The Cash Stuff for May 24, 2012

EXCLUSIVE

NATIONAL NAACP BOARD PASSES RESOLUTION

SUPPORTING WILMINGTON TEN PARDONS

            By unanimous vote, the national NAACP Board passed a resolution during its Florida retreat last weekend supporting the petition of pardons of innocence for the Wilmington Ten.

            Rev. William Barber, president of the NCNAACP and a national NAACP Board member, and veteran civil rights attorney Al McSurely, crafted the resolution language. Barber, who is also chair of the national NAACP’s Political Action Committee, then asked NAACP Chairwoman Roslyn Brock to have the meeting agenda amended to allow for the proposed resolution to be heard, which it was without objection.

Guilford County, NC Commissioner Carolyn Coleman, another member of the national NAACP Board and Executive Committee member, introduced the motion, and after strong lobbying by both Ms. Coleman and Rev. Barber, it passed unanimously.

“What this means is not only do we have a public endorsement of the [national] NAACP,” says Rev. Barber, “but passage of a board resolution makes this an NAACP policy throughout the entire association, and the full weight and structure [of the NAACP] is available to support and promote the call for a pardon [of innocence],”

“This is why Ms. Coleman and I felt it necessary to insist and ensure that this resolution passed.”

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., leader of the Wilmington Ten, and past president of the national NAACP, upon hearing the news of the resolution, thanked Rev. Barber, adding, “May God continue to bless the NAACP.”

The draft resolution to the NAACP Board supporting the petition for  pardons of innocence for the Wilmington Ten reads:

WHEREAS in September 1972 ten young North Carolinians were tried and convicted of major felonies in New Hanover County;

AND WHEREAS after the dust settled, it turned out their main crime was trying to obey the law, namely the requirements of the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court to dismantle the separate and unequal school systems of New Hanover County;

AND WHEREAS the young people were Benjamin Chavis, Wayne Moore, Marvin Patrick, Connie Tindall, James McKoy, Willie  Vereen, Reginald Epps,  Anne Shepard-Turner, William “Joe” Wright, and Jerry Jacobs, and were popularly called “The Wilmington Ten”;

AND WHEREAS in 1980, after the young people had spent many years in prison, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled they had been victims of outrageous acts of prosecutorial misconduct, Chavez v. State of North Carolina, 637 F.2d 213, using language all too familiar to those of us who believe in racial justice in North Carolina, saying: “The prosecution's failure to produce . . . to defense counsel the ‘amended’ statement and the record of the hospitalization of the state's key witness and the restrictions upon cross-examination of the key witness and another about favorable treatment which might have induced favorable testimony require us to overturn the convictions” ;

AND WHEREAS such gross prosecutorial misconduct is too often associated with the trials of poor minorities and civil rights activists;

AND WHEREAS each time this linkage is validated by higher courts, it widens the breach in our human family, and aggravates the hurts of past indignities;

AND WHEREAS our constitution does not empower the courts to repair and heal such breaches and wounds, but rather places such acts of human compassion in the Governor's hands;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT REOLVED that the National NAACP will do all in its power to help its North Carolina Conference of NAACP Branches and its broad Historic Thousands on Jones Street Coalition in convincing the Hon. Governor Beverly Perdue to grant a full pardon to the Wilmington Ten, and become, as the Prophet Isaiah would say, “a repairer of the breach.”

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           wilmjourn-ed  A LETTER TO GOV. BEVERLY PERDUE

            Dear Gov. Perdue:

            By now you know about the petition for ten individual pardons of innocence submitted to your office last week on behalf of the Wilmington Ten.

            By now, you also know about the Ten - nine African-American males and one white female social worker, who forty years ago in 1972, were all falsely arrested, and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and arson in connection with the 1971 firebombing of Mike’s Grocery. 

All ten were falsely tried, convicted and sentenced to a total 282 years in prison.

Years later while the Ten were still in prison, the witnesses state prosecutors used to convict them, began to recant their testimony.

Indeed, the whole case begins to fall apart, thanks to a CBS News “60 Minutes” report.

And finally, the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns all of the convictions in the case, citing prosecutorial misconduct, among other things.

Given that the state had absolutely no evidence beyond three witnesses who admitted that they were bought off by prosecutors, it becomes very clear that the Wilmington Ten were never guilty of the dastardly crimes they were accused of.

But the state of North Carolina refused to clear their names.

The responsibility for considering that recourse now is in your hands.

And as you read through the legal materials, and letters of support from political, legal and civic notables, we’d like for you to realize something.

Not only are three of the Wilmington Ten dead, but the surviving seven have had their lives dramatically altered from what their once youthful selves had originally planned to be.

           There is no question that the false prosecution of the Wilmington Ten dramatically impacted their lives, as well as those of their families and loved ones.

            Most of the defendants were young, some barely in their twenties, when they were convicted in 1972 of crimes they didn’t commit.

Some were still in high school, and living with their parents.

At least one, Anne Shepard, was raising three young children.

             Most of them had dreams of bright, hope-filled futures. Some wanted to practice law. Some wanted to play professional sports.

And some were already musicians, looking for their first really big break.

Their only collective “crime,” they each individually say, was their willingness to openly, but peacefully, challenge the New Hanover County Public School System in the early 1970s when it declined to provide an equal, quality education to black students.

Because of their individual courage, and commitment to equality, the Wilmington Ten suffered false prosecution, years of imprisonment and great personal hardships for themselves and their families. The collective impact for all of them has extended decades beyond their release from prison, and well after a federal appellate court overturned their convictions.

Today, forty years hence their false prosecutions, three of the Wilmington Ten - Jerry Jacobs, William Joseph Wright and Anne Shepard - have died, their dreams unfulfilled, according to their bereaved families.

One member, Reginald Epps, has worked so hard to protect his privacy and rebuild his life, that he rarely speaks of his Wilmington Ten experience anymore.

Another member, Rev. Benjamin Chavis, the leader of the group, has evolved into one of the most accomplished civil rights leaders of our time, but he’s paid a dear personal price to do so, having almost lost his life in prison.

As has Wayne Moore, who had to move from Wilmington after his release from prison, leaving family and friends behind, because he was denied the opportunity to work and live in his hometown due to his well-known association.

Willie Earl Vereen, Connie Tindall, James McKoy and Marvin Patrick, all now elderly men with health challenges, all feel robbed of the promise they once had to be productive citizens forty years ago. They have lost faith in government, and angrily challenge North Carolina to render to them long overdue justice - both tangibly and symbolically - to remove the clouds they say still follow their names, and reputations.

In all, the lives of the Wilmington Ten have been marked by struggle, hardship and indignities they otherwise would not have experienced if the state of North Carolina, forty years ago, had not sought to punish them for their political activism, and willingness to demand social change.

While the past cannot be changed, amends can be made today for what was unjustly done to ten innocent American citizens, and North Carolinians.

                                    -30-

TRIANGLE NEWS BRIEFS

PROPOSED COUNTY BUDGET GIVES WAKE SCHOOLS LITTLE EXTRA

            Wake Supt. Tony Tata says the school system needs almost $9 million more from county commissioners in order to make ends meet. But County Manager David Cooke has allotted less than half that much - $3.9 million - to add to the $314 million the county has been giving Wake Public Schools, saying revenues aren’t where they need to be to give more. Tata says it’s a “step in the right direction,” but he still needs the county commission board to reconsider. Commissioners approve their budget June 18.

SHAW TO HOST HBCU EDUCATION CONFERENCE

            Shaw University, the first historically black university in the South, will host the second annual Historically Black Colleges and Universities—General Education Alliance (HBCU-GEA) Conference on Tuesday, May 29 through Thursday, May 31, 2012. The conference, designed to discuss strategies, models and plans of action for educating 21st century African-American students, will feature a roundtable discussion with Dr. Martha J. Kanter, Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, and Dr. Susan Cooper Loomis, Assistant Director of Psychometrics for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) - the Nation’s Report Card.

ZEBULON COUPLE CHARGED AGAIN WITH ETHNIC INTIMIDATION OF BLACK NEIGHBORS

            A white Zebulon husband and wife, scheduled to go to court to face ethnic intimidation charges for allegedly harassing their black neighbors, were arrested again last Friday, and charged this time with intimidating those same black neighbors with video cameras. The neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Wilbert O’Neal, are now considered witnesses after the March 28^th arrest of Michael Stanley Mazur and his wife, Anne for allegedly racially intimidating them. Because the O’Neals caught the Mazurs in the act on video, thus leading to their arrest, the Mazurs, in an act of alleged intimidation, set up video cameras pointed at the O’Neals’ property. The neighbors have been fighting for two years.

