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VOLUME 97 - NUMBER 35
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Federal Court Ruling On NC
Redistricting Applauded
By Cash Michaels
CashWorks Media
Contributing writer
Republican NC legislative leaders are petitioning the
US Supreme Court to stay an order from a three-judge
federal court Monday that ruled the state’s congressional
districts unconstitutional, and that new redistricting maps
be drawn.
The 2-1 ruling in the US District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, found that the congressional
districts were skewed because ofpartisan gerrymandering,
and cannot be used beyond the 2018 midterm elections.
Photo of John McCain during an interview, April
24,1974. Collection of the Library of Congress.
NNPA Official Statement on the
Passing of Senator John McCain
Washington, DC, August 27, 2018 — The National
Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) extends
sincerest condolences to the family of Senator John
McCain. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr, President and CEO
of the NNPA emphasized, “John McCain’s integrity and
courage were his greatest virtues. His national leadership
example is still needed today not only in the U.S. Senate,
but also in every state, city and town across America.”
Dorothy Leavell, Chairman of the NNPA and publisher
of the Crusader Newspapers, stated, “The death of Senator
John McCain reminds us that none of us are immortal,
but his life was one of service and love for his country.
Giving of one’s service until the end speaks volumes of
his integrity and he fulfilled the call from our maker to be
of service to others.”
Cloves Campbell III, former Chairman of the NNPA
and publisher of the Arizona Informant observed,
“Senator John McCain will be remembered in the African
American community ofArizona as a national statesman
who grew and evolved particularly in his later years as an
elected official who transcended partisan politics and who
eventually did what he thought was the right thing to do
rather than to be confined to political party loyalty. That
is why he voted pivotally to save the Affordable Care
Act (Obamacare) at a time when most Republicans were
voting to end the ACA.”
“His acts of service in war, where he was held captive,
and then at home, was one of dignity, respect and care in
the United States Senate far surpassing many others in
similar circumstances,” concluded Leavell. “Above all,
he put partisanship aside to make decisions that were in
the best interest of all of the citizens of the United States
and usually without much fanfare. We shall remember
him and miss his brand of high character in the Senate.
We add our condolences to his family and our country as
a whole. Rest in peace (RIP) dear Senator.”
In fact, the judges offered a choice - either draw new
redistricting maps before the November elections, or
hold primaries in November based on new maps, and
hold elections in January just before the new Congress is
.sworn-in.
According to the court decision, led by Fourth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James A. Wynn, Jr., the
Republican-led NC General Assembly deliberately used
“political data” from past elections when it drew its 2016
redistricting maps “... specifying whether,, and to what
extent, particular voting precincts had favored Republican
or Democratic candidates, and therefore were likely to do
so in the future —- to draw a districting plan that would
ensure Republican candidates would prevail in the vast
majority of the State’s congressional districts, and would
continue to do so in future elections.”
The result, the court said were thirteen North
Carolina congressional districts - ten of which elected
Republicans, three Democrats, in a state where Democrat
and Republican numbers are virtually even.
Irving Joyner, chair of the NCNAACP Legal Redress
Committee, and law professor at North Carolina Central
University School of Law, applauded the court ruling.
“This is a great consideration and determination by
the Court which demonstrate, once again, how extreme
this General Assembly has been in its misguided efforts
to illegally retain political power for ultra-right wing
zealots in our legislature,” Joyner said in a statement.
“The Court recognized the unconstitutionality of what
the General Assembly did with this partisan restricting
and, once again, the people of North Carolina have had to
suffer for this misconduct. At the same time, this General
Assembly continues to do everything possible to corrupt
and diminish the separation of powers in this State and
it requires resort to the Court to resist this uncontrolled
quest for power by this group of legislators.
The nonpartisan group, Common Cause of North
Carolina, a litigant in the Case, also hailed the ruling.
“We are pleased that a North Carolina federal court has
once again state what we hve long believed, that partisan
gerrymandering is unconstitutional,” said Bob Phillips,
Common Cause NC executive director.
“This is an historic win for voters, and a significant
step towards finally ending gerrymandering.”
On January 9 th earlier this year, the federal court initially
struck down the 2016 maps drawn by the NC legislature
as unconstitutional. Republicans filed an emergency stay
after the court ruled then that remedial maps should be
drawn, hoping that the uS Supreme Court would take
up the matter. But the High Court didn’t. The case was
eventually remanded to the District Court.
