Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / Nov. 25, 2004, edition 1 / Page 6
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OPINION The Chronicle ERNEST H. PlTT Publisher/Co-Founder Elaine Pitt Business Manager T. Kevin Walker Managing Editor Kay STULTZ Production Supervisor CPMO AUOfT PENDiNti 104004 Amalgamated ? North Carolina NMCHMII Amalgamated Press Association Publishers, Inc. File Photo Darryl Hunt has been out of prison for nearly a year : Other things to be thankful for At this time of year, we all give thanks for the obvious things - life, health, family and all the other good stuff. As you sit down on Thanksgiving to enjoy dinner with family and friends, there are a few other things that we should be thankful for as well. ? Soon Darryl Hunt will cele brate the one-year anniversary of his release from prison. As most of us know. Hunt, an African American. had served nearly 20 years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted of murder ing a young white newspaper copy editor. The racially charged case caused the rift between blacks and whites in the city to grow even wider. Since being released on Christmas Eve of 2003. Hunt has led the way in try ing to heal old racial wounds in the city. He has adopted a never ending schedule of public appear ances. speaking out about the wrongs of the past and his hope for a better tomorrow. Let's also be thankful that city leaders are not content to let bygones be bygones in terms of the Hunt case. Mayor Allen Joines has held a series of racial healing forums so that the public can vent about the case, and the city is promising a full investiga tion to probe how an innocent man could have been chatted with a crime that he had nothing to do with. ? Regardless of if you are a Democrat. Republican or other, we all should be thankful that election season 4s over. This year's campaigns seemed to drag on for most of the year and as we got closer and closer to Election Day, they seemed to get nastier. In the last few weeks, you could not turn on your television without seeing some form of mudsling ing. Politicians must realize that for many people, they are like the annoying cousin we see only on Thanksgiving: We can take them only in very small doses. It seems as if dirty campaign ads have replaced old-fashioned cam paigning. Can anyone remember when politicians actually came to our churches and community meetings and asked for our votes? Now. they put out minute-long commercials touting issues that we could care less about, and we are supposed to swoon. Give us a break. ? Speaking of Election '04. let's be thankful that there is a provision that limits the number of times a person can run for re election. Because of that provi sion. we know that President Bush will not be on the ballot in 2008. Can we get an amen! The majority of Americans may think that Bush has done an excellent job. But those people should keep in mind that as they sit down at their well-stocked holiday dinner tables, on Bush's watch the have nots in this country have grown to record numbers. The president has priorities but none seems to revolve around the have-nots, just the "haves" and the "have mores." groups that Bush once infamously referred to as his base. We should all say a prayer at the Thanksgiving table that Bush's next four years will not be like his first. The country cannot take more job losses, debt, increased poverty levels and unjust wars. ? There are some who realize that many people are having a rough time economically in city, and they are doing somf thing about it. We should all be thankful that we have local lead ers who are fighting for jobs for our area. The wide range of elect ed officials and business, educa tional and religious leaders who lobbied for the Legislature to pass an incentive package to bring Dell to the Triad deserve our grat itude. Their efforts will ensure that next year's holiday season will be a lot merrier for people who may be searching for a job this season. We all hope that Dell will be the first of many first-rate companies that will come to our area to provide our people with the jobs they so desperately need. CORRECTION An article about the *rtudent make-up at Winston Salem State University that appeared in the Nov. 11 issue of The Chronicle incorrectly stated the percent age difference between male and female students. There is a 40 percent difference between the number of female and male students on the campus since males make up only 30 percent of the student body. - Letters to the Editor GOP and Christianity To the Editor: I was absolutely amazed and shocked after the election at the number of people in this country that believe that George W. Bush and the Republican Party uphold the values of Christians. I have been a proud Bible-believing Christian for most of my life, and I see nothing that the Republican Party or the presi dent h?s done as Christlike. T^e Jesus I know would never support a policy that would allow for the rich to get* richer and the poor to get poorer. Jesus took one loaf of bread and fed many people. George W. Bush put more people in poverty and gave millions of dollars to rich peo ple. The Jesus I know would never support a man who allowed millions of people, many of them children, to lose health-care benefits. The Jesus I know tended to and healed the sick and wounded. The Jesus I know would never support Assault weapons that are only meant to kill people, although the Republican Party, including Sen. Dole, overwhelmingly supported assault weapons. The Jesus 1 know taught love and compassion for all people. . Sincerely, Marcus Brandon Greensboro Thanks, supporters Tb the Editor: I wish to thank the voters of Forsyth County for allow ing me to continue to serve as your District Court judge. Special thanks to those who put Roemer' signs in their yards, who represented me at the polls on Election Day. who contributed financially to my campaign and to everyone who worked so hard behind the scenes. As I have over the past eight years, I will continue to do my best to administer the law fairly and impartially to justify your support. I also wish to thank my opponent for runningLa positive campaign. I am proud to be part of our judicial system and to work every day with so many talented and dedicated profes sionals. Victoria L. Roemer District Court judge Thanksgiving 2004 Armstrong Williams Guest Columnist As most Americans are tempted by the sweet scents of turkey and cranberries this holi day season, the family and friends of those American sol