O 0 O
LOVE-HATE EMPLOYEES
Small business supervisors
v^alk a tightrope handling
productive but troublesome^
employees 4C
,.ESB. OWE MEMORIAL UBSM:
Mhmson c. smith university
Volume 31 No. 46
The Voice of the Black Community
Also serving Cat
A toast
to voting
rights
victory
Proponents hail
federal extension,
more work is yet
to be done '
By Hazel Trice Edney
NAF/ONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON - Wade
Henderson, executive- direc
tor of the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights,
standing behind a wooden
podiiun at a hotel just blocks
from the White House,
offered a toast. Holding hi^
in the air a half-filled glass of
wine, he said: ‘We had
the commitment, we had the
expertise, we had the drive
and we had the optimism of
the most wonderful civil
rights coahtion, men and
women light here in this
room.” he said, smiling broad
ly as the racially-mixed audi
ence cheerfully applauded.
‘We also had an incredible
team of congressional leaders
who were willing to spend
hours mastering the sub
stance of these issues and
working the politics...And it
worked, better than we could
possibly have imagined.”
Everyone in the chande-
hered parlor of the Capitol
Hilton Hotel had something
to celebrate. The bi-partisan
bill to reauthorize key sec
tions of the Voting Rights Act
for 25 more years had finally
been signed by President
Bush after months of antici
pation and struggle.
Just as there were cheers
on this night, there were also
pervasive fears, a poignant
reminder that, in the
Shakespearian words'etched
above an old entrance to the
National Archives a few
blocks away on Pennsylvania
Avenue, what is past is pro
logue.
See VOTING/3A
28216 S9 PI
James B. Duke Library
100 Beatties Ford Rd
Charlotte NC 28216-5302
BlacRness
can lead
to death
penalty
Study: Juries influenced by
stereotypes when deciding
fate of some defendants
By Fitzroy A. Sterling
fNTERNATfONAL PRESS SERVICE
NEW YORK — Juries in the U.S. tend to
hand down the death penalty twice as often
to black defendants with stereotypically
black features like darker skin, bigger noses
and fuller hps, than to those perceived to
have less stereotypically black features,
accordir^ to the findings of a new study
The study published in the May issue of
Psychological Science, the jornnal of the
Association for Psychological Science, noted
that previous research already has proven
that black defendants in capital cases receive
the death sentence more fi'equently than
white defendants. The death penalty is, sta
tistically speaking, \mlikely when both the
defendant and victim are black.
When the \ictim is white, however, the
matter of race as an influential factor in
‘’death-eligible cases” is emphatically evi
dent, according to the study A team of edu
cators headed by Stanford University
Psychologist Jennifer L. Eberhardt conduct
ed the study titled “’Looking Death worthy”
“’Race and the death penalty is a compli
cated topic,” communications director of the
National Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty David Elliot, said. "In Marjdand
alone, 60 percent of aU homicide victims are
black, yet there is only one person currently
on death row for tiie killing of a black po--
son.”
The victims of the five defendants executed
in that state between 1976, the year the
death penalty was rdnstated, and April
2006, were all white.
Eberhardt and her team conducted the
study by presenting black and white head
shots, in slide show format, of black capital
defendants in Philadelphia, Pa. between
1979 and 1999. ‘Naive” participants ju(^ed
Please see STEREOTYPES/3A
PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONA2ALVIN FERGUSON
Hundreds of students drop out of school, but some
are urged out to boost mandated test score results
By Erica Singleton
FOR THE CHARLOTTE POST
Marcus TVimer dropped out of
Myers Park High School two
years ago.
He insists school officials
helped.
Tbmer is one of scores of stu
dents who sources in Charlotte-
Mecklenbiug Schools say have
been coerced or forced off cam
pus in recent years. Turner left
Myers Park, High, which
records obtained by The Post
show labeled students as' hav
ing left for private or public
schools outside the district
when in fact they were in the
coxmty As a resiflt, Myers Park,
CMS’s only School of
Distinction, had artificially
enhanced test scores without
beir^ exposed to No Child Left
Behind sanctioirs based on
enrollment
The Post obtained a copy of
2004-2005 Myers Park dropout
records that listed Timer as an
in-state transfer.
“[I was kicked out in] •
February 2005,” said Turner,
who was an 11th grader at the
time. “I was at Ixmch ...and
then me and somebody had
walked off.. .just on the side of
the school. They said it was
some spot on campus that we
weren’t supposed to be at.”
Turner said he was then
taken to the office, where he
was searched-
“They asked me if they could
search me, and I said yeah
cause I didn’t have anything on
me,” he said.
Timer said he was not given
a reason as to why he was
searched, but was told to to sub
mit.
“They searched me and found
a [marijuana] seed in my pock
et,” Timer said. “After I got
searched, I got suspended for a
week and the day I came back
... I had a hearing ... in school.”
Timer’s motha' was givm a
choice: he would either be
expelled or prosecuted. “It was
either I was going to go through
a hearing, get put in jail, or get
kicked out for good,” he said.
“They told me I should just drop
out and go to another school.”
So he dropped out.
Researchers have foxmd that
nearly 1 out of every 3 high
school students won’t make it to
graduation. In North Carohna
i see AT-RISK/2A
the box
NEWS, NOTES & TRENDS
For organ donors,
the life you save
will be another’s
By Herbert L. White
he*. Jhechortotfeposl.com .
Would you save a life by givir^ a
piece of yourself?
Mdth a 382 peivent increase in the
number of Afiican-Americans await
ing organ transplants since 1991,
Afiican-Americans are being asked to
become donoirs.
On Tiesday, LifeShare of The
Carolinas observed tiie lOlh armnal
National Minority Donor Awareness
Day to increase donor awareness in
the U.S., especially among ethnic
groups. Activists say education is
often a barrier to recniiting black
see BLACK ORGAN/6A
J.C. Smifr) opens camp
eyeing an end to 24-
game losing streak/1 C
LffelB
Rdigion 4B
Sporto 1C
Business 6C
A&E1D
Classified 4D
To subsoibe, call (704) 376-0496 or FAX (704) 342-2160.© 2(X)6 The Charlotte Post Publishirrg Co,
Please
Recycle
o