At press time, NC Republican lawmakers asked the
US Supreme Court to stay the federal court order, saying
what was being mandated was “simply impossible.”
Duke historians ask to
remove Confederate
veteran’s name
(AP) - Duke University history professors want to
remove the name of a benefactor who espoused white
supremacist ideas from their department’s building.
University spokesman Michael Schoenfeld said Aug.
28 the history department asked to rename the Can-
Building, where the department is housed.
Schoenfeld says the request, first reported by The
Chronicle student newspaper, will go through a formal
process for reconsidering names that gives trustees the
final say.
The building is named for Julian Carr, a Confederate
veteran and tobacco magnate who gave land where part
of Duke was built.
Carr is also known for his 1913 speech at the University
of North Carolina’s dedication of the Confederate
monument known as Silent Sam. During the speech he
bragged about whipping a black woman. Protesters tore
down Silent Sam last week.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER
Social justice movement
veterans help Poor
People’s Campaign
By Martha Waggoner and Errin Haines Whack
CARTHAGE(AP) - As the Poor People’s Campaign launches a
new initiative, its charismatic leader is working with the generation
of civil rights leaders who stood by the Rev. Martin Luther King’s
side and continued his efforts to stamp out poverty and racism after
his assassination.
“The movement for love and justice and truth is always a
continuation. It’s never completed,” said the Rev. William Barber,
co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. “And you never approach
any movement for justice as though you were the first one.”
Leaders who have battled injustice since the 1960s - the Rev.
Jesse Jackson, children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman, and
attorney Al McSurely — say the work of the Poor People’s Campaign
is urgently needed as income and wealth inequality grows.
“Fewer and fewer have more and more, subsidized by the
government,” Jackson said in an interview at his office in Chicago.
“And more and more have less and less.”
From now through October, the campaign will be working to
register people for the movement and to vote, piloted by volunteers.
Barber said he expects more than 5,000 volunteers to participate in
26 states this weekend.
Volunteers will go beyond merely registering people to vote by
emphasizing the connection between joining the movement and
casting a ballot and by educating people about the Poor People’s
Campaign issues, Barber said.
The registration drive is the second phase of action this year. The
first, 40 days of activism, ended in June with a rally attended by
thousands in Washington, D.C. It was followed by appearances earlier
this month by former Vice President Al Gore in North Carolina. Gore
spoke at a service at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, where
Barber is the minister, and at a rally the next day in Greensboro.
King had announced the Poor People’s Campaign in December
1967 and planned to hold a massive demonstration on the National
Mall in Washington, D.C. But four months later, he was felled by an
assassin’s bullet. The demonstration that King had planned still took
place. Edelman moved to Washington, D.C., to lead the campaign.
Protesters set up camp, with Jackson serving as “mayor” of what
they called Resurrection City. McSurely brought in busloads of
Appalachian residents.
Today, Jackson is president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Edelman is founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund.
And McSurely, whose home was firebombed in 1968, is an attorney
in Carthage, North Carolina, and serves as adviser to the campaign.
He paid for law school with funds from a settlement he received after
the federal government wrongly tried him for contempt of Congress.
Barber said he appreciates his predecessors’ wisdom and advice,
especially considering that the assassinations of King and Robert
Kennedy could have killed their spark.
“People have to be reminded that the civil rights movement,
the Poor People’s Campaign, they didn’t just end,” said Barber,
who leads the new campaign with the Rev. Liz Theoharis of the
Kairos Center. “They were assassinated; they were murdered; they
were killed. Those still here experienced tremendous pain and hurt
watching certain elements of a nation so filled with hate and racism
that they would rather kill prophets of justice and love rather than
listen to them.”
The work is hard and exhausting, McSurely said. But King’s
murder did not kill his vision. “That’s what people don’t understand.
You know, it’s literally like being a soldier, a nonviolent soldier in the
Army. And we’ve got to fight until we die.”
The campaign continued after the assassination of Robert
Kennedy,-who was emphasizing poverty and hunger. Black-and-
white television footage shows Edelman and Kennedy visiting some
of the poorest families in Mississippi. That footage nationalized the
movement to help the hungry because the press followed Kennedy,
Edelman said.