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CHAPEL HILL
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DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2017
VOLUME 96 - NUMBER 41
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
NAACP snubs NC
governor, adding
pressure to pardon
convict
By Emery P. Dalesio
RALEIGH (AP) - North Carolina’s NAACP chapter, which
usually supports Democrats, is withholding an annual honor from
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper because the group wants him to pardon
a man they say was wrongly convicted of murder and Cooper has not
done so.
Cooper’s office on Oct. 6 declined to comment on the NAACP’s
decision to shut out the governor from its annual convention this
weekend as the civil rights group presses Cooper to pardon a prisoner
who’s been behind bars for 22 years.
The Rev. William Barber, president of the chapter, informed
Cooper in a letter last week he wouldn’t “extend the customary
honorary welcome to you” because the governor hasn’t done enough
to free Montoyae “Dontae” Sharpe, 42. The NAACP’s leaders have
called Sharpe an innocent man who was wrongfully convicted for
a murder he didn’t commit. The group this weekend will honor
Sharpe’s mother, Sarah Blakely, in Cooper’s place, Barber said.
“Knowing the violence that continues to be done by the state of
North Carolina - and understanding that you can prevent it, but to this
point have refrained from using the power of your office to do so-we
cannot honor you both,” Barber wrote.
Cooper, a former state attorney general, said in a letter to Barber
last week that he’s disappointed.
Sharpe has insisted he didn’t kill 33-year-old George Radcliffe in
Greenville during a drug buy in 1994. Barber said that’s why Sharpe
rejected a plea deal for a lesser sentence that might have meant his
freedom years ago. No physical evidence linked Sharpe to the crime.
An eyewitness recanted her testimony and a former Greenville police
homicide detective who testified against Sharpe at trial now believes
he was wrongly convicted because of dubious testimony.
The NAACP last year began efforts to free Sharpe. It also worked
to free Kalvin Michael Smith, who was convicted for assaulting a
pregnant woman in a Winston-Salem store in 1995. Smith served 20
years-of a 29-year sentence behind bars before a judge ordered him
released in November.
A request to grant Sharpe clemency is being reviewed, Cooper
spokesman Ford Porter said in an email Oct. 6. Republican Gov. Pat
McCrory didn’t act on a similar clemency request. Attorney General
Josh Stein, who succeeded Cooper in January, is reviewing Sharpe’s
case, Stein spokeswoman Laura Brewer said in April. She didn’t
respond to an email Oct. 6 seeking new information.
Johnson C. Smith
University in North
Carolina names leader
CHARLOTTE (AP) - Johnson C. Smith University in North
Carolina has named a new president.
The Charlotte school said in a news release Oct. 4 that Clarence
Armbrister will become the university’s 14th president on Jan. 1.
Armbrister is currently president of Philadelphia’s Girard
College, an independent college preparatory school for students from
economically disadvantaged families.
He will replace Ronald L. Carter, who steps down Dec. 31 after
leading the school for nine years.
Armbrister has also worked in Philadelphia’s school district and
held senior administrative positions at Temple University and Johns
Hopkins University.
Johnson C. Smith is one of the nation’s Historically Black
Colleges and Universities, offering a private liberal arts education to
about 1,600 students.
Alabama mayor guided
by his experience at
Morehouse College
ATLANTA (AP) - Morehouse College alum Randall Woodfin
has made history in Alabama, because he just became the youngest
mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, in more than 120 years.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the Birmingham
native attributes much of his success to Atlanta-based Morehouse.
At Morehouse, student government plays a prominent role in
campus life, he had told voters on his campaign website.
“It’s hard for me to know where to begin to talk about what
Morehouse did for me,” he said on site. “It’s a place where campus
politics and student government has the kind of importance that
football has at the University of Alabama.”
He graduated in 2003 with a bachelors’ degree in political science
and was president of the student government association during his
senior year.