diers in Iraq ami Afghanistan will be grappling with unbear able loss. Perhaps we should all pause a moment for perspective, and give thanks for America and the American way of life - a way of life that is bound up in the Bill of Rights, a way of life that treasures those basic freedoms that we associate with happi ness. such as the freedom to bet ter oneself, to determine one's own fate, to pursue happiness on one's own terms, and most important, the freedom to be left alone. I have in the past used this space to writa that America's success has macjp its citizens comfortable to thopoint of com placency. I have warned that this sort of decadence leads to the fall (Exhibit A: Rome). Perhaps, in retrospect, the point was overstated. After terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania countryside, we were not complacent, nor did we fall. In the days following Sept. 1 1 , groups of people vol unteered for the armed services. Many are in Fallujah right now, killing strangers, running in the face of enemy fire, and ignoring the sight of friends as they crumple to the ground. There is a scene in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" in which a young man has his arm blown off. He stumbles around, gazing at his shattered limb, unsure of what to do. War is confusion. War is detached horror. I men tion this only to point out that those Americans who are endur ing this horror do so to preserve man's best, his institutions of freedom, democracy, and indi viduality. As we consider what to be thankful about this year, it hard ly seems enough to remember these soldiers in cliched terms of gallantry. It is not enough to reduce the service of our patri ots to an excuse for a really big sale or 9-1-1 memorabilia - as do store merchants. It is not enough to dilute this holiday with ostentatious displays of consumerism and pageantry. Not this year. This Thanksgiv ing should he about coming together in a large comnkunal ritual to reinforce the notion that these soldiers, 'that these ($9P'e have actually died - and that they died to strengthen our indi vidual freedoms. Some of those American soldiers came from the inner city. They grew up on welfare. They had few opportunities, but they volunteered to fight for an idea so powerful that it moved many of them to die for their country. What cannot be forgotten is that which is best about this country, rests on their shoulders. With that in mind, I offer these simple words of thanks. www.arinstrongwilliams.com Why I fell in love with WSSU | Tom Terrell Guest Columnist This past September I com pleted my two-year term as chair man of the WSSU board of trustees. For me. it was an unlike ly and unexpected journey. WSSU is not my alma mater. I'm not from Winston-Salem. Previ ously. 1 had never ever been on the campus. 1 was asked to serve only because members of the UNC board of governors were looking in 1999 for a new trustee who was neutral in the controversy over a previous chancellor's tenure. It was my first civic blind date. But along the way a funny thing happened. I fell in love. I fell in love with the universi ty's history - a school that started With nothing but big dreams and a few benefactors, but succeeded- in the same way the little engine did - because it thought it could. I fell in love with the body of alumni who invariable described their careers not as their way of making an income, but as the way they served. I fell in love with the universi ty's student body. When the stu dents stayed seated at football halftimes to show support for their marching band. I noticed; when they cheered loudly and proudly for student soloists at university events, I noticed; when they vol untarily showed up at convoca tions celebrating the school's her itage. I noticed; and when they dressed up - often in matching outfits - for special university occasions, I noticed. File Photo This new clock tower now sits in the heart of the campus. I fell in love the school's ener gy: six new graduate degree pro grams: a redesign of campus geography to accommodate the growth of students and programs: a number-one ranking among all of North Carolina's state universi ties each year for the past three yean in student applications and acceptances because the word on the street is that this is the place to go; a number-one ranking among public, comprehensive colleges in the South by the prestigious U.S. News & World Report for the fourth consecutive year. And finally, I fell in love because of Mysteena. Mysteena was a young woman from Queens, New York, and a fresh man in Dr. Dolores Paylor's edu cation seminar when I visited the last class of the semester in fall 2003. Five minutes before the bell, Paylor informed the class that Mysteena would like to share with the class in song. She calmly approached the front of the room and said. "I was having trouble deciding which song to sing, hut I've now decided to do Believe in Yourself from the musical "The Wiz."' With no accompaniment, exposed to the world, and no one there to catch her if she fell, Mys teena sang beautifully. At other colleges or universities, the auda cious act of stepping forward to share in song would have been met with rolled eyes, smirks, maybe a few catcalls, and even by students who were "too cool," taking the opportunity for an early exit. But Mysteena's fellow stu dents jumped to their feet and cheered. I stood as well, but my hands were busy wiping the tears out of my eyes before anyone noticed. Mysteena had already inter nalized the spirit that pervades this campus. She had learned that this is a nurturing, caring place, where you can dare to be who you are and become what you want to become. So. thank you. MJsteena. Thank you, alumni, for sharing your histories and y6ur stories. Thank you. administration and staff, who patiently helped me find campus buildings and didn't laugh when I would ask the things that insiders knew. Thank you. Chancellor Harold Martin, for leading us into a period of renais sance and for showing us how to make WSSU a school of national stature. And thank you, students, for inviting me to your programs and dinners, for remembering me when we passed on campus, and for taking time to talk when those unexpected moments arose. It's been a great journey, and one that I hope has only just begun. Tom Terrell a past board chair of the WSSU Board of Trustees.
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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Nov. 25, 2004, edition 1
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