BIG-DOLLAR
HOOP PARTY
ClAAbaskstball
toiHnatnent pumps
millkMDS Into Ral^h
economy/3A
SAFE AND SECURE
Former police officer
provide protection in the
private sector/8C
Lee Ratliff (center)
^ owns Professional
^ Police & Security
Services.
Volume 29 No. 24
www.thecharlottepost.com
1.00
Cliarlotte
The Voice of the Black Community
Also serving Cabarrus, Chester, Mecklenburg, Rowan and York counties
WEEK OF FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 3, 2«I4
Sharpton
defends
right-wing
connection
Vows to stay in
nomination race
By Hazel Trice Edney
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON
Democratic presidential can
didate A1 Sharpton asserts
that he did nothing wrong by
associating his presidential
campaign with Roger Stone,
a Right-wing conservative
Republican operative.
H This is
absurd. I
have not
used Stone
as an advis
er,” the New
York activist
protested.
“And I have
no reason to
Sharpton discuss with
anybody
everybody that I talk to. I am
going to talk to whomever I
want, but I am going to
make my own decisions. I
always have. George Bush
spoke at the Urban League
Convention. Why do these
rules only apply to me?”
Sharpton was strongly crit
icized by political pundits
after the New York Times
reported in January that
Stone, a former adviser to
Republican Presidents
Richard M. Nixon, Ronald
Reagan . and George W
Bush, was advising the
Sharpton campaign. The
controversy escalated when
the New York-based Village
Voice subsequently reported
that Sharpton not only
accepted advice from the
conservative Stone, but
received enough money to
help him qualify to federal
campaign matching funds in
some states. Tb get matching
public funds, a candidate
must raise in excess of
$5,000 in each of at least 20
states, a total of at least
$100,000.
Former A1 Gore campaign
manager Donna Brazile said
Sharpton needed to explain
his Stone association to the
Black community. But per-
See DESPITE/7A
A spike in HTV infections among
black men shocked N.C. colleges.
Campus leaders are fighting back.
REUTERS PHOTO/DANIEL AGUILAR
UNC Charlotte senior Candice Oates coordinates HIV seminars for Zeta Phi Beta sorority.
Across North Carolina, African American students and campus health officials are launching
aggressive education and testing campaigns.
Health emergency brings students
together with education, warnings
By Herbert L. White
herb, while @ ihecharlonepost.com
Candice Oates is always
amazed by how little college
students know about sexual
ly-transmitted diseases.
Oates, 21 and a UNC
Charlotte senior, coordinates
campus seminars on HIV
and AIDS with her sorority,
Zeta Phi Beta. Of special
interest to the sorority:
freshmen, many of them
tasting adult freedoms for
the first time. There are no
scare tactics, just facts.
“A lot of AfHcan Americans
are not aware of what’s out
there,” she said. “It’s not just
a white thing. It’s a black
and white thing.”
A study released earlier
this month by the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention showed a
spike in HIV among black
college students in North
Carolina — especially men.
Between 2000 and 2003, 84
N.C. college tested positive
for human immunodeficien
cy virus, which causes AIDS.
Eight-seven percent of the
cases were black men.
The rise is driven in part
by young men having unpro
tected sexual encounters
with other men. Usually
they don’t consider them
selves to be gay or bisexual,
and may even have girl
friends.
“It’s a public health emer
gency. I don’t know any other
way to put it,” said Dr. Peter
Leone, HIV medical director
at the state Health
Department.
AfHcan Americans make
up 12 percent of the U.S.
population, but accoimt for
39 percent of AIDS cases and
54 percent of new HIV infec
tions. Blacks are 11 times
more likely to be infected
and develop AIDS than
whites.
“We’re alarmed by HIV
cases in that population,”
said Rosemary Ferguson, a
health educator at UNCC’s
Brocker Health Center. “But
that’s a result of people get
ting tested. We’ve seen that
as a national trend.”
Nationwide, an estimated
900,000 people have HIV,
The CDC says that in recent
years infections have risen
somewhat among gay men of
all races and fallen slightly
among women.
Estimates released
Tuesday by the CDC show
more than 9 million new sex
ually transmitted diseases
See N.C. CAMPUSES/2A
Foster parents do more
than their labor of love
PHOTO/CALVIN FERGUSON
Karan and Earl Gatlin have been foster parents for eight
years. They started when Karan, a teacher's assistant, saw
two of her students being mistreated by their foster parents.
“1 had gotten attached to them and I wanted them,” she said.
By Cheris F, Hodges
FOR THF. CHARLOTTE POST
Latest in a series on adoption and fos
ter care in Mecklenburg County.
Karan Gatlin,
OPEN HEARTS, a teacher’s
OPEN HOMES assistant, saw
two of her stu
dents being mistreated by their fos
ter parents. So, she decided to do
something about. She became a
foster parent and took the kids in.
Aristide
“I had gotten attached to them
and I wanted them,” she said mat
ter of factly. But it isn’t really that
easy to become a foster parent,
according Mecklenburg County
Youth and Family Services.
According to Amy Ciceron, foster
and adoptive parent recruiter,
prospective foster parents must
have a lot of things, but wealth isn’t
one of them.
‘You don’t have to make a certain
See FOSTER/8A
REUTERS PHOTO/DANIEL AGUILAR
Soldiers from the Haitian National Liberation
Front guard the airport at Cap-Haitien, Haiti.
Rebels now control half the Caribbean nation.
NMary
wont rale
Haiti, rebel
leader says
By Paisley Dodds
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti - Haiti’s rebel leader said
he does not want to install a mili
tary dictatorship but is seeking to
re-establish the army that was
disbanded after ousting President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.
With the rebels threatening to
attack the capital of Port-au-
Prince, the U.S. tried to broker a
last-ditch peace plan that did not
require Aristide to resign.
Opposition politicians were weigh
ing the plan, after being persuad
ed by Secretaiy of State Colin Powell to delay
their formal response.
Rebel leader Guy Philippe, in the second-largest
city of Cap-Haitien that was seized Sunday, said
in a Tuesday interview with the Associated Press
See HArTI/6A
Wadesboro natives aim
to restore historic black
cemetery’s legacy
By Herbert L. White
herb.white@!hecharlonep>)sl.com
An historic Anson County burial ground is tak
ing on a new life of its own.
Restoration of Wadesboro’s Old Westview
Cemetery is the goal of Rose Sturdivant Young,
president and founder of a nonprofit preservation
group based in Washington, D.C. Sturdivant, a
Wadesboro native, launched Old Westview
Cemetery Inc. three years ago after burying her
mother Ethel Stirrdivant in the family plot next to
her father and brother. Young was alarmed to see
weed-infested graves and broken headstones.
“In 2001 my mother was living with us in
Washington when she died and we took her home
to Wadesboro for burial,” Yormg said. “I was so
upset, I didn’t want her buried there. I said on my
way out that day that I’m going to put this ceme
tery on the map.”
Sturdivant is doing that. She started the non
profit and reached out to Washington media to tell
Old Westview’s story. The preservation group
gained membership and inquiries from
Wadesboro residents past and present. The board
went to Congress to solicit $100,000 for the ceme-
See WADESBORO/3A
INSIDE
Editorials 4A
Life 4B
Religion 8B
Sports 1C
Real Estate 5C
Business 8C
A&E ID
Happenings 4D
Classifieds 5D
To subscribe, call (704) 376-0496 or FAX (704) 342-2160.
© 2004 The Chariotte Post Publishing Co.
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