Do The Right Thing
Motown Sues MCA To End Distribution
Agreement. MCA was unable to
manufacture and ship “Do the Right Thing"
record.
Page 9
1
Orange Bowl Classic
Dr. Lee- Monroe, president of Florida
Memorial College has been named to the
Orange Bowl Classic Football Committee.
Page 8
This Week
On June 18,1941, Joe Louis
met Billy Con for the
heavyweight championship
fight in New York as one in
a series of “white hopes”
defeated in knockouts. Con
who said Louis was a “big,
slow-moving Negro” went
(See THIS WEEK, P, 10)
The Carolmall
X
RALEIGH, N.C.,
VOL. 50, NO. 59
TUESDAY, JUNE 18,1991
N.C.'s Semi-Weekly
DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST
250
ELSEWHERE 300
-j\ Africa’s Medical Science
^ Profit To Blame In AIDS Cure Cover
\ NEW YORK, N.Y.-Some blacks
contend that white racism is to blame
for the lack of publicity about a
Kenyan drug hailed as an
\ inexpensive cure for AIDS, >t was
O reported recently.
X Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi
Vi announced earlier in the summer that
a cure for acquired immune
/spending Gap
Grows Between
N.C. Schools
Despite heroic efforts by many low
wealth communities to support public
schools, the gap in local spending
between rich schools and poor schools
continues to widen.
Last year, in 1989-90, the gap in
combined operating and capital local
spending (between the highest and
lowest counties in the state) was
more than (2,200 per student.
That is the finding of a study
released last week by the Public
School Forum of North Carolina. The
forum is a partnership of business,
education and political leaders from
across North Carolina whose primary
goal is to find ways for improving
public education. The study is titled
“Local School Finale in North
Carolina: 1991 Status Report.*
Dare County leads the latest local
school spending report at $2,812 per
student. Hoke County schools, last in
the state, are funded at an average of
$373 per student.
Dare’s strong showing is the result
of a major school building program
and high spending for schools’
operating budgets. Dare County leads
the state in property tax wealth per
student and in overall ability to pay.
Hoke County is last in North Carolina
inability to pay.
Looking at current expenditures
only, Guilford County leads the state
at $1,734 per student. Hoke County
again is last at $253 per student. The
state average (including
supplemental levies) is $754 per
student. The state combined average
for current operations and a five-year
average of school construction was
$1,059 per student for the 1989-90
school year.
Even more striking is the fact that
the 10 counties making the highest
effort to support schools are among
the bottom 25 counties when ranked
for their ability to pay.
“Obviously, something must be
done at the state level to correct this
disparity,’’ said John Dornan,
president of the forum. “North
Carolina cannot afford to allow
nearly half of the school children who
live in rural areas to suffer from an
inadequate education because of
where they live.”
(See SCHOOLS. P.8)
MMMSamaaaaiaaaB
deficiency syndrome had been found,
a drug called Kemron that is
marketed by the Kenyan
government.
But blacks involved in the debate
say that white-dominated news
organizations did not publicize the
drug because oi a racially based
distrust of African science, the New
York Times reported.
The blacks also said the drug was
played down because it posed
competition for more expensive AIDS
medications offered by the white
medical establishment.
About 800 New Yorkers, most of
them white, are thought to have tried
one form of the drug, low-dosage
alpha interferon taken orally,
apparently with little success.
Hundreds more in Dallas and Fort
Lauderdale, were using a different
form, the newspaper said.
“1 don’t know how this works but
there’s nothing else that holds a
candle to it,” said Ronald Woodroof,
who founded the Dallas Buyers Club
He said that after 122 days on the
drug, he feels better than even before
he acquired AIDS.
The Black Leadership Commission
on AIDS, a group of New York
professionals and religious leaders, is
studying the drug and the
Amsterdam News, a weekly black
newspaper, has run front-page
Women Behind The Bars
Alternative
Punishments
May Be Key
BY ALTON R. WALDON, JR.
AnAMlyiit
A certain segment of our population
suffers from an uncommon pain and
despair, and members of this group
are rarely able to speak out for
themselves because of this
predicament.
I am speaking of women behind
Most of these women in
jail are African-American
or Latino, and they are
poor. Many are
unemployed single
parents who suffer from
drug abuse and who may
have been victims of
physical and sexual abuse
as well. They symbolize in
many cases the last,
desperate hope of
maintaining some kind of
family structure in poor
communities.
bars—women known as “Mommy” to
many unfortunate children. These
women, who often are the only parent
a child knows, make up the fastest
growing group within jails.
Proponents of change on behalf of
these women say it best: “When a
woman does time, the entire family
does time with her."
The number of women in prisons
has rocketed in recent years, but the
majority of these inmates are non
violent criminals who pose no serious
threat to public safety. For this
reason, I share the belief that the
future of these prisioners, their
children and certainly the
(See BEHIND BARS, P.2)
HKH LEVEL OF SUCCESS-The Kittrell Jab Corps
Cantor, an alternative educational program funded by the
U.S. Department of Labor has achieved a high level of
success in the education area. The average student
enrolod in Hit program raises their math score 2.3 grade
levels. In photo, Gerry Christmas and Me Valentine, the
Mest Improved Class far 1991 in the “World of Work."
