TUESDAY
Tops ‘Meal Lover’ Poll
Vanessa Williams Ranks First As “Ideal
Lover” In Poll About Real Life Romance
And Fantasy Date
Page 8
Gray MLK Speaker At UNC
William Gray, III Speaks On Historical
Black Colleges At UNC’s 11th Martin Luther
King Birthday Celebration
Page 6
This Week
Kour years after Jackie Robinson
entered major league baseball to
break the "color barrier,” Chuqk
Cooper of the Boston Celtics became
the first black player admitted to the
National Basketball Association in
1951.
RALEIGH, N.C.,
VOL. 51, NO. 13
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7,1991
N.C.'s Semi-Weekly
DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST
SINGLE COPY
IN RALEIGH Z.O0
ELSEWHERE 300
Lampooning
Anita Hill
Said Racist
NEWARK, N J. (AP)—A skit at a
lawyers’ Christmas show featuring
a man in blackface lampooning An
ita Hill was branded as racist by a
minority lawyer’s organization and
drew an apology from the bar asso
ciation that staged it.
“We are outraged,” said Karol
Corbin Walker, president of the
Garden State bar Association,
which has about 400 members.
“This skit showed a total disregard
for Anita Hill and for all African
American people.”
Walker said her group planned to
ask the New Jersey Bar Association
and every county bar association to
publicly scold the Monmouth group,
its officers and skit participants.
Hill, a University of Oklahoma
law professor, accused then-U.S.
Supreme Court nominee Clarence
Thomas of sexual harassment when
she worked for him years ago. Her
charges and Thomas’ rebuttals dur
ing his televised confirmation hear
ings gained national attention.
“Anita Hill is an articulate, attrac
tive, well-spoken attorney,” Walker
said. “By ignoring that and depict
ing a black in a stereotyped manner,
(See HILL PARODY, P.3)
Blacks Mistrust
AIDS Research,
Prevention Plan
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)—The
Mack community’s collective mem
ory of the Tuskegee Syphilis
Study—in which 399 black men
with syphilis were watched but not
treated—is generating Mack mis
trust of AIDS prevention efforts, two
public health researchers say.
Die 40-year Tuskegee episode is
often cited to support rumors that
AIDS is a white-invented disease,
part of a genocide] plot aimed at
Macks, according to Stephen B.
Thomas, director of the Minority
Health Research Laboratory at the
University of Maryland, and an
associate, Sandra (house Quinn.
Those rumors have been given
credence in some of the nation’s
Mggest black newspapers and
m^axines, on Mack-oriented televi
sion shows and even in books, they
said.
Thomas and Quinn laid out their
case in an article in the November
issue of the American Journal of
Public Health and elaborated last
(See AIDS SUSPICION, P. 2)
Small Banks Vital To Community
BY SIDNEY BOSTIAN, JR.
An Analysis
As the banking industry rushes
toward “mega-banking," a single
anecdote summarizes why commu
nity banking is destined to remain a
vital component of our financial in
frastructure.
During a stressful negotiating
session in which one of my former
clients was growing increasingly
impatient, the other party to the
negotiation asked him not to take
things so personally, since the only
issue at stake was money. Without
pausing to think, my client retorted,
“Nothing is more personal than my
money!”
This client’s reponse clearly illus
trates why community banks will
continue to play a vita] role in our
society. I know most Americans do
not see their financial affairs as
commodities. Nor do community
banks, and that is their greatest
strength.
In the midst of the euphoria over
the merger of Charlotte-based
NCNB with Atlanta’s C&S/Sovran,
it is tempting to forecast the demise
of community banks. But to declare
“mega-banks” as the only future for
U.S. banking based on this example
and the experience of our global
neighbors would be a serious mis
take.
