Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 19 October 2000 — Page 5

The Muncie Times, October 19, 2000, page 5

NEWS BREIFS

Compiled by Andre Scott Chicago school officials defend testing method Chicago Public Schools (CPS) officials said they would stand by their current method of testing 8th graders, despite charges in a report this could mean lower retention of black and Latino students. According to LCS, a school advocacy group, its research shows that more emphasis should be placed on grades, parental input, advice from school administrators and state Board of Educations standards than on test score results, because the latter means a higher dropout risk for African American students. But school officials say that the gap between lack and Latino students and their white counterparts in testing has lessened since current school chief Paul Valias has been overseeing the system. CPS Chief Accountability Officer Phil Hansen said the school dropout rate has declines for 3 years in a row. *** NY black family sues over monkey’ The family of a 7-year-old African American boy is calling for the firing of a nun at a New York City Catholic school after she described him as a “monkey” in writing. Shawnie Braggs-Mays and Lamar Mays said their son, Kingsley, was traumatized after the incident involving Sister Mary Seaton Mallet II, who teaches 2nd grade at St. Ignatius Loyola, which is predominantly white. Kingsley, like other

student, had written an essay describing himself to his new teacher. He wrote among other things that he was “handsome.” Seaton, when marking the paper wrote, “like a monkey” next to Kingsley’s words. In a letter to parents following the inccident, the school’s principal Grace Cavallo wrote that Seaton’s words had been taken out of context but she should have been more aware of their possible “misinter-pretation.” Meanwhile, the youngster’s family has the support of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. *** Brawley defendents seek dismissal of charges Motions filed by defendants in the Tawana Brawley case could finally put an end to the longrunning dispute. One of the defendants, attorney Alton Maddox, Jr. is asking State Supreme Court Justice S. Barrett Hickman to dismiss money judgements made against himself, C. Vernon Mason, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Brawley in the defamation case. The group has been accused by former New York Assistatn District Attorney Steven Pagones of defaming him in the kidnapping case. Maddox’s motions accuse former state attorney Robert Abrams of knowingly presenting perjury testimony to the grand jury in the original case. It was Abrams, not the grand jury, who called Brawley’s claims of being kidnapped then rapped by six white law enforcement agents, a haox, on of the motions said.

*** Johnston, Pa., cops face more scrutiny The policing plan for a controversial west-central Pennsylvania town has been a local newspaper. Police in Johnston has been under increased scrutiny recently, after black and Latino residents were allegedly targeted for traffic stops. Chief Robert Huntley will have to follow a plan to keep his job. Portions released to the Johnston Tribune-Democrat, say he must institute a formal code of ethics for his officers, develop a chain of command, especially for disciplinary issues, and target poor morale on the force. No deadlines were included in the version given to the newspaper. In addition to the racial profiling incident, the police department is under a federal grand jury investigation into whether a police detective assulted a handcuffed man 2 years ago. irk* NAACP urges blacks to vote Nov. 7 So you haven’t been listening to the presidential debates. You don’t know who is running in your state, county or city elections. Nor do you know what the candidates stand for. If you are one of those Americans who can say “Yes, that’s me,” face it. You are a disgrace to your ancestors. In fact, statistics tell us that over 50 percent of you are downright stupid and won’t vote on Nov. 7 in the presidential election—an election that will determine which way our country goes

the next 100 years. The fight to allow .black Americans to vote was along, hard struggle, which saw many of our grandparents and great grandparents burtally, murdered. These few quotes from the minutes of the Board of Directors’ meeting of the NAACP gives us more insight as to how brutal the fight was. May 13-Field Secretary Medgar Evers report since August 1962, member os the Greenwood NAACP Youth Council and SNCC, headed by Samuel Block of Greenwood, have been urging Negroes to register and vote. Their efforts for a number of months went unheeded. Finally, during March, things began to break. There was a charge for that some 22,000 Negroes had been taken off the relief rolls. In response to this, Dick Gregory airlifted 16,000 pound of food and clothing into the Greenwood area. This gave impetus to the struggle and great encouragement to a dejected people. [The Galaxy Super Club in St. Albans, L. L., canceled Dick Gregory’s contract reportedly after he announced he was sending all of his salary to Mississippi “to continue to fight there,” the munites stated.] May 23, 1963-The treasurer spoke in Greenwood, Miss., and placed a wreath on the grave of Rev. George Lee of Belzonia, Miss., who was murdered in 1955 because of his attempts to register and vote. April 8, 1963-A wire has been sent to the President asking for protection for those workers in voter registration in view of the

shooting Feb. 28 of James Travis and the shooting March 6. (Greenwood, Miss.) Alfred Baker Lewis, NAACP board member, in his booklet titled, “Progress at a Very Deliberate speed,” said: “The Rev. Buster Washington, a local clergyman in Haywood County, Tenn., had formed with other Negroes a local branch of the NAACP and planned to pay their poll taxes and study so that they could gain the right to register and vote in the 1940 election. No Negroes had voted in that county or the neighboring county in Fayette, Tenn., since Reconstruction days, and the whites in control of the county government were not willing to let them do so. “They were warned to stop trying to enroll as voters. When they persisted, the whites struck. One man, the* secretary of the branch, Elbert Harris, was lynched and his body was found later in a swamp.” Sadly, the fighting for the right to vote didn’t stop for the next 20 or 30 years depending on where you lived. Today, there is no poll tax, no test to pass to register to vote. No mob to lynch you if you do. What’s stopping you? Look in the mirror. Ask yourself why these ancestors of yours though it was so important to register to vote. If you can give yourself an honest answer you will pick up the phone and register. And then go to the polls and vote on Nov. 7. Please prove to yourself that you are not really stupid!