SUfTE DEALS
NBA Bobcats
open marketing
center to entice
buyers/8C
for sbc figures,
^ you can watch
^ NBA in luxury
CHARLOTTE
FLY’S GUYS
AND GIRL
Fallout from
WGIV closing
and simmering
controversy
over CMS
video/3A ;
PATIENCE PAYS
Vance High coach
develops top talent
in program/1 C
Gary Richmond
has Cougars
^ girls off to a
^ 1 strong start
Volume 29 No. 13
www.thecharlottepost.com
.61 no
Cliarlotte
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The Voice of the Black Community
Also serving Cabarrus, Chester, Mecklenburg, Rowan and York counties
THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 11-17, 2003
For love of
education,
heritage
Emmy-winning
actress, family out to
rebuild S.C. school
PHOTO/BRAINERD HERITAGE FUND
Brainerd Institute, which opened in 1866 under the auspices of
the Freedmen’s Bureau, educated thousands of black students
before it was closed in 1939. The only remaining building from
the campus is Kumler Hall (top), built in 1917. Actress Phylicia
Rashad bought the property in 1998 and turned control over to
her mother, Vivian Ayers Allen.
Watt
By Herbert L. White
herh.white@lhecha)iottepos!.com
Phylicia Rashad didn’t need
much encoiLragement to save
the site where Brainerd
Institute stood.
Her mother saw to that.
Vivian Ayers Aden, who grad
uated the black boarding
school in 1939, wanted to pre
serve the Chester, S.C., site.
She turned to Rashad, an
Emmy-winning actress who is
best known as Claire Huxtable
§*om the legendary TV comedy
‘^The Cosby Show.”
“She said ‘someone needs to
do something,”’ Rashad said. “I
knew what that meant.
Rashad
bought the
12.5-acre site
in 1998 and
turned control
to Ayers. Next
week, they’ll
host. a fund
raiser in
Charlotte to
take another
step in its
restoration.
“The Ivy of Education” benefit
and honors program will be
held Tuesday at 8 p.m. at
Queens University’s Dana
Rashad
Auditorium. Tickets are avail
able at the Afro-American
Cultural
Center or
Wialillian &
Company in
Charlotte. A
reception will
be held
Monday at the
Afro Center
and Levine
Museum of the
New South on
Tuesday.
Tickets for the Queens pro
gram are $50 each and contri
bution levels (with two tickets
Allen
included) are $250, 350 and
$500. A similar fund raiser was
held last year in New York.
“Already we have found more
candidates for the Ivy of
Education honors than we can
accommodate in any single
program,” Ayers Allen said.
“And so as a means of scaling
down our choices, we are
focused this time around on
achievements in dance.”
Among the honorees are
Charlotte Sting forward
Allison Feaster and a candle
light procession of Brainerd
graduates led by Mary Rose
Please see FUND RAISER/2A
Good-byes for 3
CMS veterans
Arthur Griffin, John Lassiter and
Wilhelmenia Rembert (left to right) bid
farewell to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
School Board Tuesday. Griffin and Lassiter
opted not to run for re-election and
Rembert lost a bid to keep her seat last
month. Lassiter won a seat on Charlotte
City Council.
PHOTO/CALVIN FERGUSON
Black voters ready to make amends for 2000 fiasco
By Hazel Trice Edney
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON - One popu
lar saying in politics recom
mends: Don’t get mad, get
even. Many African-Americans
are stiU mad at how the black
vote was undermined in 2000
- and they want to get even.
“I think there is still a lot of
anger out there after what
happened in Election 2000,
people’s votes not getting
counted,” observes Melanie
Campbell, president and CEO
of the National Coalition for
Black Voter Participation a
non-profit group of more than
80 organizations, which
encourages civic activism in
the black community. “This is
the very first presidential elec
tion that we’ll be faced with.
We’re going to do a media
launch right at the top of the
New Year.”
NCBVP is working with the
nation’s nine major black ffa-
teinities and sororities on a
string of voter registration pro
jects and with UniverSoul
Circus, a traveling black-
owned production, to urge
voter registration and turnout*
to their audiences. The
Washington, D.C.-based
NCBVP is also on the verge of
launching its Unity ‘04 project,
a coalition of a dozen black
organizations that will use
their collective strength to
implement a series of voter ini
tiatives leading up to the
November election.
With the election slightly less
than a year away, some groups
are already active.
‘Woting and registration
ought not be centered around
Please see BLACK/2A
wan bill
results in
HOPEH
extension
House, Senate approve
legislation to keep U.S.
housing program going
By Herbert L. White
herb.white@thechor}otteposi.a)m
A federally-funded low-income housing program
has a renewed lease on life.
The House and U.S. Senate have passed a biU to
reauthorize the HOPE VI program as part of the
“American Dream Downpayment Act” and that
President Bush is expected to sign
the biU into law soon. U.S. Rep.
Mel Watt (D-N.C.), who co-spon
sored the House version of the bill
with James Leach (R-Iowa)
announced Tuesday that the reso
lution includes much of the lan
guage originally introduced as
H.R. 1614, the “HOPE VI
Program Reauthorization and
Small Community Mainstreet
Rejuvenation and Housing Act of
2003.”
The legislation will reauthorize HOPE VI
through Sept. 30, 2006. The bill requires the pro
gram to give priority to applicants for funding
that create replacement housing for the poor and
minimize displacement of residents. The House
and Senate both passed the bill by unanimous
consent.
“I am pleased that Congress has recognized that
the HOPE VI program plays an important role in
improving public housing and revitalizing com
munities,” said Watt, a member of the Financial
Services Subcommittee on Housing and
Community Opportunity. “The passage of this leg-
Please see WATT/3A
Cincinnati beating
under investigation
By Tiana A. Rollinson
THE CINCINNATI HERALD
CINCINNATI, Ohio - Cincinnati NAACP
President Calvert Smith says his branch will con
duct its own investigation into the police beating
death of 41-year-old Nathaniel Jones. He joins a
chorus of civil rights leaders who say outside
scrutiny is crucial given the history of police bru
tality in Cincinnati and the nation.
“The pictures of what appears to be a defense
less Mr. Jones, being repeatedly beaten by arrest
ing officers.. .has caused us to launch an indepen
dent investigation of the circumstances surround
ing his death,” said Smith. ‘This is the straw that
broke the camel’s back.”
National civil rights leaders agree that the
death, called a “homicide” by the city’s coroner’s
office, must undergo outside scrutiny.
NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mflime has
called for a U. S. Justice Department investiga
tion into the circumstances surrounding the
videotaped brutal beating, shown on televisions
around the nation.
“The sight of police officers repeatedly beating
Nathaniel Jones with metal night sticks is sick
ening and appears well outside of the norm for
subduing an unarmed suspect,” says Mfiime of
Baltimore. “Attorney General John Ashcroft
should direct the Justice Department to not only
Please see CINCINNATI/6A
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