DAV 17
12/01/17
**CHILL
By Emery R Dalesio
RALEIGH (AP) - The new election in a North Carolina con
gressional district required after last year’s contest was deemed
tainted by a Republican political operative’s ballot collection
efforts is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.2 million, the
state elections board said March 29.
The 9th congressional district contest now headed toward
a 10-candidate Republican primary contest in May could top
$1.7 million if no candidate gets more than 30 percent of the
vote. If that happens, the second-place finisher could force a
second round of head-to-head voting in September by asking
for a runoff, delaying the general election until November.
North Carolina legislators late last year required that if the
state elections board ordered a new election, a primary was
also required. The elections board decided unanimously last
month that the operative working for Republican Mark Harris
collected an unknown number of ballots that could have been
altered and a new contest was needed.
Harris is not running again after what he thought was his
narrow win in November’s election. Democrat Dan McCready
is running again and faces no primary opponent.
The state elections board collected its total from estimates
by elections directors in the eight counties that make up the
district. The costs are for holding the unplanned elections, not
employee salaries and other office operations. The projected
costs include paying for poll workers, required legal notices in
newspapers, ballot preparation and printing, postage, and poll
ing place supplies and rental fees.
One Republican candidate said if no one snags 30 percent
of the GOP vote in the May primary and he finishes second, he
UNC-CH SERIALS DEPARTMENT
CHAPEL HILL
VOLUME 98 - NUMBER 13
NC 27599-0001
DAVIS LIBRARY CB# 3938
P 0 BOX 8890
CHARLES FOSTER
NCCU Track Legend
Charles Foster Dies
Charles Foster, who won five NAIA and NCAA indi
vidual national championships and was the top-ranked
hurdler in the world during his collegiate career at North
Carolina Central University, passed away on Sunday
(March 31) at the age of 65.
A 1975 graduate of NCCU, Foster was a dominant
force on the track during his college career from 1971-75,
specializing in the hurdles. After NCCU, he placed fourth
in the 110-meter hurdles at the 1976 Olympic Games in
Montreal and enjoyed an accomplished career as a col
lege coach.
During his junior and senior campaigns at NCCU, Fos
ter repeated as the NAIA national champion in the indoor
60-yard hurdles, setting the meet record in 1975 with a
time of 6.9 seconds, and the outdoor 120-yard/l 10-meter
hurdles, breaking the meet record in 1974 in 13.4 sec
onds. He also captured the NCAA outdoor 120-yard hur
dles national championship in 1974 with a time of 13.35
seconds.
In 1974, Foster was ranked as the No. 1 hurdler in the
world.
As a freshman, Foster helped lead the Eagles to the
1972 NAIA outdoor track & field team national champi
onship, running a leg of the 440-yard relay that set a meet
record with a time of 39.5 seconds.
Foster was inducted into the NCCU Athletics Hall of
Fame as part of its inaugural class in 1984, and has also
been enshrined in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Hall of Fame (1981) and the Penn Relays Wall of Fame
(2016).
Texans share history of convict
B leasing, unearthed remains
By Kathryn Eastbum y
the Galveston County Daily News
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - Negotiations are underway between the Fort Bend Independent School District and Fort Bend
County to determine who will ultimately own land near Sugar Land where last year the remains of 95 former state of Texas
convict laborers were unearthed.
iJ h 7? al T t0n P ail y News re P° rts the bodies, 94 male and one female, were in unmarked graves, ranged in age from
o 70 and were buried there between 1878 and 1910 when large sugar plantations operated under such harsh conditions that
the place came to be known as the Hellhole of the Brazos.
Galveston County resident Samuel L. Collins III and Reginald Moore, of Houston, meanwhile, have been updating groups on
e Sugar Land 95, the history of convict leasing in Texas and progress toward permanently creating a suitable memorial at the
sue where the bodies were found.
MiSeumhi Galveston S an1 Moore wil1 lea1 3 0ne ' day seminar at Rice University, and in June, they will speak at The Bryan
T M ^ C ?T J 1 ’ C m lins ^ d Mo 1 ore j® d a seminar at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard
University, Unearthing the Truth of Slavery by Another Name.”
r n OUr h0 ? e 18 that 3 story like this one becomes 3 chapter or an entire volume in American history, not merely a footnote ”
u Oiiins S31Q.
