Virginia Union is team to beat at 51st CIAA tournament/Page 8B
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VOLUME 21 NO. 23
FEBRUARY 22,1996
75 CENTS
Woodard
Changes
for state
NAACP
‘95 election results
are certified legal
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
There will be no new N.C.
NAACP election.
According to a Feb. 13 mem
orandum from the state chap
ter’s executive director, the
October election of new offi
cers, including Valerie
Woodard of
Charlotte as
second vice
president,
will stand.
Woodard,
who had
unsuccessful
ly run for
president of
the Charlotte
chapter in
1994, ousted Kermit Waddell,
also of Charlotte.
In the memorandum, execu
tive director Mary Peeler said
William Penn, director of
branch and field services,
upheld the election results.
Peeler quoted Penn’s letter:
“You are hereby advised that
the National Board’s Special
Committee designated to
review and resolve such dis
putes, has concluded that
although there were violations
of NAACP procedures in the
conduct of the election, the
results of the election would
not have been otherwise had
the violation not occurred. For
this reason, the Committee
determined that the results of
the election should stand and
so ordered.”
Woodard is among five new
officers who say they want to
take the state chapter in new
directions.
Z. Ann Hoyle of Hickory, the
former third vice president
who was elected treasurer in
October, said she’s ready to go
to work.
“I’m simply ready to do the
job I was elected to do,” Hoyle,
a Hickory City Council mem
ber who beat incumbent trea
surer James Florence of
Fayetteville, said Tuesday.
No board meeting has been
held with the new members,
Hoyle said. A Feb. 3 state
chapter meeting was cancelled
because of a snow storm. 'The
12th annual Kelly M.
Alexander Sr. Humanitarian
Award Banquet has been re
set for March 16.
State NAACP president
Kelly Alexander could not be
reached for comment.
Hoyle said Alexander is
responsible for setting the
next board meeting.
“The president announces
those,” she said. “We are wait
ing for that.”
See NAACP page 8A
Inside
Editorials 4A-5A
Community News 3A
Lifestyles QA
Religion 11A
Arts/Entertainment 1B
What's Up 5B
Sports SB
Classified 13B
To subscribe, call (704) 376-
0496 or FAX (704) 342-2160.
© 1996 The Charlotte Post
Publishing Company.
E-mail:
charpost@clt.mindspring.com
PHOTO/CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURQ HISTORIC LANDMARKS COMMISSION
People remember back to the
good old days in Brooklyn
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
When folks talk about
Brooklyn these days, their
eyes shin*- and their hearts
still flutter a bit.
It was a special place, they
say, where people cared for
people, especially the children.
Where teachers visited homes
and helped pay for drama cos
tumes and other school needs
they knew parents couldn’t
afford.
Where, as Ruth Sloane, says
in her choreopoem, “The
Second City,” ‘other people’s
chaps better not get caught
doing wrong: aunts, cousins,
to no relations at all would set
a chap straight at a drop of
hat. No talking back - uh uh -
no matter who you belonged
to...’
“The community was a close-
knit community,” said Curtina
Perkins Simmons, a Johnson
C. Smith University professor
whose family moved to
Brooklyn in 1942. “People
lived together like family. We
were a diverse group of people
struggling side by side with.
the same group of values, atti
tudes and basic beliefs.”
Simmons was about a year
old then and lived in Brooklyn
until at age 16, when her
mother and stepfather, Zoel S.
Hargroves Jr., moved to
Griertown.
“People just knew each
other,’ she said. “We were
made to feel very much a part
of that community. Our neigh
bors were very caring people.”
“I felt freer when I lived in
Brooklyn as a young person
than I do today,” Simmons
said. “Freedom is a state of
mind.”
Vermelle Diamond Ely
recalled that there was no
See MEMORIES page 8A
a special place in &harhtte 's black his terp;
Rose Love’s story
of ‘People Place’
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
PHOTO/CALVIN FERGUSON
Top: Business people of
Brooklyn In front of the
Queen City Drug Store on
East Second Street, c.1910.
Above; Ruth Sloane, writer of
“The Second City’’ used
some of Rose Leary Love’s
memoirs of Brooklyn In her
play, which opens Feb. 29 at
Theater Charlotte, which
commissioned the work.
(See story Page 8A)
It’s fitting that a school teacher would record the story of
Brooklyn, Charlotte’s Second Ward community of some 7,000
African Americans.
Rose Leary Love, who died in 1969, taught in Charlotte’s
schools for more than 40 years, at Biddleville and University
Park elementary schools and also taught one year in Indonesia.
