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NC 27599-0001
RUTH 1
VOLUME 99 - NUMBER 5
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2020
TELEPHONE 919-682-2913 PRICE 50
NAA CP, NC lawyers oppose GOP
attempt to restore voter ID now
RALEIGH (AP) - It’s too late
to restore a photo identification
requirement to vote in North
Carolina for the March primary,
attorneys for the state and the
NAACP wrote separately on
Jan. 31, opposing efforts by Re
publicans to suspend a judge’s
order blocking the requirement.
The State Board of Elec
tions - a defendant in a lawsuit
challenging the 2018 voter ID
law - is already appealing U.S.
District Judge Loretta Biggs’
order on Dec. 31 halting the use
of photo ID for the time being.
But the state Department of Jus
tice, which represents the board,
didn’t try to overturn her pre
liminary injunction before the
March 3 primary because it said
restoring voter ID now would
cause confusion.
That prompted North Caro
lina Republican legislative
leaders to file a motion Jan. 10
seeking to officially enter the
lawsuit and ask the voter ID law
to be enforced in the primary.
Attorney General Josh Stein’s
lawyers pointed out that House
Speaker Tim Moore and Senate
leader Phil Berger aren’t parties
in the lawsuit. Biggs has twice
rejected their requests to join the
case.
The election is already un
derway, with more than 8,000
absentee ballots requested so far
and hundreds of ballots already
returned, Friday’s (Jan. 31) brief
says. The voter ID law requires
absentee ballot filers to comply
with the photo ID mandate, too.
Early in-person voting begins
Feb. 13.
“The state board has taken a
number of specific measures to
comply with the court’s order,
and it would be extremely diffi
cult, if not impossible, and con
fusing to the public, to unwind
many of these actions in an order
ly way if the order were stayed,”
the state’s lawyers wrote.
The state NAACP and local
NAACP chapters sued over the
law in December 2018. Biggs
ruled about a year later that the
voter ID rules appeared to con
tain the racially discriminatory
taint of several sections of a 2013
voting law that a federal appeals
court declared unconstitutional
in 2016. That 2013 1
$20,000 raised to help
man who survived 1952
lynching attempt
APEX (AP) - A North Carolina man who survived an
attempted lynching in 1952 has been helped by hundreds
of people to move to a new home Jan. 28 so a highway
can be expanded.
Lynn Council, 87, plans to move into a new house in
Apex after living in his current home for more than 60
years, news outlets reported.
Council was accused decades ago of a robbery he
didn’t commit. Two deputies hanged him from a tree to
try to get him to confess. When he didn’t, the deputies
took him down.
Council later settled into a home just outside of Apex.
About 20 years ago, he took out a $20,000 federal home
repair loan. One condition of the loan was that the full
amount must be paid if he moved out or died.
The state recently bought Council’s home so the De
partment of Transportation can expand the NC-540 high
way. That meant he needed to pay back the $20,000 loan.
Garrett Raczek learned about Council’s story and
launched an online fundraiser to help pay off the debt.
By early Tuesday (Jan. 28) morning, the fundraiser had
exceeded $21,000.
“I sure thank the Lord for the gifts. Thank you, thank
you, thank you. Thank you, Lord,” Council said at a news
conference.
As for the attempted lynching, the Wake County Sher
iff’s Office and Apex police apologized last year. A bench
in Council’s honor was also placed outside the police de
partment.
Raleigh-Durham airport staffer
charged with ‘secret peeping’
MORRISVILLE (AP) - A Raleigh-Durham International
Airport employee has been charged with secret peeping after
authorities were tipped off about “potential illegal activity”
that happened at the airport, according to a statement from air
port officials.
Brennan Stevenson, 30, was arrested Jan. 29 by Raleigh-
Durham Airport Authority, law enforcement, news outlets re
ported. He has since been removed from his position and is not
allowed on airport property, officials told WRAL-TV. Steven
son’s Linkedin account says he’s been a contract compliance
officer at the airport.
Stevenson is charged with felony secret peeping, felony
disseminating image obtained from secret peeping and felony
possessing photographic image from secret peeping, police
said.
It’s unclear whether Stevenson has an attorney who can
comment on his behalf. No additional details have been re
leased.
aw required photo ID but also
scaled back early in-person vot
ing. Republican legislators, who
had approved both laws, dis
agree with Biggs.
The NAACP’s lawyers agreed
any reversal would cause confu
sion, but also wrote the Repub
licans are unlikely to be able to
overturn Biggs’ order. The civil
rights groups say there’s good
reason to believe provisions in
the new law - which GOP law
makers say make it easier for
voters to comply - would still
disproportionately harm African
American voters.
“Staying the preliminary in
junction at this point would lead
to a dysfunctional enforcement
of an unconstitutional law that
would undoubtedly undermine
the integrity of that election and
disenfranchise North Carolina
voters,” the NAACP brief read.
Evacuated public
housing tenants miss
the ( essence of home
By Virginia Bridges AND Martha Quillin
(AP) - Samanther Crowder faced another week with her five chil
dren spread over two hotel rooms.
At 6:10 a.m. on a Monday, she dressed, left the room she shared
with her 9-year-old and 5-month-old, and knocked on the door of the
room around the corner where her three other children, ages 12 to
20, slept.
It was time to wake 12-year-old Jayden for school.
“Like, open the door. Get up,” she called out. “So I’m sure you are
up before I walk away.”
About 280 families from the McDougald Terrace public housing
community have now been living in a dozen local hotels and motels
for nearly one month. The Durham Housing Authority started evacu
ating them over carbon monoxide concerns Jan. 3 and announced this
week they could remain in the hotels until mid-February.
