NO man’s
LAND
Why there’s a
disconnect
with the black
church/6B
Bobcats
owner on
partnership
with Michael
Jordan
BUSiNESS/6C
Volume 31 No. 40
$1.00
C?)arIotte liil
The Voice of the Black Community
HIM 9 - jfi 28216 S9 PI
■ Jaaes B. Duke Library
Also serving Cab lOO Beatties Ford Rd
i Charlotte NC 28216-5302
Sowing seeds of hope
Volunteers spend week boosting Reid Park neighborhood
By Herbert L. White
herb.whjfe®(hechar)offepo5f.com
Change is sprouting all around
Eeid Park,
At Hattie Mae Potts house,
volunteers fixtm Wachovia Corp.
and Lowe’s Home Improvement
Warehouse are remaking the
fixint yard. Tia Capers, an assis
tant loan analyst at Wachovia, is
pulling’ weeds from a flower bed.
It’s sweltering hot, but Capers
doesn't mind.
‘It’s for the community,” she
said. “Basically it’s to give back”
“We put our backs into it,” says
Brian Lambert, head of business
development for Wachovia’s
treasury services division,
Potts’ granddaughter, LaGina
White, who grew up in the
nei^iborhood, is impressed by
the helping hand offered by total
“It’s deeper than I can express
in words,” she said. It’s a won
derful thing. Grod is good.”
During the week, nearly 300
volvmteers - including 140 teens
Please see VOLUNTEERS/6A
PHOTOAVADE NASH
Lowe's garden specialists Cedric Wherry and
Lucretia Worley plant flowers in front of Hattie Mae
Potts home in the Reid Park community Tuesday.
What do women
really want?
Charlotte author Omar
Tyree has an idea in his
latest novel. Page 2D
N.C. pork
workers
slam plant
treatment
By Lorinda M. Bullock
NAtlONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBUSHERS AS50CIATKDN
WASHINGTON - Tiying to
keep up the momentum fium a
recent Washit^ton, D.C. Court
of Appeals ruling, angry pork
plant workers fi'om Smiflifield
Foods in Tar Heel, N.C., are
leaving the tobacco roads and
crisscrossing the country this
week to gain national support of
a boycott of Sroithfield’s pork
products.
‘We’re getting the message out
about the conditions of the work
ers at Smithfield, the changes
that should be made and how
having a contract for the work
ers could change a lot of thir^
at that plant, said Edward
Morrison, a former worker at
the plant, who is scheduled to
speak at the events in Chicago,
Washington, D.C., and in North
Carolina.
“Find an alternative piuduct if
you can besides Smithfield prod
ucts. If they don’t want to Msten,
then start hitting them in the
pocket.”
The workers, who have
teamed up with the United Food
and Commercial Workers Union
and other labor and civil rights
groups, have launched their ‘A
Change to TOn Week” to bring •
more attention to what they call
sub-par workir^ conditions in
the plant and the company’s ille
gal practices to curb the forma
tion of a union.
Court documents said the com
pany had instigated practices
ranging fixjm threats of termina
tion and wage fr'eezes, to order-
See WORKERS/8A
PHOTOSCURTIS WILSON
Vernon Herron PhD. makes a point at the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum. The weekly gather
ings are a source of information and debate on issues important to black Charlotteans.
Food for thought
Breakfast forum addresses issues one bite at a time
By Erica Singleton
FOR THE CHARLOTTE POST
At the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum,
Charlotteans have debated busing ovar bagels and
job creation with java.
“If you want to know what is going on in
Charlotte, this is the place to find out,” said Andrea
Huff, president of the Black Women’s CaTXcus.
Since 1980, the forum has brought poMtical lead
ers together with neighborhood activists for give
and take sessions on issues ranging from affirma
tive action to taxes. It’s open to everyone regardless
of ethnicity or political leaning.
This wedc’s forum - as usual - is at the West
Charlotte Recreation Center, and if the people in
a'ttendance were anyindication at 8 a,m., Huff isn’t
the only one who thinks it’s the place to be. The
room is almost full, as a panel from the School
BTulding Solutions Committee presented this
weel^s subject matter.
Each event is as much information session as
open forum.
“The forum is here to inform the community” said
moderator Sarah Stevenson, a former Charlotte-
Mecklenburg School Board member. “It gives rep
resentative a chance to explain what their com-
a This is why people
want to come here
.. .because they can
come here and learn. JJ
Please see HAVE SOME/2A
Former Charlotte City Council
member and forum regular
Malachi Greene.
A boost
for N.C.
voting
access
Registration bill would
make balloting easier
By Cynthia Dean
THE TRIANGlf TRIBUNE
RALEIGH - State lawmakers are review
ing a bill that poses to increase voter turnout
across North Carolina if adopted into law.
Same Day Registration at
One Stop Voting Sites (House
Bfll 851) is now under consid
eration in the General
Assembly The bill would
allow citizens to register and
vote at the same time during
the early voting period only It
would help those who recently
arrived or moved in a new
cormty or who lack trans
portation or who missed the 25-day registra
tion deadline. Research has shown that
states using same-day registration have a
higher voter tumout.
Earline Parmon, D-Porsyth Coimty is one
of the sponsors of the hoi. She said the mea-
sTure is particularly beneficial for people who
Parmon
Please see N.C. BILL/3A
thebox
NEWS, NOTES & TRENDS
Last known U.S.
lynching victim
dies at age 92
MILWAUKEE COMMUNITY JOURNAL
Jefferson’s removal threatens House Democrats’ unity
/
By Hazel Trice Edney
NATONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON - U.S.
House Dauocrats who voted
last week to remove Rep. Bill
Jefferson (D-La.) firom his
seat on the Ways and Means
Committee because of an
unrelated FBI investigation,
have once again exhibited
political self-interest over alle
giance to faithful African-
American constituents, politi
cal activists say
“It is yet another example of
what I talk about all that
time, that in. this country.
whether it’s politics or any
where else, we are always
shortchanged and over
charged,” says veteran dvil
rights lawyer Thomas N.
Tbdd, former president of the
Chicago chapter of the
Southern Christian
Leadership Conference and
Operation PUSH. “Here he
comes fium the segment of
the Congress that represents
the Blacks in the Democratic
Party So, as a result of that,
you would think that they
would respect their con
stituency and one of their
j see JEFFERSON’S/2A
MILWAUKEE, TO,s, — Funeral
services for James Cameron,
author, historian and
founder of America’s |
Black Holocaust I
Museum-who was I
America’s only living I
■ survivor of a lynchir^ I
— were held Mohcfey I
He died after a’_ long I
illness at 3ge 92:^
In Avgust of 1930
Cameron
at the age of 16, Cameron was false
ly accused of participating in the
murder of a young white man in
Marion, Indiana. Iiunically, no one
Please see LAST/3A
Gospel music arranger
Dennis Reed of Charlotte
earns national award./3D
0«0!
Life 1B
Rdigion 6B
Sports 1C
Business 6C
A&E1D
Ciasslfied 4D
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