NNPA STORIES -
STATE NEWS BRIEFS
LT. GOV BLASTS COOPER
FOR APPROVING IMMIGRANT DRIVER’S LICENSES
[RALEIGH]
North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest is criticizing NC Attorney Gen.
Roy Cooper for ruling that young illegal immigrants in the state should be
issued driver’s licenses if they’re enrolled in the federal deferred
deportation program, meaning that they cannot be deported during the two years
they are enrolled in the program. “We are a sovereign state and need to stand up and push back when
the Feds encroach on our ability to protect our citizens and enforce our laws,”
Forest said in a statement. “The Attorney General's ruling leaves open the
possibility that the DMV can issue licenses to those individuals who came to
our country and state illegally. I disagree with this action." The NC DMV
has yet to decide to reissue the licenses, after recently revoking them.
HIGH LEVELS OF PESTICIDES
FOUND IN WAKE NEIGHBORHOOD WATER
[RALEIGH]
Over half the drinking wells in a Raleigh neighborhood tested positive for high
levels of pesticides, state and federal officials have determined. Of the 30
homes tested near Bond Street and Trawick Road, sixteen were found to have
wells that were contaminated with dieldrin and chlordane, two chemicals used
years ago to fight termites. The source of the contamination has not been
identified by the Environmental Protection Agency, but the investigation
continues. Those with infected wells are being supplied with bottled water.
STATE JOBLESS RATE RISES IN
DECEMBER
[GREENSBORO]
Unemployment was on the rise in December, according to state figures,
rising .1 percent to 9.2, from 9.1
in November. In addition, at lest 17,395 North Carolinians joined the labor
force in the last month of 2012. Overall, the state’s unemployment rate for
2012 fell one point, from10.2 in January, to 9.2 in December.
-30-
TRIANGLE NEWS –
01-24-13
RECEPTION FOR WAKE
SCHOOL BOARD CHAIR SUTTON
The
Flood Group and the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association are sponsoring a
“celebratory reception” for newly elected Wake School Board Chairman Keith
Sutton on Friday, February 1st, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Martin Street
Baptist Church, 1001 East Martin Street, Raleigh. The event is free and open to
the public.
WAKE DEPUTY
DISCIPLINED FOR NRA EMAIL AT WORK
A
Wake County deputy was disciplined after he reportedly sent out an invitation
to join the National Rifle Association via his county email account. A
spokesperson for the Wake Sheriff’s Dept. says Deputy Brad Manville received a
“personnel action” because using the department’s email system for personal
purposes was “inappropriate.” The issue is now considered closed, the
spokesperson said.
THREE DURHAM POLICE
OFFICERS ARRESTED
Three
Durham police officers were arrested last Friday and each charged with one
count of false imprisonment and one count of assault in connection with an earlier
larceny that night. Lt. Ryan A.
Freeman, Officer Stacy Armstrong and Officer Erin Espinola were off-duty at the
time. They were all additionally charged with breaking and entering. Three
civilians were also charged with the officers. Police Chief Jose Lopez says the
incident is being thoroughly investigated.
-30-
PRES. OBAMA WAVES DURING SECOND INAUGURATION
INAUGURAL
ADDRESS
BY PRESIDENT
BARACK OBAMA
United
States Capitol
On January 21st,
2013 at 11:55 A.M., President Barack Obama took the oath of office to begin his
second term as president of the United States, becoming the only
African-American in history to do so.
These are his words.
THE PRESIDENT: Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice,
members
of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to
the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our
democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the
colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names.
What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an
idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:
“We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning
of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that
while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that
while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on
Earth. (Applause.) The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace
the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.
They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people,
entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.
And for more than two hundred years, we have.
Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned
that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive
half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move
forward together.
Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads
and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our
workers.
Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when
there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.
Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the
vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.
Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of
central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills
can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and
enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are
constants in our character.
But we have always understood that when times change, so must
we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new
challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires
collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands
of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the
forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single
person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our
children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that
will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we
must do these things together, as one nation and one people. (Applause.)
This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that
steeled our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now
ending. (Applause.) An economic recovery has begun.
(Applause.) America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the
qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive;
diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for
reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we
will seize it -- so long as we seize it together. (Applause.)
