment led by the NAACP, which is in court over the state’s new voting
law and will be back in court next month to challenge redistricting.
Detractors accuse Barber of grandstanding or say he is continu
ously repeating himself and not worth their time. A former state sena
tor once called his movement “Moron Monday.”
His supporters say his leadership is reminiscent of both King and
Ella Baker, who helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee in 1960.
“I think he’s tremendously courageous,” said Eddie Glaude Jr., a
religion and African-American studies professor at Princeton Uni
versity. “He’s concerned about the state of black America, the state of
brown America. He’s concerned about the LGBTQ community. He’s
concerned about the most marginalized.”
Scholar and civil rights activist Cornel West, who is friends with
Barber, describes him as “the only King-like figure we have in the
country right now.”
“I have just been overwhelmed by his intellectual and spiritual
power,” West said.
To understand Barber’s desire to help the disenfranchised is to
know his father’s influence. Almost every story Barber tells some
how references Buster Barber, who would point to Jesus’ first ser
mon, when he said he had been anointed “to proclaim good news to
the poor.”
“And my father was very clear that to be Christian, to follow Jesus
is to be concerned about the weightier matters of the law, of justice
and mercy,” Barber said.
He was 4 years old when his parents returned from Indianapolis
to his father’s roots in eastern North Carolina, called there by local
leaders who wanted their help with desegregating the schools. His
father, now deceased, was an educator and minister, and his 81-year-
old mother has worked as a secretary in schools.
Students once called his mother the n-word, Barber said; now
their children and grandchildren call her Mother Barber.
He took his parents’ lessons about equality to heart, becoming the
first black student elected alone as student body president of Plym
outh High school; previously, a white student and a black student had
shared the position. He understood the value of education and got a
doctoral degree..
He can speak thoughtfully and quietly, quoting the Bible, the Con
stitution and poets, or he can jump and shout, and he often does dur
ing speeches.)
(Continued On Page 3)