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I Pages This Week
Thursday, December 29,1988
Winston-Salem Chronicle
cents
"The Twin City's Award-Winning Weekly"
VOL. XV, No. 18
.ittle sworn in; family, well-wishers witness event
TONYA V. SMITH
ronlele Staff Writer
Larry Little couldn’t have
:ed for a better Christmas pre-
it or a more important victory
n the one he received Tuesday
ming.
Pledging allegiance to North
rolina and promising to support,
intain and defend the U.S. Con-
ution, the former city alderman
1 Black Panther Party leader
k the oath of entry into the state
r Association.
The Ceremony was a victory
Little whose bar exam scores
le sealed in October by the N.C.
r Association pending a hearing
i investigation into his past asso
ciation with the Black Panthers.
About 100 family members,
friends and well-wishers gathered
to praise and support Little at the
swearing-in ceremony. Among
them was the Honorable Judge
William H. Freeman, who adminis
tered the oath to Little.
"It is a very personal delight
for me to be here and to be able to
do this," Freeman said. "I admire
three things about Larry. One, he
never does anything hdfway. He
also is a person that does not com
promise. What he says he means
and he stands behind it."
Little, 38, is a May graduate of
Wake Forest University's Law
School. He plans to begin private
practice in late January.
"I think it's going to take me
about a month to set up and I hope
to get an office in the next couple
of days," Little said Wednesday
morning. "I'll have a general prac
tice where I will touch a variety of
areas."
Tuesday's admission to the Bar
Association marked the climax of a
hard fought battle, said Little.
"It's the culmination of a long,
hard struggle," he said. "I had the
idea I wanted to be a lawyer plant
ed in my head 20 years ago when I
read the "Autobiography of Mal
colm X",
Little flunked out of high
school during his senior year and
joined the Panthers. He didn't
begin his formal education until he
was 26 years old. He graduated
with honors from Winston-Salem
State University with a bachelor's
degree in political science. Little
later earned a master's degree in
public administration. He thought
that was the field for him until he
tasted of the legal system while
working with the Darryl Hunt
Defense Committee, which Little
founded.
"When I started the process (of
studying law) in 1985, I knew I
would have a struggle because of
my background, my arrests when I
was with the Panthers," Little said.
"When the (N.C. Bar Association)
sealed my test scores and called for
Please see page A9
Photo by Charmane Oeiaverson ->
Former Alderman Larry Little is sworn Into the state Bar Asso*
elation as his wife, Glenda, looks on proudly.
Men save family of four
City cites unemployed firefighters
lyTONYAV. SMITH
^roniele Staff Writer
A'mother and her three chil-
ben are alive to see the dawning of
he new year thanks to three AJro-
asleep.
Leonard Davis, 26, Reginald
McCummings, 25, and Ervin
Williams Jr., 30, were heading home
after watching a Carolina basketball
game when they saw thick clouds of
smoke hovering
hu don't think about yourself
i time like that.... I just hope
^ person would risk their lives
f save me the way we did for
- Leonard Davis
boerlcan men who risked their lives
0 save the family from a fire
home earlier this month.
ran to the house. Looking through
the window, they spotted Hawthorne
lying on the
couch.
Flames
7 felt like it was a blessing for had already
us to do something like that for begun to engulf
someone." the house when
Davis and
•• Reginald McCummings McCummings
knocked on the
door and win-
was about 11:25 p.m.,
iTednesday, Dec. 7, and Linda
fewfliome had fallen asleep on the
Duch while watching television in
tx home at 812 Broad St. Her three
hildren, Amber, 14; Chris, 11; and
lO-year-old Tiffany, also were
dows, trying to
get Hawthorne's attention, but she
was sleeping soundly.
"I could see a foot sticking out
from under a blanket," McCum
mings, a former firefighter with the
city fire department, said. "I turned
Please see page A6
Photo by Charmane Delaverson
Linda Hawthorne poses with two of her three children, l0-year>
old Tiffany, left, and 11-year-old Chris, by the Christmas tree
donated to them after the fire which devastated their home.
City bank robberies
rise considerabiy
compared to iast year
By TONYA V. SMITH
Chronicle Staff Writer
A rash of bank robberies has plagued Winston-Salem during the last
two months giving city police a fit as they attempt to arrest the perpetra
tors, said Captain E.L. Moreau.
There have been 12 bank robberies this year and half of them
occurred after Nov. 1, Moreau said last week. There were only seven
bank robberies in 1987, he said.
"There is evidently an increase in the number of bank robberies over
last year, but it is by no means a record," Moreau said. "Several years ago
we had 18 bank robberies and - years before that - one year we had 27.
That involved a group of five or six people working us and High Point."
