The Carolinian
RALEIGH, N.C.,
THURSDAY,
JANUARY 2,1992
VOL. 51, NO. 12
N.C.'s Semi-Weekly
DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF JESUr~
SINGIP^'
t T- r ^
Harvey Gantt Shows No Interest
In Running For House Seat
See Page 7
Lou Rawls Nets Millions In
12th Annual Telethon
See Page 6
N.C. Labor
Dept. Fines
Imperial Food
$808,150
State Labor Commissioner Job
C. Brooks this week announced civ
penalties amounting to $808,15
against Imperial Food Products, In<
of Hamlet for violations of the stat
occupational safety and health lawt
The penalties resulted from ai
investigation by the department1
Occupational Safety and Healt]
Division into the Sept. 3 fire at th
company’s plant which killed 25 am
injured 56.
“This is the largest penalty eve
assessed against a company ii
North Carolina for violations of ou
state occupational safety and healtl
laws,” Brooks said.
“Of course,” he added, “no fin*
whatever the amount, can amelio
rate the suffering of the injured o
the loss of the families who lost thei
loved ones in this tragic fire; nor ar
OSHA fines designed to achieve thi
purpose.
"OSHA fines currently are calcu
lated upon the basis of the inci
dences of unsafe and unhealth;
workplace conditions and practices
suid are not a reflection of how man;
persons were killed or injured or th
severity of those injuries that wen
(See HAMLET, P. 2)
NEWS BRIEFS
LOCAL FIRM HONORED
Ann Q. Duncan, chairman
of the Employment Security
Commiasion of North Caro
lina, announced recently that
Godwin Produce Co. has been
named recipient of the Job
Service Employer Award for
1991, sponsored by the ESC.
The award was presented by
Chairman Duncan during a
noon luncheon at the North
Raleigh Hilton.
ROBBER STRIKES
Treasury Drug Store in the
falls Village Shopping Center
on Falls of the Neuse Road
was held up Monday evening
by an armed man while sev
eral customers in the store
went about their business.
The robber pointed a small
caliber handgun at the cash
ier, demanded money and
fled on foot.
REDISTRICTING PLANS
North Carolina’s redistrict
ing plan will have to be re
done after the U.S. Justice
Department threw out the
plan last week. Federal offi
cials said the General Assem
bly should work to draw a
(See NEWS BRIEFS, P. 2)
PAY UP-Wake County property taxpayers rushed and stood in Nne at the
Wake County Tax Office here in Raleigh to meet Tuesday’s December 31st
deadline. According to Beverty M. O’Neal, Accounting Tech IN, property owners
wl have until Jan. 6,1992 to pay their 1991 tax bill. After the 6th a 2 percent
penalty wll be assessed for the month of January. The deadline to list 1992
property Is Thurs., Jan. 31st.
David Duke Grabs Headlines
In D.C. Presidential Primary
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP)—David
Duke, denounced by state Republi
cans as a racist “slug,” is expected to
be lightning rod headline-grabber of
Washington’s first presidential pri
mary.
The controversial former Ku Klux
Klan chief and Nazi sympathizer,
who recently lost a bid for governor
in Louisiana, is challenging Presi
dent Bush for the Republican nomi
nation.
Washington was listed as one of
Duke’s target states in recent news
dispatches, but campaign spokes
man Marc Ellis said a final decision
has not been made.
Even if Duke doesn’t spend much
time in the Evergreen State, it’s
quite probable he'll be on the ballot
here, said Secretary of State Ralph
Munro.
Munro, a moderate-to-liberal
Republican who calls Duke’s views
and his appeal abhorrent, said the
primary law gives him no choice bul
to list any GOP or Democratic presi
dential candidate whose bid is “gen
erally advocated... or recognized ir
the national news media.”
Munro said even if he kept Duke
off the list hell draw up in February,
the candidate could easily qualify
for the May 19 primary. He needs
only to submit 1,000 signatures oi
registered voters, and he got cam
paign contributions from at least
120 Washington residents this fall,
he said.
Duke spokesman Ellis said the
state may have a national reputa
tion as a liberal-leaning state, but
nonetheless Duke could make a good
showing here.
“David can do real well up there il
he chooses,” Ellis said from head
quarters in New Orleans last week.
