2A
NEWS/ The Charlotte Post
Thursday, September 18, 1997
Enfield torn by race and class struggles
Continued from page 1A
In June, Hardaway, Whitaker
and Sledge presented a list of 14
items that have come to be known
as “Hardaway’s Demands.”
Besides a call for a 5.1 percent pay
raise for town etnployees, the
black lawmakers want to lift a
ban on double-wide manufac
tured homes within the city lim
its. And they want the town to
make good on a promise to extend
sewer service to homes lacking
indoor plumbing.
A snappy dresser, Hardaway
walks the streets of Enfield with a
swagger that attests to his brash
ness. The owner of a fimeral
home, Hardaway, 41, drives his
shiny black Lincoln Town Car
down some of the town’s poorest
streets. On Plant Street, a dusty
dirt road where none of the homes
have indoor plumbing, Hardaway
is welcomed by Mae Lee Jones, a
35-year-old mother of two who
has a crudely built wooden out
house that spills human waste
into her back yard. Foul odors
from more than a dozen outhous
es are . carried throughout the
neighborhood by drifts of hot
summer air. White five-gallon
buckets that serve as portable toi
lets when it’s too cold to come out
side are strewn about the yard.
The only water source is a single
garden spigot that Jones, an
Enfield native, says freezes in the
winter.
“It busts aU the time,” she said.
Jones heats with wood. Her rent
for the rundovm woodframe two-
bedroom house is $165 that she
pays from her $222 AFDC check.
Circumstances are the same for
Pamee Whitaker, who lives with
her teenage daughter one house
over from Jones. Pamee
Whitaker, who is not related to
Commissioner Whitaker, receives
an AFDC check of $236 that cov
ers her $155 rent.
Like a ‘plantation’
“By the time you get it in your
hand, it’s gone,” Pamee Whitaker
says of her monthly check.
“In 1989 the commission voted
to extend sewer service to Plant
Street homes by Dec. 1, 1991, a
promise never kept. White
Commissioner Mamice BamhiU,
the mayor pro tern, said the sewer
line has been held up by technical
problems and lack of funds.
Hardaway says only a lack of will
on the part of the white commis
sioners, who usually vote as a
bloc, has kept the residents of
Plant Street without indoor
plumbing. The ban on manufac-
ttrred homes also prevents people
from moving out of places like
Plant Street to more affordable
homes, Hardaway said.
PHOTO/PATRICK O'NEILL
Enfield Mayor E. Kai Hardaway has presented “Hardaway’s Demands” to the town’s white commis
sioners. Black members of the board want pay raises for town employees and sewer service to poor
neighborhoods. Enfield, a town of 3,100, is 75 percent black.
“This is as close as you can get
to being back on the plantation,”
Mayor Hardaway said. “People
are scared for us to be taking this
land of stand.”
The stand of the three officials
is not welcomed by most whites
asked to comment about the cur
rent standoff.
“I hope you get the other side of
the story,” town librarian Phyllis
Holliday said after seeing the
mayor a few doors down on
Railroad Avenue, the main down-
tovm street, “not just his side.”
Like Holliday, librarian Linda
Bimch can’t contain her antipa
thy for the controversy that is
bringing national media atten
tion to Enfield.
“Where is justice?” Bunch says.
“We just hate that our little town
is being ruined and it’s for no good
reason and we just hate it.”
Seconds later, Hardaway slips
into the hbraiy through a rear
door. The mayor’s Lmexpected
entrance while the hbrary is
closed for limch, surprises the
women, who immediately fall
silent.
“HeUo Linda,” Hardaway says
in an exaggerated loud voice.
When she acknowledges his
greeting, Hardaway says, “That’s
better.”
In a town of 3,100 residents — 75
percent of whom are black -
whites rule the roost. Although 29
of the town’s 49 employees are
black, five of the top adminstra-
tive positions - the higher paid
department heads - are white.
Only the head of recreation is
black, the lowest paid post of the
six department heads, said
deputy town clerk
Gloria Himter, who is black
Asked why so few blacks are
hired for top jobs. Hunter says, “I
wish I knew.”
Unusual action
In July at the request of town
attorney WiUiam F. Dickens, Jr.,
the Local Government
Commission, a division of the
state treasurer’s office, stepped in
to prepare an interim budget to
assure that payroll will be met for
Enfield employees. David
Lawrence, assistant director of
the Institute of Government at
UNC Chapel HiU, said the Local
Government Commission’s action
is likely unprecedented. The
agency has acted only once before
in the case of a town that
appeared to be insolvent,
Lawrence said.
“Best I can tell they’re breaking
new ground up in Enfield,” said
Lawrence, who has been at the
Institute for 29 years.
Dickens also asked a state
Superior Court judge to order the
mayor and two commissioners to
attend commission meetings.
After the three officials failed to
attend a commission meeting by
July 25 as ordered by Judge
Richard Parker, the judge issued
an order to show cause that could
have resulted in the three being
jailed for contempt of court. That’s
when Durham attorney Paul
Green came on to represent the
three black lawmakers.
In August Judge Parker agreed
to a conference call with Dickens
and Green, who had filed a
motion on behalf of the three offi
cials asking the judge to dismiss
the matter. Green argued in his
motion that the dispute was polit
ical in nature and should not be a
matter of concern for the judicia-
Pratt blames FBI for long prison sentence
Continued from page 1A
Committee chairman Henry
Hyde have refused to comment on
the call for hearings.