                                                -30-

STATE NEWS BRIEFS

REV. BARBER EXPLAINS NAACP SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RESOLUTION

            [DURHAM] While the national NAACP does not judge same-sex marriage “from a personal, religious or moral perspective,” says NCNAACP Pres. Rev. William Barber, “What we do endorse is same-sex marriage equality, as protected by the 14^th Amendment. We endorse the right under the Constitution for citizens of this country to have equal protection in the lifestyle they choose.”  The national NAACP Board, during its retreat in Florida last weekend, passed a resolution supporting “marriage equality” for same-sex couples. The move comes on the heels of President Obama announcing that he favors same-sex marriage for couples.

HOUSE PANEL APPROVES $10 MILLION FOR EUGENICS VICTIMS

            [RALEIGH] Despite a Republican majority, a state House panel Tuesday approved $10 million in compensation for victims of North Carolina’s infamous forced sterilization program from the 1930’s through 1970’s. At press time, the bill still needed to be passed by the GOP majority House and state Senate before it becomes law. If passed, victims will get a tax-free lump sum of $50,000. Over 7500 victims - many poor whites and blacks, mostly female, were forcibly sterilized by the state on the recommendations of county health departments.

DRIVE TO PUT DR. JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN ON A U.S. STAMP

            [DURHAM] The Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee, the panel which makes recommendations on who should qualify to appear on a United States postal stamp, is reportedly considering recommending the late Duke University historian Dr. John Hope Franklin. Congressman Brad Miller (D-13-NC) has written the committee, saying in part, ““Dr. Franklin was an inspiration. He taught at leading institutions in the U.S. and abroad. He was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Dr. Franklin's legacy will endure for generations.''

                                                            -30-

MEDIA

CASH IN THE APPLE

by Cash Michaels

            DONNA SUMMER -I must admit, I was surprised to see the reaction to news about the death of the “Queen of Disco,” Donna Summer.

            I was surprised not because of anything wrong with her. There is no question that Summer was, indeed, a cultural icon of the late 70’s, early 80’s, with such famous disco hits like “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls,” Love to Love You, Baby,” and one of my all-time favorites, “1979’s “Heaven Knows (a song whose orchestration is as perfect as it gets).

            I was surprised because Summer had pretty much fallen off the map for the last 20 years or so. She did make an appearance on “American Idol” back in 2008, but essentially, Donna Summer disappeared from public view.

            Up in age in her sixties, Summer, who used to fill stadiums the world over, had been reduced to playing small clubs and shows, like many of the “old” artists do just to pay the bills.

            Media apparently didn’t pay much attention to Ms. Summer when she was out, struggling to still be remembered, still be relevant.

            Then, on May 17^th, 2012, when Summer dies from cancer at 63, all of a sudden she was Madonna before Madonna, a musical genius who ushered in a dance craze - disco - that changed the course of musical history.

            I’m not denying any of that (even though Summer was not the only one to shape and mold the disco era, something I’m sure Ms. Gloria Gaynor - singer of “I Will Survive” - would tell you in a heartbeat.

            I’m just wondering why then media waits until Summer is gone to give her her flowers.

            Look at Stevie Wonder. There is no question he is the ninth wonder of the world, and he’s always treated royally. And as well he should be, given Stevie’s plethora of superhits spanning at least 50 years.

            Stevie is singing on somebody’s TV show at least four times a year, if not more. So he is never forgotten.

            But artists like Donna Summer don’t get that respect until they’re dead.

            She should have known how much she was loved long before she died.

            Thus, all of the instant clamor makes all of us look like hypocrites.

            Donna, rest in peace, honey. You deserved better from all of us!

 NBA PLAYOFFS - I don’t know about you, but I am thoroughly enjoying this NBA playoff season.

Besides the fact that the world “chumpian” Dallas Mavericks were dispatched early in the playoffs by the Oklahoma Thunder (good), and then the Thunder dropped Kobe and the Los Angeles Lakers like a bad habit (still good), some of the younger teams like OKC, Indiana and Philly are giving the old timers like the Lakers, Celtics and the Miami Heat fits.

Last Sunday’s game between Miami and Indiana was classic, with the Pacers looking to take a demoralizing 3-1 series lead over a Heat team that looked that it had given up. But LeBron James finds a way to share the joy with teammate Dwyane Wade, they combine for 70 points, and the next thing you know, the Pacers lose, not knowing what hit them.

The Thunder will have to be in tip-top shape to face the San Antonio Spurs, which has a tremendous post-season record. And the Heat/Pacers best of three series is as exciting as it gets.

Bottomline is this is some of the most exciting NBA basketball in years, and I’m lovin’ it.

I hope you are too.

WHITNEY’S LAST SONG - The film, “Sparkle,” won’t be released until this August, but a single from the musical is scheduled to drop on June 5^th.

And it’s no coincidence that this first single from “Sparkle” is also the last musical recording that late songstress Whitney Houston ever made.

The song is called, “Celebrate,” and it’s a duet with Houston’s costar in the movie, Justin Sparks.

Whitney died in February at age 48. She was found dead in a Beverly Hills hotel bathroom during Grammy Awards weekend. A coroner’s report said Houston drowned in the bathtub. She had traces of cocaine in her bloodstream.

SUPPORT THE W-10 PARDON PROJECT - It has been an exhilarating week for those of us working on the Wilmington Ten Pardons of Innocence Project since the press conference at the State Capitol on May 17.

For the record, I am the coordinator for the project, which is sponsored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association of Washington, D.C..

Support is building, and more people are signing on, asking Gov. Beverly Perdue to declare all ten of the Wilmington Ten actually innocent of the charges they were falsely convicted of forty years ago.

One of the things we’re working on is our online presence. The first is on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheWilmingtonTenPardonOfInnocenceProject. There you get history, pictures, comments and links connecting you further to the Wilmington Ten case.

Then there is the online petition that was setup by Susie Kenney Edwards of Cary for the cause. It allows you to add your name to others, urging Gov. Beverly Perdue to “pardon the Wilmington Ten” - https://www.change.org/petitions/nc-governor-bev-perdue-pardon-the-wilmington-10.

Visit these sites, join the team, and let’s all stand for justice. Forty years is too long for injustice to reign.

Make sure you tune in every Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. for my talk radio show, ''Make It Happen'' on Power 750 WAUG-AM, or online at www.myWAUG.com. And read more about my thoughts and opinions exclusively at my new blog, ‘The Cash Roc” (http://thecashroc.blogspot.com/2011/01/cash-roc-begins.html). I promise it will be interesting.

Cash in the Apple - honored as the Best Column Writing of 2006 by the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Columnist Cash Michaels was also honored by the NNPA for Best Feature Story Journalist of 2009, and was the recipient of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP’s President’s Award for Media Excellence in Sept. 2011.

Until next week, keep a smile on your face, GOD in your heart, and The Carolinian in your life. Bye, bye.

                                            -30-

FIVE OF THE WILMINGTON TEN - Willie Earl Vereen; Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Jr.; James McKoy; Marvin Patrick and Connie Tindall - five of the The Wilmington Ten, listen during their May 17th press conference concerning their petition to Gov. Perdue for pardons of innocence {Marjorie Fields Harris Photo] 

WILMINGTON TEN PARDON ATTORNEYS - As Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence  Project attorney irving Joyner listens, Wilmington Ten defense attorney James Ferguson forcefully tells reporters why declarations of innocence from Gov. Perdue are warranted.[Marjorie Fields Harris photo]

NNPA EXCLUSIVE

SUPPORT SWELLS FOR WILMINGTON TEN PARDONS

By Cash Michaels

1135 words

            After only a week, significant local and national support to secure pardons of innocence for the Wilmington Ten is already coming in.

But organizers for the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s  “Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence Project” say ultimately more support, from every quarter, will be needed.

Thus far, at least two members of Congress; the heads of both the national and state NAACP; a prominent UNC-Chapel Hill law professor, and the head of the United Church of Christ have joined a growing number of supporters on Facebook, and an online national petition at Change.org, in calling on NC Gov. Beverly Perdue to grant pardons of innocence to the ten civil rights activists falsely convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and arson four decades ago.

In his letter of support to Gov. Perdue, NC Congressman G. K. Butterfield [D-NC-1], a former NC Associate Supreme Court justice, wrote, “As a former member of the North Carolina judiciary, and now a member of the United State House of Representatives, I have worked my entire adult life to bring equality and racial justice to my community, state and country. It is never too late to see justice fully achieved.”

That sentiment was echoed by the Rev. Geoffrey A. Black, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ (UCC).

“Any injustice of this magnitude is worth revisiting and rectifying, no matter how long ago it occurred,” Rev. Black said in a statement last week. “This is an opportunity for the governor of the state of North Carolina to undo the wrong done to these individuals and their families.”

 Rev. Black continued, “The United Church of Christ stood with the Wilmington Ten in their quest for justice then, and we stand with the Wilmington Ten now as they pursue an official pardon from the governor.”

Perdue’s press office indicated that the governor will give the pardon request due consideration.

Led by then UCC civil rights leader Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. to protest racial discrimination in the public school system in Wilmington, the ten - mostly teenagers at the time - were falsely charged forty years ago for the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington, NC white-owned grocery store, and subsequent sniper fire at firefighters, during the height of racial tension there.