“You have busing problems in Se
attle. Fve heard that Washington is
one of the best places in this country
to live and Seattle the most livable
city, but I still think David can do
well up there.
“You all have your share of prob
lems.”
Republicans are trying to distance
themselves as much as possible from
Duke. Bush and the national party
have read Duke out of the paraty
and the state executive board re
cently condemned Duke as “a racist,
bigot and an opportunist who does
not speak for mainstream Republi
cans.”
State Chairwoman Jennifer
Dunn says, “Underneath that
smooth facade is the same old David
Duke, a man who is hateful, bigoted
and dangerous.
“We’re a party of the open door,
but every once in a while, a slug
comes through the door,” says John
Meyers, executive director of the
state GOP.
“We strongly object to him run
ning on the label of the Repubicans.
Ifhe ran under the Bigot Party label,
that would be one thing, but we are
concerned that people may think the
party is the charlatan and not the
other way around.
“This guy steals Republican mes
sages and bends and twists them to
his own end.”
(See DAVID DUKE, P. 2)
Lawmaker Via
Minority Dist.
InN.C. May
Not Be Black
CHARLOTTE (AP)—While the
General Assembly works to create
more voting districts where minori
ties outnumber whites, there re
main questions of whether numbers
alone can put more blacks in office.
The U.S. Justice Department has
approved plans for one congres
sional district in which blacks are in
the majority and has asked legisla
tors to consider creating a second
where blacks and Lumbee Indians
outnumber whites. The department
also is proposing more minority
dominated districts in state House
and Senate plans.
But some lawmakers fear that the
minority vote might be splintered
among several candidates in such
districts, resulting in the election of
a white candidate.
“I think that’s very likely... It
could throw a curve,” Rep. Toby
Fitch, D-Wilson, who co-chairs the
House Redistricting Committee,
told the Charlotte Observer.
If that happens, some black and
white politicians fear the elections
will cause racial divisiveness.
“It’s just a real mess,” said Tom
Brandon, mayor of Williamston in
Martin County. Brandon, a white
Democrat, is considering running
for Congress in the newly drawn
First District, where nearly 56 per
cent of residents and more than 51
percent of registered voters are
bladk.
Under the 1965 Voting Rights Act
and federal court rulings, North
Carolina must draw majority-black
districts to protect minority voting
strength. Although 22 percent of
North Carolina’s population is black
voters haven’t elected a black candi
date to Congress in this century.
At first, lawmakers believed the
new First Distrikct would create the
right climate for a black’s election.
The First District’s white incum
bent, U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, Sr., D
N.C., is retiring from Congress after
26 years. And at least four promi
nent black candidates are consid
ered likely to run: state Rep. Mickey
Michaux, D-Durham; Rep. Thomas
Hardaway, D-Halifax; Warren
County Commissioner Eva Clayton;
and Willie Riddick, a member of
Jones’ congressional staff.
But a white candidate could win
(See REDISTRICTING, P. 2)
Official Says There Was JFK Conspiracy
BY CASH MICHAELS
Contributing Writer
The recent release of the contro
versial movie JFK has not only re
kindled interest in the 1963 assassi
nation of President John Fitzgerald
Kennedy, but a national debate
about who was really responsible for
what has been called “the crime of
the century."
Officially, the Warren Commis
sion, a presidential body appointed
to investigate the assassination,
concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey
Oswald was the lone gunman who
fired three shots that fatally killed
Kennedy during a motorcade in
Dallas, Texas.
But many critics of that finding
argue that the commission ignored
testimony from key witnesses who
clsdm even to this day that shots
were fired from more than one loca
tion.
One of those critics is a prominent
African-American law enforcement
official here in North Carolina who
served on a congressional committee
that re-investigated the murders of
doui uonn xveniieay ana civn ngnis
leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
His name is William Webb.
Webb, who is currently an assis
tant secretary with the North Caro
lina Department of Crime Control
and Public Safety, served as a senior
staff counsel with the U.S. House of
Representatives Select Committee
on Assassinations from 1976 to
1979. Webb led a team of attorneys,
investigators and researchers that
looked into every facet of both the
King and Kennedy murders. In an
exclusive interview with The CARO
LINIAN recently, Webb revealed
how the committee determined that
Oswald, if he did, could not have
killed Kennedy alone.
