I
Rights Issues Said Non-Partisan
Ms. King’s Appearance At GOP Convention Questioned
CORETTASCOTT KING
From CAROLINIAN Stall Report!
ATLANTA, Ga. (AP)-The ex
ecutive director of Georgia's
Democratic Party said voters
shouldn’t read too much into Coretta
Scott King’s appearnce with Barbara
Bush at the Republican National Con
vention on Tuesday. “She has to work
with both parties,” said Bobby Kahn.
And Gov. Joe Frank Harris, titular
head of the state party and a booster
of Democratic presidential nominee
Michael Dukakis, “has never con
sidered that Ms. King’s concerns for
civil rights were partisan in nature,”
said press secretary Barbara
Morgan.
Ms. King, widow of slain civil rights
leader Martin Luther King, Jr., sat
with Ms. Bush in the vice president’s
box at the convention in New Orleans
for the keynote address by New
Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean.
She told reporters she attended the
GOP gathering “to keep Dr. King’s
dream alive.”
Last month, Ms. King was a partici
pant in the Democratic National Con
vention in Atlanta, where she praised
the Rev. Jesse Jackson for broaden
ing the party but also said that many
of her late husband’s dreams remain
unfulfilled.
“Something is still wrong when 32
million Americans are living in
poverty in the richest nation on the
face of the earth... when nearly 13
million of them are children,” she
said,
Appealing to Democrats not to
abandon black voters, she also said it
would be a tragic mistake to “attract
the haves to any party at the expense
of the have-nots.”
In New Orleans, she told USA To
day, “I am here to see how the
Republican Party approaches these
issues. It is important that both
groups be inclusive of all ethnic
groups and racial minorities. Maybe
I can be a force for opening up
dialogue and communications to
build a bipartisan coalition.
“There has been some lack of com
munication between the Reagan
White House and the civil rights com
munity, but I haven’t seen this with
Bush," she added.
Ms. King also said she was not en
dorsing either Dukakis or Bush. “I
don’t think the issue of civil rights has
been addressed to my satisfaction in
the last eight years. We have an op
portunity to address that during
whichever administration comes in,”
she said.
Kahn, however, said, "I have every
reason to believe that when she gets
Involved in the campaign in her
private capacity, she will be suppor
ting Democratic candidates.”
For now, he said, “she has to work
with both parties” in her capacity as
president of the Martin Luther King,
Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social
Change.
Later, Ms. King submitted a
testimony to the Committee on Fami
ly and Community Services of the
Republican Platform Committee. She
testified to the GOP platform hear
ings as a part of the center’s commit
ment to build a bipartisan consensus
for social and economic reforms.
Though unable to attend the hear
ings, her testimony was read by
Lloyd Davis, King Center staff vice
president for government and inter
national affairs.
Here are excerpts from the
testimony:
“In less than three weeks we will
observe the 26th anniversary of the
great March on Washington, when
Martin Luther King, Jr. shared his
dream for the country he loved. This
dream, for which he gave his life, was
really the American dream of justice,
freedom, equal opportunity and
brotherhood for all of our people.
“In the 25 years that have passed
(See NON-PARTISAN, P. 2)
The Carolinian
raleigh, n.c., iVC's Semi-Weekly SET 25,
MONDAY ^ ELSEWHERE 30*
AUGUST 22, 1988DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRISTVOL. 47. NO. 75
May Seek Sanctuary
Brawley Rejects Jury
Subpoena
Seen As
Option
NEW YORK, N Y. (AP)-Advisers
to Tawana Brawley are considering
several options regarding a grand
jury's apparent decision to subpoena
her, but none of the alternatives call
for allowing her testimony, a
Brawley family spokesman says.
“There’s no way in heaven, earth
or hell we will let Tawana Brawley
participate in the coverup of what
happened to her,” the Rev. A1 Sharp
ton said.
Among the options being con
sidered to preclude the teenager’s
testimony is to have Ms. Brawley
seek sanctuary in a church as her
mother did, Sharpton said
Another is to have her remain out of
state, and a third option would call for
her to surrender “in a very dramatic
way, with 1,000 supporters at [state
Attorney General] Bob Abrams’ of
fice," Sharpton said. If that course
were followed, Sharpton said, Ms.
Brawley would not testify after sur
rendering
Sharpton and other Brawley ad
visers said, however, that to their
knowledge no subpoena had been
issued.
Tim Gilles, a spokesman for
Abrams, declined to comment and
would neither confirm nor deny that a
subpoena had been voted on by the
grand jury
The New York Times reported last
week that the grand jury voted to sub
poena Ms. Brawley. In so doing, the
Times reported, jurors rejected the
wishes of Abrams, the special pro
secutor in charge of investigating the
16-year-old black teenager’s allega
tion that she was kidnapped and
raped by a group of white men.