Since his release from prison in
May, Pratt now calls himself
Geronimo ji Jaga, which stands
for “the people of Jaga,” an
Afiican tribe that committed sui
cide to avoid being enslaved.
He was charged in 1970 in the
murder of schoolteacher Caroline
Olsen, and spent 27 years behind
bars. But Pratt, who has claimed
he was at a Black Panther meet
ing in Oakland at the time of the
1968 murder, said he is not bitter.
Behind the movement to clear
Pratt’s name are FBI documents
known as COINTELPRO, which
indicate that the FBI tried to cre
ate dissension within many radi
cal groups, particularly the Black
Panther Party.
“The idea was to covertly
change the direction of the move
ment,” Pratt told The Oakland
Tribime from his Marin City
home. “COINTELPRO was so
insidious that they were able to
use people and put on this facade
of legitimacy.”
'The FBI allegedly sent infiltra
tors to disrupt the groups by
starting rumors that someone
was an agent or promoting con
frontations with other radical
groups.
Pratt, who remains fi^ on bail
while prosecutors decide whether
to retry the case, said he is con
vinced his case was a prime
example of more than 200 COIN
TELPRO initiatives aimed at
crippling the Black Panther
Parly.
Despite a 1975 report and a vic
tory in a dvil suit settled in 1984
against the FBI and New Haven,
Coim., pohce for illegal wiretaps,
COINTELPRO has largely b^n
ignored, said scholar Donald
Freed, who is working on a book
about the Panthers.
Pratt said the time has come to
discuss the full extent of the FBFs
activities.
“It was an understanding we
had as prisoners. Whoever got out
first would carry this message,”
Pratt said.
Last week, Pratt took his case
for COINTELPRO hearings to
Washington, D.C. He and his
longtime attorney, Johnnie
Cochran, met with the
Congressional Black Caucus to
discuss pushing the hearings.
Besides DeUums, others calling
for hearings include
Congressman Bobby Rush, D-IU.,
himself a former Black Panther;
Congresswoman Maxine Waters,
D-Los Angeles; and state Sen.
Barbara Lee, D-Oakland.
The FBI said it could not talk
about the case or COINTELPRO.
“The Elmer Pratt case is still
pending litigation and we re pre
cluded from discussing it,” Angela
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“American democracy has long
recognized a legitimate sphere of
political contention in the legisla
tive branch, including the fih-
buster, the refusal to sign a bill...
and the refusal of a conunittee
chairman to schedule a hearing,”
Green wrote in the motion. Green
also contends that Dickens has a
conflict of interest because techni
cally he is supposed to represent
the interests of aU of Enfield’s
elected officials. Hardaway said
Dickens never consulted with any
of the black elected officials before
taking legal action against them.
Dickens has since dropped the
case against the three, but he has
refused Hardaway’s request that
he resign.
Allies in NAACP
NAACP president Skip Alston,
himself a Guilford County com
missioner, said he personally
applauds the tactics being used in
Enfield by Hardaway, Whitaker
and Sledge. Alston said the state
NAACP is committed to helping
with voter registration efforts as
well as a get-out-the-vote effort on
election day when Hardaway and
Sledge are up for re-election and a
former Enfield black poheeman
Tbny Barnette is running for a
third seat against white commis
sioner Harold Sullivan.
Alston said the NAACP is also
considering a discrimination law
suit against Enfield for denying
sewer services to taxpaying resi
dents - both white and black
“Tm hoping that ifU work out,
and we can all come together and
do what’s right for the citizens of
Enfield,” Whitaker said.
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Bell said from FBI headquarters
in Washington.
Former FBI agent Wes
Swaringer was the first person to
teU one of Pratt’s attorneys that
the principal witness against his
client Julio Butler - was an mfor-
mant. He said the Pratt also was
on an FBI list of key black
extremists.
“Hoover had basically said it’s
OK to frame people and that any
way to get these Panthers is OK,”
Swaringer said. “It didn’t matter
if there is evidence to back up
charges.”
Former U.S. Attorney General
Ramsey Clark also supports such
hearings.
“The Panthers emerged out of a
time when the pain of racism was
extremely intense,” Clark said. “1
viewed suppression of the
Panthers as a greater threat to
the nation than the Panthers
themselves could be.”
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Westside fixture sold for $1.25 million
Continued from page 1A
since her husband’s death.
The once-thriving restaurant
attracted diners from throughout
the community and of all races
and ethnic groups. The facility
has declined since McDonald’s
death in 1995 and the $1.25 mil
lion bid contrasts with debt of
nearly $3 toilHon.
Monday’s sale was held by
Amresco, a former NationsBank
subsidiarywhich held mortgages
on the property along with the
city of Charlotte. 'The mortgages
covered loans used to expand the
complex by adding the 100-room
hotel and Fun City amusement
center.
Amresco representative Brad
Pearce could not be reached for
comment on who bid on the com
plex and what would happen to
Fun City, which remains in
Amresco hands after it got no bid
ders Monday.
Several groups have tried to buy
the McDonald’s complex before
and since its founder’s death, the
latest being the Gantt-led group.
Others efforts failed, including
competing bids which led to a
physical confrontation between
Charlotte city council member
Malachi Greene and business
consultant Troy Watson.
Sources had said that if Gantt
acquired the property, FDY
Catering owned by Floyd Young
would take over the restaurant’s
operation.
Any owner would be expected to
renovate and upgrade the facility,
sources said.
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