The ten were collectively tried, convicted and sentenced to 282 years in prison, with Chavis drawing 34 years.

In 1980, the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, based on evidence of prosecutorial misconduct; the withholding of exculpatory evidence; and all three of the state’s witnesses recanting their testimonies and confessing that they were bribed by state prosecutors, overturned those convictions.

But the state of North Carolina, which had released the ten earlier from prison, refused to pardon them. As a result, a legal cloud has remained for the past 32 years.

On May 17^th, attorneys for the seven survivors, and the families of the three deceased Wilmington Ten members, filed a petition for individual pardons of innocence with the NC Governor’s Office of Executive Clemency for Chavis; Connie Tindall; Willie Earl Vereen; Marvin Patrick; Anne Shepard Turner (deceased); William “Joe” Wright (deceased); Wayne Moore; Reginald Epps; Jerry Jacobs (deceased) and James McKoy.

“Our petition is for a declaration of actual innocence [from] the governor,” attorney Irving Joyner, pardon project co-chair, told reporters. “Our claim for actual innocence is based on the court record; based on judicial determinations that are already made…”

Attorney James Ferguson, the lead defense lawyer for the Wilmington Ten in 1972, said that since then they, “…have labored under an unjust conviction, and for forty years they have done it with dignity, and without bitterness.”

NNPA Chairman Cloves Campbell, Jr., publisher of the Arizona Informant, was present at the press conference, as were NNPA Board members and publishers Dorothy Leavell of the Chicago Crusader; John B. Smith of the Atlanta Inquirer; and Mary Alice Thatch, publisher of the Wilmington Journal, which strongly advocated for the ten when they were first convicted in 1972.

Campbell said the NNPA was sponsoring the pardon project because the story of the Wilmington Ten “must be told,” so that young people in the black community can learn from it, and better themselves.

Dr. Benjamin Chavis, who is also an NNPA columnist, told reporters and supporters, “The case of the Wilmington Ten is about justice for all people.”

            “Forty years ago, we stood up for what, in the presence of God, was right,” Chavis said, adding, “and in the presence of our community.”

It is because of that commitment to the community over forty years ago that supporters across the country are being encouraged to join the national petition drive

to ask Gov. Perdue to grant the pardons of innocence to the Wilmington Ten this year before she leaves office in January.

A Cary, North Carolina woman who saw news coverage of the pardon story, started a national online petition at Change.Org titled, “NC Governor Bev Perdue: Pardon the Wilmington Ten” at https://www.change.org/petitions/nc-governor-bev-perdue-pardon-the-wilmington-10.

At press time she had collected over fifty signatures in one day, and expects more as the story gets more national play.

On the popular social media site Facebook, in just two days, over one hundred people “liked” the Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence Project site, and actively urged others to join them.

Organizers are directing those who want to learn more about the Wilmington Ten online to go to “Triumphant Warriors” at http://triumphantwarriors.ning.com/, which is hosted by Wilmington Ten member Wayne Moore.

There are also plans for a dedicated NNPA-sponsored website that will not only display historical videos, stills and writings about the Wilmington Ten, but updates and stories about the current pardon effort.

There are also plans to form a local advisory committee in Wilmington, and a national committee, with the expressed task of attracting more broad-based support from across the state and nation.

Democratic Congressman Brad Miller of North Carolina’s 13^th Congressional District, urged Gov. Perdue in his letter of pardon support, “Although the years of incarceration can’t be reclaimed, North Carolina can still address [this] injustice with a pardon to clear the factual record, and concede serious state wrongdoing.”
             Fourth District Congressman David Price, also a Democrat, told Gov. Perdue in his letter, "Although the convictions were overturned, I don't believe justice has yet been served in this case. The Wilmington Ten were wrongly accused and spent many years of their lives imprisoned for crimes they did not commit."
"They were innocent," Rep. Price concluded, "and they deserve to be pardoned."

Professor Gene Nichol, of the University of North Carolina School of Law, wrote Gov. Perdue, “It is imperative that the state of North Carolina act to remove constitutional injuries inflicted in so invidious a manner.”

And North Carolina NAACP Pres. Rev. William Barber, who presented a resolution to the national NAACP Board last weekend in Miami, Fla. in support of the Wilmington Ten, told Gov. Perdue in his letter, “Our [legal] system does not empower our courts to repair and heal such breaches and wounds [of false convictions]. Our Constitution, instead, places such acts of human compassion in your hands.”

                                                           -30-

            

Groups Mobilizing to Rebuff Assault on Voters’ Rights
By Akeya Dickson
Washington Correspondent
NNPA News Service

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – As many as 5 million people could be denied access to right to vote in the November presidential election because of a series of regressive actions, including insisting on photo identification at the polls, reducing time allotted for early voting and eliminating Sunday voter registration drives popular among Black churches.

In this year alone, according to the Brennan Center at the New York University School of Law, a non-partisan public policy and law institute, more than 34 states that have introduced new restrictions on voting. At least 12 states have introduced bills that would require proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, to register or vote. At least 13 states have introduced legislation to terminate Election Day and same-day voter registration and two states – Florida and Iowa – have reversed prior executive orders making it easier for ex-felons to vote.

In addition to complaining about measures they say are aimed at suppressing the Black vote, many civil rights organizations and community groups have been mobilizing to remove potential roadblocks.

“This is one of the most egregious elections we’ve had since Barack and since Florida in 2000,” said Melanie Campbell, president and chief executive officer of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “There is a lot of work to be done with a shortage of funding, but we’re out here working hard to do the work. We’re working closer in coalition to maximize results.”

Campbell rattled off a list of organizations working as a coalition, including the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Advancement Project, the League of Young Voters, the Hip Hop Caucus, People for the American Way and the National Council of Negro Women.

“We’re all working hard to cross-pollinate and partner as much as possible. We don’t want to talk on November 6 after the election about what we should have done,” she said. “The key is early information, early action. Election Protection is starting their 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline earlier. You can call now if you’re having issues, you can get a lawyer now. It’s better than waiting until October.”

The NAACP recently announced its “This is My Vote” campaign and accompanying Web site at Clark-Atlanta University in Georgia to combat the attack on voting. The nation’s oldest civil rights group is wedding 21st century technology tools with old-fashioned grassroots organizing. People can obtain registration forms at www.thisismyvote.org. or text the word “VOTE” to 62227 (letters that spell NAACP), to stay abreast of the different rules and laws for voting in their state. Voters can also call 1-866-MYVOTE1.

The campaign has more than 500,000 active members and “e-activists” in the 50-state nonpartisan campaign, according to Marvin Randolph, the NAACP’s senior vice president for campaigns.

“I think technology is critical,” he explained. “Clearly, the way that people communicate has fundamentally changed. We have to communicate with people in the way that they spend their time. If they are tethered to their smart phones or to their computers, that’s where we need to be.”

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is working to provide much-needed guidance to voters who will be required to produce a photo ID. Its report, titled, “Got ID? Helping Americans Get Voter Identification,” highlights successful voter empowerment efforts in Wisconsin, Tennessee and Colorado

The report suggests crosschecking Department of Motor Vehicles records against current voter registration rolls to notify individuals about the new voter ID requirements early enough to give them an opportunity to obtain new forms of identification.

“The Wisconsin Voices made an open records request with the DMV in Milwaukee and got access to 2.1 million records of people with driver’s licenses that was cross-referenced with VAN, a voter contact and management system,” according to the report. “The group matched 1.3 million records to help identify people who might need government-issued photo IDs.”

Requiring a photo ID is not as race-neutral as many people believe. According to the Brennan Center, 25 percent of African American voters do not have a valid government-issued photo ID, compared with 8 percent of Whites.

“One in four African Americans does not have a driver’s license or any of the restrictive IDs,” Tanya Clay House, public policy director for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said during a panel discussion at last month’s National Action Network Conference, held in Washington, D.C. “Your grandmother living in a nursing home may not have a driver’s license, may not have a utility bill, may not have a passport.”

She also explained, “In Texas, you have a legislature that passed laws that say you can use your gun ID to register to vote, but you can’t use your student ID.”

Voters are required to not only present a driver’s license or state-issued ID, but they can also be required to present proof of residence in Kansas, Wisconsin, Alabama, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Georgia and Indiana.

Fortunately, voters can obtain a certified copy of their birth certificate online, in the mail or in person. But because processing a birth certificate request can take as long as seven months, as was a case cited by the Colorado Collaborative ID Project, it is imperative that the process is initiated early.

Melanie Campbell urges  voters to verify that their voter registration record and organize around social media.

The Lawyers Committee report also recommended matching student enrollment lists with voter rolls and then reaching out to students with limited or no past voter participation. It also suggested contacting high school seniors who may turn 18 before the November election.

