Blacks in Wax museum gets $5 million
BALTIMORE - The city's Great Blacks in Wax Museum will
receive $5 million to expand education and outreach programs under
a bill approved by the U.S. Senate.
The Senate approved the bill recently, fol
lowing approval by the U.S. House of the
measure to expand civil rights and violence
prevention initiatives at the nation's first wax
museum honoring African- Americans.
Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and Rep. Elijah
E. Cummings introduced the National Great
Black Americans Commemoration Act of
2003. The bill would add Justice Department
money to state, city and private funds aimed at
expanding exhibits, facilities and programs at
the museum, which drew 220,000 visitors last
year.
The $5 million is to be used to create a Justice Learning Center
where youths can leam lessons from the civil rights era and strategies
to stem community violence.
Museum founder Joanne Martin, a former educator, said the
learning center would help fulfill the museum's teaching mission.
Martin started the museum 2 1 years ago with her husband, Elmer,
opening in a 1,200-square-foot storefront before moving to a cav
ernous former firehouse. Once a $60 million expansion that began last
fall is completed, the museum will encompass 1 20,000 square feet,
Martin said.
H
Cummings
NAACP barred from organizing chapter
WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the oldest and laigest civil
rights group in the country lashed out at Catholic University of Amer
ica leaders Friday for not allowing the formation of a student chapter.
NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said the decision was "narrow
minded."
"It is outright discrimination and intolerance all rolled into one,"
Mfume said, just outside of CUA's campus
and surrounded by about 20 activists and stu
dent chapter leaders from other universities
According to Mfume, this is the first time
in decades that a university has attempted to
bar formation of a National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People student
chapter. He threatened to sue if the group was
unable to come to an agreement with the pri
vate Roman Catholic university.
CUA rejected an attempt by a student to
start a chapter in April, saying there are
already two main groups that represent black
students.
William Jawando, 2 1 . who tried to start the chapter, dismissed the
school's reasoning, saying there are no civil rights groups on campus.
Administratois also raised concern about the group's support of
the April 25th "March for Women's Lives," an abortion rights rally.
Official NAACP policy does not take a side in the abortion debate,
Mfume said.
The NAACP has chapters at 150 colleges, including Georgetown,
Fordham and St. Johns universities and Trinity College - all Catholic
schools.
Mfume
Federal government won't prosecute
Minneapolis officers in plunger case
MINNEAPOLIS ( AP) - A federal investigation has cleared two
police officers accused of putting a toilet plunger in a drug suspect's
rectum. Police Chief William McManus said Friday.
The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division found no evi
dence of "prosecutable violation" federal criminal civil rights laws,
McManus said at a news conference where he stood side by side with
one of the officers, Jeff Jindra.
Jindra acknowledged a cavity search was done during the Oct. 1 3
police raid on a Minneapolis home. But he said the raid included "no
struggle whatsoever. It was a run-of-the-mill crack house raid."
McManus said Jindra and the other officer, Todd Babekuhl. were
returned to full duty Friday morning. They had been suspended with
pay after the allegation surfaced.
Stephen Porter. 25. accused Jindra of assaulting him with the
plunger after a drug raid. It's not clear what role Babekuhl. who drove
Porter to the jail after the raid, played in the alleged assault. Both offi
cers had denied the assault allegations.
Porter stood by his story Friday, saying the investigation was a
cover-up of police brutality.
'Cops' re-invited to film in Cincinnati
CINCINNATI ( AP) - The "Cops" television show will chroni
cle the Cincinnati Police Department after all.
Police Chief Tom Streicher re-invited the Fox network program
on last week, six days after canceling an earlier invitation because of
pressure from City Council members who
questioned the show's impact on tourism and
the city's image.
Some council members said they were
concerned whether nationally televised
images of officers arresting people on the
streets could aggravate tensions that have lin
gered between police and some members of
the black community since the city's 2001
riots. :
Filming won't start for at least two
months. Streicher said he didn't want to take
the opportunity to be on the show away from
three other police departments that stepped into the void.
Vice Mayor Alicia Reece said she opposed the invitation to the
program because the city is still working to overcome the stigma of
the riots that happened after a black man was fatally shot as he ran
from police. She said showcasing crime in Cincinnati would do little
to improve its national image.
