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Falcons do well in Pee ESgflk^^BHy ? ' ' ; Suicide rates of blacks
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75 cents WINSTO?-SALEM GREENSBORO HlGH POINT Vol. XXVIII No. 1 5
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forsyth cnty pub lib 77?t' Choice for African-American \ews from thi& nt>r?rV
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WINSTON SALEM NC 27101-2755
Program
nurtures
minority
scientists
BY COURTNEY GAILLARD
THE CHRONICLE
A new research initiative called the Post
Baccalaureate Research Education Program
(PREPl hopes to boost minority representation
in graduate programs that award degrees in bio
medical sciences by recruiting students who
attend historically black colleges and universi
ties (HBCUsl.
PREP is a one- to two-year research pro
gram that otters stu
dents with bachelor's
degrees from HBCUs
such as Winston-Salem
State University and
N.C. Central University
the chance to prepare
for graduate-level sci
ence education. The
program aims not only
to increase minority
enrollment but to also
allow students the
Aileru
chance to experience a taste or Ph.D. course
work before applying for the degree.
PREP came to life after the National Insti
tute of General Medical Sciences awarded $2.1
million to Dr. Debra Diz. professor in the
Hypertension and Vascular Disease Center at
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Cen
ter. Diz, Who also serves as PREP director,
wanted to ease the transition for students from
smaller, traditional teaching schools to more
intense educational research institutions such as
WFU.
Exazevia Logan
was one of the first stu
dents to enroll in PREP.
Logan graduated from
WSSU in 1999 with a
degree in biology and
wanted to do more than
work in a lab after his
undergraduate studies
were ' completed.
Logan's interest in neu
roscience led him to
Logan
participate in PREP so that he could prepare to
apply to the neuroscience department at WFU
Medical school.
Logan attributes the rising number of
minorities who are medical professionals for
influencing aspiring medical students. He feels
that minority students realize that they are capa
ble of furthering their education to obtain posi
tions in science and research.
"Minorities now know they can become
doctors and lab technicians or whatever they
want to be in the field. The program is really
going to help minority students get their foot in
the door and make a transition into graduate
school and other professional schools," said
Logan, who believes PREP will bridge the gap
between WSSU and WFU by introducing its
programs to more minorities.
As part of PREP. Logan is working on
experimental research at the Piedmont Triad
St < PREP on A4
llioiO b> fcrvin Walker
Aquanetta Lowe, from left, looks through a scrapbook with Amanda Nails and Connie McVey.
There are pictures of Nails in the book from the time she came there as a pregnant teen.
Helping Hands
Agency helps
pregnant teens
dream again
BY T. KEVIN WALKER
nil CHRONK i i
Eight years after Amanda
Nails became pregnant at age
13. retlec,ting on the loneliness
and desperation she felt at that
time still brings tears to her
eyes.
Her relationship with her
mpther was strained. Nails
recalled, and once her friends'
parents found out that she was
expecting, her friends became
few and far between.
"People looked at me differ
ently because I was pregnant at
such a young age," Nails, now
22, said last week. "1 thought
tl>at people believed I was a
bad person and that I would
never amount to anything."
Help came for Nails in the
form of a flier tacked to the
wall of her school. It advertised
Han# to Hand, a Catholic Ser
vices program that since 1988
has helped first-time pregnant
teen-agers find their way.
"I took it upori myself to
call them." Nails said. "I need
ed a friend, someone to' talk
(with), and I found all that
here."
With clients such as Nails
among its alumnae. Hand to
Hand has developed a strong
local reputation and track
record of success that few other
agencies can match. Ninety
percent of the 100 or so girls
the volunteer agency helps
each year graduate, or are
attending school or working.
Nearly all the girls who take
part in the program receive pre
natal care. Studies show that
young mothers are the group
that most often goes without
prenatal care, sometimes, to the
See Agency on A4
'Colored' YMCA is 90
BY T. KEVIN WALK\ R
THE CHRONICLE
Wood, nails, bricks and mortar have been used
over the last century to create the various buildings
that have housed the city's "colored YMCA." But
longtime members and supporters say a durable
spirit of volunteerism and unity from the African
American community, especially in the Y's early
days, forms the heart and soul of the Y - an infra
structure that has held up even as the community
and the city changed immensely.
The Winston Lake Family YMCA. the name the
historic-Y now goes by, celebrated nine decades of
progress last Thursday during its annual meeting.
