don’t go
THERE, GIRL
Web site dish^ 411 on
wayward bg^ends 1B
dontdaf^imgirl.com
serveg"up the dirt on ^
two^timers
^ 1
4 4
WORDS OF PRAISE
Christian literature earns
attention of readers and
publishers alike 8B
Charlotte writer
LaToya Mason in the ^
vanguard of novelists
Volume 31 No. 2
tTOfie C()arlot£
28216 S13 PI
1a.es B. ?“ke L btarv
ass'sSiH*
GOOD TO GO
Panthers WR Smith
fully recovered from
injury/1 C
$1.00
The Voice of the Black Community
Also serving Cabarrus, Chester, Mecklenburg, I^oAiian and York counties
WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 29-OCTOBER 5. 2005
n
City Council majority, mayoral clout
up for grabs with at-large campaign
Foxx
Burgess
By Herbert L. White
herh.whiief&ifiecfuirlottepostjcom
Charlotte’s city council at-
large election is a David vs.
Goliath affair.
On one side is incumbent
Republicans John Lassiter
and Pat Mumford, joined by
District 6 incumbent John
Tabor and former council .
member Lynn Wheeler. On
the oth^ is the Democratic
slate led by Anthony Foxx,
the top vote-getter in
Ttiesda/s primary, incum
bent Susan Burgess, former
coimcil appointee David
Erdman and Darrell
Bonapart.
“I don’t know that we
would’ve predicted the out
come as it turned out,” said
Foxx, who is seeking elect
ed office for the first time.
‘We set out early on to
know as many voters as we
could. Tm pleased we were
able to get our message
across.”
At stake is control of the
coimcil or at least the
straigth of potential may-
oral vetoes. If the
Republicans sweep — a real
possibility — the GOP will
have a 6-5 advantage. If the
Democrats manage to win
one of four seats and incum
bent Republican Mayor Pat
McCrory is re-elected, his
vetoes are more fikely to
withstand challenges.
Seven council members
Please see AT-LARGE/3A
FILE PHOTO
Residents of Princeville, N.C. had to start from scratch after rains from Hurricane Floyd flooded the town in 1999. In the six years
since, residents have struggled to recover, with mixed results.
Baptism by flood
Historic Princeville learned hard lessons from 1999 hurricane
By Sommer Brokaw
TflE TRIAS'GU: TRIBUNE
PRINCEVILLE — Six years
ago, flooding fixim Hurricane
Floyd buried this Edgecombe
County town under water for
10 days. Although the catastro
phe had some similarities to
Hurricane Katrina that hit the
Gulf Coast earlier this month,
including allegations of racism,
it effected a much smaller pop
ulation of people and help
arrived much sooner.
‘What happened here is a
baby model of what happaied
in New Orleans. It’s the same
principle — the hurricane came
and the n^ day the flood
came. Princeville was totally
destroyed,” said Princeville
Mayor Priscilla Everette-
Oates.
Other similarities are the
racial and economic makeup of
the population of both areas.
Princeville is 97 percent black.
New Orleans is 67 percent
black. The majority of both
populations is low income.
Compared to New Orleans,
Princeville is tiny—the popula
tion is about 2,100 - but has a
place in history as the first
black-incorporated town in the
U.S.
If Princeville is a model for
the G\alf Coast area, residents
there can expect a long road to
Please see N.C. TOWN/3A
Katrina puts U.S. poverty on front burner
By Hazel Tnce Edney
NATIONAl. NEWSE\FER
PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON - A town
hall meeting at the
Congressional Black
Caucus’ annual Legislative
Conference started off dis
cussing blame for the
tragedy of Hmricane
Katrina, but ended up
focused on who’s to blame for
America’s poverty that was
e3qx)sed by the tragedy
“If you are black in this
country and you’re poor in
this country, it’s not an
inconvenience, ifs a death
sentence,” says Rep. diaries
Rangel CD-N.Y.). “George
Bush is our Bull Connor.
And if that doesn’t get to
you, nothing will be able to
get to you, and ifs time for
us to be able to say that
we’re sick and tired and
we’re fired up and we’re not
going to take it anymore.”
By comparing Bush to
Eugene “Bull” Connor,
Birmingham’s infamous
commissioner of public safe
ty who ordered police dogs
and fire hoses to attack dvil
ri^ts demonstrators in
1963, Rangel was the
strongest critic of Bush dur
ing the CBCTs annual town
hall meeting.
