Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 October 1978 — Page 1

Jury convicts man in ‘butterfly’ killing

Dodgers’ Smith named honorary sickle ceil head

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The National Association for Sickle Cell Disease, Inc., has named Dodger superstar Reggie Smith as its National Honorary Chairman for 1978-79 it was announced Saturday by NASCD executive director Dorothye Boswell at a news conference at the Greater Los Angeles Press Club. In making the announcement Ms. Boswell said, “We are delighted that Reggie has < joined our team at the national • level in ^ur annual public awareness campaign about sickle cell disease.” Ms. Boswell added that Mr. Smith’s appointment marked the first time that the National Association has named a national honoary chairperson. “He is a true superstar with an exemplary character both on and off the field and is truly admired for his concerns in the community. His association with us, and ours with him, will prove highly beneficial at local and national levels in advancing the goals of the NASCD.” she

said.

Ms. Boswell explained that Mr. Smith would make public service announcements for radio and television in support of the NASCD and wouold represent the NASCD at community affairs, business meetings. fund raising and other NASCD events. He will also participate in the selection of the Association's 1978-79 poster child. At the press conference, Mr. Smith announced plans for the first annual Reggie Smith Celebrity Tennis Classic, proceeds of which will benefit the NASCD. It will be a two-day celebrity amateur tournament to be held at Mountain Gate Country Club on November 11 and 12. The tournament will be sponsored by teh Pepsi Cola Company. The National HonoraryChairman also said that plans were under way for the NASCD’s annual Award of LDistinction and entertainment dinner that honors a person for his or her efforts in behalf of charity, particularly sickle cell disease. Previous recipients of the NASCD’s Award of Distinction Mr. Smith pointed out, were

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INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1971

NO. 40 -I

Supreme Court again to face race bias issue in new term

Minority job plan halted by congressional criticism

REGGIE SMITH Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie. The fundraising event will be held in November at the Beverly Wil-

shire Hotel.

Sickle cell disease, Mrs. Boswell explained is primarily found among blacks, but is also TURN TO PAGE 18 Minority CPA firms to audit oil companies Today the Dept, of Energy (DOE) announced that ten minority accounting firms have been awarded subcontracts totaling $1.5 million to audit the Nation's major oil refiners. Seven of the ten minority firms selected are members of the National Association of Minority Certified Public Accounting Firms (NAMCPAF). They are Arlington McRae and Company of Houston, Texas; Ashby, Armstrong, Johnson and Company of Denver, Colo.; Moultrie and Simpson of Los Angeles, California; Foxx and Company of Cincinnati, Ohio; Jack Martin and Company of Birmingham, Mich.; Mitchell, TURN TO PAGE 18

What’s Inside

SHE’S A QUEEN A lucky local young lady's probably feeling a little “queeny’ right now. Find out whv in Sotd Sounds. Entertainment. Page 10. LOOK OUT DENNIS, ITS WILBUR Two local cartoonists feel there's a thing called humor in black childhood life too. Entertainment, Page 11. A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION Fun with words is fine, but in a certain professional baseball instance, it's caused a whole heap o' trouble, points out Sports Editor Ben Dulin in A HARD LOOK. Sports, Page 16.

WASHINGTON The Civial Service Commission has backed away from a plan to give women, blacks, and other minorities prelerential treatment in the face of fierce congressional criticism. The plan to earmark up to 30 per cent of the vacancies in certain middle and upper level federal positions for minorities was first proposed by Julie Sugarman, vice chairman of the Civil Service Commission. Under the proposal--com-monly known as the Sugarman plan women and minorities would be recruited outside of government and be placed in the slots reserved for them without regard to the Civil Service merit system. After a probation period of about two years, they would be grant Civil Service status. The commision has shelved the plan, at least for the present, because of stiff opposition in Congress. “We have postponed implementation of the plan pending further hearings and public comment,” said a Civil Service spokesman. The spokesman said that although congressional approval is not necessary to implement the plan. Congress, if it w anted to, could stop the plan. Indeed, the Defense Department appropriation bill contains a section specifically prohibuing funds from being spent to put such a plan into operation in the Defense Department. When the House recently approved the Civil Service reform bill. Rep. James Collins, R Tex., attempted to have a ban on the Sugarman plan written into the bill. Collins gave up his efforts only after Rep. Morris UdaU, D-Ariz., and Rep. William Ford, D-Mich., both ranking members of the House Post Office and Civil Service com-