Organizations can also arrange free or reduced transit to DMV offices that can be far away. For example, some voters in Texas have to travel up to 176 miles roundtrip to get to an office to obtain identification, according to the report.

City officials can follow the lead of the Jackson Transit Authority in Tennessee, which has offered free bus rides to the Department of Motor Vehicles to people needing to get a voter ID. The hourly rides will be available June 25-29, July 2-3 and 5-6, Aug 24 and August 27-31. Organizations may be able to make similar arrangements in their local communities.

In many Black communities, the church remains a rallying point for political empowerment.

“Historically if the church never got involved, there would be no Voting Rights Act of 1964. There would be no Brown vs. Board of Education,” Rev. Otis T. Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. “We’re not talking about specific candidates. I think that anyone who is of voting age, you need to be registered.”

                                                                                    -30- 

LDF Successfully Defends the Heart of the Voting Rights Act
Special to the NNPA from The Defenders Online

(New York, NY)  For the second time in the past year, a federal court in Washington, D.C. upheld the constitutionality of the heart of the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.

The case, Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, involved a challenge to the Section 5 “preclearance” provision of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states and jurisdictions with some of the worst histories of voting discrimination, such as Alabama, to have all voting changes reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice or D.C. District Court to ensure they are free from discrimination.
In rejecting this challenge, Judge Tatel, writing for the majority, ruled that Congress appropriately extended the protections of the preclearance requirement in 2006 for 25 more years:  “After thoroughly scrutinizing the record and given that overt racial discrimination persists in covered jurisdictions notwithstanding decades of section 5 preclearance, we, like the district court, are satisfied that Congress’s judgment deserves judicial deference.”

“Today’s ruling is the latest in an unbroken line of cases upholding the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act’s most effective protection,” said Debo P. Adegbile, LDF Interim President and Director-Counsel.  “Some have questioned whether the protection is still needed.  The recent efforts to suppress minority voters make it crystal clear that we still need this core voter protection.  Section 5 promotes political inclusion against persisting attempts to practice exclusion.”
In the face of substantial evidence showing continued efforts to discriminate against minority voters, Section 5 was reauthorized by a bi-partisan majority of Congress in 2006.  More recently, in a 2009 case argued by LDF, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, the Supreme Court issued an 8-to-1 ruling that left Section 5’s important protections intact.
LDF intervened in the Shelby County case to defend Section 5 on behalf of several African American community leaders and voters in Shelby County, including Councilman Ernest Montgomery.  In 2006, the City of Calera, which lies within Shelby County, enacted a discriminatory redistricting plan without complying with Section 5, leading to the loss of the city’s sole African-American councilman, Ernest Montgomery.  Because of Section 5, however, Calera was required to draw a nondiscriminatory redistricting plan and conduct another election in which Mr. Montgomery regained his seat.
“Section 5’s critical role as our democracy’s discrimination check point is as vital as ever,” said Ryan Haygood, Director of LDF’s Political Participation Group.  “Right now, even as it is under attack, the Voting Rights Act is preventing discriminatory redistricting schemes like the one at issue in this case, and voting measures strategically launched in advance of the 2012 elections from being implemented.  Without Section 5, there would be more discrimination.”


                                                                                     -30-

ENTERTAINMENT

Queen of Disco Donna Summer Dies
by Bobbi Booker
Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune

Disco legend Donna Summer died Thursday morning May 17 in Naples, Fla., at age 63 after a battle with cancer, said her publicist Brian Edwards. Her family released a statement saying they “are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy.” The five-time Grammy-winning singer had numerous hits in both the 1970s and 1980s, including “Last Dance,” “She Works Hard for the Money” and “Bad Girls.”
“The City of Philadelphia and the music world are deeply saddened by the passing of an incredibly talented musical artist, Donna Summer,” said Mayor Michael Nutter, who was once known as club DJ “Mix Master Mike.” “For people in my generation and many others, she was one of the greatest vocalists of the second half of the 20th century. An innovator of note, she had a wide range of musical capabilities. She was one of the leaders of the disco wave in America and Europe, and she broke new musical ground with songs like ‘Love to Love You Baby,’ ‘Bad Girls,’ ‘MacArthur Park Suite’ and ‘Hot Stuff.’”
Summer was the first artist to have three double albums reach No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart: “Live and More,” “Bad Girls,” “On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II.” She became a cultural icon, not only as one of the defining voices of the era, but also as an influence on future pop divas from Madonna to Beyoncé.
Nutter recalled playing “the Queen of Disco” during her heyday while deejaying at the Impulse Disco at Broad Street and Germantown Avenue. “For a young guy working in a night club at the high point of disco, and for everyone who came together in those days of joyful music and dance, she represented a singular musical style and a towering artistry. We all carry fond memories of Donna Summer. Whether performing alone or in duets with talents like Barbara Streisand, Donna Summer was one of the very best. I loved her music, her beautiful voice, and her grand musical talent.”
Summer reportedly did not embrace the “Disco Queen” title and later became a born-again Christian, but many remembered her best for her early years, starting with the sinful “Love to Love You Baby.” Released in 1975, a breakthrough hit for Summer and for disco, it was a legend of studio ecstasy and the genre’s ultimate sexual anthem. She simulated climax so many times that the BBC kept count: 23, in 17 minutes.
“All other erotic tunes, like ‘Jungle Fever’ and Pillow Talk,’ were mere foreplay to ‘Love To Love You, Baby.’ In the first place, it took up the whole album side and it set the scene for the 12-inch single,” noted author and cultural critic Richard Torres.
What started as a scandal became a classic. The song was later sampled by LL Cool J, Timbaland, and Beyoncé, who interpolated the hit for her jam “Naughty Girl.” It was also Summer’s U.S. chart debut and the first of her 19 No. 1 dance hits between 1975 and 2008 — second only to Madonna.
“The funny thing about that track is that it really does warrant that length,” explained Torres. “There is no filler on that track. It’s hypnotic. ‘Love To Love You, Baby’ is the American ‘Ravel’s Bolero’ — it’s the beginning and middle, and,” Torres reflects with a chuckle, “it gave a man something to shoot for.”
Musically, Summer began to change in 1979 with “Hot Stuff,” which had a tough, rock ‘n’ roll beat. Her diverse sound helped her earn Grammy Awards in the dance, rock, R&B and inspirational categories.
“She’s the most underrated great singer of the last 35 years,” noted Torres. “People would have thought of her as a — and this is pun intended — one-trick-pony based on the orgasmic ‘Love to Love You, Baby.’ But even in that song she showed tremendous range. What people forget is that she also received a lot of scorn, because there was this racist movement to anti-disco, and because she was the ‘Queen of Disco,’ her vocal and artistic contributions were diminished in the mainstream press. This is a woman, who by the way, more than held her own in a duet with Barbara Streisand on ‘Enough Is Enough/No More Tears.’ What she had was this unfailing rhythmic ability — and disco was all about could you ride the rhythm — she wasn’t a shouter, a la Lolita Holloway, but she was a chanteuse. She created a mood with every song.”
Summer released her last album, “Crayons,” in 2008. It was her first full studio album in 17 years. She also performed on “American Idol” that year with its top female contestants. Summer is survived by her husband, Bruce Sudano, and three daughters, Brooklyn, Mimi and Amanda.

THE CASH STUFF FOR MAY 17

Shaw University Elects New Board Chair, Officers

RALEIGH, NC (May 16, 2012) – Shaw University, the first historically black university in the South, today announced the election of new officers to its Board of Trustees. Dr. Joseph N. Bell, Jr. was elected as board chairman and will succeed Dr. Willie E. Gary, who was re-elected as a board member. In addition, Dr. Lorenzo Williams was elected vice-chairman and Dr. H. Donell Lewis was elected secretary. Each officer will serve a two-year term effective July 1, 2012.

Dr. Bell, a Shaw alumnus, currently serves as the vice-chair of the Board and holds several Board positions, including vice chair of the Executive Committee; chair of the Fiscal Affairs Committee; chair of the Trusteeship Committee; member of the Investment Committee and member of the Property Acquisition and Business Development Committee. He has also served as chair of two Transition Committees during changes in administrations. 

After earning his Bachelor of Arts degree from Shaw University in 1970, Dr. Bell established himself in the banking industry, having served as Executive Vice President of Carver State Bank in Savannah, GA. His wife, Carolyn Hodges Bell, a 1971 Shaw graduate, was recently elected Alderman-at-Large for the Savannah City Council. In addition, Dr. Bell served as Executive Director of the Chatham Association of Educators, an affiliate of the Georgia Association of Educators and the National Education Association, for almost 25 years.

