a i?M;e
Local activists not ready to boycott
Columbus businesses over shooting
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) - Local black activists say they
are not ready to heed Rev. Jesse Jackson's call for a boycott of
Columbus businesses over the city's handling of a fatal shoot
ing involving a white deputy and a black motorist.
Walker
Several local black community
activists said last Thursday they will sup
port Jackson's call for disinvestment in
city-based businesses only if city officials
don't meet their demands first.
The activists did not set a deadline for
the city to address their call for evidence
in the Kenneth Walker shooting to be
resubmitted to a grand jury
Last month, a grand jury opted not to
indict former Muscogee County sheriff's
deputy David Glisson on criminal charges
related to Walker's Dec. 10, 2003, death.
Walker, 39, was shot during a traffic stop
that was part of a drug investigation. No drugs were found in
the car he was in. Glisson was fired after the shooting.
A federal civil suit has been filed against the county by the
victim's family.
Jackson called for people across the country to pull their
money out of financial institutions based in Columbus until the
man who shot Walker is federally prosecuted and Georgia
adopts anti-racial profiling legislation.
But the Rev. Wayne Baker, president of the city's Interde
nominational Ministerial Alliance, said last Thursday that Jack
son's call was ill-timed. At the same time, he said the local
community is united in its goal to pursue justice for Walker and
Walker's family.
State agrees to review 1951
murder of Florida civil rights leader
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The 'state will review the
unsolved murders of two civil rights leaders killed when a bomb
exploded beneath their home on Christmas Day more than a half
century ago, Florida's attorney general said last week.
The move by the department's Civil Rights Division comes
after the Brevard County chapter of the NAACP asked that the
criminal investigation into the unsolved deaths of Harry and Har
riett Moore in 1951 be reopened.
The case previously was reinvestigated in the 1990s under the
administration of Gov. Lawton Chiles.
The Moores, registered black voters, opposed school segrega
tion and sought higher salaries for teachers. No one was ever held
responsible for the bomb that went off under their home in Mims,
in Brevard County on Florida's east coast.
Bill Gary, president of the North Brevard branch of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
said he hopes technological advances, such as DNA evidence,
may aid the investigation but acknowledged that the likelihood of
identifying the killers is slim.
BYU study confirms that
Oprah's picks are good as gold
PROVO, Utah (AP) - A new study confirms what many
already knew: Oprah Winfrey's book endorsements are good as
gold to publishers.
"Oprah's recommendations had a bigger impact on the sales
of books than anything we have previously seen in literature, or
seen since," said Brigham Young University economics professor
Richard Butler, whose findings were published in the latest issue
of the journal Publishing Research Quarterly.
Butler found thai Winfrey's recommendation was enough to
lift books from obscurity and to keep them on the best-seller lists
longer than other titles.
Using USA Today's weekly 150-item best-seller list, Butler
and his team of students went about examining the 45 nonchil
dren's titles Winfrey picked from her book club's inception in
1996 until she announced its end in 2002.
Of those books, only 1 1 had been on the best-seller list before
her recommendation, and none of them had gone beyond No. 25.
Of the first 1 1 books that Winfrey picked, all went to at least No.
4 within a week. Butler said.
D.C. murders down
WASHINGTON (Washington Afro/NNPA) - The 2004 mur
der rate for the District of Columbia decreased for the second con
secutive year with 1 89 homicides recorded
as of Dec. 20. Last year this time, there were
238 homicides. The reduction of 49 murders
represents a 20.6 percent decrease. With
only a few more days left in the year, police
officials were claiming a victory.
"This shows that our department is
doing what it takes to keep the numbers
down and our streets safe," said Lt. William
Farr, homicide division.
Of the 189 homicides, 62 victims were
black males in their 20s. That represented
the highest number of murder victims. Thir
ty-three murder victims were in their teens.
Ramsey
In January. I O-month-old Jeniya Myles became one of the youngest
homicides for 2004 when she died from blunt head impact trauma.
Martha Byrd, 78. was the oldest victim, murdered by strangulation.
According to Metropolitan Police Chief Charles Ramsey, there
are still 4.4<X) unsolved murders on the books since 1969. "At least
90 percent of these cases are solvable if witnesses would come for
ward." said Ramsey. This year's homicide closure rate is 58 per
cent.
Police officials also indicated to close more cases in an expedi
tious manner would require the District to invest funds in a fully
operational forensic lab. Currently. D.C. sends lab requests to the
FBI, which in most cases takes months to get results.
There were also 3 1 traffic fatalities that included accidents rang
ing from speeding; losing control of the vehicle falling into the
river, crashing into trees, poles; or not placing children in child
restraint seating.
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Reward offered in '64 murders
BY SHELIA BYRD
THE ASSOCIATED PRHSS
JACKSON, MLss. - The
Mississippi Religious Leadership
Conference believes a $100,000
reward will motivate someone to
reveal secrets kept since 1964
when three young men were
abducted and executed in Nesho
ba County for helping blacks reg
ister to vote.
The reward, an anonymous
donation, will be administered by
the MRLC, an interracial, inter
faith organization created 40
years ago in response to black
church bombings and the slay
ings of James Chaney, Michael
Schwemer and Andrew Good
man.