“The committee concluded that
there was a 95 percent probability
that JFK died as a result of a con
spiracy, conspirators unknown,”
said Webb. “The finding was based
in large part on physical evidence,
namely a dictabelt recording that
was made by the Dallas police de
partment. It was recorded through
an open microphone on a
policemans motorcycle that was
part of the motorcade. On that you
can hear four shots [the Warren
Commission concluded that there
were only three shots fired].”
Webb indicated that acoustics
experts hired by the committee con
firmed that there were four shots
after listening to the dictabelt, then
superimposing the sound to the
famous 8mm film of the assassina
tion taken by Abraham Zapruder,
an eyewitness to the shooting. “The
audio and video matched up so that
when you heard a shot you’d see a
reaction," claimed Webb, who con
cluded that this evidence proved
that it would have been impossible
for Oswald to fire four shots with an
old Italian rifle in 5.6 seconds.
“When experts tried to duplicate
what Oswald had [allegedly] done,
fire a very old rifle very quickly with
a high degree of accuracy, most of
them were unable to duplicate the
feat,"Webb told The CAROLINIAN.
“FBI experts, [armed] services ex
perts who were skilled in handling
rifles... they were hard pressed to get
off three shots in many cases [within
six seconds with the same type of
rifle], let alone three shots with any
degree of accuracy.”
While the four shots discovered
may prove that more than one per
son actually fired at the president,
thus proving a conspiracy, Webb
said the evidence does not conclu
sively show who were the conspira
tors.
In the movie JFK, Kennedy was
killed by a conspiracy of the CIA, the
FBI and the military, primarily
because he planned to withdraw
troops from Vietnam, thus crossing
the interests of several powerful
figures. But Webb disagrees with
that notion, saying that despite
rumors to the contrary, close Ken
nedy aides (including then-Secre
tary of Defense Robert McNamara]
confirm that the president was not
going to pull out of the war.
A team also investigated specific
allegations that the Central Intelli
gence Agency had Kennedy mur
(See CONSPIRACY, P. 2)
N. C. Voters More Likely
To Pick Blacks, Women
North Carolina voters have
moved closer to the rest of the nation
in their views on women and Afri
can-American presidential candi
dates, according to a University of
North Carolina survey.
Seventy-seven percent of the state
residents polled say they would vote
for a qualified woman or African
American presidential candidate.
Four percent would vote for a
woman, but not an African-Ameri
can, according to the survey. Six
percent would vote for neither, and
eight percent of the respondents
were unsure about one or both sce
narios.
“In other words, five of six North
Carolinians said that they would
vote for a qualified African-Ameri
can for president and five of six said
they would vote for a qualified
woman,” said Dr. John Shelton
Reed, director of UNO’s Institute for
Research in Social Science.
Such results square with the 1991
General Social Survey, a national
poll that showed 10 percent of vot
ing-age adults were unwilling to
vote for a qualified black presiden
tial candidate, while nine percent
were not prepared to vote for a quali -
fled woman, Reed said.
“Opposition to minority and fe
male candidates used to be much
higher in the South,” he said. “It is
striking that the figures for North
Carolina are no longer significantly
different from those for the nation as
a whole.”
Voting preference questions were
part of UNO’s recent Carolina Poll,
which asked 604 adult residents of
N.C. households questions about a
wide variety of topics.
Drug Action s Going Places
Sets Jan. 5th Banquet Here
“Love, Hope, Will and Faith—The
Intangibles of Prevention.” This will
be the theme of a special banquet for
some special kids. When the Shera
ton hotel chain offered its facilities
at cost, the staff of Drug Action’s
Going Places program decided to
honor the children from the program
who had graduated, progressed, and
stayed involved in prevention activi -
ties.
The banquet will be held Jan. 5 at
the Sheraton RTP and will feature
leaders from the community ad
dressing the theme of drug preven
tion. The panel of speakers will in
clude Raleigh City Council member
and Mayor Pro Tem Ralph
Campbell; Margaret Rose
Murray .moderator of WLLE’s
“Faces and Places” radio show; Rev.
Theodore McAllister, pastor of
See BANQUET. P 2>