STATE NEWS BRIEFS

REPUBLICAN-LED GENERAL ASSEMBLY BACK IN SHORT SESSION

            [RALEIGH] The NC Legislative short session has begun, and GOP leaders promise to get their business done quickly. Part of the reason is because it’s an election year, and both Republican majorities in the state House and Senate are anxious to start campaigning to maintain control. GOP leaders are expected to attempt to override Gov. Perdue’s prior vetoes of voter ID, and their gutting of the NC Racial Justice Act. They will also adjust the state’s $19.9 billion budget, and are expected to ignore Gov. Perdue’s $20.9 billion state budget proposal, with the biggest battle over education spending. Observers are also looking to see what lawmakers do about compensation for the victims of the state’s forced sterilization program. Gov. Perdue has budgeted over $10 million for it.

DEMOCRATS FUMING AFTER CHAIRMAN PARKER RESIGNS, THEN GETS RE-ELECTED

            [GREENSBORO] If North Carolina Democrats are walking around in a daze of late, you can’t blame them. Many are still trying to figure how state Party Chairman David Parker submitted his resignation Saturday to the state party’s Ruling Committee, only to have the majority of the committee vote not to accept it, thus allowing Parker to remain chairman. Parker had been under fire for covering up an alleged sexual harassment accusation at party headquarters that saw Executive Director Jay Parmley resign his post. Everyone from Gov. Perdue to the White House is not pleased. They wanted Parker out. Now it is expected that the Republicans will make plenty of election year hay out of the controversy.

POLL HAS DALTON ONLY SIX POINTS BEHIND MCCRORY IN GOVERNOR’S RACE

            [CHARLOTTE] With all of the drama surrounding NC Democrats lately came some good news. Walton Dalton, the Democratic nominee for governor, is polling only six points behind heavy favorite Republican Pat McCrory, according to Public Policy Polling. In a survey of just 666 voters done days after last week’s May primary, the current lieutenant governor lags behind the former mayor of Charlotte, 46 to 40 percent. About 13 percent of those polled are undecided. This means the race can easily tighten up going into the November general election. And it also means, depending on how North Carolina goes for President Obama, Lt. Gov. Dalton could edge McCrory, just like Gov. Beverly Perdue did in 2008.

                                                            -30-

TRIANGLE NEWS BRIEFS

WAKE BEGINS THREE-MONTH DEFIBRILLATOR CAMPAIGN

            For the next three months, the Wake County Commission Board and Emergency Medical Services will be urging business and building owners to take part in having automated external defibrillators installed in more public buildings to save more people who suffer cardiac arrests. That’s the goal of the Wake EMS 100 Day Heart Safe Automated External Defibrillators Campaign. Local businesses will be given special incentives to purchase the devices. Studies have shown that having a unit immediately available, and training people on how to use it, saves more lives.  

OAK CITY BAPTIST CHURCH SPONSORS STROKE PREVENTION FITNESS DAY MAY 26^TH

            Oak City Baptist Church, along with the Triangle Stroke Education Outreach Initiative, is sponsoring “A Day of Fitness and Fun,” Saturday, May 26^th starting at 9 a.m.. There will be a Senior Fun Run, free eye/glaucoma tests, CPR training. Entertainment by gospel comedian Elder Ascender Hankins. For more information call 919-264-8120, or email minwomen@hotmail.com.

ORANGE -CHATHAM DA WANTS SBI PROBE OF UNC BLACK STUDIES PROGRAM

On the heels of published reports alleging academic fraud in the UNC-Chapel Hill African and Afro-American Studies Program, the district attorney for Orange and Chatham counties has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into the matter for possible criminal offenses. DA Jim Woodall met with the SBI earlier this week to detail his concerns, based on a university probe of the troubled program. Reportedly, Professor Julius Nyang’oro did not teach a series of summer school courses for which he was paid. Allegedly, the classes were never held. The UNC probe also uncovered that there were unauthorized grade changes for students who did not complete course work.

           

                                                                  -30-

FIRST LADY TO AGGIE GRADUATES, "CHANGE THE WORLD" - First Lady Michelle Obama, seen here May12th sitting with NC A&T University Chancellor Harold Martin prior to delivering her commencement address, told the graduating class not just to change the world with their skills, but also with their hearts by giving back to their communities, and helping others. The First Lady was honored with an honorary degree before she left. [Cash Michaels video clip]

MEDIA

CASH IN THE APPLE

By Cash Michaels

            THE WILMINGTON TEN - Earlier today, I took part in an historic press conference at the North Carolina State Capital.

            The announcement was made that a legal petition for pardons of innocence on behalf of the Wilmington Ten had been submitted to the Governor’s Clemency Office. 

            For those of you who remember who the Wilmington Ten were, you know that this was historic.

            This year is the fortieth anniversary of when eight black male student activists, along with a white female social worker, and their leader, the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., were falsely put on trial, and convicted of conspiracy to commit violence during the racial upheaval in Wilmington in 1971.

            In fact, all ten were brave, committed and nonviolent young social activists - from ages 17 to 35 - who bravely stood up against the New Hanover County Board of Education in 1971, and demanded an equal quality of public education for African-American students after the school system closed Williston High, the all-black high school.

            Remember, this was all happening just three years after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. The South was still dealing with desegregation issues, and it wasn’t easy.

            Here’s how Dr. Ben Chavis described the tenor of the times in an NNPA column he wrote in 2011:

                                                   _________________

            During the Nixon Administration in the early 1970's, African Americans in the South, as well as in other regions of the nation, were being challenged with the systematic racial disparities involved in the details of how federal court-ordered school desegregation was being enforced.

            Because we dared to speak out and to engage in non-violent street protests to the long, unprecedented history of racial violence and injustice in that port city, the African American community became the targets of a violent, paramilitary, anti-Black terror campaign led by the Ku Klux Klan and the Rights of White People (ROWP) organization.

            Because of our involvement in the struggle in Wilmington in 1971, we were unjustly charged, arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a combined maximum total of 282 years in prison in North Carolina in 1972. We all were completely innocent of theoje alleged charges of arson and conspiracy to assault. In 1978, Amnesty International declared that we were "Political Prisoners." We stayed in prison during most of the 1970's while our case was on appeal.

                                                ____________________

            As the coordinator for the Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence Project, a project sponsored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association - the major black trade association of 200 African-American member newspapers across the nation (of which the Carolinian and Wilmington Journal newspapers are members of) - it has been my responsibility to pull the project together, and work with the best team possible - project co-chairs Mary Alice Thatch, publisher of The Wilmington Journal; and attorney Irving Joyner, law professor at North Carolina Central University School of  Law.

            The hard work and commitment of these two giants inspire me to put in the extra effort to make sure that this would be an endeavor that we can all be proud of.

            But the highlight of this project for me personally has been meeting, interviewing, and spending time with the seven surviving members of the Wilmington Ten, and the family of the three deceased members.

            The Wilmington Ten’s stories, told to me firsthand, of struggle, faith and fortitude after being targeted for crimes they didn’t commit, are compelling.

            There is no question that the false prosecution and imprisonment of the Wilmington Ten radically impacted their lives individually, as well as those of their families and loved ones.

            Each defendant was young, some barely in their twenties, when they were convicted in 1972 of crimes that they didn’t commit. Some were still in high school, and living with their parents.

At least one, Ms Shepard, was raising three young children.

             All of the defendants had dreams of a bright, hope-filled future of either practicing the law, playing professional sports, or even performing as a musician.

Their only collective “crime,” they each individually say, was their willingness to openly, but peacefully, challenge injustice. Because of their individual courage, and commitment to equality, the Wilmington Ten suffered false prosecution, years of imprisonment and great personal hardships for themselves and their families. The collective impact for all of them has extended decades beyond their release from prison, and well after a federal appellate court overturned their convictions.

Today, forty years hence their false prosecutions, three of the Wilmington Ten - Jerry Jacobs, William Joseph Wright and Anne Shepard-Turner - have died, their dreams unfulfilled, according to their bereaved families.

One member, Reginald Epps, has worked so hard to protect his privacy and rebuild his life, vowing to leave the pain of his false imprisonment behind.

Another member, Rev. Benjamin Chavis, the leader of the Wilmington Ten, has evolved into one of the most accomplished civil rights leaders of our time, but he’s paid a dear personal price to do so.

So has Wayne Moore, who has had to move from Wilmington after his release from prison, leaving family and friends behind, because he was denied the opportunity to work and live in his hometown due to his association.

Willie Earl Vereen, Connie Tindall, James McKoy and Marvin Patrick, all now elderly men, struggling with their health, all feel robbed of the promise they once had to be productive citizens forty years ago. They have lost faith in government, and angrily challenge North Carolina to render to them long overdue justice - both tangibly and symbolically - to remove the clouds they say still follow their names, and reputations.

In all, the lives of the Wilmington Ten have been marked by struggle, hardship and indignities they otherwise would not have experienced if the state of North Carolina, forty years ago, had not sought to punish them for their political activism, and willingness to demand social change.

While past cannot be changed, amends can be made today for what was unjustly done to ten innocent North Carolinians, and American citizens.

Being intimately involved in this NNPA project has made me very proud to be a member of the Black Press. Some may ask, “How is it that the Black Press can be involved in making news, when that’s not what the press is supposed to be doing at all?”