For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed
when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.
(Applause.) We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad
shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when
every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of
honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to
our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has
the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is
free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.
(Applause.)
We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs
of our time. So we must harness new ideas and technology to remake our
government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens
with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, reach higher. But
while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards
the effort and determination of every single American. That is what this
moment requires. That is what will give real meaning to our creed.
We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a
basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to
reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject
the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that
built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.
(Applause.) For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years
were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to
turn.
We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for
the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how
responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss,
or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The
commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social
Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.
(Applause.) They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take
the risks that make this country great. (Applause.)
We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans
are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the
threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our
children and future generations. (Applause.) Some may still deny
the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact
of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.
The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and
sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must
lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power
new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise. That’s how we
will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure -- our forests
and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will
preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend
meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.
We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting
peace do not require perpetual war. (Applause.) Our brave men and
women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and
courage. (Applause.) Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we
have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty. The
knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who
would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just
the war; who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends -- and we must
carry those lessons into this time as well.
We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength
of arms and rule of law. We will show the courage to try and resolve our
differences with other nations peacefully –- not because we are naïve about the
dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and
fear. (Applause.)
America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every
corner of the globe. And we will renew those institutions that extend our
capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful
world than its most powerful nation. We will support democracy from Asia
to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our
conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And
we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the
victims of prejudice –- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time
requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed
describes: tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice.
We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –-
that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as
it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as
it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along
this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a
King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom
of every soul on Earth. (Applause.)
It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers
began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and
daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. (Applause.) Our
journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like
anyone else under the law –- (applause) -- for if we are truly created
equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.
(Applause.) Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to
wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. (Applause.) Our
journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving,
hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity -- (applause)
-- until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce
rather than expelled from our country. (Applause.) Our journey is
not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills
of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and
cherished and always safe from harm.
That is our generation’s task -- to make these words, these
rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for
every American. Being true to our founding documents does not require us
to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in
exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness.
Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of
government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.
(Applause.)
For now decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay.
We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for
politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. (Applause.) We
must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing
that today’s victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who
stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the
timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.
My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today,
like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God
and country, not party or faction. And we must faithfully execute that
pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today
are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up
for duty or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different
from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our
hearts with pride.
They are the words of citizens and they represent our greatest
hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s
course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates
of our time -- not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in
defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals. (Applause.)
Let us, each of us, now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy
what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose,
with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into
an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.
Thank you. God bless you, and may He forever bless these
United States of America. (Applause.)
-30-
CASH IN THE APPLE
By Cash Michaels
IN
FLORIDA THIS WEEK – Fort Lauderdale, to be exact, for the Mid-Winter Conference of the National Newspaper Publishers
Association (NNPA). We were invited down, along with attorneys Irv Joyner and James Ferguson, and civil rights activist Dr. Benjamin Chavis, to address black newspaper publishers from
across the nation about our successful efforts to secure pardons of innocence
for the Wilmington Ten.
As
you know, it was the NNPA in March 2013 that first voted to pursue pardons, and
justice, in the 40-year-old case, at the urging of Wilmington Journal publisher
Mary Alice Thatch. Our efforts caught fire in January 2012 when we created the Wilmington Ten Pardons of Innocence
Project, and GOD blessed us with a successful conclusion Dec. 31st
when Gov. Beverly Perdue indeed granted the pardons.
So
Irv, Ferguson, Ben and myself have a lot to talk about, and we’re proud to do
so. NNPA deserves to celebrate perhaps its greatest accomplishment ever.
Now
onward to the documentary (a CashWorks
HD Production, of course).
INSANITY
– The debate over gun rights in the nation has become as asinine as a debate
can become. And so there is no question where I stand, I stand with the
president of the United States on this – as Americans, we have the Second
Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” for the lawful purposes of protection,
sport and collection.
But
that doesn’t mean you should have the capacity to mow down people
indiscriminately. And yet, the National Rifle Association would have you
believe that if a bad guy has a 30-bullet magazine and semi-automatic weapon
with which to fire with, then every citizen should have one too.
