T
people
EDITORIALS
SPORTS
NCSA students
bid farewell
with their dances
%
PAGF A6
Board of Commissioners:
Issue is not a new one;
shame is that an order's needed
PAGE A4
Kimber tames
Winston Lake
to win NAACP
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CHAPEl
LIBRARY
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'5/08/88
on-Salem Chronicle
^ 27514
The Twin City's Award-Winning Weekly
jtoJ.XIV, No. 40
Winston-Salem, N.C.
Thursday, May 26,1988
32 Pages This Week
Federal Court issues strong warning to county
Judge calls county's claim against NAACP 'frivolous'
By ANGELA WRIGHT
Chronicle Managing Editor
A federal judge admonished
Foreyth County "to refrain, in the
future, from making arguments to
the court without citing either rele
vant supporting or contrary case
law" in the case of NAACP vs.
Forsyth County.
The National Association for
the Advancement of Colored Peo
ple has filed a lawsuit against the
county, challenging the form and
method of election of the Forsyth
County Board of County Commis
sioners.
U.S. District Court Judge
Eugene A. Gordon called the coun
ty’s contention that the NAACP
lacked standing to file the lawsuit
"clearly frivolous." Gordon said, in
an opinion filed May 12, that "the
Supreme Court has repeatedly
addressed the issue of an organiza
tion's or association’s standing to
sue..."
The county had also asked the
court to dismiss the action, which
goes to trial on June 6, because the
NAACP complaint contained alle
gations on the part of the "Forsyth
County Branch" of the NAACP
The court acknowledged that the
"Forsyth County Branch" of the
NAACP was not a party to the liti
gation, but allowed the NAACP to
amend its complaint to say the
"Winston-Salem Branch."
"Dismissal of plaintiffs' claims
for a defect of a clerical nature
would exalt form over substance,
and allowance of this amendment
clearly does not prejudice defen
dants," said Gordon.
Gordon dismissed the county's
assertion that the action was not a ,
Please see page All
WAAA files bankruptcy petition
Vest’^4
Cynthia Nix, left, and Edna Goolsby enjoy a grand ole time at Mayfest '88 held last weekend in down
town Winston-Salem. The two served as volunteers for the event {photo by Craig T. Greenlee).
By CRAIG T. GREENLEE
Chronicle Staff Writer
WtAA, the city's first Afro-American owned
and operated radio station, has filed a petition to
reorganize under Chapter 11 of the federal
bankruptcy act.
In an aired statement on Tuesday at noon,
Mutter D. Evans, WAAA owner, told the station’s
listeners that WAAA would continue its operations
and that there would be no interruption in their
tffoadcast schedule.
The statement was made on the final day of an
extension the station had been granted in order to
satisfy a $250,000 loan secured through the Small
Business Administration.
Height: Black
family in trouble
By CRAIG T. GREENLEE
Chronicle Staff Writer
Every member of the Afro-American family
is in trouble due to problems involving health care,
employment opportunities, education, and child
care, according to Dorothy I. Height, national pres
ident of the National Council of Negro Women Inc.
Height was here last week for the organiza
tion’s Sj^ng 1988 Leadership Institute held at the
Wmston-Salem Hyatt Hotel. The NCNW president
explained that the council’s aim is to help fortify
the Afro-American family in order to improve the
quality of life few Afro-Americans.
NCNW is a coalition of community based
organizations working in unison to bring about
positive change by building on the traditional
strengths of the Afro-American family.
Height points to several factors concerning
the Afro-American family that are of prime inter
est.
• High infant mortality rate;
• Lack of sufficient health care for children;
• High unemployment rate for young Afro-
In March, the SBA issued a notice of a public
foreclosure sale on the premises of the station
which is located at 4950 Indiana Ave. Had that auc
tion taken place, the station's assets which include
machinery, equipment, furniture, fixtures and a
1976 Ford Station Wagon would have gone up for
sale to the highest bidder in a cash only transaction.
The station’s action is technically known as
reorganization under Chapter 11 with the debtor in
possession. "What that means," Evans explained,
"is that WAAA will continue to operate and do
business. The courts have granted the company the
time and space to heal itself without the risk of
doing additional damage."