My answer, it doesn’t stop newspapers and television stations from sponsoring fundraisers and telethons for hurricane relief - helping innocent victims regain their lives after a disaster!

            That’s what we’re doing here, helping ten innocent people to officially reclaim their rightful innocence after the injustice that was perpetrated against them by the state of North Carolina.

            In effect, the Black Press, through the NNPA and The Wilmington Journal, is leading the way in telling the story of the Wilmington Ten to a new generation.

            It is a story that should be told, just like the Greensboro Four - four NC A&T students in 1960 who boldly integrated the Woolworth lunch counter, sparking the sit-in movement.

            Just like Rosa Parks, a brave woman of the South who in 1956 decided she would standup, by sitting down in the front of the bus in segregated Montgomery, Alabama.

            And just like the Little Rock Nine - nine black students in Little Rock, Arkansas who, amid hatred and violence in the late 1950;s, bravely walked into an all-white high school, determined to get their education.

            Yes, the story of the Wilmington Ten MUST be told.

            But thanks to the efforts of the Black Press, it must also ...be finished!

            And it will!

             I hope that you will support our pardon effort on behalf of the Wilmington Ten. You can go to The Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence Project on Facebook to learn more, and show your support. We are constructing a dedicated website to further educate this new generation about the Wilmington Ten, and we'll announce that as soon as it's ready.

Make sure you tune in every Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. for my talk radio show, ''Make It Happen'' on Power 750 WAUG-AM, or online at www.myWAUG.com. And read more about my thoughts and opinions exclusively at my new blog, ‘The Cash Roc” (http://thecashroc.blogspot.com/2011/01/cash-roc-begins.html). I promise it will be interesting.

Cash in the Apple - honored as the Best Column Writing of 2006 by the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Columnist Cash Michaels was also honored by the NNPA for Best Feature Story Journalist of 2009, and was the recipient of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP’s President’s Award for Media Excellence in Sept. 2011.

Until next week, keep a smile on your face, GOD in your heart, and The Carolinian in your life. Bye, bye.

                                                              -30-

SEEKING PARDON OF INNOCENCE TODAY - Seated from left to right, Marvin Patrick, Mrs. Margaret Jacobs (mother of Jerry Jacobs), and Connie Tindall. Standing from left to right, Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., Wayne Moore, Willie Earl Vereen and James McKoy. [Cash Michaels video clip]

FALSELY CONVICTED FORTY YEARS AGO - Members of the Wilmington Ten in the 1970's included  (seated) Rev. Ben Chavis, William "Joe" Wright, Connie Tindall. Then standing left to right is Wayne Moore, Anne Shepard, James "Bun" McKoy and Willie Earl Vereen.

EXCLUSIVE

GOV. PERDUE ASKED TO

PARDON WILMINGTON TEN

By Cash Michaels

Editor

Seven survivors and the families of three deceased members of the Wilmington Ten - ten 1970’s civil rights activists convicted forty years ago of conspiracy charges to commit violence, charges a federal appeals court; the US Justice Dept; and fifty-five members of Congress later determined were not true - formally petitioned the governor of North Carolina Thursday to grant each of the original group a pardon of innocence.

            The pardon petition called the Wilmington Ten case, “…a politically inspired prosecution.”

            The May 17^th petition filing was immediately announced to the world during a press conference conducted Thursday by members and family of deceased members of the Wilmington Ten; their attorney, Irving Joyner; National Newspaper Publishers Association Board members; and numerous supporters outside the North Carolina State Capital Building.

            A nationwide petition drive to support the pardon effort was also announced.

            Support for the effort has already begun to come in from local and national leaders.

            “There are still too many black activists who are still being mistreated in this country, who carry badges of shame, if you will, for spending time in prison, who at the end of the day their only crime was standing up for the people,” Benjamin Jealous, president/CEO of the NAACP said when asked several weeks ago. “In the case of the Wilmington Ten, we will push [for pardons] and support our state conference in their push to ensure that finally, their names are cleared.”

            Rev. William Barber, president of the NC NAACP, has also expressed his support for the pardon effort as well.

            The Wilmington Ten pardons, if granted by NC Gov. Beverly Perdue, would officially declare the innocence of the seven surviving members - Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., Wayne Moore, Marvin Eugene Patrick, Connie Levinesky Tindall, James Matthew McKoy, Willie Earl Vereen, Reginald Epps - and the three deceased members - Anne Shepard-Turner, William “Joe” Wright, and Jerry Gerald Jacobs.

            The pardon petition, authored by attorney Joyner - the original coordinator of the Wilmington Ten legal defense for the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice - and James Ferguson, the lead defense attorney in the case forty years ago, bears the authorizing signatures of the seven survivors and representative family members of the deceased.

It urges Gov. Perdue to issue the pardons, “…in order to declare each Wilmington Ten member innocent of the offense for which they were wrongfully prosecuted and convicted in the New Hanover County Superior Court in September 1972.”

            The charges - associated with the firebombing of Mike’s Grocery in Wilmington on Feb. 6, 1971 - included conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to assault emergency personnel, conspiracy to burn property with incendiary devices and the actual burning of property, according to the pardon petition.

            For the past forty years, and even when they were collectively convicted and sentenced to 282 years in prison, the Wilmington Ten have always maintained that they were innocent of all charges.

            Their ages, at the time of their convictions, ranged from 19 to 35.

            Today, many of the surviving members are in their late 50’s, early sixties, and in dwindling health.

            In exclusive interviews, some revealed that after their arrests, police offered to set them free if they turned state’s evidence against the others, especially Wilmington Ten leader Rev. Ben Chavis.

            None ever took the offer.

            In a February, 2011 op-ed piece for NNPA member newspapers, Dr. Chavis, now an NNPA columnist, wrote about the events that led up to the arrest of the ten activists:

                                                _________________

            During the Nixon Administration in the early 1970's, African Americans in the South, as well as in other regions of the nation, were being challenged with the systematic racial disparities involved in the details of how federal court-ordered school desegregation was being enforced.

            Black students, parents, and community leaders made a decision in Wilmington in February 1971 that they would stand up and fight to protect and secure the "quality" education of African American students by attempting to preserve the high academic integrity and institutional legacy of African American public schools such as Williston Senior High School (which the New Hanover County Public School Board closed, to the outrage of the African-American community there).

The United Church of Christ, as a progressive mainline Protestant denomination of 1.7 million members, and its Commission for Racial Justice, led by The Reverend Dr. Charles E. Cobb, decided to stand with the student-led coalition in Wilmington to demand fairness and equal justice. As a young civil rights activist, I was dispatched by the Commission for Racial Justice to give organizational assistance to our brothers and sisters in Wilmington.

            Because we dared to speak out and to engage in non-violent street protests to the long, unprecedented history of racial violence and injustice in that port city, the African American community became the targets of a violent, paramilitary, anti-Black terror campaign led by the Ku Klux Klan and the Rights of White People (ROWP) organization. Our movement's headquarters in Wilmington - Gregory Congregational United Church of Christ - and the surrounding African American community, was placed in a state of siege by armed White vigilantes, who opposed racial justice and equality.

            [Wilmington Police refused to do anything to stop the White supremacist attacks in the black community. On Feb. 6, 1971, a local store called Mike’s Grocery was firebombed amid the violence. It took a year, but authorities finally targeted Rev. Chavis, eight young black student leaders, and a 35-year-old white female social worker, Anne Shepard, for arrest and prosecution, even though there was no evidence that any of them committed any crimes]

            Because of our involvement in the struggle in Wilmington in 1971, we were unjustly charged, arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a combined maximum total of 282 years in prison in North Carolina in 1972. We all were completely innocent of the alleged charges of arson and conspiracy to assault. In 1978, Amnesty International declared that we were "Political Prisoners." We stayed in prison during most of the 1970's while our case was on appeal.

[The three so-called state’s “witnesses” North Carolina prosecutors used against the defendants, all began to recant their testimony against the Wilmington Ten]

 On December 4, 1980, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the unjust convictions of the Wilmington Ten because of "prosecutorial misconduct" in the unconstitutional and unfair frame-up. Yet, to date there has not been an official "pardon of innocence" issued by the state of or by the federal government.

                                    ________________

In the Wilmington Ten petition for a pardon of innocence, attorney Joyner writes, “As a result of the State Prosecutor’s knowing use of perjured testimony, the State of North Carolina fraudulently procured the convictions of ten innocent North Carolina citizens.”

“This misconduct was aided and abetted by the actions of the Trial Judge which improperly prevented relevant facts from being presented to the jury,” atty. Joyner continued. “These wrongful convictions resulted in each Wilmington Ten member spending significant periods of time incarcerated in the North Carolina Dept. of Corrections where they lost critical developmental years.”

Joyner adds, “The time which they spent in prison can’t be replaced, and those experiences and history remain as a blot on their life’s stories.”

