MiiiiiiiMiillllllllllllllllliaiH
Valley of the dolls,
Spurred by shifting U.S.
demographics, KAAART
CORP. expands coior of
its toy iineup/6C
Screen gem
indie fiimmaker
CHARLES BURNETT to
tdk cinema at The
Light Factory
A&E/ID
Gantt
earns
lifetime
honor
Post Best gala to
salute political,
civic leadership
By Erllison Clary
FOR THE CHARLOTTE POST
The Charlotte Post
Foundation will honor
Charlotte architect and for
mer mayor Harvey B. Gantt
with its 'luminary - Lifetime
Achievement” award at the
Charlotte Post Best banquet
Sept. 22.
Still an active civic leader.
Gantt is a principal at Gantt
Huberman Architects.
"We are
thrilled to
honor
Harvey^
Gantt, a per
son who has
given so
much to this
community
and asked so
little in return,” said Post
Publisher Gerald Johnson.
For 10 years, the Charlotte
Gantt
African-
American
Clark students in
the Charlotte
area with proceeds from the
Best banquet.
The foundation is expand
ing its focus to concentrate
on systematic problems that
impede educational
progress for African-
American students, Johnson
said. It will become “active
ly involved with funding
solutions to problems
plaguing a generation of
African-American children,”
he added.
The 11th annual banquet
will be held at the Hilton
Charlotte Center City on
East Third Street. About 600
are expected to attend.
The honorary chair is
Cynthia Marshall, AT&T’s
North Carolina president for
external affairs. An
Afterglow reception will fol
low dinner.
Stacey Clark, an English
and creative writing teacher
at West Charlotte High
School, will be honored as
Communities resist
neighborhood panel
PHOTO/CALVIN FERGUSON
Dorothy Waddy, an organizer with the West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition, says a pro
posed Neighbcwhood Council duplicates the role of community organizations.
Association leaders yank welcome mat on council proposal
By Herbert L. White
herb.whife@fhechaftoffepost.com
Charlotte’s proposed
Neighborhood Council is
bringing communities togeth
er - in opposition to the idea.
City Council is considering
formation of a Neighborhood
Council under the city’s
Neighborhood Development
department to act as a liaison
between city government and
communities. Community
leaders - especially near the
urban core - contend the
council would duplicate the
role of neighborhood organi
zations and stifle efforts to
resolve problems in their own
backyards.
“I don’t think it’s necessary,”
said Dorothy Waddy, an orga
nizer with the West Boulevard
Neighborhood Coalition that
represents 18 neighborhoods.
“If I want to call (another
neighborhood association
leader) all I’ve got to do is pick
up the phone.”
“It appears like we are going
to not only oppose it, we won’t
join it,” said Vincent Frisina,
president of the Windsor
Neighbors Association. “We’ve
seen so many things where
Neighborhood Development
has gotten hold of it and
screwed it up.”
City Council member
Anthony Foxx. said the benefit
of a neighborhood council -
direct community input in a
single forum - will be weighed
against overlapping autono
my.
"If it’s not perceived as help
ful by neighbors in the com
munity, I don’t see the value in
it,” he said.
Neighborhood councils vary
Please see COIVIMUNITY/8A
Ihe bus
slops
here for
support
Activists urge support of
transit tax as means of
affordable transportation
By Herbert L. White
fiefb.wh/fe@fhechQrtoffeposf.com
Bus transportation has allies in Charlotte’s
transit tax debate.
Last week, a group of activists kicked off
the "Save the Bus!" campaign at the Rosa
Parks Transit Center on Beatties Ford Road.
The activists support Charlotte’s half-cent
tax, which is up for referendum in November.
The tax pumps about $77 million into
Charlotte Area Transit System, with two-
thirds going to bus service. The rest would go
to light rail - the lightning rod for tax oppo
nents.
“The debate shouldn’t be framed by our
positions on light rail, since the facts are sim
ple,” said Sam Spencer, co-chair of Grassroots
Activists for Charlotte Transit. "We want to
make it clear that the half-cent sales tax helps
make bus service at its current levels possi
ble."
The first leg of the light rail system into
south Charlotte is scheduled to open in
November after the referendum. .Future plans
call for rail to extend into north Mecklenburg
County.
