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Cfjarlotte
VOLUME 22 NO. 21
THE VOICE OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY
THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 6 1997
75 CENTS
ALSO SERVING CABARRUS, CHESTER, ROWAN AND YORK COUNTIES
Race summit timing ‘perfect’
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Charlotte leaders acknowledge
something is wrong - dreadfully -
with relations between the races.
As a result, they’re trying to bridge
the gap.
Charlotte City Council on Monday
decided to consider convening a sum
mit on “community relations and
racial harmony,” an idea presented by
Bill Simms, president of
TransAmerica Reinsurance.
“The timing is perfect,” said Simms,
an African American who has traded
pointed exchanges with white city
councilman Don Reid on matters of
race.
Simms suggested that November
may be a good time for the summit,
which could last two or three days
and involve local leaders and national
experts. The summit coiUd coincide
with race relations committees
formed by the Mecklenburg County
commissioners and the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg school board.
“We have a chance to be great. Let’s
not make the same mistakes others
cities have,” Simms said in a letter
sent to council before it’s retreat last
week.
In Charlotte, mention any issue and
it’s likely to have a racial imdertone.
The issues are mammoth: Failing
education. Soaring
violence. Drug
addiction. AIDS.
Abortion.
AfBimative action.
Such has been
Charlotte since the
Nov. 18 shooting of
an unarmed black
motorist by a white
police officer.
When Reid stated
Reid
publicly that he was afraid of young
black teenagers, emotions rose to the
surface which most would rather for
get. Organizers hope that perhaps
the Cooper shooting and Reid’s quote
will lead to the first open discussions
in years about the state of race rela
tions in this city.
Simms cited three factors pointing
to a “deepening racial divide” in a let
ter to the city council: the Cooper
shooting, Reid’s statement and the
recent pupil assignment of Charlotte
Mecklenbmg Schools students.
The reassignment “raised concerns
about a movement away from the
goals of integration that have long
characterized this community’s public
school policy,” Simms wrote.
See SUMMIT on page 2A
PHOTO/CALVIN FERGUSON
Businessman Bill Simms pushed for a summit
Panther
seeks
new trial
By Max Milliard
THE SUN-REPORTER
SAN FRANCISCO
Geronimo Ji Jaga, the former
Los Angeles Black Panther who
has spent almost 25 years in
prison for a controversial mur
der conviction, now has his best
chance ever to get a new trial,
according to his supporters and
attorneys.
Jaga, known as Geronimo
Pratt before renaming himself
in honor of a West African war
rior who fought against colonial
ism, was moved from his cell at
Mule Creek State Prison in
lone, Cahf., to Orange County
Superior Court for a hearing
last month. The hearing ended
in an wave of optimism among
his supporters who beheve that
this, his sixth attempt to win a
new trial, would be successful.
Santa Ana Superior Court
Judge Everett W. Dickey, who
presided over the hearing, has
ordered attorneys for both sides
to submit their final argmnents
in writing by Feb. 14. Then
Dickey will make his decision on
whether to allow a retrial.
There is no physical evidence to
connect Ji Jaga to the minder of
schoolteacher Caroline Olsen,
who was shot and killed on a
Southern California tennis
court by two assailants in 1968.
Her husband Kenneth took five
bullets but survived, and two
years later, from a set of pho
tographs, identified Ji Jaga as
the shorter of the assailants.
However, the jurists in the 1972
trial were not told that Kenneth
Olsen had previously identified
another man in a lineup as the
same assailant.
See JI JAGA on page 3A
PHOTO/CALVIN FERGUSON
African American men gathered In the heart of Charlotte’s black community last week for a 1,00(Hnan march against drugs and vio
lence. The rally was Intended to call attention to black-on-black violence and the need to stop it at the grassroots level.
Day of Healing to
follow march
PHOTO/OALVIN FERGUSON
Men prayed together for an end to violence and drug abuse
among African Americans.
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
The Rev. James Barnett is
calling for a Day of Healing for
Charlotte’s racial wounds.