Nevertheless, the city's average niunber of bank robberies rests at
around seven a year, he said.
If there was a bank that has been hit hard during this "robbery sea
son", it's the First Union National Bank’s Fourth Street branch. The bank
suffered its second midday robbery in eight days Dec. 20. The branch at
310 W. Fourth St. also was robbed Dec. 12. Nobody has been charged in
either robbery.
Other banks hit include: Piedmont Federal Savings and Loan Associ
ation at 395 S. Stratford Rd. on Dec. 12, BB&T main office branch off
West Third Street on Dec. 9, First Union's Ogbum Station branch on Dec.
11 and Wachovia Bank and Trust had its Waughtown branch robbed on
Nov. 1.
Suspects have been arrested and charged in the Wachovia and BB&T
robberies, Moreau said.
Customers frequenting 24-hour teller machines also have been hit
hard this robbery season, said Moreau.
"I can’t really give a full figure for the number of after hour teller
machine robberies because some of them have been done by opportunity,"
Moreau said. "A lot of persons have been getting money or making a
deposit when they've gotten robbed, but others have just been in the area
of a machine when their purse was snatched."
Please see page A9
Educator Hoyt Wiseman to retire after 38 years of service
llTONVAV.SMrTH
N«l«Stan Writer
During the last 38 years, Hoyt Wiseman has seen
)0-American and white students united in the classroom
the first time in the city-cOunty school system and has
Ily watched the declining interest in the education pro-
Sira, but still nothing makes more of an impact than
inghis brmer students taking active and productive
in their communities.
Wiseman, 65, is retiring after nearly 38 years as a
frcipal and teacher in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth Coun-
School system. The years have been many but they've
by quickly, Wiseman said.
;; "The years have been good years and have gone by
rjekly bwause I've enjoyed what I've done and I've
Wted with some good people," Wiseman said, "When I
'into a bank or a store and a cashier there calls my name
jl says I was their teacher or principal that makes all the
fcs worth it"
' A TOnston-Salem native, Wiseman is a product of the
l0ol system he has spent his working life in, having
tfffiUed from Atkins High School in 1939. Reflecting
bn his i^tildhood in the old Columbia Heights communi-
»- where WSSU's Kenneth R. Williams auditorium now
inds —"^iseman remembers the encouragement and
itivation he received from his mother.
I "My father died when I was 12 years old, so the
biggest portion of our (he and his three brothers') rearing
was done by our mother," Wiseman said. "She wanted us
to have an education, so she encouraged and prodded us to
do our very best She always reminded us that every per
son we meet going up will be the same people we meet
going down."
After high school, Wiseman served 32 months in the
second World War and worked toward his degree in ele
mentary education at Wmston-Salem State University. He
later received his master's degree from New York Univer
sity and did graduate work at N.C. A&T and the Universi
ty of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Wiseman chose the education professira because in it
he saw the opportunity to help uplift future generations of
Afro-Americans.
"Back when I was in college, blacks chose teaching
because it off^ed a way to be committed to raise the entire
level of living of the race," said Wisanaa "Back in the
fifties black leaders had a strong commitment to seeing
that children learned."
But even with the education and the determination, it
wasn’t easy for an Afro-American to secure a teaching job
in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, Wiseman said, remem
bering spending four of his post college years working
with the city's recreation d^artmrat. He worked as direc
tor of the old Columbia Heights center and, even after
Wiseman began teaching, he spent ten summers working
at Kimberly Park and Brown reaeation centers and man
aging the first Winston Lake swimming pool.
Wiseman's first teaching job was at the now defunct
14th Street Elementary School. He began teaching sixth
and eighth graders. He remembers a more experienced
Irma Banks taking the then young and inexperienced
Wiseman under her wings.
"She was my mentor then. She was always helping
young inexperienced teachers, and that's something I
picked up on and did later in my career," Wiseman said.
After spending about 12 years at 14th Street School in
the roles of teacher and assistant principal, Wiseman went
to Brown Elementary School in his first job as principal.
In 1967 he was principal at North Elementary School, and,
after four years, he was transfened to Forest Park Elemen
tary School - the final stop in his illustrious career.
Having spent so many years in education, Wiseman
has seen a lot of things change in the way in which chil
dren are presented knowledge, and many of those changes
have not been for the better, he reflected.
"There was a day when whatever the teacher said
went," Wiseman said. "When the teacher said something,
momma got it, daddy got it and then you got it."
That group of Afro-American teachers and adminis
trators, who were so committed to instmeting Afro-Ameri
can youths in the history of their race and to making sure
Please see page A9
Photo by Charmarte Delaverson
After retirement, Wiseman plans to relax, do some trav
eling and some volunteer work.