The hotel is safe, Crowder said, and residents don’t have to worry
about the shootings that frequent the McDougald Terrace area east
of downtown.
But they have had to deal with uncertain transportation, not know
ing where their next meal will come from and their kids not having
a place to play.
They miss the comforts of home: everyone in the same apartment,
personal space, a full kitchen, a trusted neighbor to watch the chil
dren while they run to the store. And they worry about returning to
the 1950s housing complex without DHA fully fixing the gas leaks
and other problems like mold, water spots in ceilings and roaches.
“I miss the essence of a home,” Crowder said. “I don’t miss Mc
Dougald Terrace. The conditions are horrible.”
AMENITIES
Some hotel rooms have kitchenettes with stoves and full-size re
frigerators, and some have microwaves.
Crowder and her children have neither.
They’re among 80 families at the Millennium Hotel, off Morreene
Road near Duke University. The rooms have mini-fridges, with mi
crowaves in a couple of community rooms downstairs.
DHA is providing stipends based on hotel room amenities. Those
with kitchenettes get $30 per adult and $15 per child per day. Fami
lies without kitchenettes get double that.
The housing authority isn’t charging any McDougald Terrace resi
dents rent for January and February, and it has put evictions on hold.
Crowder, 35, said that is the right thing to do.
Her unit had mold, water leaks and lead paint, which she reported.
“They would just come in and put a little duct tape on it and keep it
going,” she said.
Still, at home, Crowder could offer her children a sausage biscuit
or eggs before school.
At the hotel, she has them eat gummy vitamins. Other options
include a Nutrigrain bar, apple or banana.
The hotel has a restaurant, but a $12.99 breakfast is too expensive
for a big family, she said.
CROWDED ROOM
Crowder’s hotel room reflects the chaos of temporary living.
Laundry baskets line one wall. Pizza boxes and to-go containers,
which don’t fit into the small hotel garbage cans, are stacked on the
desk and fill one large clear garbage bag. Baby food, wipes and other
items for her youngest cover the nightstand between the beds/
It’s 6:46 a.m. almost past time for the bus to take her 9-year-old
son, Cody Hayes, to Bethesda Elementary, which starts at 7:45 a.m.
Cody, however, can’t find his jacket. Crowder combs through two
baskets of freshly washed laundry and pulls clothes from a pile in
the corner.
She sends Cody to the other room to look. And then she goes and
looks herself, starting to worry about Cody missing the bus that has
come as early as 6:30 and as late as 7:10 a.m.
Cody said he feels mad about the whole situation.
“I don’t have my own room,” he said. He can’t play with his
friends or walk around.
Cody and Crowder, pushing her 5-month old daughter in her
stroller, navigate the long hotel halls to the front lobby where a hand
ful of families are waiting for school buses.
McDougald Terrace resident Laura Betye, 60, is worried about
C^^
NCCU and VGCC Link Programs to Careers in Pharmaceutical Research and
Development Enhanced programs prepare students to fill skill gaps in the phar
maceutical workforce. See story on page 2). NCCU Photo
The Friends of Stanford L. Warren Library hosted for Black
History Month on Monday, February 3, a Conversation between
Dr. Karla FC Holloway (and Andre Vann, who will discuss Hol
loway’s latest work and signing of her new mystery, “A Death
in Harlem.” Holloway is the James. B. Duke Professor Emerita
of English and Law at Duke University, where her research and
teaching have included African American literary and cultural
studies, bioethics, gender, and law.
two girls who have been waiting since 5:40 a.m. for a bus to Neal
Middle School.
She called the shuttle service contracted to help provide rides, but
it didn’t answer.
One of the girls says she is going back to her room. The other has
started to cry.
HOTEL CAPTAINS
Each hotel has a resident captain to help coordinate services and
share concerns.
Betye is the resident captain for the Millennium Hotel but calls it
being the “lead.”
“I am egalitarian,” said Betye who came to the U.S. from Roma
nia when she was a child and still has a slight accent. “I am nobody’s
captain.”
Earlier in the day, Betye woke up around 5 a.m. and put out dan-
ishes in the community room the hotel designated for McDougald
Terrace residents. The community room is typically filled with a va
riety of supplies, such as diapers, paper towels and detergent.
In the afternoon children can go to the community room to get
homework help and snacks. A couple of times a week, Alliance
Healthcare will offer counseling in an adjacent room. Emergency
Management Services and the Durham Gounty Department of Social
Services are also checking in on some elderly residents.
The Neal Middle bus never came, Betye said. A hotel security
guard ended up taking the two girls to school.
Meanwhile, Betye had arranged for the shuttle service, TMAC to
pick her up at 7:15 a.m. to take her to Measurement Inc, where she
works. The Durham Housing Authority hired TMAC to take residents
to doctor appointments, work and to housing authority meetings.
When she started dealing with the two Neal students, she called
and canceled the shuttle but it still came. She tried to get the driver to
take the students, but he refused and left.
She ended up paying to take a hotel shuttle, but no one responded
when she called TMAC to get a ride home that day, or a ride back to
work the next day.
Her daughter had to pick her up.
“They are supposed to be encouraging us to go to work,” she said.
EXTENDED STAY
Rateakka Johnson and Danasha Williamson consider themselves
fortunate. Both landed with their children at one of several local Ex
tended Stay America hotels. Both said their kids grow restless within
the confines of their hotel rooms, but they’re trying to find ways to
occupy their time.
Johnsons family was in the first wave of residents told to evacuate
from McDougald Terrace on Jan. 3, because one of her two daughters
is under the age of 2. She was summoned to the office at the complex
that day, she said, and told to pack a few things.
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