Common
sense tells you that if the bad guys weren’t able to legally purchase one, or
steal one from a careless gun owner, that he wouldn’t have one. Gun owners say
if the police did their jobs in cutting down on crime, there would be less guns
on the street. Well, one of the ways to best keep illegal semi-automatic
weapons off the street is to limit their sale and distribution in the first
place.
But
the gun nuts have taken all of this a step further. They say that they are
entitled too own weapons per their civil rights…and their natural rights, those
unalienable rights given to them by GOD.
So
GOD wants us all to have a Bushmaster AR 10, eh?
Press
these fools further, and you find out that that they are absolutely convinced
that President Obama is an
anti-American liberal stooge who is coming, along with US Attorney General Eric Holder, to take their guns away.
They
are convinced of this nonsense, and they’re ready to fight, and fight hard, as
if this were 1776. Indeed, gun rights folks believe that they are supposed to
have the same weapons that the government does in order to fight the “tyranny”
of the government when it comes to “taking” their weapons.
There
are some gun rights advocates who are literally twisting themselves in knots
with their illogic.
For
example, one local conservative commentator who has made no secret that he is
for the passage of a photo voter ID law (because we must safeguard the
integrity of our electoral system, he says), is heartily against passage of gun
control.
Mind
you, the degree of voter fraud in our state and nation is scarce and rare
indeed. There is no proven need for photo voter ID. And yet this conservative
says it is wise to install it to prevent any from occurring.
But
switch the subject to gun control, and said conservative says school massacres
like the kind we saw in Newtown, Conn. last month are “rare,” and the number of
gun shootings have been going down for the past several years (these are his
thoughts, not mine) therefore we shouldn’t waste our time with any of the
president’s gun control recommendations at all.
Gee,
seems to me that either you stay consistent, regardless of the issue, or you
hang up your credibility cloth. Given that life and limb are at risk with gun
control, I’d like it if we erred on the side to make sure that another Newtown
school massacre never happens again.
Meanwhile,
the latest outrage from gun lovers land is this attempt by the folks who
sponsored last weekend’s disastrous “Gun Appreciation Day last Saturday now makes
a play for the black community’s support.
Not
only do I find this weird and ignorant, but insulting.
Larry
Ward, the so-called “chairman” of this Gun Appreciation Day (GAD) nonsense,
maintains that if Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. were still alive today, he would be advocating for the civil and
“natural” rights of gun owners.
You
and I, and anybody with an ounce of sense know differently.
Dr.
King was a man of peace, in addition to a man of GOD. He was a disciple of Mahatma Ghandi, so he believed
fervently in nonviolence. To suggest that a man who deplored violence of any
sort, would stand on the side of crazy gun lovers, is moronic at best,
delirious at the least.
But
the GAD folks don’t stop there.
They
also want to lure the black community over to their side using popular figures
like “Django” and Bill Cosby, and saying things like if
the slaves were allowed to have guns, there would have been an end to slavery.
First
of all, “Django” is a fictional movie character to a film I have no intention
of seeing until it’s available for a $1.00 rental at my local supermarket
kiosk. Not interested in seeing Quentin
Tarantino’s made-up version of slavery. That’s all.
Secondly,
to use something that comedian Bill Cosby said many, many years ago before the
fatal shooting death of his son is barbaric.
African-Americans
don’t want more guns in their community, they want less. We die at the hands of
some fool with a firearm in our communities more than any other Americans, and
before the Newtown massacre, we were crying the loudest, and the most often for
President Obama to do something about the proliferation of weapons on our
streets.
We
wanted him to act much sooner than he has, but we’re glad that the president is
finally acting now.
So
this weak conservative attempt to draw the black community away from the
president when he is actually doing what we want, is foolish, and racist.
This
is going to be a hard fought battle in the Congress and the nation over gun
control. It’s time to stop the drivebys and the school massacres.
And
it’s definitely time to tune out the wackos who only want to hold onto their
last vestige of “manhood” as defined by the ability to take another life.
Funny,
I always thought that real manhood was the ability to help build productive
lives.
Oh
well.
CONGRATULATIONS
MR. PRESIDENT – It was a proud moment last Sunday, and again on Monday, the
King holiday, to see President Barack
Obama make history again taking the oath of office for his second term as
our nation’s leader.
