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THE VOICE OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY
THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 16, 1997
VOLUME 23 NO. 5
75 CENTS
ALSO SERVING CABARRUS, CHESTER, ROWAN AND YORK COUNTIES
Argument over desegregation heats up
PHOTO/HERBERT L. WHITE
The debate over busing for desegregating Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools is as controversial now as it was in the 1970s when the
U.S. Supreme Corut approved the practice in Swann v. Board of Education.
Busing’s last stand?
By John Minter
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Few issues have tom at
Charlotte’s social fabric like
where and with whom children
attend school.
Since federal judges ordered
racial desegregation 43 years
ago, parents have argued,
pleaded, and sued over school
attendance. Though that
debate usually pitted black and
communities against each
other, it now includes a grow
ing number of African
Americans opposing forced
integration.
Even some black integration
supporters admit that if iimer
city schools were better, they
too might consider an end to
busing.
“Until we eliminate the race
issue, we are going to be fight
ing that battle the rest of your
life and mine,” said Julius
Chambers, plaintiffs’ attorney
in the landmark Swann v.
Board of Education lawsuit
which OKd forced busing for
integration.
Last week,
Chambers’
former law
firm filed
motions
requesting
that the
Swann case
be reopened
in the wake
of a lawsuit
filed by
Chambers
a white southeast
Charlotte parent in September.
Bob Capacchione wants
Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Schools to stop using race to
determine where children
attend school.
UNC Charlotte sociology pro
fessor Roslyn Nickelson says
attacks such as Capacchione’s
grow fi’om the economic fears of
parents who see education as
the last remaining avenue to
maintaining class status.
‘You need to look at what has
been happening nationwide,”
she said. ‘In case after case,
people who bring actions to end
court-ordered desegregation
are linked to social conserva
tives who have a very defined
agenda.”
“Why, at this moment in his
tory, are people interested in
ending integration? Most indi
cators of racism are down.
“Most social scientists look at
status anxiety. People feel they
are threatened. Education has
become very important to sta
tus maintenance, and since
most people go to public
schools, parents are keenly
interested in maintaining chil
dren’s status and desegrega
tion of public schools has
become very target.”
Racism is still a factor,
Nickelson said, noting that
W.E.B. DuBois believed skin
color would be America’s most
difficult issue in the 20th cen
tury.
“I think the color fine will be
the question of the 21st centu
ry, too,” Nickelson said. “But
don’t discount the shifting
economy and concerns parents
have about social and economic
status.”
■ *1 \
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Kmp or
SCHOOr
PHOTO/PAUL WILLIAMS III
Anita Hodgkiss, center. Is the
lead attorney for plaintiffs In
the second Swann v. Board of
Education suit.
She noted the high number of
black parents who are con
cerned about who their chil
dren go to school with also.
“The way people put it to me
See SWANN on page 2A
Study: More
black kids slip
into poverty
By Herbert L. White
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Nearly two-thirds of Afidcan
American children five in poverty,
according to a report from the
Children’s Defense Fund.
The report, “Rescuing the
American Dream: Halting the
Ecoomic Freefall Of Tbday’s
Young families” showed that the
median income of black two-par
ent families has fallen by 46 per
cent in the last 24 years. In 1973,
the average black family with
children earned $19,153. A gener
ation later, it was making $10,380
- putting 64 percent of AfHcan
American children below the gov
ernment’s official poverty fine of
$11,821 for a family of three.
“The soaring poverty rates
among young families who are
playing by the rules and working
as hard as they can are shocking,”
CDF President Marian Wright
Edelman said. “If the fhnts of eco
nomic grovrth had been shared
equally among aU families over
the last 20
years, then the
typical young
family with
children would
have seen its
income rise by
15 percent
instead of
falling by 33
percent.
Strengthening
the economic future of young fam
ilies with children must become a
priority for eveiy sector of society.”
