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The Chronicle
Volume41,Number32 WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. THURSDAY, April 23,2015
NORTH CAROLINA REDISTRICTING
Top U.S. court orders review of maps
BY GARY D. ROBERTSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
RALEIGH ?The U.S. Supreme Court
on Monday threw out a North Carolina
court ruling that upheld Republican-drawn
electoral districts for state and congres
sional lawmakers.
State.judges were told to look at
whether lawmakers depended too much on
race in drawing boundaries that increased
minority representation in Raleigh but also
boosted GOP fortunes.
In a two-sentence order, the justices
told the North Carolina Supreme Court to
revisit its decision last December uphold
ing the maps, and to review it in light of
the U.S. high court's decision last month
Residents are
working on their
neighborhoods
with assistance
BY DONNA ROGERS
THE CHRONICLE
The work might not be visible to the
public, but people concerned with improv
ing their neighborhoods are working with
nonprofits to help make their neighbor
hoods better.
Neighbofs for See more
Neighborhoods articles on Work
(NBN) and the mg on Neighbor
United Way have hoods on Page 2.
teamed up to help mbhmmbhmmmmhi
residents in some northeast Winston
Salem communities, and the S.G. Atkins
Community Development Corporation is
working with the Piedmont Triad
Regional Council and faculty of Winston
Salem State University on the Martin
Luther King Jr./Waughtown
Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative.
They are holding meetings and organizing
residents to determine what they want
their neighborhoods to look and feel like
and showing them how to work toward
getting what they want.
Both groups met with residents in
March to plan initiatives for April.
The United Way of Forsyth County
and NBN representatives met with resi
dents at the Carl Russell Sr. Community
Center on Carver School Road.
They said resident input and involve
ment are actively being sought to build
stronger, healthier neighborhoods in any ?
of the following neighborhoods: Bowen
Park, Cardinal Acres, Castle Heights,
Dreamland, Eastgate Village, Ebony Hills,
Ladeara Crest, Lakeside, Monticello Park,
Northwoods Estate, Prospect Park,
Spaulding Drive, and Wild wood Park.
Alana James, director of community
based collaborations with the United Way,
said, "These are the target areas for now."
She said the March meeting was
designed to bring people together to begin
to working as teams to help make their
communities better.
"So many people are doing great
things and don't know each other," James
See Neighborhoods on A2
involving Alabama
legislative districts.
In that case, the
justices ruled a lower
court used the wrong
test when it upheld
legislative districts
and determined that
race was not the pri
mary motivating fac
tor in drawing bound
ary lines. As in the
North Carolina case, critics of the Alabama
maps argued the Republican-led legisla
ture there illegally packed black voters into
voting districts that reduced their power.
"I'm pleased with the decision to
vacate the decision of the N.C .Supreme
Barber
Hants
C
Court," said N.C.
Rep. Ed Hanes, a
Democrat represent
ing District 72 in
Forsyth County. "Our
position from the
beginning has been
that the current dis
trict lines are uncon
stitutional. There
seems to be a clear
:onnection between
how the current lines are drawn and the
stacking of African-Americans into the
same districts. While this has resulted in
more African-Americans being elected, it
has also caused a drastic imbalance to our
party politic.
"Hollywood
offers you the roles
they want you to
do and not the
roles you always
want to do."
Photo by Erin Mizelle for The Chronicle
Film director Robert Townsend speaks to an audience attending an event during
the RiverRun Film Festival in Winston-Salem on Monday, April 20.
Burnett and Townsend
share their experiences
about the film industry
BY CHANEL DAVIS
THE CHRONICLE
An audience of roughly 50 people
shared laughter, experience and the love of
film with esteemed film directors Charles
Burnett and Robert Townsend on Tuesday
night, April 21.
The 2015 RiverRun Festival hosted
Townsend and Barnett for an in-depth con
versation, moderated by film producer and
professor Dale Pollock about the industry,
as part of the festival's 2015 Spotlight on
Black American Cinema, which looks
back at the works of black filmmakers
between 1971 and 1991.