Evans likened her station’s situation to the
Please see page A12
Ingram
Height
American males;
• The Afro-American elderly are among the
poorest of the poor.
She adds that poverty is now more deeply
entrenched in the Afro-American community than
it was a decade ago. For example, more than 40
percent of all Afro-American households are head
ed by women, and 58 percent of those, families
live in poverty. Seventy percent of the children liv
ing in households headed by women are poor,"
according to Height.
In spite of those statistics, Height feels that
the council is making some inroads.
"Our organization is making progress in sev
eral areas," Height said, "and we are continuing to
Please see page A12
Local woman blazes path at N.C. State Vet School
[THE NATION’S NEWS
Corrpiled From AP wire •
{Atlanta children to be honored
WASHINGTON -Plans are being laid to honor
■Atlanta's 29 missing and murdered children, slain
r*®arly a decade ago, with a national library tksigned
■toeducate the country on child victimiration Issues,
i The Atlanta Childs’s Memorial Resource Cent«’
jwill (rfftt informatioQ to parents of missing and vic-
Itinjized children ^dsoci^ wohk professionals.
|Newsman Arthur Carter dies
MSHINGTON - Arthur M. Carter, a longtime
lttor and pubh^er of the Washington Afro-Ameri-
1^ newspaper and former Puiitror Prize jurist, has
Idled of cancer at age 76. Carts’, who had headed the
■wwsp^ f(W 16 yeare until his retirement in 1986,
Idled May 22 at the Washington Ifospital (^nier.
[Burger King, PUSH sign pact
^^CAGO - Burger King has worked out an agKGz.
with the Operation PUSH civil rights group
toder which it will d^sil $1.6 mOlion in 18 black-
^'ned banks as pan of a Icmg-^rm plan to increase
Opportunities for blacks. ’■
By ROBIN BARKSDALE
Chronicle Staff Writer
Being the "first" can be fun but it
can be disappointing in some cases, says
Donna Matthews, a recent graduate of
the North Carolina State University
School of Veterinary Medicine.
Ms. Matthews, who graduated May
7, is the first minority female to graduate
from the school’s veterinary program.
"It’s kind of bad that they still have
to have that kind of situation," said Ms.
Matthews about the lack of minorities
studying veterinary medicine. "There are
2(X)-plus students and to only have two in
a class seems to be kind of a bad situa
tion."
She said that many Afro-American
students interested in veterinary medicine
choose to attend Alabama's Tuskegee
Institute because the school traditionally
has had a good program. Many of the
Afro-American veterinarians, Ms.
Matthews said, are graduates of
Thskegee.
"Probably about 90 percent of the
black veterinarians graduated from
Tuskegee," she said. "There are just so
many that went there and because of that
usually all you will hear about is
TUskegee’s program."
Ms. Matthews opted to remain in the
state and enroll in the budding veterinary
program at N.C. State. She said her deci
sion was based on her desire to remain in
North Carolina and to attend a school
which had a pre-veterinary program as
well as a professional school.
"State had just gotten its veterinary
school and I wanted to go where I could
get good educatiOTal oppeatunities," said
Ms. Matthews, the daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. C.O. Matthews. "It’s also good to be
at a school that has a professional school
because you are preapred for their cur
riculum in undergraduate school. There’s
not the question of whether you meet
requirements that you would have if you
attended graduate school on another cam
pus."
Although she is a "first," Ms.
Matthews said that she has seen the num
ber of Afro-American veterinary students
grow since she began graduate school
four years ago. She said the shortage of
minorities in veterinary programs may be
due, in part, to the fact that there have not
been many Afro-American veterinary
professionals after which students can
model themselves.
"Vererinaiy medicine isn't an option
that most blacks consider," said Ms.
Matthews, whose first job was working
with local veterinarian Dr. Calvert Jef
fers. "It is gaining in popularity and it
seems like a large number of blacks are
interested now. When I first came on
campus, there were only a few that I
Please see page A13
-
si
Donna Matthews, joined atiove by pets Napoleon, left, and Butch, recently
became the first minority female to graduate from the N.C. State University
School of Veterinary Medicine {photos by Mike Cunningham).