1 HURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1992
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75 cents
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FULL AWARDS COVERAGE . . . SEE SECTION C
42 PAGES THIS WEEK
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Holy Temple Church prepares for
2nd annual convention.
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Winston-Salem Chronicle
'The Twin City's Award-Winning Weekly'
VOL. XVIII, No. 23
Chronicle announces '91 Man
and Woman of the Year Awards
By SA MA NTH A McKEN?IE
Chronicle Staff Writer
The Winston-Salem Chrori$ple
announced its 1991 award recipients, flam
?ing Benjamin Ruff in, Man of the Year;
;Irene Hairston, Woman of the Year; and
Mattie Peebles, Community Service
Award.
Ernie Pitt, editor and publisher of the
Chronicle said this is the tenth year the
paper has sponsored the event. Pitt said he
was glad that the community got involved
by sending in the nomination lorms and
recognizing those in this city who are mak
ing positive contributions or support to the
betterment of Winston -Salem.
"The Chronicle is very pleased to give
these people public recognition for the
work they've done that, for the most part,
sometimes goes unnoticed and unrecog
nized," he said. Other award winners are:
Sara Lee Corporation, Corporate Citizen
Award; Maggie Edwards, Officer B.H.
Stone and Yvonne Jefferson, Public Safety
Please see page A6
Sylvester Hodges stands In front off some of his artworks on display at Jefferson Elementary School.
Some of his artworks Include portraits of Michael Jordon, Malcolm Xf Martin Luther King Jr., Michael
Jackson, and Janet Jackson.
Hodges displays artwork
at Jefferson Elementary
School custodian moonlights as artist
By YVETTEN. FREEMAN
Community News Editor
As you walk into the front entrance of Jefferson
Elementary School, straight ahead at the end of the
hallway is a glass showcase filled with colorful por
traits of several celebrity figures ? Martin Luther King
Jr., Malcolm X, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson,
Michael Jordan and many others. Each piece, done in
crtU* pftoril, is such a true representation of the-partieu
lar individual, one would probably assume that they
were done by a professional artist. Or, since they are on
display at tfte Sch06t~, one would might assume thai a
very talented student at the school is responsible for the
artwork.
However, surprisingly, neither is the case. The por
trait are the work of 28-year-old Sylvester Hodges,
who is the custodian at the school. Hodges began dis
playing his artwork at the school a little over a year ago
at the request of the school principal.
"I was overwhelmed to do it for him," said
Hodges. "1 had pictures at home, it was just me show
ing them and displaying them. I change them every
month and try to keep new ones up there."
* Hodges, who has never taken professional art
classes, keeps about nine artworks in the showcase at a
time, and as a result, he has received quite a bit of
exposure, which has led to a little extra pocket money. ^
lie says that parents and teachers alike, have cow
missioned him to do artwork for them, for which he
only charges a small fee. His commissioned works have
included portraits- of sradenisrdogsancrother antmats
and even houses.
"From all of this, I have learned how to take criti
cism for my artwork. Criticism doesn't upset me
because it makes me want to do better and better," he
" Please see page A6
ON THE
AVANT-GARDE
By TANG NIVRI
more bad news
r . V "Worse off than last year," according to a
recent report on the state oftA^'ABkerica.
worse offgBjjit year. Anybody sur
prised? I all seven
teen of these reports but Td be willing to bet that
.:i each one of these studies wwnsyot the sane
thing: blacks were worse off than in the previous
ph* iMinr - >*%?*? ?' ?. -v :
r*t? JTvW? t< f *? . ' -' i j - ? f , >
j??'V. Makes you want to hold onto the past doesn't
it? Really, if wc keep this up, we are going to
R wind up where We came from.
5 r/|C?^OIher put it this way, "Since MUC
; -Id il, hi.i ?: h ? <
^desert just like the Israelites; lost, trying to get
6 home except somebody done stipped on the
^tonifcpifypass we haffl*
' iwiillf ntial year, black folks
will be i liiiira|jpj|ffi|ii nil in i as other Amer
. iedp^be we better off this year than we Mp
last year? The difference for us is tMlJf
$ beaipf.lif.TrW otherwise ? we'd
g never be allowed to say so. ? ;
what tappens when yoo are the minorfft, .
