Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / March 21, 1991, edition 1 / Page 1
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jRSDAY, march 21,1991 • NEWS HOTLINE 723-8448 44 PAGES THIS WEEK The Great Question Who are ''ou Mr. Robinson and what d %^^eally stand for? PAGEA4 Winstoti- Playoff Fever Norfolk Statens Spartanettes pursue national title at 33-0. HI PAGE B5 'm Chronicle ints "The Award-Winning Weekly" VOL. XVII, No.30 KK rally sparks little interest [tricia SMITH-DEERING regalia accompanied by one white woman, began the TRICIA SMITH-DEERING liunity News Editor putnumbering the marchers about 30 to one, I ! in riot gear, were out in full force to prevent any ble disturbance when eight members of the Chris- Knights of the Ku Klux Klan staged a brief march tally in downtown Winston-Salem Saturday. The group, seven white males in full hooded regalia accompanied by one white woman, began their march at First and Main streets and made their way to Third Street, down to Church Street past the Federal Building, finally stopping for a rally in the parking lot where the march started. The sparse numbers of specta tors along the route were kept at a distance by sawhors es, ropes, and police. Please seepage A11 Board says no! to an at-large election plan By RUDY ANDERSON Chronicle Managing Editor Photos by L.B. Speas Jr. ce torm a ring around marching Klansmen, while (at right) protestors of the Klan march to ess their views. rrinMiCi The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board refused to budge from its earlier position of keeping the current at-large system for electing members of the board. The board's 6-3 vote Monday night assures a legal showdown in federal court over a lawsuit filed by the NAACP against the board. That lawsuit, filed in U.S. Middle District Court in Greensboro last week, against both the school board and the Forsyth County Board of Elections charges that at-large elections discriminate against African-Ameri can voters and dilute their voting strength. The NAACP is asking that the court do away with at-large elections and force the school board to come up with a district election plan that won't dilute African-American voting strength and ensures voters can elect their candidates. The lawsuit further asks that if a plan is not adopt ed before the 1992 election, the court order a di.sU'ict plan that would have all nine board members elected from separate districts. Eighteen people signed up to address the board before it took its vote. Most speakers were white, as they were when the board last addressed this issue. But Please see page A10 \|.A.T*I»0*N*A*L MEWS jiscrimination declines (charlotte (AP) _ As discrimination Clines and the clout of urban middle-class teks grows, more blacks are moving into pre- Iminantly white middle-class neighborhoods iNorth Carolina, experts say. [According to an analysis conducted by The Wlotte Observer, the 1990 census showed ^t in urban centers, there were significant Clines in the number of whites who live in all- [lite or nearly all-white neighborhoods. Jelms fires Meredith? SAN DIEGO (AP) _ Civil rights pioneer James Meredith says he has been fired as an ^viser to conservative U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms of Nonh Carolina. ^ |Meredith, who has lived in San Diego the past ee years, said he was fired in late January. He lined fame as the first black student at the Uni- pity of Mississippi. Meredith's 1989 appointment as Helms imestic adviser was considered odd because of iredith's role in gaining civil rights for blacks. anctions may backfire lUNTlNGTON, W.Va. (AP) _ Marshall Uni- ■sity campus leaders who want a library rker fired because of what he writes in his 5re time are opening the door to a dangerous ictice, says the president of the state Ameri- n Civil Liberties Union chapter, i^evious attempts in other countries to impose ns on "hate speech" have backfired against *se who sought the sanctions, said state chap- ^ President Bob O'Brien. ■i"Once you open the door to suppressing ffiought simply because of its content, it will nJtaately be turned against the weak. Charred crosses found JwmTER HAVEN, Fla. (AP) _ Sheriffs fcuties sought Saturday to find whoever placed fcrred crosses in the front yards of the only ■66 black families living in a subdivision out- Be this central Rorida community. Merits of lawsuit, Robinson's comments debated By RUDY ANDERSON Chronicle Managing Editor When the city/county school board took breaks during their process of eliminating election plans, a debate was in full swing in the hallway just outside the board room. Members of the NAACP, other African-Ameri can community leaders, and a local attorney were engaged in a verbal jousting match, debating the mer its of their