The day is in response to the
shooting death of James Willie
Cooper in November by a
Charlotte police officer.
Barnett said the Day of
Healing on Feb. 16 will be pre
ceded by a closed-door meeting
Feb. 15 at Greater Bethel AME
Church on Grandin Road. On
Feb. 16, another meeting will
be held at Greater Bethel to
deal with black-on-black rela
tions, Barnett said.
Differing reactions in the
wake of the Cooper shooting
have split the AfKcan American
community.
See MARCH on page 2A
O.J. case
in black,
white
Civil case opinion
split along racial,
social lines
By Abigail Goldman
and Mary Curtins
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
Once again the outcome galva
nized and divided the natiA,
playing out as a surreal tale of
race and celebrity in America.
This time, though, as a mostly
white jury held O.J. Simpson
accountable for the deaths of his
former wife
and her
friend, it was
the black com
munity that
was left
somber and
cynical.
There was a
greater sense
of inevitability
among many
blacks inter
viewed Tuesday than was
expressed by whites in 1995,
when Simpson was cleared of
double-murder charges at his
criminal trial.
“I probably feel the way that
people felt with the first jury,”
said Kyrha Dahan, 38, an
African American acting teacher
outside the Magic Johnson
'Theatres in the Crenshaw dis
trict. “White people said...(a
mostly) all-black jury couldn’t
See O.J. on page 3A
Simpson
Town settled by blacks slowly going under
By Martha Waggoner
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PRINCEVILLE, N.C. -
Residents of this Edgecombe
County town are tired of the
mess that is their town govern
ment.
Now, they hope the state will
take over Princeville, a commu
nity settled by freed slaves at
the end of the Civil War.
“I hope and pray I see the day
the state government come and
take it in,” said Christine
Draughn, 74, as she walked
along a two-lane highway finm
her home to visit her grandchil
dren.
Sewage leaks into neighbors’
yards. Law enforcement is often
left to the county since there’s
only one police officer. Town
meeting have become finger-
pointing sessions.
Worst of all, Princeville’s
finances are in such disarray
that the state was expected to
take over management this
week, a first in North Carolina.
“To me, it is an embarrass
ment the way things are going
on,” said Emma Wilkins, 50, the
descendant of slaves. “Our fore
fathers fought too hard and too
long to establish this town to
come down to this.”
Town commissioners bicker
over balancing the budget of
$711,878 in this town 60 miles
east of Raleigh. The state
Treasury Department says
$124,000 needs to be cut.
Princeville has many financial
woes, such as its poor rate of col
lecting taxes. Fifty-two percent
of the residents had paid then-
property taxes as of the end of
the fisdal year, compared to an
average of 97 percent in other
North Carolina towns and cities.
Two weeks ago, the town
authorized spending $4,000 to
fix a leaky pump that spews
sewage into a street but didn’t
have the money in its account,
an accountant said.
While some residents say the
problems have been around for
awhile, many point their fingers
at town manager Charles
Tillman, who has held onto his
office since 1995 despite facing
charges that he canceled health
insurance premiums by present
and past town employees and
allegedly funnelled the money
into town coffers. His trial is
scheduled for Feb. 27.
“When I hired him, he used
two words. He promised he’d be
fair and firm,” said Mayor
Walter Plemmer, 74. “The only
reason we’ve gotten where we
have so far is because we had a
manager that's fair and firm.”
Plemmer said he believed the
town had improved since
TiUman’s arrival, but wouldn’t
give specifics.
'Tillman, a former cab driver,
restaurant manager and public
housing official, refused to com
ment.
Meanwhile, morale is down
among Princeville’s 1,900 resi
dents, the majority of whom are
black. State historians describe
the town as the oldest in the
country chartered by blacks, a
fact proudly proclaimed at the
top of the town stationery.
At the end of the Civil War,
the newly freed slaves of
Tarboro created the community
then called Freedom Hill or
Liberty HiU on the south side of
the Tar River. By the time it was
chartered in 1885, the town was
known as Princeville.
Inside
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