TUESDAY Anger And Racism Actor Lou Gossett says offers did not come after he won an Oscar in “An Officer and a Gentleman.” He blames anger and racism and a personal bout with depression. Pflflt 11 Negro League Years Jackie Robinson became famous as an outstanding player, but many members of the Negro League remain unknown as vital makers of baseball history. PagalO This Week In 1938 Walter White, a' committed lobbist, was appointed national secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. His tenure | would last 24 years in the organization founded by W. E. B. | DuBois and supporters in 1909. RO LIN I AN RALI VOL. 01, NO. 77 TUESDAY, AUGUST 18,1992 o N.C.'s Semi-Weekly DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST SINGLE COPY IN RALEIGH ELSEWHERE 30c HAPPY TO BE AUVE-As he and mlt mother toft Wake Medical Center taet Friday, S-year-otd Dwayne Bento min Powed of Newark, N.J. teds reporters that InTs doi| O.K. after being shot In the tower hip on St. Augustine’s Codoge’s eampes. Pewefs mother, Mrs. Jessie Hewed, sent her son to Raleigh to get away from crime to Newark. She said she was happy to now take Dwayne heme. (Photo hg Cask Mtehaab) New Jersey Youth Heads Home After Shooting At Game BY CASH MICHAELS SUR Writer Being iM and then being nude a big fuss over by strangers and the nied'a wasn’t exactly what ^-year-old Dwayne Benjamin Howell ha*~’ Ms summer vacation away from his native "" * yet paitled look on bis face when be 'harge exit of Wake Medical Ceater ‘ all who gathered to greet him that aliie just how lucky he is to be finally wears off. Soy known to his family and •he entire community last >e was the unintended, vmnasium on St. tat an argument tored basketball Blacks Say Expensive Civic Center Would Have Few Community Benefits BY CASH MICHAELS Staff Writer There is excitement in the air •round Raleigh City Hall. The prospect of building a new $95 mil lion dollar dvic and convention | center downtown means finally ' putting the capital city on the map | when it come to attracting first class large conferences, and the tens of millions of dollars that come with them annually. All citi tans have to do is approve a high ticket bond referendum, and the bidding can begin. But then travel a few blocks into America’s Southern Black Face MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP>—The Emmett T^ill murder trial. The Montgomery bus boycott. Martin Luther King Jr.’s rise to national prominence. It’s all there in Ernest Withers’ rusting file cabinets. Stacks of aging photos and nega tives put a face on America’s search for black civil rights in the 1950s and '60s. It’s all there because Withers was there. And he had his camera with him. Withers, 69, has photographed black Southern life for more than 40 years, and his files hold thou sands upon thousands of pictures and negatives, There are happy couples at their weddings. Smiling children at pa rades. A dead teen-ager’s brutal ised body. Smug white men acquit ted of murder. “I have been the recorder of his tory and feel good about that,” Withers said at the modest studio where he still plies the craft he began learning as a teen-ager with (See BLACK FACE, P.2) ederal Charges King Beating Hooks, the NAACP’s irector/CEO, following ement recently, that a d jury in Los Angeles had ie officers on federal violating Mr. King’s civil 3 trial in Simi Valley, Ca., the officers were found not guilty on April 29 by a predominantly white jury of all charges except one against a single officer, Lawrence Powell. Here, the Jury was deadlocked and Powell faces retrial on Oct. 19 for excessive use of force. The acquittals touched off violence in Los Angeles that left more than 45 people dead and damage estimated at 9800 million. Specifically the federal indictment charges the three officers who beat King during an arrest in March 1991, with violating his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable arrest. It accuses their sergeant of depriving King of his 14th Amendment due process rights by failing to restrain the officers. Each of the officers faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. In his statement, Dr. Hooks said: “Justice was not served in Simi Valley last April. Our hope for jutice now lies in the federal court where the officers involved have been indicted under civil rights statues. “In the past we have experienced numerous occasions where, when local systems of justice faltered, ther was recourse to the federal courts. “We are hopeful that in this flagrant incident of police abuse that those whose faith in the judicial system was shaken by the imcomprehensible verdicts rendered earlier, will find reason to once again believe in that system.” The U. S. Justice Department began a Federal civil rights investigation after the beating of Mr. King on March 3, 1991, that was videotaped by an amateur cameraman and widely shown on television. southeast Raleigh, where there is frustration, not excitement, per meating the atmosphere. There is little industry, few jobs, and mini mum meaningful growth for the indigenous population there, com pared to the rest of the city. In Raleigh’s black community, the air crackles with anything but excitement when you ask the aver age southeast resident about sup porting the new multi-million dol lar city project. But while it may only be a few blocks away, to many black citizens, it might as well be worlds apart So when the City Council for mally