Median income for young fami
lies isn’t exclusive to black fami
lies, however. Whites saw their
income drop 22 percent and
Latinos 28 percent. In every
region of the country, 30 percent
to 49 percent of children in young
families are now poor. Only fami-
See POVERTY on page 6A
Congressman
Watts to speak at
Wingate Nov. 3
By Herbert L. White
THE CHARLOTTE POST
U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts will visit Wingate University next month.
Watts, a Republican from Oklahoma, will speak at 7 p.m. Nov. 3 at
Austin Auditorium as part of the Jesse Helms Center’s lecture series.
Previous speakers include Supreme Coiut justice Clarence Thomas,
Secretary of State Madeline Albright, the Dali Lama and former presi
dential candidate Steve Forbes. Helms, N.C.’s senior
U.S. senator, is expected to accompany Watts at
Wingate, located about 25 miles east of Charlotte on
US. 74.
Watts, the lone black Republican in Congress, is
considered one of the GOFs rising legislative stars.
As a conservative elected in a white-majority district,
he has been an outspoken proponent of balancing the
federal budget as well as other conservative causes.
Last month. Watt and House Speaker Newt
Gingrich annoimced a Republican initiative to
recruit AfHcan American voters to the GOP.
Watts
Additional plans for events in conjunction with Watts’ visit are incom
plete. Wingate officials expect he and Hefins will meet with young peo
ple involved with Charlotte inner city programs.
The Helms Center, which opened in 1994, consists of exhibits and
memorabilia donated by Helms as well as programs such as the Free
Enterprise Leadership Conference for high school students and a col
lection of senatorial papers for scholarly research.
Debate still rages over ‘95 march
By MaxMillard
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
As the nation approaches the
second anniversary of the MiUion
Man March, the National ■ Park
Service remains embroiled in a
controversy over its estimate of
the original gathering.
Shortly after the March, the
Park Service, which for more
than three decades has been
empowered by Congress to
release official counts of mass
gatherings in the nation’s capital,
released a figure of 400,000,
which was widely reported in the
media. One year ago, on the
March’s first anniversary.
Associated Press used the phrase
“at least 400,000” in its wire sto
ries to describe the count, on the
basis that the Park Service has
never abandoned its original
number.
But on Oct. 24, 1995, just eight
days after the March, the Park
Service signed the following state
ment:
“As a result of its meeting with
Dr. Farouk El-Baz at Boston
University this morning, the
National Park Service has con
cluded that the 400,000 number
can no longer be considered final.”
El-Baz is the director of Boston
University’s Center for Remote
Sensing, which came up with its
own figure of 837,000, plus or
minus 20 percent, based on pho
tographs taken at 3:15 p.m. The
march reportedly peaked between
1 and 2 p.m., but due to technical
problems, the Park Service shot
no aerial photographs between
11:30 a.m. and 3:15.
The Park Service based its
count on photographs of the
March’s epicenter, the National
Mall. Through advance arrange
ment, it turned oyer the original
negatives to the Center for
Remote Sensing, which digitized
them to make a higher quality
image than the prints. Then a
team of 10 research associates
and graduate students team
scanned them into their comput
ers and spent days analyzing
them. The Center traced the
boimdaries around areas of vary
ing densities, down to as low as
one person per 10 square meters.
Where individuals were clearly
visible, the researchers sat at
their computers and painstaking
ly clicked on the shadows corre
sponding to each marcher.
In the Oct. 24 meeting in Boston
with Park Service officials, which
lasted six hours, El-Baz demon
strated that their old counting
techniques were unscientific and
inaccurate.
“The reason we did not make a
stronger statement was because
we knew that the National Park
Service would not sign anything
to say that the government was
See ‘95 RALLY on page 3A
PHOTO/CALVIN FERGUSON
Controversy over the number of participants at 1995’s Million Man
March brought an end to Park Service estimates at demonstrations.
Inside
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Classified 12B
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