Since the transit tax was approved by vot
ers in 1998, CATS officials say the authority
has added 31 new bus routes, increased ser
vice and added service in Davidson,
Please see BUS SERVICE/3A
appreciation: OUVER hill, noted civil rights AnORNEY
Paper, (digital
changes coming
He urged whites to ‘love thy neighbor’
Please see GANTT/2A
By Dionne Walker
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RICHMOND, Va. - Hundreds
remembered famed civil rights
lawyer Oliver Hill Sunday as a
man of boundless vision, who
called on old-fashioned values of
brotherhood as he challenged
America to fulfiD the promises of
equality made by its founders.
Hill, who died Aug. 5 at age 100,
didn’t invent anything new - he
simply challenged the nation to
live up to the ideal of loving thy
neighbor, said Gov. Timothy M.
Kaine, who eulogized the
Richmond native at a memorial
service held in the city's conven
tion center.
"His life is a challenge. Are we
up to it?" Kaine asked the crowd,
which included several previous
governors, among them, L.
Douglas Wilder, the nation's first
elected black governor and
Richmond’s current mayor.
Also attending were Democratic
U.S. Sen. Jim Webb and Virginia
Secretary of Public Safety John
Marshall, the son of U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Thurgood Marshall,
a close Hill friend.
Speaking before an audience
speckled black and white, Kaine
likened the man who helped inte
grate American schools to the
biblical good Samaritan, reaching
out to help those in need.
In Hill’s day, those were black
Americans in need of equal edu
cation.
"Mr. Hill changed his time, he
changed our times,” Kaine said.
“No Virginian in the
past hundred years
has had as much
impact.”
Bom in 1907, Hill
entered a world
where the U.S.
Supreme Court
recently had
upheld laws ban
ning a black man
from sitting in a white train car,
and Virginia lawmakers had
rewritten the state Constitution to
firm up restrictions on blacks.
By the time Hill graduated from
See CIVIL RIGHTS/6A
By Herbert L. White
fferb.wffifeSffTecffortoffeposf.co/ri
You’re reading a copy of The Post that feels
and looks different.
It’s part of the continuing evolution of the
publication and a long-term strengthening of
our growth as a communications company.
For the next month, The Post will be pub
lished on standard newsprint as we convert
to a new printer. Today’s paper is thinner and
thinner, but should retain most of the repro
duction characteristics you expect from The
Post.
The changes aren’t limited to paper. The
Post's revamped website, www.thecharlot-
tepost.com, includes new interactive features
including blogs and the Auto Network, a cut-
ting-edge video portal highlighting every
thing related to vehicles from buying a car to
picking an insurance policy.
On the horizon is videocasting of local
news and events that will be introduced next
month and creates stronger interactive digi
tal links between The Post and the Internet.
Let us know what you think.
RACIAL UNREST IN JENA SIX CASE
Convictions open old wounds
By Tuala Williams
THE DAUAS EXAMINER
DALLAS EXAMINER PHOTO
The ‘White Tree” at Jena High School In Louisiana was the flash point for wolence that
resutted In six black students being charged with attempted murder. The tree has
since been cut down, but the tensions endure.
DALLAS, Texas - Hundreds of people gath
ered in a little central Louisiana town on last
Tuesday to protest the conviction of 16-year-
old football star, Mychal Bell, a black student,
and the indictments of five other black youth
following an attack on white schoolmate
Justin Barker.
It ail started with a tree
One day, almost a year ago, at a high school
in a small town nestled in the seat of La Salle
Parish,' La., three black boys made a simple
request. They wanted to sit under a tree and
eat their lunch as numerous other students
were doing. The school official overseeing the
lunch crowd willingly obliged, stating the stu
dents could eat anywhere they chose.
This is the day that changed everything for
the less than 3,000 residents of Jena, La., and
especially for six black boys.
The next day, three nooses hung where the
boys had previously stood. When the school
superintendent failed to take appropriate
action, dismissing it as an adolescent prank,
racial unrest ensued.
"To us, those nooses meant the KKK, they
meant, ‘Niggers, we’re going to kill you, we’re
going to hang you ‘til you die’,” Caseptla
See CONVICTIONS/2A
MSS'
Mechanics & Farmers Bank
closes the deal to merge wifri
Mutual Community Savings/6C
LifelB
Religion 5B
Sports 1C
Business 6C
A&E1D
Classified 3D
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