She wrote poems, stories and books for children.
Love was bom in Brooklyn in 1898. Her father was a lawyer so
respected, she writes,, that the entire bar attended his funeral in
1904. Her mother and several other relatives were school teach
ers.
Through the years she recorded her thoughts and recollections
about “a people place.”
Her “warm and charming” memoirs have been published by the
Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The book,
titled “Plum Thickets and Field of Daisies,” will be released
Friday and celebrated with a reception at the Main Library
uptown.
“We own the original manuscript,” said Bruce Adams of the
See ROSE page 2A
IBM grant not worth as much as taxpayers put up
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
IBM’s $2 million grant to the
Education Village may not be
as good a deal as it appears,
according to Charlotte-
Mecklenburg school officials.
The Reinventing Education
grant, one of 10 across the
country, has been the subject
of dispute of late, since the
school board decided to allow
students from throughout
Mecklenburg County to apply
for admission. A third of the
four-school complex’s seats
will go to inner city students,
a third to nearby neighbor
hoods and a third to parents
who apply for lottery by
admission.
IBM has held up the grant,
contending its original agree
ment with the school system
stipulated that a third of the
seats in the Education
Village’s would go to children
of parents who work in the
University Research Park.
The school board made
minor changes in the pupil
assignment plan, but refused
in a 5-4 vote last week to limit
the lottery for the additional
seats to research park par
ents.
The school board will discuss
the issue again Tuesday and
board chair Susan Burgess
has tried to work out a com
promise with IBM.
But board member George
Dunlap said the board should
not back down. Support for
IBM was led by John Tate,
whose employer. First Union,
is expanding its presence in
the research park, along with
John Lassiter, Lindalyn
Kakadelis and Pamela Mange.
Burgess, Dunlap, Sam Reid,
Arthur Griffin and Louise
Woods voted against IBM.
“Everybody wants what is
best for our children,” Dunlap
said. “We want business part
nerships. But there’s some
misleading information when
people say ‘you are going to
turn your back on $2 million.’
“This deal they keep talking
about was a deal between
IBM and (former Supt.) John
Murphy. At no time did the
previous board vote on or
accept the deal.”
First, Dunlap said, the board
represents all the children of
Charlotte-Mecklenburg and
must be fair to everyone.
“I met last week with some
parents from Hidden Valley
who were upset that their kids
get split up (after elementary
school). They want their chil
dren to go to the Education
Village,” he said. “In the lot
tery process, those willing to
meet the stipulations, can at
least apply and have the
opportunity to go. If we give
IBM those seats, they are cut
off and don’t have the oppor
tunity to go.”
Second, the federal govern
ment grants to the school sys
tem’s magnet program require
that they be open to all stu
dents in the county. Third,
Dunlap said, the board cannot
bow to IBM when other busi
nesses have formed partner-
See IBM page 2A
Housing Authority salutes residents who overcame
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Former public housing resi
dent Shedrick Barber, now a
NationsBank senior vice pres
ident, was a below average
student until the seventh
grade.
Barber made the honor roll
each year after that, all the
time working in the evening
and at night.
“My mother told my brother,
my sister and me we would
have to help her help us,”
Barber said. “We would have
to get a scholarship to go to
college. That was my mission.”
Barber’s success story,
including a degree from the
University of Virginia, is the
kind other public housing resi
dents need to hear, says
Harrison Shannon, Charlotte
Housing Authority’s executive
director.
So he’s organizing a
Resident Alumni Association
of former public housing ten
ants who will not only inspire,
but work directly with current
residents to help them reach
self sufficiency.
“Nothing beats role models
Shederick Barber
and mentors,” said Shannon.
“This will truly build people
and move people through the
system quicker. They will be
encouraged on a lot of differ
ent fronts.”
The program kicks off
tonight with a reception at
Renaissance Place restaurant
on Tryon Street uptown. As
many as two dozen public
housing alumni are expected
to attend. The reception and
the alumi association are open
to former public housing resi
dents from anywhere, not just
Charlotte.
Barber is one of a half-dozen
public housing alumni slated
to be honored at the reception.
Others include: architect
and U.S. Senate candidate
Harvey Gantt, who lived for a
time in a Charleston, S.C.,
project; former Earle Village
resident Wialillian Howard,
owner of meeting planning
business and Charlotte city
employee; Charlotte-
Mecklenburg school board vice
chair Arthur Griffin, who
lived in Fairview Homes; Rev.
James Samuels of Little Rock
See HOUSING page 3A