Community banks are especially
well-suited to serving the American
small business market. The recent
wave of bank consolidation has typi
cally had an adverse effect on small
businesses. Many large banks
choose not to accommodate the
credit or service needs of small busi
nesses because of the expense and i
flexibility required in serving such
accounts.. Economists generally |
credit credit the small-business sec- 1
tor with being the primary engine of I
economic growth. The inability (or i
unwillingness) of “mega-banks” to i
serve this market will assure a con- ’
tinuing role for community-based t
institutions. (
Local financial institutions per- 1
form other, more subtle, functions in
our communities. Community
Leader Faces Murder Trial
Faces 60
Years If
Convicted
PORT LAUDERDALE, Pla.
(AP>—The leader of a black religious
sect once hailed aa the savior of
blighted neighborhoods faces trial
on charges he used murder, flrebom
bings and extortion to build a busi
ness empire.
Yahweh ben Yahweh, who was
born Hulon Mitchell, Jr., is accused
of dispatching "death angels” to kill
defectors and residents who resisted
the group’s efforts to take over
neighborhoods.
Also among the 15 victims were
seven "white devils” who were slain
to gain entry into the Miami sect’s
inner circle, prosecutors alleged.
Some victims were decapitated.
Others’ ears were cut off and taken
to ben Yahweh as proof they had
been killed, prosecutors said.
"The defendants engaged in vio
lence as a mechanism for keeping
discipline and violence as a mecha
nism for making money,” said U.S.
Attorney Dexter Lehtinen.
Prosecutors and lawyers for ben
Yahweh and 15 of his followers
joined the judge for a closed-door
session Thursday before the start of
jury selection in the racketeering
trial.
"I don't think it's possible to indict
a religion. If they can indict this
religion they can go after any relig
ion,” Aloee Hastings, ben Yahweh’s
attorney, said last week.
Opening statements should begin
this week and the trial could take up
to five months, prosecutors said.
(See YAHWEH TRIAL, P. 2)
University this
Florida attorney, presented his alma mater with a record
$10 million gift. Shown from left at the homecoming week
Gov. James W. Martin;
university president, Dr. Talbert 0.
anaw and Raleigh Mayor Avery Upchurch.
Lower Income Households Might
Qualify For New Type Mortgage
BY DEBORAH WARREN
Special To The CAROLINIAN
Every day, the American dream of
owning a home eeema to be harder
for families of modest means. While
this is true in general, banks in
North Carolina have in the past few
irears developed new types of mort
gages designed specifically for
lower-income households.
Most of the new mortgage prod
ucts require that your family income
(lot exceed 80 percent of the median
ncome in your area. This amount
will be higher in urban than in rural
l
areas. In Waks County, for example,
the estimated median family income
is about $43,70, but in rural Ashe
County, the figure is only $24,000.
Many of these new mortgage prod
ucts are directed tdo lower-income
families who have difficulty meeting
conventional mortgage require
ments.
Bank* hav» *»««■.
products to comply with require
ments of a federal law, the Commu
nity Reinvestment Act. It requires
all financial institutions to meet the
credit needs of all parts of their
market areas, including low- and
moderate-income communities.
Conventional mortgages are often
(See MORTGAGE, P. 2)
janks are major sources of financial
ind human resources for civic activi
:ies. In addition, banks that are inte
gral to their communities support
ocal systems of financial accounta
rility which help counteract the lax
ittitudes regarding debt in our sod
sty. Finally, community banks pro
side economic nurturing to their
ommunities and encourage bank
srs to see their success as being
inked to the successes of the com
(See BANK MERGERS, P. 2)
Inside
Africa
JOHAN NESUBRG, South Africa
(AP)—While scores of politicians
began planning the new “demo
cratic, non-racial and non-sexist”
South Africa last week, women were
a conspicuous minority.
Of the 228 delegates who gath
ered recdently for the Convention
for a Democratic South Africa, only
17 were women.
“Here we are in this great hall at
a momentous time, and I can’t be
lieve my eyes when I see the number
of women in the room,” said Helen
Suzman, a liberal Democratic Party
delegate.
A declaration signed by most con
vention participants pledged to cre
ate a nation free of sexism as well as
racism, but the male-female ratio
showed how far the country has to go
before women play a substantial
role in politics.