approved a resolution to place a bond referendum to cover the cost of construction on the No vember 3rd ballot last Wednesday, not only African-Americans, but tax weary white citizens, were dis turbed that another expensive public project was looming in the wings, with little or no perceived benefits. “Again, the African-American voter is asked to dine at a dinner table at which he is served an empty plate. In the past, we were served a menu of broken prom ises,’ said Melvin Whitley, repre senting the Raleigh East Commu nity organization. Whitley was one of a majority of citizens, black and white, who went before the city council at last Wednesday’s public hearing, opposing the bond issue. "We continue to leave the tax supported table with a bitter taste and an empty stomach...,” Whitley concluded. "It is not enough to be called a diner and set a table with others whose plates are filled with prosperity and a sense of security, while the southeast Raleigh com (See BLACKS, P. 2) OPPOSITION-Former city councilman and state senator John W. Winters (Pictured at Podium) and the Wake County Taxpayer’s Association said no to a new $95 mlion convention center in downtown Raleigh Wednesday night. The city council voted unanimously to put the bond issue before the voters in the Nov. 3rd general election. If approved, design and construction wM begin in spring 1993. (Photo by James 6Nes) Black Voter Support To Decide $95 Million Civic Center Issue BY CASH MICHAELS Stair Writer You may not feel it now, but by Election Day in November there will be no doubt; Raleigh’s African American citizen will be expected to not only support, but provide the margin of victory for the $95 million bond referendum to build a new, and controversial civic and convention center. The question is...will they do it? A confluence of factors already put into place may give city ad ministrators and civic supporters better than a 50/50 chance to suc ceed, and it’s all based on a simple, but tried and true philosophy! Get out the black vote, and you’ll win! Factor #1—Even before the Raleigh City Council decided to approve putting the bond referen dum before the people, it had been ■ ■---' determined that November 3rd, Election Day, would be the date to do it. Why? Because this year, it is also a presidential election day, and history has shown that more voters come out during a presiden tial election than for statewide or local contests. The referendum thus gets the benefit of a built-in maximum voter turn-out. But this is even more the case in terms of the black community, for unless people become totally disillusioned by November, the black vote is ex pected to turn out. And if it keeps to historical form, the black vote this election day may provide the margin for victory once again for something or someone that has been promised to be advantageous for them. Factor #2—History is on the side of bond referendum propo - COMM UNI TY CAL END A R COMMUNITY MEETINGS U. S. Rep. David Price will hold three community meetings in Raleigh beginning August 24 at Enloe High School at 7:30 p.m.; August 31 at Sanderson High School at 7:30 p.m. and September 3 at Athens Drive High School at7:30 p.m. YEAR ROUND EDUCATION The issue of year-round education is not on the Wake County Board of Education agenda for the August 17 meeting. The board on that date will consider items which will be heard at the facilities, legislative, personnel, policy and program committee meetings this month. Year-round education is not on the agenda for any of those committee meetings. PERSONAL GROWTH Support group for six weeks covers variety topics from fatigue to anger, self-esteem to intimacy beginning August 20 at 6:30 p.m. at the Women's Center, 128 E. Hargett Street. (See CALENDAR, P. 2) nents. Whenever one has been placed before the African-Ameri can community, it haa been sup ported. Why? Because of the prom ise of more jobs, or better schools, or better opportunities. Part of the approved resolution called for a 7 1/2 to 10 percent “minority/woman owned business participation” in all phases of the project, specifi cally in the design, construction and contract concessions. District C City Councilman Ralph Campbell Jr. pushed hard for this addition to the resolution, and told the CAROLINIAN that he feels it would guarantee the African American community would bene fit from the project. So if history is a guide, pushing the benefits hard and strong in the black community, combined with an election day voter well, passage of the $95 million dollar bond ref erendum should be a lead pipe cinch, particularly if the black vote provides the margin in a close, heated general campaign. But if the bond referendum fails in the black community, it will be because many African-Americans have taken stock of history, found the benefits of their community lacking, and are in no mood to en dorse a gravy train for anybody else. Melvin Whitley, head of the Raleigh East Community Organi zation, told the City Council at the Aug. 12th public hearing that black voters have been supporting bond referendums and other fiscal initiatives in Raleigh for the last 30 years, only to be later victim ized by a “menu of broken prom ises.” Those broken promises in cluded greater use of file Memorial Auditorium for the community if it supported the restoration effort, greater use of the civic center for (See BLACK VOTERS, P. 2)

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view