In exclusive interviews, many of the Wilmington Ten say they could not get jobs after they were released from prison. Some were shunned by their churches. Some had to leave Wilmington, they say.

All were virtually denied the dreams they held dear as high school students, dreams that included becoming a doctor, a lawyer, musicians, and in one case, a professional football player.

“His whole world just came tumbling down,” says Mrs. Margaret Jacobs, mother of deceased Wilmington Ten member Jerry Jacobs. Jacobs had dreams of being a professional tennis player and a doctor before being arrested by police in the Wilmington Ten case at age 19.

As a result, after Jacobs left prison, he was forced to leave Wilmington for New York, where he began shooting up drugs, contracted the AIDS disease, and died in 1989.

“Yes it did,” Mrs. Jacobs now laments when asked if the Wilmington Ten changed her son’s life. “Yes it did. He probably would have been living today.”

As in the Jerry Jacobs case, the burden of the Wilmington Ten’s arrests, convictions and incarcerations was also shared by all of their families, who always believed in their innocence.

“Only the granting of Pardons of Innocence can remove this deeply engrained tarnish which continues to hang over this state,” attorney Joyner writes.

The pardon petition effort, the first ever for the Wilmington Ten in the forty years since their case became a national and international cause célèbre, was spearheaded by the Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence Project Committee, the manifestation of the national initiative the National Newspaper Publishers’ Association kicked off during its 2011 Black Press Week “Power of the Black Press Luncheon.”

            The project committee is co-chaired by Mary Alice Thatch, publisher of NNPA member The Wilmington Journal - a black newspaper that was firebombed by a white supremacist in 1972; and attorney Irving Joyner, a law professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law in Durham, NC, and chair of the NC NAACP Legal Redress Committee.

            "We are going to tell the story of the Wilmington 10," then NNPA Chairman Danny J. Bakewell, Sr., publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel said during the 2011 Black Press luncheon in Washington, D.C. "And, we think it is incumbent for us to fight for a pardon for those 10 people.”

 “Justice to this day,” Bakewell added, “ has not been served."

In an exclusive interview, attorney Joyner says the filing of the Wilmington Ten petition for pardons of innocence, is an historic moment.

“It is historic in many respects, he says. “First, this case represents one of the first documented disclosures of prosecutorial misconduct in North Carolina where nine innocent African-Americans and a lone White woman were persecuted by state agents because they stood up and protested against racial injustices in a local school district.”

 “Second, the Wilmington Ten became another outstanding example in North Carolina of young people daring to protest and defy entrenched racism within the North Carolina education and criminal justice systems.”

 Atty. Joyner continued, “Third, the State of North Carolina, through the New Hanover County District Attorney's Office and the North Carolina Attorney General's Office, used every weapon at its disposal to "cover-up" the vicious persecution of these ten young people and, after this massive misconduct was publicly exposed, refused to do anything to rectify the harm  that had been done to these ten victims and the Wilmington community.”

“It is now time for the Governor of North Carolina to make amends for the State and correct the record by issuing Pardons of Innocence for each member of the Wilmington Ten, attorney Joyner says.

             NC Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat who was elected in 2008 as the first female governor in North Carolina history, has announced that she is not running for re-election, and will be stepping down when her term ends in December.

If she grants the Wilmington Ten’s pardon of innocence petition, it is not expected until after the November presidential election.

Editor’s Note - a website for the Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence Project will be launched shortly, detailing the history of the case and other features. Meanwhile, readers can show their support at the Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence Project Facebook page.

Cash Michaels is the coordinator of the Wilmington Ten Pardon of Innocence Project for the NNPA

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Black Women Make Major Employment Gains

By Freddie Allen

NNPA Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Black women are making the most significant gains in employment but still lag behind Whites, according to the Labor Department.

The most recent jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the unemployment rate for Black women, 20 and older, dropped from 12.3 percent in March to 10.8 percent in April, a decline of 1.5 percent. More significantly, the jobless rate for Black women has fallen 3 percentage points over the past five months, the largest decline for any demographic over that period.

The unemployment rate for White women, 20 and older has remained flat at 6.8 percent from last December to April, but that stagnant rate is still four percentage points better than the current rate for Black women. The jobless rate for Black men fell to 13.6 percent to 15.7 percent over the same period, but some economists warn that those figures could be misleading.

“There are two things driving down the unemployment rate,” said Steven Pitts, labor policy specialist at the University of California-Berkeley’s Labor Center. “The improvement in job prospects and simultaneously some Black men dropping out of the labor force.”

When people quit looking for work, they are no longer counted as unemployed. Consequently, the labor force shrinks, causing the unemployment rate to go down. The unemployment rate for Blacks fell from 14 percent in March to 13 percent in April.

“The unemployment rate might look like an improvement, but it’s really just people giving up,” explained Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute.

In a 2011 study, the National Women’s Law Center found that Black women lost 233,000 jobs between December 2007 and June 2009, then lost another 258,000, 491,000 between June 2009 and June 2011. Black men only lost 477,000 over that period.

According to the study, not only are Black women a majority of the African-American workforce (53.4 percent), they head a majority of the Black families with children.

More Black women are the heads of households now, “So they have to work, “ explained Maudine Cooper, president of the Greater Washington Urban League. “They’ll often accept less money than a man would be making in the same job.”

A 2012 study on the pay gap conducted by the American Association of University Women found that women working full-time earned just 77 cents to every dollar earned by a man. Black women working full-time make just 70 cents for every dollar White men make and 91 cents for every dollar Black men bring home. White women, on the other hand, received 82 cents for every dollar a White man earns. White men are often used as a benchmark, because at this time they are the largest demographic group in the labor force.

Research by Wider Opportunities for Women found that 62 percent of Black households and 66 percent of Hispanic households live on the edge of poverty. Even when working full-time, 80 percent of Black single mothers and 85 percent of Hispanic single mothers don’t make enough to make ends meet and they’re much more likely to lack economic security than White single mothers or single fathers of any racial or ethnic background.

For Cooper, a college education still remains the Black community’s strongest ally in closing the economic gap.

More than 44 percent of Black women graduate from college, compared to 33.1 percent of Black men, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Cooper said it’s about sacrificing short-term gratification for what really matters.

“I have friends that are going to school and working,” Cooper said. “You have to do what it takes. At some point it’s over and you’ve worked hard, you’ve sweated, you’re exhausted and you’ve gotten through it and that’s the attitude everyone should have.”

That means that Black men have a lot catching up to do in an increasingly competitive job market.

A 2010 study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce 2018 reported that 63 percent of the jobs newly created or vacated by retiring workers will require at least some college education.

Given that Black women lead a majority of Black households and graduate from college at higher rates than Black men, their success is essential as the Black community recovers from worst economic times since the Great Depression.

At a 2011 session at Stanford University titled “Black Women and the Backlash Effect — Understanding the Intersection of Race and Gender,” visiting scholar and expert in workplace diversity Katherine Phillips said that Black women are excelling in education and entrepreneurship.

“Two-thirds of African-American college undergrads are female,” said Phillips. “And, between 2002 and 2008, the number of businesses owned by Black women rose by 19 percent – twice as fast as all other firms and generating $29 billion in sales nationwide.”

Phillips, also a professor of organizational behavior at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., noted that Black women in the workplace are often viewed as “as independent, competent, and demanding of respect — all classic leadership traits.”

During her research Phillips found that Black women have more latitude in the roles they play at home and at work. One study found that Black women who worked outside the home were viewed positively while the same behavior by White women evoked negative reactions.

“The evidence here suggests that White women are supposed to stay in this little narrow box more so than Black women are,” said Phillips.

Although Black women are often forced to confront the dual plague of sexism and racism on the job, Phillips said that owning that identity may also have certain advantages.

She explained, “There may be a malleability that comes with being an African American woman that allows you to identify both as Black and as a woman that you might be able to use as a mechanism to make it through the world.”

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Voter Registration and the 2012 Election

By Lee A. Daniels
 Special to the NNPA from The Defenders Online

It’s as dependable as the rise and ebb of the tides.

If a national election is near, then it’s time to cast doubt on the commitment of blacks and Latinos to turn out to vote. Despite their steady level of participation over the last two decades, and clear ratcheting-up of voting in the last six years, forecasts of a fall-off – or at least concern that it will occur – remain a staple of conventional political coverage.

It was so in the run-up to the mid-term elections of 2006; and 2008; and 2010 even as the percentage of blacks and Latinos voting approached or surpassed record levels and they accounted for a greater than ever proportion of the overall national vote.

Now, it’s begun again. Last week the Washington Post published an article declaring that the number of black and Latino registered voters has declined sharply since 2008. It attributed the fall-off – for blacks, a decline of 7 percent to some 16 million voters; for Latinos, a decline of 5 percent, to about 11 million voters – to three factors.

One was the usual shrinkage in the voting rolls during non-presidential years. The number of white registered voters slipped by 5 percent as well, to 104 million.

