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Kids get hands-on
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Winston-Salem Greensboro High Point
Vol.XXVI No. 45
62201
LS DEPARU'-ENT
938 DAVIS LIBRARY
HAPEL HILL
L HILL NC 27514-8890
'3-DIGIT 275
The Choice for African American News
THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2
Tragedy led former president to new cause
BYT. KEVIN WALKER
THE CHRONICLE
Kenneth Kaunda
In Africa, AIDS is threatening to
destroy “the village,” the continent’s cen
turies-old concept of family, faith, morals
and respect.
That’s what one of the Motherland’s
most respected leaders believes, and it’s a
threat that he is not taking lightly.
“The social system in Africa was
strong enough that when people died,
their families would take care of the
orphans,” said Kenneth Kaunda, “But so
many people are dying across the board,
that’s no longer possible.”
Kaunda, the former president of
Zambia, is in the midst of an internation
al effort to stir up interest in the Kenneth
Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation,
an organization he is devoting all of his
time to since he left the world of politics
less than a month ago. The foundation’s
mission is to aid the orphans of Africa,
mainly those orphaned because their par
ents were victims of the AIDS epidemic
which has been especially vicious in
Africa.
“It’s a terrible epidemic,” Kaunda
said. “We have lost millions to AIDS on
the continent as a whole.”
Oddly, Winston-Salem was Kaunda’s
first stop on a sort of promotional tour
for the foundation. He arrived here June
10 and spent all of last week meeting with
church leaders, business and education
officials and notables like poet Maya
Angelou.
Winston-Salem will also serve as one
of four international headquarters for the
foundation. The others are in Lusaka,
Zambia’s capital city and Kaunda’s
hometown; Johannesburg and London.
Kaunda said he is giving so much
attention to Winston-Salem because
longtime colleague Robert Penney - an
Irishman who lived in Zambia for nearly
30 years - resides here. Penney will head
the local office.
Kaunda first began to think about
starting the foundation in 1986 while still
serving as president of the landlocked
nation. One of his nine children died of
the disease that year. Kaunda and his
wife, Betty, took on the responsibility of
raising the six children that were left
behind after their son’s death.
Kaunda became the first president of
an independent Zambia in 1964. He left
the presidency in 1991, and up until last
month, he headed the United National
Independence Party, one of the nation’s
See Foundation on A10
ODGES
CLE
is National HIV Testing Day. While some
the prospect of discovering if they are
h the fatal disease frightening, experts say
r all people, African Americans in particu-
sted.
s from the Centers for Disease Control and
show that 41 percent of new AIDS cases
American people.
Americans account for 37 percent of the
cases in the United States,
ng to the National Association of People
of the 650,000-900,000 people living with
three don’t know their status,
iderson, director of NAPWA, said the idea
ing day was born out of the concern for
did not know they had HIV.
onal testing was started in 1995.
; was talking about the advantages of test-
rson said. “A lot of people are afraid of
ionalHIV
ting Day will
to fight fear
ierson added, it is vital that people know
m is HIV positive and he said it was hard
nuster the strength to take the test.
/1 was at risk, but in my gut I didn’t want
is a scary feeling,” he said,
ling out one’s status allows that person to
treatment needed to combat the disease,
m added that the National HIV Testing
igned to normalize HIV testing.”
ijie said, it has been working,
liave been a number of signs (that people
tested). We find that during the week of
there is a higher number of people going
:s,” Anderson said,
ir, a church group in Miami got together
)0 people to be tested, he added,
eie last five years, Anderson said there has
tn';itude shift in how people handle getting
)ple see it as something you can control,”
1.
^derson acknowledges that there are still
wt people face when they consider testing.
If f people still don’t trust the test,” he said.
See Forsyth Health on AlO
Doing it yourself
Photo by Paul Collins
Regina Singletary takes a faucet apart and puts it back together again. Sylvia Neely looks on.
Locals leam how-to at clinic
BY PAUL COLLINS
THE CHRONICLE
During a how-to clinic on repairing and installing
faucets last Thursday night, Regina Singletary got a
chance to take a faucet apart and put it back togeth
er again.
Other participants in the clinic gave her moral
support.
“You make it look like you know what you’re
doing,” one of them said as Regina worked on the
project.
“You go, girl. You go,” said Bryce Wood of
Lowe’s Home Improvement store at Hanes Mall, one
of the instructors.
“What night do you want to start working?”
Steven Speer of Lowe’s, the other instructor, said
when Regina successfully completed the project.
Regina smiled broadly, and she received a round
of applause from the clinic participants and instruc
tors.