. Wh ° W3S 3 pris ? n guard f ° r three years in the 1980s at the Jeste r State Prison Farm near where the bodies were un-
hecame interested in Texas’ and the Gulf Coast region’s history of leasing convicts for unpaid agricultural labor
^ (Continued On Page 3)
a Suites
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 2019
TELEPHONE 919-682-2913
PRICE 50 CENTS
Forced congressional
election to top $1.2M
“I’ve pledged that I won’t do that because we need to
face McCready in September and have a more equal election
throughout the district instead of waiting until November
With Congress seat
in grasp, NC urges
census participation
By Gary D. Robertson
RALEIGH, (AP) - Gov. Roy Cooper says posi
tive prospects for North Carolina to obtain another
seat in Congress make it all the more important that
the state generate the most accurate and complete
census count.
Monday, April 1 marked the one-year countdown
to the decennial census required by the U.S. Consti
tution. Cooper and other state officials marked the
date with a news conference urging people to par
ticipate next year.
The state and local populations are used in part to
distribute well over $600 billion in federal funds.
State populations also are used to re-apportion
435 voting seats in the U.S. House. North Carolina
now has 13 seats and Cooper says there’s a good
chance the state’s population had grown enough to
gain a 14th seat. The population was estimated at
10.3 million people in 2017.
where all the municipalities will be voting,” said Union County
Commissioner and Republican congressional candidate Stony
Rushing. “It will also save some costs.”
Union County would pay $600,000 if a second primary
was required, but about $400,000 without one. Rushing said
he’s going to ask the state legislature to reimburse his county’s
costs for the re-do election. Mecklenburg County, the state’s
most populous, would spend about $250,000 because only a
portion is included in the congressional district.
The congressional district stretches from suburban Char
lotte to suburban Fayetteville along the South Carolina border.
It has been in GOP hands since 1963 and President Donald
Trump won it by 12 percentage points in 2016.
NORMAN FRANCIS
Courtesy Hampton University
Former Xavier-Louisiana
president honored by
Notre Dame
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The retired president of the only his
torically black and Catholic university in the U.S. will receive what
Notre Dame University calls the most prestigious award for Ameri
can Catholics.
The Laetare Medal will be given May 19 to Norman Francis, who
was president for 47 years at Xavier University of Louisiana, Notre
Dame announced April 1.
“For more than 50 years, Dr. Francis has been at the center of
civil rights advocacy by leveraging the power of Catholic higher ed
ucation,” Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins said in a news
release. “In bestowing the Laetare Medal upon him, Notre Dame
recognizes his leadership in the fight for social justice through edu
cational empowerment.”
During Francis’ tenure, enrollment nearly tripled, the endowment
grew eightfold, and the university became the leading producer of
African-American undergraduates who complete medical school.
Xavier also ranks first nationally in the number of black students
earning undergraduate degrees in four areas: biology and life sci
ences, chemistry, physics and pharmacy.
Francis, who retired in 2015, is the second New Orleans resident
in four years to receive the Laetare Medal. In 2015, it went to musi
cian Aaron Neville.
Xavier was founded in 1925 by St. Katharine Drexel, after the
U.S. Supreme Court found “separate but equal” education constitu
tional. Drexel’s philanthropy also paid for the Catholic schools that
Francis attended in Lafayette, Louisiana, as a child.
He graduated from Xavier in 1952 and became the first African-
American admitted to Loyola University Law School in New Or
leans.
“I did not build Xavier; I was part of Katharine Drexel’s mission
to provide a quality education for all,” Francis said. “All the people I
worked with were part of this plan and mission, which was not only
honorable, but was totally necessary when you look back at what the
United States was at the time.”
After time in the Army and at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where he
helped integrate federal agencies, he became Xavier’s dean of men
in 1957. Four years later, he opened a school dormitory to Freedom
Riders after the civil rights group’s bus was bombed in Alabama.