mit»^e, said they would move to block the plan if the Civil •Service Commission attempted to implement it. Sugarman and Alan K. Campbell, the Civil Service Commission chairman, insist the plan would simply correct imbalances in federal employment resulting from decades of discrimination against women and minorities. But congressional critics view the plan as a quota system that would wreak havoc on the Civil Service system. Because the Minorities would be brought in at middle and upper level jobs, it would have a demoralizing effect on other employees, they charge. In addition, it would open the jobs to patronage. The plan would increase racial and sexual consciousness in federal employment, he said.

DEATH PLANE RECORDER- Elwood T. Driver, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, holds the voice recorder from the Pacific Southwest Airlines’ jet which crashed last week in San Diego, Calif., killing 150 persons.

Children are witnesses--Estranged couple’s arguments end in mother’s gunshot death

A 49-year-old city man is being held in Marion County Jail without bond, on murder charges stemming from an argument which led to the shooting death of his estranged wife. Dead is Marjorie Matthews, 43, who according to Marion County Sheriff deputies, was fatally shot and wounded by Fred Matthews last Friday, after arguing in the front yard of Matthews’ far north westside home at 2340 W. 67th. The shooting allegedly climaxed a fued which had developed between the couple as long as a year, police said.

They had been reportedly seperated two years. Associates of the victim said she had expressed fear in the past of her husband. When authorities arrived on the scene, Matthews was standing beside his 1974 Cadillac holding a .22 caliber semi-auto-matic scoped-rifle, shouting... “Kill me, kill me. I killed my wife.” t The deputies said they found Mrs. Matthews’ body slumped behind the steering wheel of her 1970 Chrysler with a gunshot wound in the neck. She later died enroute to St.

Vincent Hospital. Accounts from witnesses said the couple had been arguing in the driveway when Mrs. Matthews ran to her car in an apparent attempt to leave. Matthews was said to have run to his car (parked in the driveway also), pulling the fatal weapon from his trunk. He shot the front tires out of her car before aiming at the windshield and firing, deputies said. Also discovered in his car was an identical rifle (without a scope) and other ammunition. A construction worker on TURN TO PAGE 18

Rep. Crawford pushes for expansion of breakfast program in schools

-In an report to the Interim the school breakfast program, in his subcommittee’s report 1980-81 year. students or with more than 25 s urn me r, the subcommittee Study Committee on Human He estimated that if the rec- were adopted more than 1,300 The subcommittee has rec- percent of their enrollment gathered expert testimony that Services, State Representative ommendations for the expan- school corporations in the state ommended that schools with qualified as needy have breakBill Crawford (D-Indianapolis) sion of the program contained would offer breakfasts in the either more than 100 “needy" fast programs. During the TURN TO PAGE 18

has called for the expansion of Indiana's school breakfast pro gram. Rep. Crawford, who is the chairman of the School Breakfast Subcommittee of this interim study committee, said the expansion of the program would benefit a large number of Indiana’s school children. Rep. Crawford reported that 2,052 of the 2,062 public schools in Indiana has lunch. programs but that only 353 participate in