Please see BLACK./6A
Rangel
Civil rights attorney honored at justice conference
Roberts
By Herbert L. White
hfrh.whiir^thecharlonep()stxvm
Chariotte dvil ri^ts attorney
Julius Chambers will be honored
for his work in shaping dvil ri^ts
law and education.
Chambers will be honored
Saturday at the Coalition for
Peace and Justice’s sixth annual
Sodal Justice Conference fium
9;30 a.m.-12;30 p.m. at Francis
Buckle up for another
spike in gas prices in
Flita’s wake 8C
Auditorium at the Public Lilrary
of Chariotte-^fecklenburg, 310 N.
IVyon St. Admission is fiee.
Chambers successfully argued
Swann v Board of Education,
which led to court-ordered busing
for desegregation
Chambers, who was chancdlor
at N.C. Central University for
ei^t years, filed a motion to
intervene ki the Leandro case to
equitably fund all N.C. public
schools.
The conference will start with
an open discussion, followed by a
panel discussion at 10 am on
radal inequality in public schools,
affirmative action and global
raasm. Among the panelists
scheduled: MetklCTibuig County
Commissioner ^\^lhelmenia
Rembert, community activist
Ahmad Daniels and Jibril Hou^
of the Islamic Political Party of
America. A question-and-answer
session will follow.
For information, call Wally
Kluecker at (704) 543-4140, or
Tbm Bowers at (704) 543-0564.
On the Net:
Coalition for Peace and Justice
http'J/cpJnclripodcom
for next
justice
battle
With Roberts a shoo-in,
rights groups look to
next court nominee
By Hazel Trice Edney
' NATIONAL NEWSPAPER PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON — Civil rights activists opposed
to Judge John Roberts’nomination as chief justice
of tile U. S. Supreme court, say they will x)ntinue
fighting his nomination while gear
ing up for an even more bitter fight
over Bush’s second nominee to
replace retiring Justice Sandra
Day O’Connor.
‘We don’t know who the next
nominee is, but, when we do, we’re
going to equally and thoroughly
review their record to see where
they stand on issues that are most
important to us just as we have
Roberts,” says Hilary Shelton, director of the
Washington Bureau of the NAACT. ‘Well be look
ing for someone who is very clearly wedded to the
concept of a constitution that protects all of the
American people.”
Initially, Bush had nominated Roberts to
replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor,
the court’s most consistent swing voter. But fol
lowing the death of (Hiief Justice William H.
Rehnquist, Bush re-nominated the D. C. Ck)urt of
Appeals judge to succeed Rehnquist, who died of
Please see BATTLE/2A
Black gay men
twice as likely to
be HTV-positive
By Emily Ann Brown
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON — Jon-'VWUiam Patterson is
24-years-old, Black and gay He is secure in his
sexuality, but he is not secure in knowing that
because of his sexual preference he maybe at a
higher risk of contracting HIV than any other
group.
If Patterson needs any proof, he can examine
a report released last week by the Black Aids
Institute titled “Reclaiming our Future: The
State of AIDS among Black Youth.”
It noted that 40,000 people become infected
with HIV every year — more than half of them
under the age of 25.
‘No matter how you chop those numbers up,
Afiican American young people are heavily
overrepresented,” the report observes. “Afiican-
Amaicans account for 66 percent of HIV infec
tions among those 13 to 19 years olds. Among 20
to 24-year-olds, it’s only slightly better, with
Blacks accoimting for 53 percent of those infect
ed. Though 2003, 62 percent of aU reported
AIDS cases in children under the age of 13 were
' found among Afiican Americans.”
Black women were also disproportionately
represented in the statistics.
. .Afiican American females comprise 72 per
cent of all young women newly diagnosed with
HTV between the ages of 13 and 19 and 66 per
cent of all young wcanen newly diagnosed with
Please see GAY/2A
Life IB
Religion SB
Sports 1C
Business 8C
A&E1D
Happenings 6C
IN$I9E
To subscribe, call (704) 37645496 of FAX (704) 342-2160.® 2005 The Chariotte Post Publishng Co.
Recycle
o
lYOor' uuuu I ' 2
##OI