respective positions. At the center of the debate stood Vernon Robin son, a man certain members of the NAACP engaged in the verbal battle, said they regard as a puppet for the white conservative power structure. Nathanael Pendley, a local attorney and expert in federal elections law with Womble, Carlyle, San- dridge and Rice, had just finished giving his research to the board on the outcome of the last election and what might have happened had African-American voters voted another way. He also told them that the judge selected to hear the suit had dismissed a similar lawsuit involving Moore County because the "opportunity" for representation existed. Pendley's view is the one that some board mem bers cling to in the hope the board will be able to defeat the suit. "What you are telling me is that I don't have a right to push for those I want to represent me," the Rev. William Fails said to Pendley. "I'm not saying that at all," Pendley said, "I'm just saying the system here is fair and that the opportunity exists for representation on the board." "That is what I have been saying all along," Robinson chimed in. "If you people had not insisted on telling little ol' ladies to vote a straight patty ticket, none of this would be happening. And you don't want to own up to the fact that these so-called leaders blew Please see page A10 Officer under investigation Police probe harrasment claim By RUDY ANDERSON Chronicle Managing Editor The Winston-Salem police department is once again looking into allegations that police officers used unnecessary force on a local man for no apparent rea son. The charges were raised by John L. Hunter of 1432 Hattie Avenue after an inci dent that occurred Friday, Mar. 15. Hunter, a lay mis sionary, who was recently recognized by the city for his "Bless the Children Outreach “I asked him to let me go, but he just kept pushing my arm up higher and higher” —John L. Hunter Ministry" a program providing activities to keep chil dren away from drugs and provide positive experi ences, said he was walking down Hattie from 14th Street and was just three doors away from his home when he was stopped. "A patrol car came up with two white officers in it and kind of parked in the middle of the street," Hunter said. "The officer driving the car approached me and said,'Step to the car with your hands up.' I replied, 'What's wrong, sir? I haven't done anything." Hunter said he made the same statement three times and that each time he asked the officer why. Hunter said the second offi cer got out of the car and said, "Cooperate." Hunter said he again asked what was wrong and that he had done nothing wrong. That is when he said an officer, B.D. Barnes, grabbed him by his right arm, twisted it up behind him until it hurt. "1 asked him to let me go, but he just kept pushing my arm up higher and higher," Hunter said. He claims another car with two more white offi- Please see page A11 Photo by L.B. Speas Jr. John L. Hunter says he was on his way home when stopped by the police. Los Angeles police boast about the King beating LOS ANGELES (AP) White police officers accused in the videotaped beating of a black motorist shrugged off the incident in messages over Police Department computers, with one policeman joking, "Oops." "I haven't beaten anyone this bad in a long time," a squad car messaged police headquarters. A transcript of the messages, released Monday, also contains what an investiga tor said appears to be a racial remark that was made shortly before several officers beat, kicked and shocked Rodney King while others watched. That message, sent from the patrol car of two officers charged with the March 3 beating, said an earlier domestic-dispute call the officers answered was "right out of 'Gorillas in the Mist,"' a movie about ape research. Mayor Tom Bradley and Police Com missioner Melanie Lomax blasted the officers' remarks as racist, while local civil rights advocates renewed their calls for Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to resign. Gates vowed he would not quit. "The people of this city have been slapped in the face by the attitude and bigotry of these officers," Bradley said in a statement. "The public must know how deep these prejudicial sentiments run in the LAPD," the mayor continued. "It is no longer possible for any objective person to regard the King beating as an 'aberra tion.'" Bradley, the city's first black mayor, is a former LAPD lieutenant. His statement did not indicate whether Bradley thinks Gates should resign. The mayor has long advocated a change in the city charter that would give him the power to hire and fire the city police chief. Lomax, one of five civilians appointed Please see page A11 ^flTnTiiiirTiYiWr Tirr m T
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