Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / April 1, 2004, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
m m HEALTHY ATTITUDE Charlotte’* Ray Duthnn (tlg^) back from Injury to hdp Qianti/IC LIFE OF THE PARTY Myrtle Williams takes pride in being innovative event planner/8C Myrtle Williams (left) Is owner of Simply | Unique Designs I Volume 29 No. 28 www.thecharlottepost.com Cliarlotte The Voice of the Black Community WEEK OF APRIL 1-7, Also serving Cabal Duke Librarv too Reatt.ies Ford Rd' Charlotte NC 28216-5302 District 40 rivals gather star power Rice’s reversal of fortunes on 9-11 Graham, Odom seek party’s most influential names By Herbert 1.. White herb.whire@ihecharlottepost.com The name game has start ed in N.C. Senate District 40. Democrats Malcolm Graham and Fountain Odom are lining up some of Charlotte’s best-known polit ical and social activists for a run at their ^SiHNfGTON Graham party’s nomi nation. The goal is simple — raise money. “It’s all about money,” said Ted Arrington PhD., chair man of UNC !►- ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who has testified privately before a panel investi gating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, has President Bush’s OK to speak in public and under oath. Charlotte’s political science department. “Voters don’t care about names. It’s a psy chological game and a money game.” Both candidates have a Who’s Who of support. Graham’s backers include longtime party operative Bob Davis; former Charlotte- Mecklenburg School Board chairman Arthur Griffin; current schools chair Joe White and City Council col leagues Nancy Carter and Susan Burgess. “The supporters in my campaign are people who make a difference in the community,” Graham said. Odom’s list, prominently displayed on his campaign Web site, has heavy hitters, too: Mecklenburg District Attorney Peter Gilchrist; entrepreneur Cammie Harris; Mecklenburg County Commissioner Norman Mitchell and city council members James Mitchell and Patrick Cannon. . It’s no coincidence that both camps boast a large number of black supporters. District 40 is overwhelming ly black — 60 percent — and Democratic. The winner of the tentatively scheduled July 20 primary will be a Public testimony calculated to blunt administration’s crities By Jennifer Ix»ven THKASSOCIATliU FRKSS together, in private — before the entire conunis- WASHINGTON National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice wiU tes tify publicly and under oath before an indepen dent panel investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks after all. The White House has also agreed that President Bush and \^ce President Dick Cheney would answer questions - Sion. 'The turnabout reflected administration concern that the president’s' strongest point with vot ers - his leadership in the war on terror — could be eroded if the high-publici- ty dispute over Rice’s tes timony lingered. “Fve ordered this level of cooperation because I consider it necessary to gaining a complete pic ture of the months and years that preceded the murder of our fellow citi zens on Sept. 11, 2001,” Bush said. “Our nation must never forget the loss or the lessons of September the llth, and we must never assume that the danger has passed,” he said in short remarks in the White House briefing room. He took no ques tions. Please see RICE/8A 4,500 prisoners NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ^ PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION At least 4,500 common law prisoners were pardoned and released in Rwanda on Monday in a bid to decongest the nation’s prisons. Prosecutor General Jean de Dieu Mucyo told IRIN. ‘This group of the released exclude those who have con fessed to genocide crimes ” he said on Monday. Those released included the elderly and the sick, as well as those who had been in prison longer than the sentences they could face. Mucyo said those who confessed to participating in the 1994 genocide, in which some 800,000 Tutsis and pohticaUy moderate Hutus were killed, would probably be released next week. The released prisoners are to be sent to ‘’solidarity camps” for two months where they will undergo re-education in the gov ernment’s new programs on rec onciliation and on the workings of the Gacaca traditional courts that are to try alleged genocide perpetrators. Mucyo said 200 minors aged 14 to 18 years, among those Please see PRISONERS/2A Please see SENATE/7A Neighbors want options for teens By Cheris F. Hodges FOR THE CHARLOTTE POST PHOTO/WADE NASH Gloria Varner makes a point last week during a meeting to discuss after school alternatives for teens. Husband Wendell Varner is on the left holding grandson Realon Morrison. Rather than making teens feel like criminals, one Charlotte couple wants to create an after school and weekend program that will give children an alternative to hanging out in the street and at local mails. While much of the talk from police and mall offi cials, following what has been described as a near riot at Eastland Mall, has been about curbing the number of teens hanging out at the mall and the transit center in uptown Charlotte, some • people in the community are looking to provide teens with another option. Gloria and Wendell Varner are co-owners of Kiddie Farm, a day care center that has been in business for 18 years. Gloria Varner says some of the teens involved in the recent melee at Eastland could be children that passed through her day care center years ago. “It makes me wonder where did we go wrong,” she said. Varner said day care centers were able to keep children longer, there would Please see NEIGHBORS/3A Canaiiest benefit cmsadeR Barnett hopes ‘stunt’ will renew interest By Herbert L. White herb.while@ihecluirlottepost.com Now that the Rev. James Charlotte’s attention, he’s pushing for a reduction in violence in its communities. Barnett, founder of Stop The Killing, was arrested last month and charged with soliciting for prostitution, insists it was a “stunt” to test police presence in the Wilkinson Boulevard area. Although his activity was fodder for water cooler conversation and radio talk shows, Barnett sees a Barnett .has Barnett sHver lining: it brought attention to his cause. “The thing I want to do is keep them talking,” he said. “What the white media is talking about does n’t really impact what’s going on in our communi ties in terms of drugs and violence.” Stop The Killing’s latest campaign is to track Charlotte’s homicide rate for the first three months and reduce it. In March, four murders were recorded, compared to seven the same time last year. “We want to end this quarter with fewer mur ders than last quarter as it relates to drugs and violence,” he said. Barnett said the anti-violence campaign will try to push its message through black-oriented media outlets, especially urban radio stations. Results Please see CRUSADE/7A Author of Bobcats owner bio leaves Charlotte off tour By Herbert L. White herb, white @ thecharlotieposi. com A national book tour touting a biography on Charlotte Bobcats owner Bob Johnson won’t be coming to Charlotte. Brett Pulley, author of “The Billion Dollar BET: Robert Johnson and The Inside Story of Black Entertainment Tfelevision,” will launch a seven-city tour Monday in New York City. Allowing for big-league markets like Los Angeles and Washington, why Springfield, Mass., instead of Charlotte, where Johnson owns an NBA franchise? Pulley Pulley, a senior editor at Forbes magazine “is doing interviews with Charlotte radio stations,” said Lissa Mariel Brown, a pubh- cist at John Wiley & Sons, which is publishing the book. “We didn’t put (Charlotte) on there because of time constraints, plus he still has his commit ments to Forbes.” The biography, which Johnson declined to be interviewed for, details how he launched BET as well as accounts of his business practices and sometimes-stormy personal relationships. A Bobcats spokesman said no one there had heard of “The Billion Dollar BET,” which debuts in book stores April 7. Inside Editorials 4A Life 4B Religion SB Sports 1C A&E1D Real Estate 5C Happenings 4D Business 8C Classifieds 5D To subscribe, call (704) 376-0496 or FAX (704) 342-2160. © 2004 The Charlotte Post Publishing Co. Please Recycle omor.
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 1, 2004, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75