Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / Sept. 16, 2004, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Los Angeles pastor to retire from influential black church LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Rev. Cecil "Chip" Murray, pastor of one of the most influential black congregations in Los Angeles for 27 years, is retiring from the pulpit. Murray. 75, will give his final sermon at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church on Sunday. A Florida native. Murray came to the ministry after serving in the Air Force and soon became a prominent voice in the local black community. He helped organize volun teer groups to rebuild the city after the 1992 riots as well as community housing projects and neighborhood patrols to fight gang vio lence. Murray "You have been a great shepherd in our city and shown a humility that has . been an example to all of us." Mayor James Hahn said. Former President Clinton, mired in the controversy over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, came to First AME to seek forgiveness and received Murray's blessing. Nelson Mandela spoke there after his release from prison in South Africa. Murray is also credited with increasing the church's membership to nearly 17,300 from 300. Two years ago. he underwent surgery for prostate cancer. Sunday's service will follow a ceremony designating an area in front of the church in his honor. NAACP headquarters blocks Cleveland chapter's invitation to education secretary CLEVELAND (AP) - The state NAACP has withdrawn a con vention speaking invitation to U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige at the request of the group's national office. Paige, who was invited three weeks ago to discuss education reforms, was cut from the weekend program at the request of the national office. Ohio NAACP President Sybil Edwards-McNabb said last Thursday. The state meeting of the National Association for the Advance ment of Colored People opened Friday in Cleveland. Edwards-McNabb said national NAACP leaders told her there was an "imbalance" in her slate of convention speakers. She said she had invited President Bush and the Democratic nominee for presi dent. Sen. John Kerry. Bush agreed to send Paige, she said. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke at Friday's opening session, represented the Kerry campaign, said Brendon Cull, spokesman for the campaign in Ohio. The NAACP national president. Kweisi Mfume, said Friday night that he was unaware of who in the national office might have sent a directive to withdraw the Paige invitation. Mfume said the NAACP doesn't withdraw invitations based on partisan issues. Jackson booed at Baptist convention NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Members of the nation's largest black church group booed U.S. Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson when he said during a speech last Thursday that the Republican Party IF committed to helping blacks. Jackson, who is black, appeared at the annual meeting of the National Baptist Con vention USA a few hours before Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry was sched uled to appear. A few of the men in dark suits and women in bright dresses, most of them middle-aged or elderly, laughed derisively at Jackson's com ment. Then a quiet chorus of boos started, and went on about a minute. When it showed no signs of ending, the parliamentarian. Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen. Jackson stepped to the podium. "My brothers and my sisters, let us allow ourselves to be the peo ple of dignity that we are." he said. "We need not agree." he continued, to scattered, quiet amens. "But we need not be disagreeable." The same people said amen again. Jackson spoke only briefly after that. He did not cut his speech short, he told The Associated Press. He said he had expected boos. "I am pleasantly pleased that I didn't get more," he said. "I have spoken in churches where I got called names." The National Baptist Convention USA, based in Nashville. Tenn.. has 7.5 million members. About 30,000 were registered for the con vention. but only about 1.000 were in the hall for the speech. Funds sought for Central's anniversary LITTLE ROCK (AP) - U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor is urging his col leagues to approve $5.8 million to complete construction of the Little Rock Central High School Visitors Center in time for the 50th obser vance of the school desegregation crisis. The Democrat from Arkansas, who attended Central High in the 1970s, spoke last Thursday on the floor of the Senate. He introduced a resolution that called for the completion of the Visitors Center in time for the 2007 observ ance. The school was designated as part of the national part; system in 1998. In 2(X)2. more than 24JXX) people vnttsd the historic site, with estimates^)! a potentiajJ)D.(XX) visitors by 2007. But Etyor saidJhe National Park Serv ice last year decided the project should not be a pri ority. Pryor said the Visitors Center has only 5(X) square feet devoted to exhibits, allowing a capacity of about 35 people. The center needs more space and more resources to fully tell the story in the early Civil Rights Movement, he said. Fifty years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation was illegal. In September 1957, Little Rock became the testing ground for school desegregation when then-Gov. Orval Faubus used troops to block nine black students from attending classes at Central High. The Chronicle (USPS 067-910) was established by Ernest H. Pitt and Ndubisi Egemonye in 1974 and is published every Thursday by Winston-Salem Chronicle Publishing Co. Inc., 617 N. Ljfcerty Street, Winston-Salem. NC 27101. Peri odicals postage paid at Winston-Salem. N.C. Annual sub scription price is $30.72. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Chronicle, P.O. Box 1636 Winston-Salem, NC 27102-1636 Letters link between Thurmond, daughter THE ASSOCIATED PRESS COLUMBIA, S.C. - The carefully worded letters lack any thing personal, but show a lifelong link between the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond and his long secret biracial daughter. Essie Mae Washington Williams. For all their businesslike tone, the letters show Thurmond took an interest in Williams' life and the lives of her children - his grandchildren. Among 8 million pages of Thurmond documents archivists are preserving, the earliest known letter between Thurmond and Williams was in April 1 946, The State of Columbia reported Sun day. Publicly. Thurmond was at the time a segregationist, opposing any mixing of races. Privately, he had a child with a black woman and kept in touch with his daugh ter for decades. Their correspondences - most from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s - are among me laie senaior s let ters and documents archived at Clemson University, his alma mater. The records include Father's Day, Christmas and birthday cards from Williams to Thurmond. They also reveal Thurmond's ongoing efforts to help Williams and her family. Dan Carter, a University of South Carolina historian, said the letters are valuable because they help document Thurmond's "bizatTe double life of maintaining contact with someone who is your flesh and blood - important to a KRT Photo Essie Mae Washington Williams and her attorney answer questions at a news conference. Southerner - yet at the same time managing to separate that com pletely from your politics." By having a child with a black woman, Thurmond violated taboos on interracial sex, Carter said. At the same time, he was a leading segregationist. The new records will help "historians try ing to figure out who Thurmond was," Carter said. Last December, 55 years after her mother died and six months after Thurmond died, Williams publicly announced Thurmond was her father. Thurmond's rela tives accept her claim as true. Ulti mately, her name was added to a monument honoring Thurmond that lists his other children. Williams said she was bom Essie Mae Butler on Oct. 1, 1925, the result of a liaison between the then-22-year-old Thurmond and a black maid in his parents' Edge field house. Carrie Butler. Butler was 16 at the time, Williams has said. Early in his 48-year Senate career. Thurmond instructed Williams to write "very personal" on the outside of envelopes of her letters to him. Staffers put letters with that notation on his desk unopened. "These were more or less business letters," Williams told cThe State. "There was never any thing personal in it. Of course, my reasoning behind that was, in case See Thurmond on A9 Obama: Abandon ' One Black Syndrome ' BY HAZEL TRICE EDNEY NNPACOKKI SPONDEN1 WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Candidate Barack Obama. singled out for his exceptional speech at the Democratic National Conven tion in Boston, says blacks have moved past the need for a single national leader. "We're beyond the point where we just have one messi ah," Obama says in an NNPA interview during the Congres sional Black Caucus' Annual Legislative Conference. "What we need is collective leadership helping to move the ball forward. I think everybody's got a contribution to make." The 42-year-old Illinois state senator, former civil rights lawyer and Harvard law school graduate, became a household word after his rous ing primetime speech. Some pundits immediately hailed Obama as the "Tiger Woods" of politics and predicted that he will eclipse Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in popularity. "There are people like myself, who hopefully can work within an institution like the United States Senate and do important work," he says, rejecting the notion that African-Americans riiust choose between him. Jackson or Sharpton. "There are going to be other people like Rev. Sharpton. who will be using a different platform. And I don't think those things are contra dictory. Rev. Jackson is a con stituent and family friend, and he was an important early sup porter of my campaign. I con tinue to draw from the wis dom and knowledge of those who paid enormous sacrifices to help people like myself Attention Homeowners Homes 1 year and older need to be checked for termites " A flea circus is a good act but termites to bring a home down. " Call Triad Pest Control 1535 S. Martin Luther King Drive Winston-Salem. NC 788-3020 INDEX OPINION. A6 SPORTS. SI RELIGION. 86 CLASSIFIEDS B9 HEALTH. C3 ENTERTAINMENT.. ..C7 CAUNDAR. C9 have the opportunities that I do." Ubama s quicK rise outside his home state has caused political observers to scruti nize him closely. "The rap in Chicago was that he was not black enough. And so, that's still going to be a lingering ques tion." says Univer sity of Maryland Political Sci entist Ronald Walters. "But his legislative record tells you Obama that he has been good on pro gressive legislation. He seems lo Be a lib eral. He seems to have really taken some time to deal with urban issues." ? Walters did not always hold this opinion. He admits he was among the first to question Ohama's racial alle giance because of the belief lhal he had been a belief that Obama had been a member of Ihe Democ ratic Leadership Committee, a centrist group that works to move the party to the right. "It was said that he was sort of a paper member of it, but that was to give himself some entrde," Walters says. "My interpretation was that he was covering all bases with the Democratic Party." Obama declares that no such relationship with the DLC ever existed. "The Black Commentator, the Web site, saw my name as one of the I CM) up-and-coming that the DLC had listed and assumed that somehow that Sec Obama on A4 The employees of Sara Lee Branded Apparel invite you to a RUMMAGE DATE: LOCATION: a HOURS: Saturday. Sept. 18 UVM Coliseum Winston-Salem (off University Pkwy.) 8 a.m. - 3 n.m. 3SS35B&-U. clothing from Hanes, Leggs, Champion, Playtex, Wonderbra, Bali, barely there and Just My Size. ALL PROCEEDS BENEFIT THE UNITED WAY OF FORSYTH COUNTY
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 16, 2004, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75