Both have films featured at the festival.
Townsend, an actor-turned-director,
? has been nominated for over 30 NAACP
Image Awards and has directed
"Hollywood Shuffle," "Holiday Heart,"
"The Five Heartbeats," "The Meteor Man"
and "Eddie Murphy: Raw." He spoke
about his relationship with his mentor,
Sidney Poitier.
Townsend said he can recall reaching
out to Poitier shortly after he became
famous and having lunch with him. That
lunch, he said, has shaped him to create
positive roles for African-American's in
Hollywood.
"I asked him how he got to have digni
ty in the '50s when he was making his
movies. He said 'The power to say no. I
did not accept every role that came along.
I made sacrifices.^ That always stayed with
See RiverRun on A4
"The U.S. Supreme Court has asked
our [N.C. Supreme] Court to start over
with a different test for constitutionality,
and I agree with that position."
In both states. Republicans strength
ened their grip on power through redistrict
ing based on the 2010 census. North
Carolina Republicans, who took over the
legislature in early 2011, now hold 10 of
the state's 13 congressional seats and 108
of the 170 seats in the legislature.
Election and civil rights advocacy
groups and Democratic voters who sued
over the 2011 maps praised the justices'
ruling Monday, which came after they
asked the Supreme Court in January to
See Maps on A9
Rep. Alma Adams
to launch the first
ever bipartisan
Congressional
HBCU Caucus
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Greensboro ?U.S. Rep. Alma
Adams, a member of the House Education
and the Workforce Committee and
Subcommittee on Higher Education, will
launch the first-ever Bipartisan
Congressional HBCU
(historically black
colleges and universi
ties) Caucus.
The purpose of
the caucus is to high
light and address
unique challenges
that HBCUs face as
well as to make sure
their needs are heard
on Capitol Hill.
There are more
Adams
than 100 HBCUs in the United States,
with five HBCUs in North Carolina's 12th
District, which Adams represents..
She met with presidents and represen
tatives from four HBCUs in North
Carolina's 12th Congressional District on
Monday, April 20, for a candid and open
conversation about HBCUs.
The purpose of the roundtable was to
hear directly from local HBCUs about the
issues impacting their schools.
"As a former professor and alumnus of
an HBCU, they have long been a top pri
ority for me. which is why 1 wanted to
hear firsthand from the presidents and rep
resentatives before I officially launched
my Bipartisan HBCU Caucus," Adams
said. "HBCUs enroll more than 300,000
students every year and deserve to be
involved in the substantial discussions we
are having in Congress as we plan to reau
thorize the Higher Education Act. This
discussion today was insightful and will
help advance the interests of HBCUs as
we work to launch the HBCU Caucus,
reauthorize the Higher Education Act and
draft legislation impacting all colleges and
universities throughout America."
During the roundtable discussion.
Adams was joined by Livingstone Cojtege^
See HBCU on A9
Workshop features planning for end of life
Event is connected to Healthcare Decisions Day
BY TODD LUCK
THE CHRONICLE
Volunteer lawyers from the NC Bar
Association helped attendees plan for end of life
care at a workshop sponsored by Rowan Hospice
& Palliative Care on Friday, April 17 dt St. Peter's
Church & World Outreach Center.
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tiative, a partnership between Rowan Hospice,
Novant Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health,
which regularly holds workshops in the 13-county
region that Rowan Hospice serves. This workshop
took place a day after Healthcare Decisions Day
on April 16.
After an opening presentation, attendees got to
The workshop
was part of the
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consult with volunteer lawyers and have Hospice
clinicians answer questions about what end of life
care is like, helping them come up with a Health
Care Power of Attorney, which designates a health
agent to speak for you if you are unable to com
municate and a Living Will, which describes your
preferences on life prolonging treatment.
Many St. Peter's members were among the
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