During a break, Singletary said she wants “to
leam how to do some minor repairs myself”
Last Thursday night’s clinic, at the Winston-
Salem Urban League, was the first of a series of how
to clinics sponsored by Lowe’s Home Improvement
and the Urban League for homeowners and potential
homeowners from Habitat for Humanity and public
housing.
“The Urban League along with Lowe’s Home
Improvements came up with this initiative as a result
of our president and CEO (Delores J. “D” Smith)
See How to on A4
Mayor Perkins:
Town’s down
but not out
BY PAUL COLLINS
THE CHRONICLE
Perkins
Alderwoman Joycelyn
Johnson introduced guest
speaker Delia Perkins - the
mayor of the flood-devastated
town of Princeville - at the
third annual anniversary cele
bration of the Black Leader
ship Roundtable Saturday.
Johnson described Perkins as a
small woman who “can
mooooove a mountain, can be
battered by the angry sea and
still hold on.”
Perkins then told Princeville’s remarkable story,
of devastation, determination and efforts to rebuild:
“The town of Princeville is a small town on the
Tar River that was founded by freed slaves....These
slaves came across after freedom and decided this;
was a place they wanted to call their own, and they
decided to stay. (They lived through) hardships of
flooding, of everything you can imagine that people
would encounter trying to start something anew,
trying to build a foundation. They stood, they
stayed, and Princeville is still there.
“On Sept. 16, we had a visitor from Florida. We
thought at first that it was torrential rains, and low-
lying flooding, that we would not have a thing to
worry about. After all, we do have that three-mile
dike that’s around the city of Princeville, which is 37
feet high. We just didn’t give a thought that we
would encounter flooding.
“But on Thursday night, after much labor
putting down sandbags and trying to decide what we
needed to do about the flood waters that were com
ing up through the storm drains, how to evacuate
citizens out, we decided to at least leave, then maybe
tomorrow morning, Friday, to come back and we
could clean up what was messed up and start all over
again.
“But this was not to happen. Floyd devastated
the town of Princeville to the extent that we had 46
feet of water within our town. Everything that you;
could imagine in the town was submerged under
water for 10 days. As I walked out to the bridge on
that Friday morning and looked across and thought
See Princeville on A9
])C hits home run with kids
T
WALKER
ICLE
rs of the Southside Com-
elopment Corp. say they
ilfilling their social duty
ghbors and community
lecided to initiate a part-
p'h city-owned recreation
^ le community.
is two years ago. This
tfitest fruits of that part-
le to bear. The Southside
buted about 65 baseball
center directors at each
enters in the Southside -
mter, Reynolds Rec Cen-
Garden Rec Center,
eet Rec Center and Bel-
. enter.
i forms were then present-
ung people who make up
baseball teams. They
ibr lie first time Tuesday
for the first game of the season in a
league made up of the five centers.
Cary Cain, president of the
Southside CDC, said the organiza
tion decided to secure uniforms for
the teams because the rec centers
provide positive outlets for young
people in the various communities.
He said the partnership with the
centers also shows that the CDC is
about more than “bricks and mor
tar.”
“As a CDC, we have a social
obligation as well as a financial
obligation,” Cain said.
The organization’s economic
obligation is often what gets most of
the attention, however. The CDC
has just hired a project manager for
the much talked about Happy Hill
revitalization project, which is
expected to transform the historic
community by adding new struc
tures and giving facelifts to others.
But the CDC is also aggressively
trying to make its mark on the social
front. Recently it has sponsored a
series of programs at the rec centers
aimed at building a stronger social
fabric in the community. Student
performers from the N.C. School of
the Arts, which is located in the
Southside, have staged perfor
mances at the centers at the CDC’s
request. The organization also
arranged for a circus group to make
a stop at one of the centers recently.
A CDC-sponsored workshop for
prospective home buyers was held at
the Sims Center just three weeks
ago.
The total cost of the uniforms
was about $1,600, Cain said. The
money was raised through corporate
donations and grants. Steve Mack,
treasurer of the CDC, began solicit
ing local businesses for money near-
See CDC on A10
Photo by Kevin Walker
Jacques Bitting, from left. Tiffany Richardson, Nicole Stewart, Jeffrey Richardson, and Anthony Aikens,
Jr. hold the new shirts for the teams. Also pictured in second row: center directors Brian Manns, from
left, and Bryant McCorkle; Beth Barnhill and Lemelia Bonner of the CDC; center director Ben Piggott. Back
row: from left, Cary Cain and Steve Mack of the CDC.
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