111111 h 111111111111111111111111111111111111111 h 111 WILS 0S/20/95 SCHILL WILSON LIBRARY N C COLLECTION - UNC-CH P 0 BOX 8390 CHAPEL HILL NC 27515--8S90 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 2016 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS VOLUME 95 - NUMBER 17 Davis Selected to Lead Durham Police Department Durham Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis Charlotte Police Department Photo Virginia governor enables 200,000 felons to vote in November Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield announced April 26 that he has chosen Cerelyn “CJ” Davis as Durham’s new police chief, and she will start the job June 6, 2016. Davis currently serves as Deputy Chief of the City of Atlanta Police Department. “I am pleased that Deputy Chief Cerelyn Davis has accepted the offer to lead the Durham Police Department,” Bonfield said. “Deputy Chief Davis, during the course of her 30-year career, has demon strated a broad array of skills and experience that will serve Durham well at this time. As we know, this is an extremely challenging time for policing, not only in Durham, but also throughout the country. Durham was quite fortunate to have two very strong candidates.” “I am both appreciative and humbled to have been selected as the City of Durham’s new police chief. I enthusiastically look forward to working with the men and women of the Durham Police Department, to further build a culture of trust and collaboration in partnership with the citizens we serve,” Davis said. Davis was chosen following a four-month search process that in cluded several community meetings to assess the needs of the com munity, intensive screenings, interviews and background checks for selected candidates, and finally, an April 6 public forum with the two finalists, Davis and Major Michael Smathers of the Charlotte-Meck lenburg Police Department. The field started with 42 applicants. Davis has served as deputy chief since February 2014, and cur rently directs the Strategies & Special Projects Division. Her current responsibilities include overseeing new technology within the Po lice Department, the Atlanta Police Leadership Institute, the Tactical Crime Analysis Unit, (Continued On Page 2) By Alan Suderman RICHMOND, Va. (AP) More than 200,000 convicted felons will be able to cast ballots in the swing state of Virginia in November under a sweeping ex ecutive order Gov. Terry McAu liffe announced April 22. The Democrat said restoring the rights of felons to vote and run for office will help undo the state’s long history of trying to prevent African-Americans from fully participating in our democ racy. “This is the essence of our democracy and any effort to di lute that fundamental principle diminishes it, folks, for all of us,” McAuliffe said on the steps of Virginia’s Capitol, before a crowd of more than 100 people that included many felons. Left- leaning advocacy groups were there as well, handing out voter registration forms. Republicans called the order a bald-faced political move by McAuliffe _ a close friend of Democratic presidential front- runner Hillary Clinton _ to help his party hold onto the White House. “I am stunned yet not at all surprised by the governor’s ac tion,” House Speaker William J. Howell said in a statement. “This office has always been a stepping stone to ajob in Hillary Clinton’s cabinet.” Republicans said ex-offenders who committed violent crimes, like murder, should not be al lowed to vote or have other civil rights restored. “Terry McAuliffe wants to ensure that convicted pedophiles, rapists, and domestic abusers can vote for Hillary Clinton,” said Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Ryan T. McDougle. Kimberly Carter, 45, filled out a voter registration card shortly after watching the governor’s speech. Now working as a cus tomer service representative, she said she’s been prevented from voting her entire adult life after a drug arrest in her late teens. “You make a mistake, 20 years later you’re still paying for it,” she said. Nationwide, nearly 6 million Americans are barred from vot ing because of laws disenfran chising felons, according to The Washington-based Sentencing Project. Virginia, Iowa, Ken tucky and Florida are the only states that still remove voting rights for felons for life unless a state official restores them. Such policies make black Americans of voting age four times more likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the adult population, disenfranchis ing one of every 13 African- American adults nationwide, but Virginia is even more pun ishing. It’s among three states where more than one in five black adults have lost their vot ing rights, according to a recent Sentencing Project report. Howell said Republicans are reviewing whether McAuliffe overstepped his legal authority. Republicans pointed to a letter written by a lawyer for Demo cratic Gov. Tim Kaine in 2010 rejecting the idea that the gover nor had the ability to grant blan ket restoration of rights. McAuliffe said he is certain he has such authority after con sulting with legal and constitu tional experts, including Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. Constitutional scholar A.E. Dick Howard, who presided over the most recent rewrite of the Virginia Constitution 45 years ago, said McAuliffe has broad discretion in restoring civil rights, and has now ended one of the last remaining legacies of an earlier constitutional convention that was “committed to white su premacy.” “The last ghost of the 1902 convention was buried today,” Howard said. The governor’s order enables every Virginia felon to vote, run for public office, serve on a jury and become a notary pub lic if they have completed their sentence and finished any su pervised release, parole or pro bation requirements as of April 22. The administration estimates this population to include about 206,000 people. Thereafter, the governor will act month by month to restore the rights of felons who com plete all these requirements. Previous governors in other states have granted broad resto ration of voting rights in the past decade, but McAuliffe’s action is the largest to date, according to the Sentencing Project. There were 5.3 million regis tered voters in Virginia as o f April 1, according to the Vir ginia State Board of Elections. McAuliffe, who won election in 2013 by slightly more than 50,000 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast, brushed aside suggestions about