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MESSAGE RECEIVED
NCCU schoolmates are
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Communications/8C
Junelle Gist, Stacy
Robinson and Altavia
Floyd measure speech,
language abilities
Volume 29 No. 23
www.thecharlottepost.com
$1.00
Whe
The Voice of the Black Community
WEEK OF FEBRUARY 19-25, 2004
Barber-Scotia students
leam to deal with upheaval
By Chens F. Hodges
FOR THE CHARLOITE POST
PHOTOMADE NASH
Students at Barber-Scotia College continue
with classes despite the sudden resignation
of two top administrators last week.
CONCORD - With the
sudden resignation of
Barber-Scotia College’s
top administrators, some
students are concerned
about the school’s future.
On Sunday afternoon,
while students dined on
turkey wings and mac
and cheese, some of them
worried about the next
step for the school after
President Sammie Potts
and Vice President for
Academic Affairs
Alexander Erwin quit
earlier in the week. No
one has released details
as to why they left, but
board of trustees chair
Ella Scarborough of
Charlotte asked individu
als and businesses to sup-
See STUDENTS/8A
lake on
Health
dispaiity
targeted
inbiU
Would close
treatment
gaps for
underserved
By Herbert L. White
hcrh.\\‘hite@thecluirloitepo.si.a>ni
A bipartisan bill intro
duced this week in Congress
would reduce or eliminate
health dis
parities for
racial and
ethnic
minorities
and under
served popu
lations.
The
Closing the
Health Care
Gap Act was
announced at a news confer
ence this week with promi
nent health
professionals
and advo
cates from
Frist
Landrieu
minority
health orga
nizations in
attendance.
The bill
was intro
duced by
U.S. Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist
(R-lfenn.) and senators Mary
Landrieu (D-La.), Thad
Cochran (R-Miss.) and Mike
Dewine (R-Ohio).
“This legislation is the
most comprehensive nation
al initiative to address dis
parities in health care access
and quality,” said Frist, a
physician. “A gap does exist
in health care today. While
we’ve made great progress in
recent years, there are addi
tional steps we can take to
improve, expand, and
enhance quality care for all
Americans. This legislation
builds on our past work, cap
italizing on the innovative
ideas of health care profes
sionals and researchers
today.”
‘TJnfortunately, the gap in
the quality and availability
of health care is real, but it
can be closed with good plan
ning, effective targeting and
See BILL/ZA
Haiti upheaval has
impact on America
payday
loans
By Hazel Trice Edney
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
On the surface, Sandra Harris appears to have
it all together.
She’s the financial assistant to ihe director of
finance at UNC-Wilmington, her alma mater.
Last year, she was named state employee of the
year. In addition to her university job, she is an
on-air personality at WMNX 97.3 FM.
But Harris is in deep financial trouble, often
turning to high-interest payroll loans to make it
from week to week.
“There are some times that I’ve been at the radio
station and, this is no lie. I’ve been working on air
and I am blubbering off the air. And when it’s time
for me to talk, I just do my...This is your girl,
Sandra. Right now outside, it’s da, da, da,
da’.. .Then turn the mic off and I go back to crying.
Nobody knows I’m crying.”
Harris is crying and ciying out for help. And she
is not alone. Thousands of people are also caught
in a web of payday loans, according to a study con
ducted last year by the Durham.-based Center for
Responsible Lending, a non-profit think tank.
“Borrowers who find themselves involved with
the industry very often find themselves caught in
what we call the debt trap of payday lending,”
says Keith Ernest, a researcher at the center, who
co-authored the study. ‘When we looked, borrow
ers, on average, received eight to 13 payday loans
per year. We’ve talked to borrowers who have paid
thousands of dollars in fees. We conservatively
estimate that predatory payday lending fees,
those extracted from borrowers caught in a debt
trap of repeated transactions, cost U. S. families
$3.4 billion annually.”
The payday loan industry defends its practices,
saying the loans are promoted as being for emer-
See PAYDAY/6A
REUTERS PHOTO/DANIEL AGUILAR
Haitian armed rebeis patrol a street in Hinche Tuesday. Armed rebels attacked and took control of
the city as the rebellion against Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide continues.
School resegregate
a half-century after
Brown decision
Unrest a concern for U.S. immigrants and policy
By George E. Curry
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
By Herbert L. White
herbMhire@lliecharlortepost.com
Harold Eustache expected Jean-
Bertrand Aristide to deliver pros
perity to his native Haiti.
He was wrong.
Eustache, who moved to the U.S.
in 1972 and has
lived in Charlotte for
12 years, still has
family and friends in
Haiti, which is
engulfed in an upris
ing against Aristide,
who was elected
president in 1990.
Despite campaigning on the
promise of relieving the Caribbean
nation of crushing poverty, the for
mer priest hasn’t been able to
change the country’s fortunes.
WSOCTV
news
connection
See IMPACT/2A
WASHINGTON— As the country celebrates the
50th anniversary of the Supreme Court “Brown v.
Board of Education” decision outlawing segrega
tion, schools in the United States are becoming
increasingly segregated, a study by Harvard
University’s Civil Rights Project has concluded.
“U.S. schools are becoming more segregated in
all regions for both Afiican American and Latino
students,” the report states. ‘We are celebrating a
victory over segregation at a time when schools
across the nation are becoming increasingly seg
regated.”
The authors of the report are Gary Orfield and
Chungmei Lee. Among their findings:
In many districts where court-ordered desegre
gation was ended in the past decades, there has
been a major increase in segregation. The courts
assumed that the forces that produced segrega
tion and inequality had been cured. The new
report proves otherwise;
-Rural and small town school districts are, on
average, the nation’s most integrated for both
Afiican-Americans and Latinos. Central cities ol
large metropolitan areas are the epicenter of seg-
See U.SySA
Inside
Editorials 4A
Life 4B
Religion SB
Sports 1C A&E1D
Real Estate 5C Happenings 4D
Business 8C Classifieds 5D
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© 2004 Tbe Charlotte Post Publishing Co.
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