Woodfin beat out seven-year, two-term incumbent William Bell
this week for the position at age 36.
He is the youngest mayor to fill the seat since David Fox in 1893.
Among his supporters: former U.S. presidential candidate Bernie
Sanders, who sent a congratulatory tweet. Woodfin built a platform
centered on improving the city’s safety and bettering the sense of
trust between citizens and Birmingham City Hall.
“Our city, our 23 communities, our 99 neighborhoods, you have
all spoken very clearly - we deserve better,” Woodfin said during his
victoiy speech.
Before he took his mayoral post, the attorney worked closely with
Birmingham city government, becoming assistant city attorney and
later a board member of the Birmingham Board of Education.
Morehouse, just southwest of downtown Atlanta, is a private
historically black liberal arts college that was founded in 1867.
Comedian and radio personality D.L. Hughley performed at DPAC Sept. 22.
Hughley brought his special brand of comedy to Durham He is also heard on
FOXY 107-103 FM radio. Photo by Renaldo Jackson. Related photos on page 6.
Debates, protests increase
over universities ’slavery ties
By Jonathan Drew
CHAPEL HILL (AP) - The national debate over removing Confederate symbols from U.S. college
campuses is spurring wider questions about university benefactors whose ties to slavery or white
supremacy flew under the radar in decades past.
Students and alumni are no longer simply opposing overt Confederate memorials, but also lesser-
known founders and donors with troubling racial legacies. And the discussions have intensified after
deadly white nationalist protests in August in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The problem is apparent at the University of North Carolina, where opposition to a Confederate
statue has dredged up racist statements by a former trustee. Tobacco magnate Julian S. Carr, himself a
Confederate veteran, gave the dedication speech in 1913 for the campus statue depicting an anonymous
rebel soldier. His remarks included a reference to the “pleasing duty” of whipping a black woman in
public.
“He stood out here and stood in front of a crowd of people and bragged about how he drug a negro
wench’ through the streets for insulting a white woman,” said Gabrielle Johnson, a student who helped
organize a sit-in against the statue nicknamed “Silent Sam.” “I don’t see how that embodies anything
other than hatred.”
UNC’s chancellor has said a state historic monument law prevents the university from removing
“Silent Sam.” But the fresh attention to Carr has spurred wider conversations about his legacy at UNC
and nearby Duke University, where part of campus was built on land donated by Carr. Both schools are
home to a “Carr Building” and have convened panels on how to handle controversial building names.
It’s not the first such dilemma for either school. In 2014, Duke removed the name of a former
governor - Charles Aycock - from a dorm, citing his legacy of black disenfranchisement. And UNC
chose “Carolina Hall” to replace the name of a former Ku Klux Klan leader before putting a freeze on
renaming other historic buildings for 16 years.
The issue resonates beyond the South. Yale University announced this year it would rename a
residential college honoring former Vice President John C. Calhoun, an ardent supporter of slavery.
Georgetown and Harvard have acknowledged or apologized for slavery ties.
And in mid-September, protesters at the University of Virginia draped a black shroud over a statue
of university founder Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner they accused of racism. University president
Teresa Sullivan condemned the protesters’ action while acknowledging Jefferson’s faults: “In apparent
contradiction to his persuasive arguments for liberty and human rights, however, he was also a slave
owner.”
About 30 mostly Southern universities will gather this October for a symposium on higher education’s
ties to slavery. One of them, Washington and Lee University, is keeping Confederate Gen. Robert E.
Lee in its name while pledging further study of the school’s history. University president Will Dudley
urged “a critical analysis that goes beyond the caricatures of one-dimensional heroes and villains.”
In Nashville, Tennessee, Vanderbilt University took final steps in 2016 to rename Confederate
Memorial Hall, but a black graduate subsequently wrote a newspaper column saying other names
should come down. Lee Hall-Perkins decried one dorm named for school founder Holland McTyeire, a
Methodist bishop who once wrote an essay on the duties of Christian slave owners, including physical
punishment in “moderation.”