Current staffers, members and volunteers used the
occasion to reflect on the Y's trailblazing past and
contemplate its promising future.
"Everyone I have met in this community either
has been a member at one time, (has) volunteered
here or knows someone who is affiliated with the
Y." said Maurice Horsey III. the executive vice
president for the Y. "That tells me that thfs institu
tion has a real strong footing in this community."
Sec YMCA / A9
L ^ I
Photo by Kevin Walker
Maurice Horsey III addresses the audience at
last week's anniversary celebration.
Black
business
group
replaced
Members of the East Area
Council say they were
kept out of loop on plans
to convert organization
BY T KEVIN WALKER
THE CHRONICLE
Depending on whose I
reasoning you buy, the East I
Area Council has either been I
abruptly dismembered by
the president of the Winston
Salem Chamber of Com
merce without input from
the businesspeople that J
make up the council, or it has I
been merely "transformed" I
after discussions between
chamber staff and council
Belton-Brown
memners tailed to ooost
membership in the EAC.
What is certain and undisputed is that members
of the East Area Council, a wing of the chamber for
African-American businesses, were told last week at
Iheir monthly breakfast meeting that the chamber has
decided to create a so-called "Minority Business
Council" intended to reach out more to Hispanic and
Asian business owners. The proposed new council
will replace the EAC. which was formed more than
15 years ago.
Mose Belton-Brown. a successful insurance
agent who served as EAC president, said the news
was unexpected and a shock to most members of the
council.
"We were not happy because we really had no
input." she said. "We never saw it coming."
ixcui CMUIC dgcui anu
I:AC member Larry Biggs
said the decision to replace
the council came out of the
blue.
"That was the first time I
had ever heard about that,"
he said of hearing the news
at the meeting. "One would
certainly want to have more
time to digest a decision like
that."
Gayle Anderson, presi
dent of the chamber, said she
I -I I
Anderson
did not keep EAC members in the dark about plans
to revamp the group. She said about eight months
ago she met with the council's board to discuss her
concerns about attendance at EAC breakfast meet
ings. Anderson said attendance had declined steadily
while the West Area Council, which is made up
mostly of white-owned businesses, had seen
"growth" at its meetings.
"Maybe they don't remember those conversa
tions." Anderson said.
Anderson doesn't like talk about the EAC being
axed or disbanded. In her view, the council is mere
ly being changed. ^
Set EAC on A5
? .
AP/Pfwrto Kenneth Lambert
Doria Dee Johnson holds a picture of her great-great-grandfather Anthony P.
Crawford. Crawford, a wealthy black farmer in Abbeville, S.C., was lynched by a
white mob in 1916.
Black land taken violently
This is part two of "Torn f rom the
Land," a three-part series document
ing how black Americans lost their
family land over the last 160 years.
BY DOLORES BARCLAY
TODD LEWAN
AND ALLEN G BREED
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
As a little girl. Doria Dee Johnson
often asked about the man in the por
trait hanging in an aunt's living room -
her great-great-grandfather.
'it's too painful." her elderly rela
tives would say. and they would look
away.
A few years ago. Johnson, now 40.
went to look for answers in the rural
tow n of Abbev ille. S.C.
She learned that in his day. the man
in the portrait. Anthony P. Crawford,
was one of the most prosperous farm
ers in Abbeville County. That is. until
Oet. 21. I (> 16 - the day the 51 -year-old
farmer hauled a wagon-load of cotton
to town.
Crawford "seems to have been the
type of Negro who is most offensive to
certain elements of the white people."
Mrs. J.B. Holman would say a few
days later in a letter published by The
Abbeville Press and Banner. "He was
getting rich, for a Negro, and he was
insolent along with it."
Crawford's prosperity had made
him a target.
The success of blacks such as
Crawford threatened the reign of w hite
supremacy, said Stewart E. Tolnay. a
sociologist at the University of Wash
ington and so author of a hook on
lynchings. "There were obvious limi
tations. or ceilings, that blacks weren't
supposed to go beyond."
In the decades between the Civil
War and the civil rights era. one of
those limitations was ow ning land, his
torians say.
Racial violence in America is a
familiar story, but the importance of
land as a motive for lynchings and
white mob attacks on blacks has been
widely overlooked. And the resulting
land losses suffered by black families
such as the Crawfords have gone
largely unreported.
The Associated Press documented
57 violent land takings - more than
half of the 107 land takings found in an
18-month investigation of black land
loss in America. The other cases
involved trickery and legal manipula
te Land on A3
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