But k $100, (XX) enough
money to pry open the mouths of
those who can pinpoint the perpe
trators of the crime?
"I suppose it would help.
Money always does. People like
that are always looking for some
thing like that," Caroline Good
man, the mother of Andrew
Goodman, said in a telephone
interview from her New York
home.
Seven members of the Ku
Klux Klan were convicted of fed
eral civil rights violations in the
deaths and sentenced to prison
terms ranging from three years to
10 years. The state never brought
murder charges, and none of
those convicted served more than
six years.
The Rev. Paul Jones, execu
tive director of the MRLC. said
the reward comes at a time when
the state is gaining momentum in
its quest for closure in the mur
ders.
In June a multiracial task
force organized a well-attended
40th anniversary commemora
tion of the slayings in Philadel
phia. And Mississippi Attorney
File Photo
Members of the Ku Klux Klan are believed responsible for the killings.
General Jim Hood recently said a
reopened investigation of the case
will conclude by early next year.
If there is enough evidence
for murder charges, it will be pre
sented to a grand jury.
Hood has said his office was
interviewing as many people as
possible; the passage of time has
made that difficult.
"We can only hope and pray
that after 40 years that not only
would the amount of money, but
a change of heart and attitude will
bring forth somebody that has
knowledge of what transpired,"
Jones said.
Steve Wilkerson, a member
of the Philadelphia Coalition that
organized the June event, was a
12-year-old at the time of the
murders.
Wilkerson. a lifelong
Philadelphia resident, said the
reward and the coalition's efforts
show that some Mississippians
want justice, but he has doubts
about whether a reward will
uncover new evidence.
"If somebody is sworn to
secrecy, that might not even make
them bat an eye," Wilkerson said.
"It could open up the conversa
tion avenues and get people talk
ing about it. The more people
talk, the more opportunity there is
to get somebody to say what they
may not (have) intended to say."
In 1964 Chaney, Goodman
and Schwerner were Freedom
Summer volunteers.
Chaney, a 2 1 -year-old black
man, was from Meridian. Good
man. 20, and Schwerner. 24, were
from New York, and among hun
dreds of mostly white college stu
dents who came to Mississippi to
educate blacks and help them to
vote.
The three were going to Mt.
Zion United Methodist Church
just outside Philadelphia to inves
tigate a fire the night they were
murdered.
They were stopped by Nesho
ba County deputies but released.
They were stopped agaiu by the
Klan. The three were beaten and
shot to death; their bodies were
found later in an earthen dam.
"If there are people who par
ticipated in these murders who
haven't been punished, they have
had 40 yean of unjustified free
dom," said MRLC attorney
Wayne Drinkwater. "I think a
continued nonprosecution of this
case by the state is a stain on the
honor of the state."
Mfume says Bush wants to improve relations
BY GEORGE E. CURRY
NNPA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
WASHINGTON - Outgoing
NAACP President Kweisi
Mfume says President Bush is
baffled over his inability to win
broad support from African
Americans in last month's presi
dential election and appears deter
mined to improve his poor stand
ing in the black community.
Mfume, whose nine-year
tenure with the NAACP culmi
nates at the end of this week, met
with
Bush and
his top
political
adviser,
Karl
Rove, for
45 min
utes last
week in
the Oval
Office.
In an
inter
Mfume
view with the NNPA News Ser
vice that lasted as long as his
meeting with Bush, the civil
rights leader gave a detailed
account of his White House meet
ing. It took place on the same day
as an explosion at a U.S. base
near Mosul killed 22 people, most
of them Americans.
"I said to him at the beginning
of the meeting, 'Look we can put
this off and do it at a later time
because this is urgent " Mfume
recalled. "He said, i know. It's
distressing me, but I want to have
this meeting, and I want to have it
today. So let's go ahead."'
Mfume said he made it clear
to Bush that their meeting was not
a substitute for meeting with the
leadership of the NAACP and
that he saw it as a first step toward
repairing the strained relationship
between the president and the
nation's largest and oldest civil
rights organization.
Board Chair Julian Bond has
been particularly acerbic in his
attacks on Bush. In 2001 he
accused Bush of representing the
'Taliban" wing of the Republican
Party, and the following year, he
accused Bush of peddling "snake
oil."
Mfume's meeting with Bush
was in response to a letter he had
sent to Bush after the election
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seeking a meeting to set aside past
differences.
"The bulk of the conversation
centered on race relations - where
we are and where we aren't and
his belief that he has gone beyond
other presidents of modern times
or, for that matter, forever, in
terms of the number of African
Americans and Latinos that are
placed, not only in his cabinet but
all the jobs below the cabinet
level and that it's kind of strange
that that does not equate itself into
a large vote on Election Day."
Mfume said.
Bush has refused to meet
with the CBC since early in his
first term and became the first sit
ting president not to address an
NAACPconvention since Warren
Harding in the early 1920s.
Mfume says now that Bush
has met with him, the NAACP
needs an overture toward the
president.
"If the association wants to
keep this thing going, diplomati
cally, they have to send a signal,"
he said.
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