“When I was an undergraduate student, these names were benign to me but when I dug deeper, it
infuriated me that these names were on campus,” Hall-Perkins said by phone.
Responding to a reporter, Vanderbilt said it’s holding a spring conference on slavery’s impacts.
Adam Domby, assistant professor of history at College of Charleston in South Carolina, said many
Southern political figures from a century ago espoused racism.
“A lot of the leading political figures of the early 20th century are going to be tainted with white
supremacy,” Domby said, adding that Carr unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 1900 on a white
supremacist platform.
Scholars note that Carr - not unlike Lee or Jefferson - has a complicated legacy. He also donated to
African-American institutions and served as treasurer for the group that started what became historically
black North Carolina Central University, said university archivist Andre Vann.
“If I had to rationalize some of this, the lives and experiences of men and women like Carr and others
are really a mirror of the society that they lived in,” Vann said.
(Continued On Page 6)
Poll: Disapproval
for anthem
protest, Trump
response
By Errin Haines Whack and
Emily Swanson
WASHINGTON (AP) - Most
Americans think refusing to
stand for the national anthem
is disrespectful to the country,
the military and the American
flag. But most also disapprove
of President Donald Trump’s
calling for NFL players to be
fired for refusing to stand.
The NFL protests began last
season with quarterback Colin
Kaepernick, who knelt during
the national anthem to bring
more attention to the killings
of black men by police officers.
The protests spread this season
after the former San Francisco
49er was unable to sign on with
another team. Seattle Seahawks
defensive end Michael Bennett
recently said he was racially
profiled by Las Vegas police and
then Trump sounded off.
According to a poll by The
Associated Press-NORC Center
for Public Affairs Research, 52
percent of Americans disapprove
of professional athletes who
have protested by refusing to
stand during the national anthem,
compared to 31 percent who
approve. At the same time, 55
percent ofAmericans disapprove
of Trump’s call for firing players
who reffise to stand, while 31
percent approve.
In the poll, African- Am ericans
were far more likely to approve
of the players’ protests.
T don’t see kneeling while
the anthem is being played as
being disrespectful,” said Mary
Taylor, 64, a retired law librarian
from Olympia, Washington.
‘Somebody has to stand up.
Right now, it’s black football
players.”
Taylor, who is white, said she
supports police but understands
why players are protesting. And
her personal politics also factor
in.
‘I’m for it because Donald
Trump is against it,” she said.
The form of the protest seems
to matter. According to the poll,
Americans are more likely to
approve than disapprove of
players who, instead ofkneeling,
link arms in solidarity during the
anthem, 45 percent to 29 percent.
‘People don’t want to be
confronted with their racism in
any form. If they are confronted
with it, they want it in the mildest
form possible,” said DeRay
Mckesson, a Black Lives Matter
activist who has protested police
actions since the 2014 killing
of Michael Brown in Ferguson,
Missouri.
The NFL protests got more
attention and morphed into a
bigger debate about patriotism
after Trump told a crowd at
an Alabama rally last month:
‘Wouldn’t you love to see one
of these NFL owners, when
somebody disrespects our flag,
to say, 'Get that son of a bitch
off the field right now! Out! He’s
fired. Fired!’”
That prompted dozens ofNFL
players, and a few team owners,
to join in protests. They knelt,
raised fists, sat or locked arms
in solidarity during pre-game
ceremonies when the anthem
was played.
Broken down by race, 55
percent of African-Americans
approve of players refusing to
stand for the anthem, and 19
percent disapprove, the poll
found. Among whites, 62 percent
disapprove and 25 percent
approve.
Seventy-nine percent of
blacks disapprove of Trump’s
call for players to be fired, while
just 8 percent approve. Among
whites, 48 percent disapprove
and 38 percent approve.
Thomas Sleeper of Holden,
(Continued On Page 6)