The
president has been through a lot, but he has been toughened to the point where
the nation has learned to trust his leadership. He is beloved, and seen as a
good family man. Those who have tried desperately to vilify him, have failed
miserably.
There
is no question that President Barack Obama’s enormous place in history is
secure.
Praise
be to GOD that he be kept safe, and secure.
CONDI
AND CBS – In an effort to boost its sagging morning and evening news ratings,
CBS has hired former Bush Administration Secretary
of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be an analyst and commentator.
This
should be interesting, because most of the international messes we find
ourselves in started on her watch as National Security Advisor for President George W. Bush. So now she’ll
have a national platform to rhetorically clean up her mess, while at the same
time, criticizing the president s he tries to fix stuff.
Good
going, CBS News. I see the brains over there are firing on all fours. Don’t
think it’s going to do much for your numbers though. You folks have a horrible
time knowing a good story when you see one.
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-
GUN LOBBY WANTS BLACK
SUPPORT
By Cash Michaels
Editor
The
predominately-white gun rights group that promoted the national “Gun
Appreciation Day” (GAD) Jan. 19th is now trying to woo
African-American support in their efforts to oppose Pres. Obama’s gun control
agenda, which they called, “some of the most outrageous attacks on civil
liberties in our nation’s history.”
GAD
Chairman Larry Ward, who is white, told The
Carolinian last week that if civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
were still alive today, he would support both the civil and “natural” rights of
gun owners who believe the Second Amendment is absolute.
“I
believe that Gun Appreciation Day honors the legacy of Dr. King…and I stand by
that,” Ward said last week. He
went to say that during the civil rights movement,”…most of the fights that
took place were surrounded by the inequity…the inequality of African-Americans’
access to guns to defend themselves.”
Ward
did concede that Dr. King died by an assassin’s bullet.
Ward
continued that because local laws restricted gun ownership to blacks at that
time, they were unable to defend themselves against the Ku Klux Klan. He says
the same situation exists in crime-ridden cities like New York and Chicago
today, where African-Americans, Ward says, “…do not have the same access to
defend yourself, … as someone who lives in West Texas does.”
This
week, Ward’s GAD group buttressed its argument for black community support by
publishing an op-ed titled, “What Would Django Do? Arms and ‘The Man’” by Dr.
Jonathan David Farley, a African-American mathematician at Harvard University
and National Rifle Association supporter.
In
the piece, Dr. Farley writes, “Historically, guns have been the
African-American’s greatest friend.” Farley then goes on to cite Ida B. Wells,
comedian Bill Cosby, abolitionists John Brown and Frederick Douglas, Malcolm X,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and India’s civil rights leader Mahatma Gandhi as
supporters of firearmed self-defense.
History
records that both Dr. King and Gandhi abhorred violence of any sort, and Cosby
lost his son Ennis to gun violence.
“Racism
in America is now gone like an exorcised ghost,” Dr. Farley writes, “but
African-Americans would do well to remember our history when it comes to gun
control.”
“Instead
of turning schools into zero-tolerance zones for guns, we should let the NRA
teach special classes in gun use, sort of like Driver’s Ed, and there should be
ROTC in all schools.”
Farley
concludes, “If African-Americans had had the right to keep and bear arms from
the founding of the republic, America today might be the promised land for
African-Americans.”
There
are many in the black community across the nation who would disagree with Dr.
Farley, the NRA and GAD. With black-on-black gun violence the leading cause of
death nationally of young black males, according to the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, bringing more guns into the community, many say, is not
the answer.
Indeed,
white conservatives, like Ann Coulter, have tried to deflect from the recent
and all to often profile of mass shooters as being young white males, telling
Fox News recently, “ Perhaps it’s not a gun problem, it is a demographic
problem.”
Coulter
has also, in the past, written that the NRA is a “friend” to the African-American
community.
For
those who intend to bitterly fight Pres. Obama’s efforts at gun control, the
issue really isn’t about defending themselves against crooks and criminals who
may threaten their families or property.
They
believe their Second Amendment right to bear arms is sacred for the purpose of
having the ability to fight the government in the event the government came to
take their guns.