The Brawley advisers have
demanded that Abrams be replaced
as special prosecutor.
Gov. Mario Cuomo said in an inter
view on Albany’s WAMC radio that he
didn’t know what action, if any, the
grand jury had taken.
“I don’t know what the grand jury
has done,” he said. “I don’t know
what position the attorney general
took before the grand jury, so it’s all
speculation as far as I’m concerned
and I’d rather not participate in it."
Cuomo, asked if Ms. Brawley would
get immunity if she testifies, said, “If
she committed a crime and her
testimony is evidence of that crime
and connected with that crime, she
will be immunized, yes.”
“But," he noted, “nobodv’s assus
(See TAWANA tsRAWLEY, P. 2)
Felicia Pines Aids
JVC Export Efforts
Editors Note: Following is the
first of several profiles of blacks
who work in the James G. Martin
administration.
Felicia R. Pine has worked as
an International trade specialist
with the North Carolina Depart
ment of Commerce since
November 1M5. assisting the ex
porting efforts of companies in
the state.
Ms. Pine provides technical
assistance and identifies foreign
buyers and markets. Before Join
ing Gov. Martin’s administra
tion. Ms. Pine was an owner of a
construction cleaning company
In Charlotte.
She has worked at a manage
(See MS. FELICIA PINE. P. 2)
NEW PLANS - Two forms of power appear on stage at the same time: one
form boing that of politics and the other athletic, as state representative Dan Blue
welcomes Willie StargeH and the Black Athlete Hall of Fame to Raleigh and the
State of North Carolna. (Photo by TaNb Sabir-CaDoway)
Major Growth Patton
Continues For College
Saint Augustines College Presi
dent Prezell R. Robinson told new
and returning faculty, staff and ad
ministration that the college was in
the middle of a major growth pattern
in his state of the college address
recently.
Robinson was talking about the
close to $3 million construction and
renovation work going on at the
Raleigh college, as faculty returned
to begin the 1988-89 school year.
He was talking about the completed
renovation of the Reserve Officers
Training Corps building, the major
overhaul to the Penick Hall of
Science, the new outdoor track and
field facility, renovations to the col
lege's historic chapel, the im
provements on two existing dor
mitories, and maintenance on several
other existing buildings.
Plans are also under way to com
plete the final phase of the Fine Arts
Center to house the college’s
academic program, and television
facility.
“The alarm bell has sounded for
young blacks in the field of natural
sciences, said Robinson.
“We can’t wait for them [the
students] to come to Saint
Augustine’s. We have to reach out to
these young people in the high
schools, to not only encourage them,
but offer support as well,” he added.
That support began last year in the
form of a new program, working with
W.G. Enloe High School. High-school
students from Enloe spent several
weeks of intensive study in
(See COLLEGE, P. 2)
Dukakis Makes Vows To Banish
Racism And Bigotry In America
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (API-Demo
cratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis
Thursday urged black voters to join
him in resolving that “every form of
bigotry and racism and religious in
tolerance will be banished from this
land.”
Dukakis promised civil rights ac
tivists a broad social agenda that
would reverse what he called the “in
difference” and “blind eye” of the
Reagan administration.
Some black leaders had criticized
Dukakis for not using a recent ap
pearnce in Mississippi to outline his
views on minority concerns. On
Thursday, he cited a long list of pro
blems demanding solutions, in
cluding a lack of affordable housing,
job training, prenatal care, quality
schools and anti-drug programs.
Touring the Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala., Dukakis
declared his support for the
multibillion-dollar space station pro
gram. He also promised to revive the
National Space Council, a cabinet
level agency that oversaw the U.S.
space program before it was abolish
ed by President Nixon.
Campaigning in Davenport, Iowa,
Dukakis’ wife told reporters the
United States could afford a national
day care program if “fantasy” pro
grams like President Reagan’s “Star
Wars” defense plans were cut.
Kitty Dukakis said the question was
whether to pay for “exotic weapons
programs that have little chance of
working or do we provide the best for
our children whether it’s in day care
or education?”
Ms. Dukakis said her husband
would create a national day care
partnership program “representing
labor and industry, business and
education, family and government.”
“He will establish a new office of
child care which will have the job of
assuring that quality, affordable, ac
ceptable child care will be available
for all who need it,” she said.
Asked how Dukakis will pay for the
program, Ms. Dukakis said, “I think
you have to make tough choices, and
Michael has talked about that;
whether we have a fantasy called
‘Star Wars’ or we provide decent, af
fordable day care.”
Ms. Dukakis also said the record of
Quayle was suspect.
“I think women of this country are
going to vote on the issues, on
records, character... Mr. Quayle, as
senator, voted against Head Start,
voted against the Farm Credit Bill
and the drought relief bill.