President F.W. de Klerk’s 21
member Cabinet has one woman—
health Minister Rina Venter. The
60-member President’s Countil, de
Klerk’s main advisory body, has
seven women.
None of the five top leaders of the
African National Congress, the
main black opposition group, is a
woman. Only nine of the 50 elected
seats on its policy-making National
Executive Committee are held by
women. At the ANC’s national con
gress in July, delegates rejected a
proposal to set aside a guaranteed
number of seats on the committee
for women.
(See INSIDE AFRICA, P. 2)
Powell: A Life
As Irritant And
Powerful Leader
NEW YO&K, N.Y. (AP)—Adam Clayton Pow
ell, Jr. orwtod outrage whan ha told white
America to got ita foot off the nook of black
America. He wai forever described as flamboy
ant, a rule breaker, a womanixer.
Many oldatere in Harlem eiiH eay that Powell
lost bis powerful chairmanship of the pouee
Education and Labor Committee and his scat in
Congress because he dared to speak out.
But a new book on Powell portrays him as a
complicated, sophisticated activist who did
break the strictures, rules and laws and that
contributed to his downfall, too.
Charles V. Hamilton, the Wallace & Sayre
professor of government at Columbia Univer
sity, ties up the beloved, begrudged and hated
aspects of Powell in the just published Adam
Clayton Powell Jr.: The Political Biography of
an American DUamma.
The first mejor book on the man enoe known
as “Mr. Civil Bights’* and as an early hut unpub
licised Martin Luther King, Jr, this political
biography documents the man, his times and
(See ADAM C. POWELL, P. 'D
■ * ' *• •r--. -
Students, Colleagues Bid Adieu
To Dedicated, Retiring Teacher
BY CASH MICHAELS
Contributing Writer
Though it waa by the fireplace, the
gigantic farewell card from her stu
dente exuded more warmth and
comfort than any five or six blocks of
burning wood ever could...
“Mrs. Smith, hey, I’m really going
to miss you. You really inspired me.
I hate to see you leave. Love you al
ways..." promised one of the hand
written salutes. “I’m sorry for being
so much trouble in class. You were
really patient with me. Til miss you,"
' admitted another. Then, there was
this interesting goodbye from a
young female student that seemed
to put a tongue-in-cheek exclama
tion point on the whole card: “Soul
Mama, anytime you want to go on
the road with me, just let me know!”
Well, Ann Hunt Smith now has
plenty of time to go on the road, or
inspire, do anything else she really
wants to do. As of Dec. 31,1991, and
after 30 years of teaching music and
the arts, Ms. Smith has retired from
the Wake County Public School.
System.
Just from the many cards and let
ters from well-wishers that grace
her living room, it’s clear that she’s
left behind many students, col
leagues and admirers who have
appreciated her skills as an educa
tor and humanitarian. But what she
leaves isn’t anywhere near what she
is taking with her: a special tradi
tion of loving, sharing and caring for
children that was once a hallmark of
teaching in black schools years ago.
"It was just like fluidly," Ms.
Smith told The CAROLINIAN, re
calling the close and nurturing rela
tionship she had with her students.
"I cared, Ireally cared. Itried to‘free’
students, so that they could find out
who they really were. I challenged
them to be their best... to bring out
their latent talent. There’s nobody I
taught who can say that they
couldn't sing, or that they didn’t
have a particular gift, because I
found it. If I found a student who
came to me and he had a problem
with pitch, I would find some dra
matic talent, or dancing, or some
thing there that I could use. No child
could come and ever say he was a
failure."
When one listens to Ms. Smith
talk about her career as an educator,
you realize almoet immediately that
teaching music was really incidental
to her true mission: making sure
that young people love and respect
themselves, and the world they live
in. For that lesaon, she taught by
example.
"In order to get the children to aing
with the expression that I wanted, or
to get them to understand the lyrics,
(See RETIRING, P. 2)