More worrisome, however, was the view of some observers that loss of jobs and loss of homes to foreclosure during the last two years had forced many blacks and Latinos to move – thereby ceding their voter registration and making it uncertain that they’ll register elsewhere.

In addition, the enactment or strengthening of voter identification laws in more than a dozen states since the 2010 mid-terms has raised the possibility that some significant proportion of traditionally Democratic Party voters may be blocked from the polls.

Those are valid concerns, to be sure. But the Obama campaign and other independent observers pointed out a serious flaw in the Post article’s discussion. It was comparing voter registrations from an historic, politically-super-charged presidential election year with those of a mid-term election year now two years in the past.

Clo Ewing, an Obama campaign official, wrote that in fact “since that time, more than 1.4 million African Americans and more than 1.2 million Latinos have registered to vote…. There are more Americans of both backgrounds registered to vote today than there were when President Obama was elected.”

Michael P. McDonald, a professor at George Mason University and an expert on voting, said that a flaw in the way the Census Bureau currently tabulates voting and registration rates has contributed to the confusion. He said there’s no doubt that the registrations of both Latinos and African-Americans provide the Obama campaign with a comfortable advantage in registering more of each this year.

He added “That these minority populations are also growing in size relative to the non-Hispanic White population should give more worry to the Romney campaign than to the Obama campaign.”

Nonetheless, there is significant cause for concern.

In every political election every vote always counts; and that will be especially true in the Obama-Romney contest. For, it’s already apparent that the incessant, overtly-racist and racially-coded attacks launched from low and high places in the conservative sector against the President and the First Family since before he took office will continue right through November’s Election Day.

It’s also clear, as a May 3 New York Times article underscored, that the opposition to Obama among some segment of white voters will continue to be grounded in racist attitudes.

As Jamelle Bouie pointed out in a perceptive article in The American Prospect, these whites’ opposition to Obama is, in turn, driven by their dismay at black Americans exercising what Bouie calls “political agency.”

This, in my view, means more than just political power. It means political effectiveness – an acute understanding of the political game.

Certainly, that description fits both Obama’s strategy for gaining the Presidency and the black electorate’s, first, patient, skillful assessment of Obama during the early part of the Democratic presidential primary four years ago, and, then, its massive turnout for him at the polls in November 2008.

It soon became apparent that that display of political competence on the part of Obama and the black electorate infuriated a diminishing, but still substantial minority of white Americans. One can hear the voice of the Steubenville, Ohio bank employee the Times reporter interviewed who practically spits out the reason she thinks Obama won the election. “He was like, ‘Here I am, I’m black and I’m proud,’” she said. “To me, he didn’t have a platform. Black people voted him in, that’s why he won. It was black ignorance.”

As I noted recently in characterizing a display of anti-black bigotry in a very different context, these attitudes spring from the sense that a “whites-only” rule has been violated – that blacks, or a black person is trespassing on a place or position that should still be reserved for whites.

This group’s racial intransigence is important because in a paper published this month, Harvard economics scholar Seth Stephens-Davidowitz estimates that anti-black bigotry “cost” Obama 3 to 5 percentage points in the national popular vote in 2008. That is, but for those voting against him out of racist motives, Obama would have gained between 56.7 and 58.7 percent of the popular vote, not the 53.7 percent he actually did get.

Stephens-Davidowitz calculates that the massive, 95-percent black vote Obama got added only about 1 percentage point to his popular vote totals.

In other words, “any votes Obama gained due to his race in the general election were not nearly enough to outweigh the cost of racial animus, meaning race was a large net negative for Obama. Evidence from other research, as well as some analysis in this paper, suggest that few white voters swung in Obama’s favor in the genera election due to his race. …. [Thus, the paper offers] new evidence that racial attitudes remain a potent factor against African Americans, nationwide, in modern American politics”

That means it’s critically important that every effort must be made to register every eligible black and Latino voter and ensure that they vote – because, come November, President Obama will likely need every vote he cab get.

Lee A. Daniels is Director of Communications for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Editor In Chief of TheDefendersOnline.com.

In this photo released by The White House, President Barack Obama participates in an interview Wednesday May 9 with Robin Roberts of ABC’s Good Morning America in the Cabinet Room of the White House. — THE WHITE HOUSE, PETE SOUZA

Will Gay Marriage Divide Black Electorate?

By Larry Miller
Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune

Right on the heels of North Carolina becoming the 31st state in the Union to pass a ban on homosexual marriage, President Barack Obama announced his support of matrimony between same sex couples.

The president’s public support of same sex marriage could either be a boon or a curse for his re-election campaign; it’s too soon to tell, despite the fact that he’s just received a million dollars in campaign contributions. But one thing is certain; the president’s public stance in favor of homosexual marriage has drawn a dividing line among voters. Will it have an affect among African-American voters, some members of the Black clergy think it will.

“I think it will to some extent,” said Bishop Ernest C. Morris Sr., Jurisdictional Prelate for Koinonia Jurisdiction. “A large percentage of Black Christians believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman. What he may be banking on is the African-American community’s love for the first Black president but he should consider that large numbers of Black churches won’t agree with this. There are too many passages in Scripture that denounce homosexuality and I can’t see how to fully justify it from the Word of God. Don’t misunderstand me; this is not about hatred of homosexuals because we are all sinners in need of a savior and God is so gracious. It is the continuous practice of this that the Bible is against. I also think that as the nation’s first Black president, he’s seen not just as the political leader of our country but as more than that. Many people see him as a moral and spiritual leader as well.”

On Wednesday May 9 President Barack Obama took what some political experts are saying was a risky move — especially during an election year — and voiced his support of same sex marriage. Like the issue of legalized abortion, same sex marriage is one of those hot button issues that draw a clear division between those who support it and those who oppose it. Republican presidential front runner Mitt Romney said he opposes same sex marriages.

“Well when these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney said in a published report.

A bill that would have allowed civil unions for same-sex couples in Colorado died in the legislature this week. The president’s public endorsement of homosexual marriage followed a vote in North Carolina where constituents came out in favor of a ban against same sex marriage. North Carolina is now America’s 31st state to enact legislation against it.

In a prepared statement, the president said he was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer regarding same sex marriage.

“I believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry,” the president said. “I’ve always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally. I was reluctant to use the term marriage because of the very powerful traditions it evokes. And I thought civil union laws that conferred legal rights upon gay and lesbian couples were a solution. But over the course of several years I’ve talked to friends and family about this. I’ve thought about members of my staff in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships that are raising kids together. What I’ve come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, and the denial of marriage equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered less than full citizens. So I decided it was time to affirm my personal belief that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.”

The president also said that he respected the beliefs of others and the right of religious institutions to act in accordance with their own doctrines but he said that he believed that in the eyes of the law all Americans should ne treated equally and no federal law should invalidate same sex marriages in a state that enacted it.

Reverend Clarence James, a Black minister based in Chicago said he definitely believes the president’s move is going to hurt him among African-American voters, many of whom oppose same sex marriage.

“Many of us oppose this in every form and may decide to vote against the president because of this,” James said. “From a medical and psychological point of view homosexuality is a mental illness; for male homosexuals anal sex is medically dangerous. The president is coming at this as a civil rights issue but there is no correlation even though the homosexual community is trying to make it one. The Civil Rights Movement was about freedom and equal rights, this is a moral issue. For the president and other elected officials it’s easier to go along with popular opinion rather than to do what’s right.”

But some members of the African-American clergy have a different point of view regarding this issue. They believe the African-American community should find ways to address same sex relationships and that there can be reconciliation between sex and spirituality.

“If every gay person in our church just left or those who have an orientation or preference or an inclination, or a fantasy, if everyone left, we wouldn’t have — we wouldn’t have a church,” said Bishop Carlton Pearson who heads Chicago’s New Dimensions Ministries in a published report. “Homophobia is hardly unique to the African-American community. It’s a social malady that’s due largely to the influence of fear based-theologies, particularly fundamentalist Christianity, Islam and Judaism, all of which grow out of the Abrahamic tradition. The African-American church has traditionally used a kind of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ approach toward homosexuality.”

Dr. Janice Hollis who heads Progressive Believer’s said the African-American community should look at the president’s record not just on this issue but on others and determine if the quality of their lives has improved.

“I think it’s an insult for the president to intellectualize on morality as if the Church doesn’t already have a mandate from God on this,” she said. “This is a political move and even though he may not see it, he’s only a fleeting moment in history; God has always been there. I think the president is promoting a way of life that deters people away from the Word of God.”

Reverend Bill Owens, a minister with the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and who is based in Memphis, Tennessee, said there’s no doubt that the president’s endorsement of same sex marriage is going to hurt him among Black voters.

“Absolutely it will and especially among the Black churches where the conviction against same sex marriage is so strong,” Owens said. “I think many Black Christians feel somewhat betrayed by the president on this — this is something that Black churches have always stood firmly against.”

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