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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)