Reece. Councilman Christopher Smitherman and Councilwoman
Laketa Cole did not sign the memo to Streicher.
"They ('Cops') ... are going to be showing predominantly
African-American men being chased down by white officers."
Smitherman said. "And I'm saying I don't like that."
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Reese
Don King is touting Bush on
national tour with GOP chairman
BY MICHAEL RUBINKAM
I HI ASSOCIATED PRESS J
PHILADELPHIA - Wild-haired
and oft-investigaied boxing promoter
Don King is touring the country with
Republican National Committee Chair
man Ed Gillespie to promote President
Bush's re-election.
As King himself might say - and did
say at a stop in Philadelphia last week -
"Only in America."
The flamboyant, voluble promoter,
speaking to a group of black business
leaders at a downtown jazz club, touted
Bush's economic policies and said
Democrats have taken blacks' votes for
granted.
"People understand that George
Walker Bush is the man with the plan*^6
make America better," King, wearing an
American flag tie and plenty of diamond
encrusted jewelry, said to raucous
applause. "Sometimes, just sometimes, it
ain't too bad to be in the Bushes."
King might seem an odd choice for
Bush front man. He was convicted in the
1967 beating death of a mail who owed
him money and spent nearly four years in
prison. In 1954, he killed a man who was
robbing a numbers house he operated in
Cleveland, but it was ruled self-defense.
He has also beaten tax evasion and
fraud charges, faced numerous lawsuits
from boxers Ajind their handlers, and
endured three' grand jury investigations
and an FBI sting operation - all the while
cementing his status as one of the world's
top boxing promoters.
Republicans see King as a way to
reach the ever-elusive black vote.
"1 said to him, you know they are
going to come after us, they are going to
attack us. and they are going to try to
smear us," Gillespie said. "But the fact is.
See King on A10
AFP PHOTO/Stephen JAFFE
Don King cheers on President George W. Bush (seen on monitor) at the Republican
National Committee gala on May 5 in Washington , D.C.
Black Republicans question party's commitment
BY HAZEL TRICE EDNEY
NNPA CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON - As the
Republican Party tries to gain a
larger share of the black vote in
the 2004 presidential election,
skepticism over whether that will
haPPen
I comes
I from a sar
I prising
? source - -
I b 1 a-c k
I Republi
cans.
"I'm
not sure
[H they're
Fletcher going to
even try,"
said Arthur Fletcher Jr., former
assistant secretary of labor in the
Nixon administration. "Nixon
won the White House without a
black vote two times. Reagan won
the White House without a black
vote two times. Bush won the
White House without a black vote
one time. Bush junior has won it
without a black vote. When they
look at their dollars and realize
that the Hispanics are chomping at
the bits to get aboard, I'm not sure
they're going to make a bona fide
effort to attract blacks."
Republican Party Chairman
Ed Gillespie, who has been tour
ing the country with black boxing
promoter Don King, says he's
working to prove that the Repub
licans are serious about the black
vote.
"We want to do better than the
9 percent that President Bush got
in 2000. I'm confident we can do
that," Gillespie said. "The presi
dent has done a lot to reposition
INDEX
OPINION. .A6
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the party and reach out to African
American voters."
Gillespie says the "No Child
Left Behind Act," despite criti
cism that it's under-funded, has
resulted in higher test scores for
inner city students; the black busi
ness ownership rate increased 17
percent last year; and funding for
historically black colleges and
universities (HBCUs) is to its
highest level ever, a 40 percent
n
increase. "These things are all res
onating with African-American
voters as I travel the country."
But former Republican Sen.
Edward Brooke, the first black
elected to the U.S. Senate in the
20th century, is unimpressed.
"I saw some hope in Ed Gille
spie as the new chairman of the
Republican Party, that he would
recognize the need to make the
Republican Party inclusive and
open up its doors to black voters
and organizations," Brooke said.
"But in order to achieve that goal,
they've got to. from the very
beginning, make it known to
black voters that they stand for
issues, that they support issues
that affect the lives of black peo
ple. The Republican Party should
be far more representative of the
entire population. And it doesn't
Sec GOP on A9
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