political mo tivations, citing his longtime ad vocacy for restoring rights. “This is something that’s in the marrow of bones, this is something I feel very deeply about,” McAuliffe said. Before Friday’s order, McAu liffe’s administration had re stored the rights of more than 18,000 felons _ more, they said, than the past seven governors Historical society posts 1,000s Of Baltimore unrest images BALTIMORE (AP) - The Maryland Historical Society is launching a website containing thousands of images documenting last year’s unrest in Baltimore stemming from the death of Freddie Gray. The society announced the launch of the website, bal- timoreuprising2015.org , on April 21. It’s a searchable database of photographs, video, audio segments, oral his tories and documents about the unrest last April and its aftermath. The society says in a statement that it received more than 12,000 submissions, including cellphone images and intergovernmental emails. The project is still accepting material. Digital Projects Coordinator Joe Tropea says cellphone photography and social media made it possible for more people than ever to record and preserve these historic events for future generations. A video installation of the images will open at the soci ety’s Baltimore headquarters in late June. Rallies over N. Carolina LGBT law begin as lawmakers return By Gary D. Robertson and Jonathan Drew RALEIGH (AP) - A day of rallies at North Carolina’s statehouse began April 25 the delivery petitions signed by 180,000 people seek ing the repeal of a law that curtails protections for LGBT people. About 200 people gathered on the grounds of the old Capitol building to hear speakers denounce the law known as House Bill 2, or HB2. They then carried two-dozen cardboard boxes of signatures into the Capitol for delivery to Gov. Pat McCrory. “HB2 ... is an act of violence,” Joaquin Carcano, a transgender man who’s suing over the law, told the crowd. “Our privacy and safe ty matter too.” The head of the state NAACP, the Rev. William Barber, called the law “Hate Bill 2.” He said it affects the poor and minorities as well (Continued On Page 2) combined. Former Gov. Bob Mc Donnell, McAuliffe’s immediate predecessor, was also a strong advocate for restoring rights. NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said he hopes more states follow the lead of Virginia’s governor. “History shows when people are denied the right to vote, the loss of representation weakens our neighborhoods and commu nities, and furthers systemic in equality,” Brooks said in a state ment. Associated Press reporter Al anna Durkin Richer contributed to this report. A statue of Harriett Tubman is the centerpiece of the History Gallery at the Tubman Museum, Wednesday, April 20, 2016, in Macon, Ga. Tubman, a prominent anti-slavery activist, will be the first African-American to appear on an American banknote and the first woman to appear on one in a century. Her por trait will replace former President Andrew Jackson, who will be moved to the back of the redesigned $20 bill. Ezzell and Beverly Hart Pittman from Columbia, SC, visit the museum Wednesday afternoon. (Woody Marshall/The Telegraph via AP Historic makeover: Harriet Tubman to be face on By Martin Crutsinger WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. paper money is getting a historic makeover. Harriet Tubman, an African- American abolitionist born into slavery, will be the new face on the $20 bill. The leader of the Under ground Railroad is replacing the portrait of Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president and a slave owner, who is being pushed to the back of the bill. And Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Treasury secretary who’s enjoying a revival thanks to a hit Broadway play, will keep his spot on the $10 note after ear lier talk of his removal. The changes are part of a cur rency redesign announced April 20 by Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, with the new $20 marking two historic milestones: Tubman will become the first African- American to ever be featured on U.S. paper money and the first woman to be depicted on paper currency in 100 years. “This gesture sends a pow erful message, because of the tendency in American history, the background of excluding women and marginalizing them as national symbols,” said Riche Richardson, associate profes sor in the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell Uni versity. “So even the symbolic significance of this cannot be overstated.” Lew also settled a backlash that had erupted after he had announced an initial plan to re move Hamilton from the $10 bill in order to honor a woman on the bill. Instead, the Treasury build ing on the back of the bill will be changed to commemorate a 1913 march that ended on the steps of the building. It will also feature suffragette leaders Lucretia $20 bill Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stan ton and Alice Paul. The back of the $20, which now shows the White House, will be redesigned to include the White House and Jackson, whose statute stands across the street in Lafayette Park. The $5 bill will also undergo change: The illustration of the Lincoln Memorial on the back will be redesigned to honor “events at the Lincoln Memorial that helped to shape our history and our democracy.” The new image on the $5 bill will include civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his famous “I have a dream” speech on the steps of the memorial in 1963, and Mar ian Anderson' and Eleanor Roo sevelt. Anderson, an African- American opera singer, gave a concert at the memorial in 1939 after she had been blocked from singing at the then-segregated Constitution Hall. The Lincoln Memorial concert was arranged by Mrs. Roosevelt. An online group, Women on 20s, said it was encouraged that Lew was responding to its cam paign to replace Jackson with a woman. But it said it wouldn’t be satisfied unless Lew committed to issuing the new $20 bill at the same time that the redesigned $10 bill is scheduled to be issued in 2020. Lew didn’t go that far April 20. But he pledged that at least the designs for all three bills will be accelerated so they’ll be finished by 2020 - the 100th an niversary of passage of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. He said the new notes will go into circulation as fast as possible after that, consis tent with the need to incorporate (Continued On Page 2)

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