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VOLUME 95 - NUMBER 6
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
Moral March/HKonJ Rally This Saturday
By Cash Michaels
Editor NC Black
Publishers Association
The political stage is set
for this Saturday’s Tenth
Annual Moral March in
Raleigh/HK on J People’s
Assembly, kicking off at
8:30 a.m. with a pre-march
rally at 2 East South Street
near Shaw University in
downtown Raleigh,
Hayti Heritage Center featured works by local artists for Black History Month.
Sharing a moment of laughter from left to right are artists: Sharon Barksdale
Worth, Marjorie Freeman, Olivia Gatewood, C. O’Mega and Bill Pearson. See
more photos on page 7.
Durham Committee on the Affairs of
Black People Taps Beasley
The Durham Committee
on the affairs of Black
People (DCABP) has
announced that Omar
Beasley has been elected
to be the fourteenth
chair of the 81 year old
organization. He replaces
former state senator Ralph
Hunt, who will be stepping
down as head of DCABP
later this month.
Beasley, a Durham bail
bondsman, has served
as first vice chair of the
organization for the last two
years. He was elected by a
vote of the organization’s
general membership at a
meeting Thursday night
in the auditorium of the
North Carolina Mutual
Life Insurance Company
building.
A graduate of North
Carolina Central
University, where heplayed
football and ran track, the
44-year-old Beasley said
his goals include growing
the membership of the
organization, energizing
the community for the
016 elections, raise the
organization’s profile in
the Durham Community,
and to recruit both young
and seasoned leaders who
are ready and willing to
serve.
He has been a candidate
for public office in
Durham, and has served
on a number of boards and
commissions and other
organizations
with a march down the
Fayetteville Street Mall
to the steps of the State
Capitol kicking off at 10
a.m..
It is called the “Get Out
The Vote Gathering and
Mobilization,” sponsored
by the NCNAACP and
the Forward Together
Movement. The People’s
OMAR BEASLEY
here, including the city’s Recreation Advisory Committee,
the Durham County Memorial Stadium Authority, and
Kids Voting Durham. He is also chairman of the board
and a coach of the Bull City Express Track Club.
Beasley and his wife Tanisha have three children.
He will officially take office and be sworn in at
DCABP’s annual meeting on February 21 at Community
Baptist Church. He will serve one remaining year of
Hunt’s term, and will be eligible to stand for re-election
for a two year term along with the organization’s other
officers when his term ends.
Register
To Vote
will end at 12:30 p.m.
At the assembly, there
will be voter registration
for the tentative March 15 th
primaries (tentative thanks
to a federal appeals court
ruling last Friday throwing
out redistricting maps
for the First and Twelfth
Congressional Districts,
and ordering that they be
redrawn within the next
two weeks).
Following the Moral
March on Raleigh, there
will be a Souls to the Polls
training about how faith
communities can register,
educate, and mobilize
their congregations and
communities to the polls.
On Friday evening, Feb.
12, there will be apre-Moral
March/People’s Assembly
mass meeting and worship
service, featuring Rabbi
Fred Guttman, starting
at 7 p.m. at First Baptist
Church, 101 S. Wilmington
Street in Raleigh.
The agenda, as always,
for the Moral March,
includes the expansion
and protection of voting
rights; economic justice
and livable wages per
labor rights; educational
equity through proper
funding for quality public
schools and support for
historically black colleges
and universities; health
care for all Medicaid
expansion, women’s health
and environmental justice;
equal protection under the
law through justice without
regard to race, creed, class,
gender, sexual orientation
or immigration status; and
police reform.
According to the USA
Today newspaper, over 80,000
demonstrators participated
in the 2015 Moral March/
People’s Assembly, making it
one ofthe largest social justice
gatherings in the nation at the
time. This year organizers say
they are trying to attract even
more participants in an effort
to register to register at many
as possible for this year’s
state and national elections.