“In terms of family issues, when
you are against the Equal Rights
Amendment and against money for
Head Start, then you have
problems,” she said.
On Thursday, Lloyd Bentsen press
ed his vice presidential and Senate
campaigns among conservative oil
country businessmen in Longview,
Texas, and ducked questions about
r
Quayle’s service in the National
Guard during the Vietnam War.
“I’m not going to question that,”
said Bentsen, a World War II bomber
pilot. “I’m a strong supporter of the
National Guard and always have
been. One of my own sons served in
the National Guard.”
Bentsen passed up the chance to
criticize Quayle over the reports that
George Bush’s vice presidential runn
ing mate sought to enter the Indiana
National Guard in 1969 and avoid be
ing drafted for active duty in Viet
(See BAN RACISM. P. 2)
1
Elections
BY RONALD WALTERS
NNPA Nm» Service
One of the important items in the negotiation between Rev. Jesse
L. Jackson and Michael Dukakis at the recent Democratic conven
tion. rarely mentioned in the press, was the legislative package.
Dukakis reportedly agreed to support several pieces of legislation
which are currently before the Congress in one form or another. The
package includes: the Dellums Bill imposing new sanctions on South
Africa; the Conyers Bill for same-day, on-site voter registration; the
ABC Child Care §111; statehood for the District of Columbia; and a
monitoring system for economic Mi-asides.
The Jackson campaign undertood that at a moment in American
politics when the media, the party leadership and the political
leadership were all mobilising their resources to contest for the
White House, there is an opportunity to direct their attention to im
mediate needs. In the Congress there is the opportunity to make
some impact because both houses are controlled by Democrats.
Thus, Immediate assistance by Dukakis, the titular leader of the par
ty by virtue of winning the nomination, is crucial to the passage of
these issues right now.
In addition, because the Democratic Party platform frames
issues so generally and Dukakis’ policy prescriptions are similarly
vague, his support for this lesiglative package provides him with an
opportunity to be more specific about what he would do as president.
The party platform is not the only (and some would argue, not the
most important) arena where a presidential candidate can make im
portant commitments to issues. But Dukakis has missed oppor
tunities at both the NAACP and the National Urban League annual
conferences to really “turn on” his audiences with substance rather
than rhetoric. To their credit, both audiences responded
politely—but with coolness.
Now it turns out that the Dellums Bill proposing tough new sanc
tions against South Africa is in danger of not being passed in this ses
sion of Congress. The South Africa bill does not have a greater im
pact upon black America than the child care or voter registration
measures, but the symbolic Impact is important for many reasons. If
the Democratic leadership allows this blU to die, this action will cast
a giant shadow of doubt on all the other supposed “commitments”
made by Dukakis. And if this signal is sent, the current coolness
toward Dukakis among many African-Americans could turn into
electoral rigor mortis.
(J. S. Attorney
Is Tough Prosecutor
Crime Pursued With Bulldog Persistence
BY CHESTER A. H1UUINS, SH.
NNPA News Editor
WASHINGTON, D.C.-A tough
U.S. attrorney with a bulldog’s per
sistence in pursuing crime and
criminals and who just happens to be
black is expected to be quickly con
firmed by the Senate and become
the nation’s chief prosecuting at
torney, the fifth highest position in
the Department of Justice.
He is Edward S.G. Dennis, Jr., a
43-year-old who since 1983 has been a
racket-busting U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
During that period he sent a promi
nent Philadelphia councilman and his
aide to jail, as well as-the powerful
chief of the city’s entrenched mob
and a number of cops—over 30 per
sons in all indicted or convicted—in a
case that is *011 ongoing and now in
volves the entire police narcotics
unit.
Denqis will need every bit of his
professional toughness as he comes
into a Justice Department recently
racked with ongoing investigations
of charges against Edwin Meese, III,
the country's chief law enforcement
officer, and a poisonous environment
of low morale, one that most blacks
and many whites view as racist,
especially in W. Bradford Reynolds'
CivU Rights Division.
So despite Dennis’ brave assertion
to a Senate committee considering
his nomination that he found no at
mosphere of "malaise” at the depart
ment where he is serving in the in
terim period until confirmation, a
Senate oversight committee a few
doors down the hall in the Dtru&en
Senate Office Building was being told
precisely the opposite.
Arnold I. Burns, deputy attorney
general, and William F. Weld, assis
tant attorney general for the
Criminal Division, whose position
Dennis seeks to fill, told the Senate
Judiciary committee there was in
deed a “malaise” hanging over the
Justice Department. Both men
dramatically resigned earlier this
year alter informing President
tSee BLACK LAWYERS, P. 2)
M'OKK >
*!