In a break with a decades-old
pattern, white male Democrats no
longer hold a majority of seats in the
North Carolina General Assembly,
the N.C. Center for Public Policy
Research says. White male
Democrats in the 1991-92 session
number 82, or 48 percent, of the total
House and Senate membership of 170.
the center says in its new guide to the
legislature.
The number of white male
Democrats first slipped below 50
percent in 1989, when 80 members of
the House and Senate, or 47 percent.
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were white male Democrats. While
white male Democrats still hold a
plurality of the seats—more than any
other category of members—their
numbers have declined dramatically
over the past 20 years.
“Back in 1971, white male
Democrats held a total of 79 percent
of the seats in the legislature—43 out
stories about 'it. WLIB, a black
oriented New York radio station, has
also reported on the drug.
Kenyan scientists claim they have
documented benefits in more than
1,000 patients there, including 50 who
say they no longer test positive for the
(See AIDS, P.2) •
p
Contaminated
Water Seeping
In Reservoirs
The toxic leftovers of human
activity trickle steadily into
America’s groundwater,
endangering its purity more every
year and alarming officials at all
levels of government.
Pesticide residue, septic-tank
discharge, industrial chemicals,
landfill ooze and a host of other nasty
substances seep slowly into
underground reservoirs, the source of
water for 53 percent of the U.S.
population.
Thousands of wells have been
closed. Growing concern about the
safety of drinking supplies from the
nation’s aquifers could lead to federal
legislation during this session of
Congress, some experts predict.
“The history of human-induced
contaminants to-groundwater is just,
beginning to be documented,” says
Marian Mlay, former director of the
Environmental Protection Agency's
Office of Groundwater Protection.
Aquifers, vast underground
reservoirs, hold 20 times the water in
all the nation’s rivers, lakes and
streams.
Aquifers were once thought to be
pollution-proof. But, as it turns out,
an industrialized society's
contaminants are only slow to reach
their destinations.
Even now, a relatively small part
of the groundwater supply is thought
to be polluted.
But more than 200 substances are
known to pollute groundwater.
Virtually every aquifer is vulnerable.
A nationwide study released last
fall by the EPA showed groundwater
pollution in every state. Pesticide and
nitrate contamination were found in
10 percent of the wells used by
community water systems and more
than four percent of private wells.
At greatest risk are the 97 percent
of rural residents who depend on
water from their own wells.
Communities work around their
problems by closing wells and by
* See GROUNDWATER, P 2)
of 50 seats in the Senate and 92 of 120
seats in tlje House," says Kim
Kebschull, a policy analyst at the
center and author of the guide. "In
(he 1971 Senate, there were only white
males—not a single female or
minority senator. And in 1971, the
i See DEMOCRATS. P. 2>
...
•Ml Richard 0. Parsons, cnairman and CEO, Tlw Dima
Savbifs Rank af Haw York. A mam bar of the board of
director* of PMIp Morris Companies, Inc., Paraons served
as an awards dinner co-chairperson with Muriel Siobert,
president, Martel Siabarti Co., stock brokers.
White Male Democrats No Longer
Majority In NC General Assembly
Children In Ethiopia Deserve
Better Than Death As Orphans
In a sense. Mickey Leland is still alive. In Pinyudn.
Hang and Dimma—sprawling settlements of Sudanese
refugees in western Ethiopia—he has taken on a
character larger than life. He became the father figures
almost the patron saint, of thousands of the world’s most
miserable and desperate people, most of them children. '
In August 1989, while on a mission of mercy to the
Sudanese refugee camps, Leland’s plane went down in the
mountains of Ethiopia. There were no survivors. Now. two
years later, those children, approximately 250,900, await
the help and human spirit Hoped for in Leland.
Although there are many children in the refugee
settlements with family, the unaccompanied minors
represent a unique challenge— a challenge undertaken by
a local group uder the auspices of the Ethiopian Orphan
Foundation which met recently at St. Augustine’s College.
The foundation is calling for volunteers to organize a
walk-a-thon to raise funds to build an orphanage in
Ethiopia for famine-victim children. The organization is
founded by Dr. Moges Abebe, a professor at St.
Augustine's, and his wife Tenagne Argaw, who are
originally from Ethiopia.
Recently, Ethiopia was in the news when the Marxist
leader. Mengistu Haile Mariam, fled the country without
establishing a ruling party to govern at his departure. As
a result, complete breakdown of law and order was seen in
most of the cities with the whole nation reverberating to
civil war and heavy gunfire. To avoid bloodshed, more
than 209,000 of its residenls sought refuge in the
neighboring countries of Djibouti. Sudan and Kenya.
• See ETHIOPIA. i>