A highlight of Saturday’s
People’s Assembly will be an
address by David Goodman,
the brother of the late Andrew
Goodman, who, along with
fellow civil rights workers
Michael “Mickey” Schwerner
and James Chaney, were
killed by the Ku Klux Klan in
Neshoba County, Mississippi
in June 1964. They were there
to help register black people
there to vote.
David Goodman, along
with his wife, heds up
the Andrew Goodman
Foundation, which promotes
creative and social action
among young people
nationwide. Mr. Goodman
will serve ambassador for the
assembly.
Last year, the foundation
recognize actor/social activist
Danny Glover and “Selma”
director Ava DuVemay,
among others, with the 2015
Hidden Heroes Award, named
after Goodman, Schwerner
and Chaney.
Many of the speakers
this year will be persons
negatively impacted by the
2013 voter restrictions passed
by the Republican-led NC
Geneal Assembly, and signed
by Gov. Pat McCrory.
The entire event will
be livestreamed across the
nation.
For more information call
the NCNAACP office at 919-
682-4700, or go to www.
naacpncxrrg or www.hkonj.
com.
SINGER BEYONCE (Cpourtesy NNPA Photo
After Standing Up For
Unarmed Police Shooting
Victim, Rep. Peter King
lashes out at Beyonce
WASHINGTON (AP) - Beyonce’s new video “Formation” is
“pro-Black Panther” and “anti-cop,” says a Republican congressman,
who argued Feb. 8 that it perpetuates a lie about the August 2014
shooting in Missouri of an unarmed black man by a white police
officer.
“Beyonce may be a gifted entertainer but no one should really care
what she thinks about any serious issue confronting our nation,” New
York Rep. Pete King said in a statement he posted on his Facebook
page.
King condemned the video, released by the Grammy-winning
singer ahead of her world tour and her performance during halftime
of Sunday’s Super Bowl. He also complained about the mainstream
media’s acceptance of the video and her Super Bowl appearance.
Beyonce’s publicist had no immediate response to an email re
quest for comment.
In the video, Beyonce is seen atop a police cruiser and there are
references to the Black Lives Matter movement. King also com
plained that the video makes the “ritualistic reference to Michael
Brown and Ferguson, Missouri, by featuring a scene of innocent
people with their hands raised high above their heads in surrender.”
King dismissed the notion that Brown was murdered by police as
he was attempting to surrender and said this “fable” was thoroughly
discredited.
“In simple language it was and is a lie from beginning to end,”
the congressman said, arguing that Brown was a criminal who had
robbed a convenience store and the officer, Darren Wilson, was exon
erated by the local prosecutor and President Barack Obama’s Justice
Department.
“Yet the big lie continues by Black Lives Matter, by pandering
politicians and now by Beyonce, who gets star billing at the Super
Bowl,” said King, who added that his father proudly served in the
New York Police Department for more than 30 years.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in an interview on Fox
News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” criticized Beyonce’s halftime
show and references to the Black Panthers. Dancers with the singer
had afros and black berets, reminiscent of the 1960s group. ■
“I thought it was really outrageous that she used it as a platform to
attack police officers, who are the people who protect her and protect
us,” Giuliani said.
Smithsonian opening
African-American
history museum Sept. 24
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Smithsonian Institution
will open the National Museum of African American His
tory and Culture on Sept. 24 in Washington.
Smithsonian chief spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas
said Feb. 1 that President Barack Obama, the first black
U.S. president, will lead the dedication and ribbon-cut
ting ceremony.
St. Thomas says a weeklong celebration will follow,
including an outdoor festival and a period in which the
museum on the National Mall will be open for 24 con
secutive hours.
The museum has built a collection of 11 exhibits to
trace the history of slavery, segregation, civil rights and
African-Americans’ achievements in the arts, entertain
ment, sports, the military and the wider culture.
Artifacts on loan from other institutions will also be on
display, such as two documents signed by President Abra
ham Lincoln: the 13th Amendment and the Emancipation
Proclamation.