“
The principal
reason the colonists won the American Revolution is that they possessed weapons
equivalent in power and precision to those of the British
government,” wrote Andrew Napolitano, a former judge, and now a Fox
News analyst, in a Washington Times column recently.
Irving
Joyner, professor of law at North Carolina Central University’s School of Law,
dismisses the gun lobby’s claims
of having inalienable “natural” rights to own semi-automatic weapons of mass
destruction.
“This
notion of a “natural right” to own and use guns has no support in the law,”
Joyner says, adding that the constitutional right to own duly licensed firearms
for the purpose of protection is not absolute because it is subject to “some
regulation by the government.”
Joyner
calls groups like the NRA and GAD “anarchists who hold the view that they have
the right to overthrow the government, and that anything that the government
does is wrong.”
The
law professor adds that while most Americans support the Second Amendment, that
doesn’t mean people have the right to own bazookas or “every realm of weapon
that is available to government.”
“That
is not a position supported by the [US] Supreme Court,” Joyner says.
Regarding
whether Dr. King would support the “civil and natural” rights of gun lobbyists,
Joyner was blunt.
“This
is just another example of extremists pimping Martin Luther King, and what Dr.
King stood for,” attorney Joyner said. “Dr. King talked about nonviolence, and
clearly the overthrow of the government has nothing to do with nonviolence.”
Joyner
did warn the African-American community to keep a close eye on how these
“anarchists” are stockpiling weapons for some eventuality that may not be in
the black community’s interest. Guns and ammunition sold out across the nation
right after President Obama’s first and second elections, and after the
Newtown, Conn. school massacre.
“We
need to be concerned about who is buying all of these guns, and what they are
going to be using these guns for. And respect to African-Americans and
Hispanics, we need to give some consideration to the notion of our being
defenseless to guard against any effort by these gun enthusiasts to direct
those guns against [us].
-30-
WILMINGTON TEN SEEK
COMPENSATION
By Cash Michaels
Special to the NNPA
from the Wilmington Journal
[WILMINGTON, NC] Now that the Wilmington
Ten, after over forty years, have been legally granted pardons of actual
innocence from the state of North Carolina, their attorneys are now hard at
work on the next phase – compensation.
“We are in the process now of
preparing an effort to seek compensation for the living members of the
Wilmington Ten, and the decedents of the four deceased [Wilmington Ten members]
who had died,” attorney Irving Joyner, professor of law at North Carolina
Central University’s School of Law, told The
Wilmington Journal. “There are significant legal questions remaining that
we have to deal with, but we’re working through that now, and trying to develop
the strategy that we need to go forward.”
It
was January 5th, during a jammed-packed church service led by NC
NAACP Pres. Rev. Dr. William Barber at Gregory Congregational United Church of
Christ, that five of the six remaining members of the Wilmington Ten – Dr.
Benjamin Chavis, Wayne Moore, Willie Earl Vereen, James McKoy, and Marvin
Patrick (Reginald Epps was unable to attend) – and the families of deceased
members Anne Shepard, William Joe Wright, Jerry Jacobs and Connie Tindall,
officially received their certificates, signed by then Gov. Beverly Perdue on
Dec. 31st, 2012, declaring each innocent of the 1972 conspiracy
charges they were convicted of stemming from the burning of a white-owned
grocery store during racial strife there a year earlier.
They
were collectively sentenced to 282 years in prison, some of which they all
served before their sentences were commuted in 1978 by then Gov. James B. Hunt.
The
case against the Ten began unraveling two years earlier when the state’s three witnesses
admitted in court that they perjured themselves during the trial; the human
rights group Amnesty International declared the Ten “political prisoners of
conscience”; and in March 1977, the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” uncovered
evidence proving the Wilmington Ten were innocent.
Finally,
in December 1980, the US Fourth Circuit of Appeals overturned all of the
Wilmington Ten convictions, and ordered North Carolina to either retry the
defendants, or dismiss all charges. The state did neither, forcing the Ten into
legal limbo for the next 32 years, and leaving them vulnerable to be retried at
any point.
Under
North Carolina law, a person legally declared innocent is entitled to $50,000 a
year in compensation for every year that they were falsely imprisoned, not
exceeding $750,000.