: You don't dare say that you are better off bccause
Kifyoudo, you might jeopardise your principal 1
' funding source ? white Nfaijtt^lfco Will take
jj* their money, wealth, power and influence and
move onto the next needy and lewdest wagon. ?
P It's a heUava position to be fc^on canYjeatyy;
? point top loudly *> your successes for fear that
I people will declar^that you have already^nade
fa ; For example, the latest statistics from the
> Jik ? that '
ISsBSl **???
Three schools suspend the most
Student poverty, economics cited as key reasons
By SHERIDAN HILL
Chronicle Staff Writer
The principals of the three elemen
tary schools with the highest rates of
suspension point to student poverty and
economic conditions as a key reason.
From August 26 - November 22 this
year, Bolton Elementary School used
suspension six times as often as most
schools. Two other elementary schools,
Mineral Springs and Ibraham, have used
suspension at twice the average rate.
These three elementary principals
explain the suspensions by pointing to
the economic status of the misbehavior.
Children living under the poverty level
and children who do not have a parent
home during the day were cited as the
most likely to be suspended.
"We suspended a few more kids
than we normally would have. We recog
nize it was a high number. The assistant
principal and 1 are trying to reduce that
number," said Bolton principal, William
Honeycutt.
Last year Bolton suspended more
than three times as many students as
other schools. Bolton is 59% black, and
Honeycutt said that nearly 200 of the
500 students are bussed from Kimberly
Park and low-income East Winston
neighborhoods. He stresses that for the
past two years, he did not use corporal
punishment, and says that the recent sus
pensions were an unusual situation.
Of Bolton's 30 suspensions in the
past three months, 26 went to black chil
dren. Last year, out of 77 days of suspen
sion, 67 went to black children.
Honeycutt's request to the school
board for disciplinary resources includes
two home-school coordinators who
would work with children who misbe
have, particularly children who would
otherwise have been suspended. The
home-school coordinators would spend a
half-day tutoring the children and build
ing self-esteem, and would also spend
time working with parents and teachers
regarding the child's progress.
Last year, Mineral Springs suspend
ed nearly 10 percent of its students and
Bolton suspended nearly 9 percent of its
students. Most elementary schools sus
pended 2.7 percent of their students last
year.
When corporal punishment was
used, Ibraham and Mineral Springs pad
dled more than twice as many children
as other schools. On November 7 the
school board voted to ban corporal pun
ishment effective January 22.
Please see page A6
Minorities need district representation
By SHERIDAN HILL
Chronicle Staff Writer
Critics say North Carolina's voting
rights picture has been turned upside
down, with the "gerrymandering" tactics
that once hurt minority candidates giving
way to gerrymandering on their behalf,
but the state NAACP says there is only
one issue: compliance with the 1965
Voting Rights Acl
Mary Peeler, director of the state
NAACP, is adamant that North Caroli
na's 100-year history of white congress
men warranted a second minority dis
trict
The voting rights act says minori
ties of the population can elect a candi
date of their choice," said Peeler. "That
could not have happened the way the
districts were drawn."
But critics such as William Van
Alstyne, a Duke University law profes
sor disagree. "Inadvertently, we are
almost driving back toward segregation,
and people who want to build bridges
more with the Voting Rights Act than
just give minorities the chance tcf vote.
There was a lot of discussion then about
"The voting rights act says minori
ties of the population can elect a
candidate of their choice . . . that
could not have happened the way
the districts were drawn."
- Mary Peeler
are almost precluded from building
bridges by laws such as this."
Dayna Cunningham, a staff attorney
at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said
that, in 1965, Congress was trying to do
blacks electing the representatives they
needed to get their roads paved, have
their schools improved and generally fix
their own problems, she said.
Joseph L. Rauh Jr., a retired lawyer
Mary Poetw
f
in Washington who was a major voting
rights activist, disagreed* saying
Congress didn't focus on redisricting in
1965. The real issue then, he said, was
whether the federal government would
stop Southern states from interfering
Please see page A6
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