Newspapers / The Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.) / Feb. 12, 1991, edition 1 / Page 1
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TUESDAY Wish Your Special Someoi A Greeting In THE CAROl Will Feature A Valentine [ For Only $5.00. Drop Your Greeting By Our Offlt Valentine Swietheirt, h RaMgh, NX. 27611. MAIL CHICK OHM ine’s Day” With th Edition. We Your Message In St, Or Write: '.0. Box 25308, Yl HERITAGE AWARD Legendary Grammy Award winner Smokey Robinson saluted For Career achievement. Saw Pago 9 THIS WEEK In 1831 Lloyd Garri son began publishing The Liberator, ana founded the New England anti-Slavery Society with only 13 (See THIS WEEK, P. 10) r RALEIGH. N.C. VOL. 50, NO. 23 TUESDAY FEBRUARY 12. 1991 C. fs Semi-Weekly DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST SINGLE COPY Q C IN RALEIGH ELSEWHERE 300 Priest Expresses Fear Blacks With Military Livelihood Could Pay With Lives CHICAGO, 111. (AP)—In a comer of the city where young men face the lure of gants and drugs and a life of struggle, the Rev. George Clements long has preached a strategy for sur vival: the military. But the safe haven he steered so many to no longer is safe. The road to the good life could become the path to death. And the priest fears that his flock—and other blacks—could pay an unfair price in the Persian Gulf War. “We are victims, just like we’ve been victims since slavery,” Clements said. "There was an entice ment for these kids to join the ser vice. They couldn’t find jobs. They were just wandering. No one ever suspected they would be caught in a shooting war. “I’ve always felt this quasi-despair in this community,” he said. “You have despair from infant mortality, from the narcotic wars. Now there’s a much deeper one. These are people who really had no idea what they were getting into. Now they’re in, there’s no way of getting out.” Clements is pastor of Holy Angels Church, one of the nation’s largest black Roman Catholic parishes. Of its some 4,000 members, 103 have one or more loved ones in the gulf. Many enlisted for the security of a job, the promise of an education and a crack at a life they’d never get at home. “The military has probably been the most equal opportunity employer in the United States,” said Con gresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C. “Many young blacks perceive that they will get a better shake in the armed forces than in their own hometown. That is a comment on American society, not on the military,” she said. “We ought to be troubled that such a large proportion of black youngsters... would rather risk war and all it implies than stay at home.” Although less than 13 percent of the U.S. population is black, blacks ac count for 21 percent of all U.S. military personnel in all branches. About a third of the Army forces int he Persian Gulf are black and almost half of U.S. servicewomen in the gulf are black. Some black leaders nationwide call this a poor person’s war and question whether minorities will bear a disproportionately large share of the casualties. At Holy Angels, tire question take on a mote urgent, heartfelt tone. , “When I get depressed and I cry, i say, ‘The Persian Gulf or the streets of Chicago... what chance does a poo: person have?’” said Carolyn Robin son, whose 20-year-old son Shomall Franklin is in the Navy. “If you die in the Persian Gulf you’re serving your country, you die with dignity,” said the mother of < See FEARS. P.2) Police Seeking Suspect The State of North Carolina is offering a $5,000 reward for information in the Dec, 4 murder of a Raleigh man. Gov. Jim Martin approved the reward at the request of the Raleigh Police Deparetment. The body of Daniel Tyrone Harvey was found the morning of Dec. 4 lying in the 500 block of East Bragg Street near Chavis PaYk. Police said he had been shot four times earlier that morning. The reward is offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Harvey’s murder. Anyone with information in the case is asked to call Raleigh Police at 890-3555 or the State Bureau of Investigations at 733-3171. In other news: a member of Gov. James G. Martin’s staff who also teaches at N. C. Central University in Durham was beaten by several men as he was leaving the campus Thursday night, police said. Mark A. Messura, 28, of Raleigh was treated at Duke University Medical Center for cuts and bruises and later released. Messura told police that he was walking to his car about 10:15 p.m. after teaching a class When he was attacked by three or four men on Lincoln Street Thev hit him with a (See CRIME, P. 2) THE CLEARING-Clearing has begun at Walnut Creek new Walnut Creek Park, just southeast of the Beltline near Amphitheater, a $13.5 million open-air performing arts >-40 at the intersection of Rock Quarry Road and center featuring both reserved seats and festival lawn- Sunnybrook Road. Opening scheduled for July, 1991. seating. The facility will be centrally located In Raleigh’s Black Group See Norplant Device As Racist, Sterilization Attempt Norplant, the newly approved im plantable contraceptive, will become available in North Carolina within the next week or two, but doctors fear the cost may deter some interested women and an African group in Virginia says it is sterilization for blacks. Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, the Philadelphia company that makes the device, is charging doctors $350 for the Norplant kit. The doctors plan to charge between $50 and $150 to im plant the contraceptive, which can last up to five years. The Raleigh Women’s Health Organization will offer the device for $500, including insertion and removal, as soon as the first ship ment arrives. Doctors say the price is putting it out of reach for a lot of peo ple. Wyeth-Ayerst officials are en couraging Medicaid and private in surance programs to cover the cost of Norplant. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Norplant in December 1990. Norplant is made up of six ma'tchstick-sized silicone cylinders that are implanted on the inside of a woman’s upper arm. The tubes continuously release minute doses of lavonorgestrel, a synthetic hormone sometimes used in birth control pills. R jmbers of the African-American Committee, a division of the (See NORPLANT, P. 2) Gantt: Neglected Issues Will Cause Damage To Country The attention of America has focus ed on war in the Persian Gulf and the administration’s subsequent neglect of domestic issues will cause serious damage to the country, according to former U.S. Senate candidate Harvey B. Gantt of Charlotte. “We have some problems at home that just simply won’t go away,” said Gantt, who spoke at a fundraiser of the American Jewish Congress in Los Angeles recently. “And we simply can’t ignore them, even at a time when the world finds itself in peril in the Persian Gulf.” While America is preoccupied with events occurring on the other side of the world, Gantt said the effect of im portant domestic issues, such as the Civil Rights Bill, will further divide the country. [The veto of the civil rights bill] will produce... more fear [and] more divisiveness [in] a country that clear ly will not be able to pull itself together on some very, very impor tant issues,” said Gantt, who last November came close to defeating one of the state’s most conservative and powerful politicians. An architect and businessman, Gantt became the first black mayor of Charlotte in 1983. Twenty years earlier, he had become the first black student to attend a previously all white school in South Carolina when under court order he was admitted to Clemson University. In pointing out the country’s inten sifying social problems, Gantt noted that 37 million persons, are without health insurance in America, which also sends more black young men to prison today than it does to college. "Urban centers in low-income com munities... are more and more becoming the scnee of an almost nihilistic form of human destruction, with drugs and crime and AIDS and violence eating away at any potential desire for people to succeed,” he said. The total American workforce was eight percent functionally illiterate 25 years ago, said Gantt. Today, he ad: ed, 25 percent of the workforce fa! into that category and if the tree continues, more than half of tl workforce will be illiterate by th year 2020. If the country is to continue to con pete in the internationa marketplace, he said, it must develo GANTT an educational system that will tna> its citizens (economically) useful. “Neglect and discrimination ha already cost us substantially and w cost us even more in the future,” sf Gantt. “You will pay now and p. later.” America is currently experience an increased amount of racism ai ‘ intolerance which is becoming mm more violent and much more visib!. said Gantt. And growing racism college campuses and in places su as Howard Beach, N.Y., sugge: that the trend is also growing amo> young people, he said. Gantt said Americans should l more concerned about the success politicians, such as David Duke ai Jesse Helms, who appeal directly voters using blatant racism to evol the emotions of undereducated a; older whites. In what Gantt called a “damn do election,” he said he came within tv and one-half percent of beatu Helms, whom he plans to conte again in 1992. (See HARVEY GANTT, P. 2) Devastating Health Problem Physician Calls For A New Culture READING POETRY-Pont Gwendolyn Bi Pufltbor Prize (1980). wi road from h Thursday, Fab. 14, at I p.m. In Janklns t wsman salactad to sons as pastry cam loading Is two and span to ths pubic. Doks, Hi* first Mack writer to win the ir works at East Carolina University udltorlum. She was also th* first Mack ultant to the Library of Congress. The BY DR. LOUIS W. SULLIVAN Secretary, Department of Health anti Human lurvlcea Aa Aaalyala To me as a physician, America’s problems have human faces—bullet riddled assault victims, victims from alcohol-related accidents, unwed teen mothers, crack babies, battered wives, abused children, sitaokers racked with emphysema, drug over doses, persoib under the death sentence of AlqS. To me, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, these problems are magnified almost incomprehensibly. They represent tragic societal devastation and staggering financial costs. What is most ( distressing is the clear fact that so much disease and mortality in America is preventable: • Health care costs for smoking related problems last year came to $52 billion. SmoBng causes 400,000 premature deaths each year. • Nearly HALF of the 48,000 motor vehicle deaths and 40 percent of the drowning deaths are alcohol-related. • More than a million U.S. citizens are infected with the HIV virus and more than 155,000 of them have AIDS—with the number climbing dai ly •From one to three million Americans are regular users of co caine. This has created a climate of fear in our cities. Drug abuse by women contributes significantly to our nation’s high infant mortality rate, low birthweight babies and other newborn disorders. • Violence, homicide and suicide related to drinking cost our society |70 billion in I960. •Poor diet is related to five of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States, including coron heart disease, some cancers, stro: infant mortality and diabetes. How did we get into such a met The diagnosis, though harsh a painful, has to be faced. Much of disease and disability afflicting (See HEALTH CAHE. P. 2) Symbolism Plays Role In Heritage, Accomplishments With the celebration of Black History Month cornea the remembering of the many significant accomplishments of black peo ple. Perhaps the biggest accomplishment was the starting of the black history observance by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Woodson was born In 187S, the son of two former slaves. Because his family was poor, he had to teach himself the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. With diligence and determination, he mastered these skills by age 17. He hoped to further his education by entering high school, but was (See BLACK HISTORY, P. 2) DR. CARTER G. WOODSON
The Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Feb. 12, 1991, edition 1
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