All
of the Wilmington Ten were indeed in prison for varying periods ranging from
three to seven years, though they were originally sentenced from 15 to 34 years
in prison – Ben Chavis receiving the longest sentence.
But
with the state refusing to either retry or dismiss charges for over three
decades, leaving all of the Ten legally exposed, does that constitute a degree
of false imprisonment that they should now be compensated for?
In
the original clemency papers filed with the Governor’s Office last year, both
attorney Joyner, and James Ferguson, the original lead defense attorney for the
Wilmington Ten over forty years ago, argued how each member, and their
families, have suffered mightily as a result of the negative impact the false
convictions have had on their lives.
Willie
Earl Vereen never became the doctor he had hoped to become. Connie Tindall, a
high school football champion, never made it to the NFL as he’d planned. Other
Wilmington Ten members were shunned by their churches when they left prison,
and fired from jobs because of their association.
And
two Wilmington Ten members – Jerry Jacobs and William Joe Wright – died because
of diseases they directly contracted while in prison.
Attorney
Joyner says his team is looking at every avenue, every argument.
“That
is one of the things we’re trying to look at in terms of trying to identify the
appropriate theories to go forth,” he told the
Journal. “The stronger one is the statutory one where there is a finding of
a pardon of innocence, the granting of the pardon of innocence, that they’re
entitled to a certain established compensation for each year that they spent in
prison. But we’re looking at all angles on this, and we have a team that we’re
conferring with now to figure out exactly what is the most appropriate and best
strategy to use in going forward.”
Attorney
Joyner reiterates that while the focus has now shifted to compensation, one
hundred percent of the previous effort was about proving the Wilmington Ten innocent.
With the National Newspaper Publishers Association sponsoring the effort, and the Wilmington Journal taking the lead
over the past year, to Joyner’s delight, that monumental task was accomplished
“Obviously I was overjoyed that the
governor agreed with our position, and after conducting an extensive
examination of the facts, agreed that the persecution of the Wilmington Ten
resulted from racism, and a misuse of the criminal justice process by the
prosecutor down in New Hanover County,” attorney Joyner said. Having reached
that conclusion, she was compelled to do what she did.”
But opposition to the pardons of
innocence was formidable, Joyner notes.
“[Forty years ago] the Wilmington
Ten case drew support from the NC Attorney General’s Office, and they came to
the defense of [prosecutor] Jay Stroud and his actions, and the actions of the
judge [Robert Martin]…and defended that all the way up through the US Supreme
Court, and finally to the [US] Fourth Circuit of Appeals. The individuals who
were actively involved in seeking to cover-up those actions, and to justify
them legally, were also attorneys in Governor Perdue’s office.”
Attorney
Joyner continued, “We were not aware of that at the time that we filed our
petition [last May]. But soon after we filed it, we became aware of their
presence, and they fought mightily to revive the arguments that they had been
making [against us], to no avail.”
Joyner
agrees that the subsequent discovery of the Stroud files – the handwritten
notes by prosecutor Stroud documenting how he tried to manipulate a
predominately-white “KKK and Uncle Tom-type” jury to guarantee a conviction –
helped the case immensely.
“The
Stroud files were critical, and became the smoking gun about the intentional
conduct of the prosecutor,” Joyner said. “It made it hard to argue that we had
not presented a compelling case.”
“That’s why it’s more significant
that over the advice and direction of the people who were closest to her, [Gov.
Perdue] was able to see through the glint and the glam. So there was
significant opposition in her office, and also from people in Wilmington –
[retired] police officers, firemen…people who were not even there [in 1971] and
bought into this public relations campaign that if the Wilmington Ten members
did not actually burn Mike’s Grocery, then they knew who did, which was an
absurd assertion.
The battle for just compensation
may take months. But the satisfaction of being there for the Wilmington Ten for
the past forty years, and seeing their justice through to the end, is
meaningful to attorney Joyner.
“To give to each of those
individuals their pardons was a great joy,” the law professor says, looking
back to the certificate ceremony a few weeks ago. “Just to look at the
expressions on their faces was just overwhelming.”
‘In
your life as a lawyer, you always look for those moments when you can say that
my living has not been in vain, and my work has had some significant meaning in
the life of someone,” Joyner adds.
“We
had a mighty victory, and the Lord has blessed us.”
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