Black progress on employment front at stake WASHINGTONAllan Bakke has become a medical student in California, but the Supreme Court, which began its new term Monday, still confronts the racial issue that made Bakke a household name. Although no case accepted for review during the next nine months overshadows the rest as Bakke did last year, manywili yield decisions touching the lives of millions of Americans. And waiting in the wings is a case that may become known as “son of Bakke.” Last June, the justices ordered a state medical school to admit Bakke, a white man who had twice applied unsuccessful ly. The court ruled that the school’s “affirmative action" program aimed at increasing the number of minority students had discriminated against him. But the court decided Bakke’ ’’reverse discrimination” claim on narrow legal grounds. It said state-sun schools still may consider an applicant’s race in making admissions choices, if race is not the sole factor. A larger legal and social question remained unanswered: How far can private employers go in giving special preferences to minorities? The high court already has been asked to resolve the issue in the job bias lawsuit of Louisiana worker Brain F. Weber. A white employee at the Gramercy, La., plant of Kaiser Alumuinum and Chemcial Co., Weber sued the company in 1974 after being refused participation in a craft training program. The program accepted minority and white employees on an equal, one-for-one basis. Had trainees been selected solely on a senority basis, no blacks would have been included. Weber’s lawsuit-successful in lower courts--charged that the selection of black workers with less seniority than he made him the victim of ille al

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Child slayer to be sentenced November 2nd

A stoic Lawrence Burkhalter sat, watched and listened as a Criminal Court 1 jury handed him a guilty verdict in the beating death of a four-year-old boy, who happened to make a mistake when spelling the word “butterfly.” Judge John Tranburg set sentencing for Nov. 2 for Burkhalter, who was also convicted of battery and neglect of a dependent in the murder of Eric Smith, son of a woman with whom the man had been living. Earlier testimony by a neighbor to Burkhalter and LaWanna Smith in a apartment complex at 310 West New York supported the theory the 29-year-old man had repeatedly beaten the boy in hopes he would spell the word right. "Eric,” neighbor Vicki Hubbard quoted a man in the next door appartment as repeatedly saying the day of the beating, "say it over, this time for your mother to hear.” She says she had also heard the male voice say, “I’ll kill you, ’ and repeated sounds which resembled a leather belt meeting hard with someone's skin. It was one of several beatings she said she heard in the apartment during the couple’s three month stay there. Burkhalter, who Miss Hubbard says she had seen going in and out of the apartment several times, not knowing who he was, could face up to 60 years in prison following the guilty verdict. Indiana Penal Code says a 40-year term will be dealt, along with the judge’s option to add 20 or subtract 10 years, depending on unusual circustances or lesser convicting evidence. He also would be dealt a two-to-eight-year term on the battery conviction, and two-to-four for negligence. Miss Smith will appear in the same court Wednesday on charges of involuntary manslaughter and neglect of a dependent. She is currently free on $11,000 bond. Burkhalter and Miss Smith took the boy to Wishard Memorial Hospital's emergency room early the next day, suffering from what the pair reportedly admitted in a statement to an Indianapolis Police Department Child Abuse detective, which had the man beating the boy’s head, putting it under water, and kicking him in the stomach. “Sure I whipped him some,” Burkhalter said during his 30 minute stay Tuesday on the winess stand, "but I didn’t hit him in the head and I didn’t kick him.” Burkhalter said he “loved him as my own son,” and wouldn’t have tried to kill young Eric. He says he bought medicine for bruises and injuries he contended a day after the beating Eric had suffered after falling in a bathtub. He says he took the boy to the TURN TO PAGE 18

Carter, Congressional Black Caucus solve their problems

Welfare reform will hype public, trust: Bowen Welfare programs should be a step toward self-sufficiency for their dependents. Gov. Otis Bowen said in an address Tuesday of the National Welfare Fraud Association. He said before a gathering of welfare fraud investigators in the Downtown Hilton the programs should be available to those in need, but not “open to those who want a crutch, but really need a kick in the pants.” The programs are in need, Bowen continued, of fraud control which would boost public confidence in the system, while making them more effective.”..,Not simply a political patchwork laid over a faulty system.” Frankly, it can hardly be. news that America’s public does not like what it sees when it looks into its welfare programs,” Bowen said. He agreed there exist those who malign the program, both clients and providers, which need to be rooted out and coldly dealth with on the basis of the severity of their own particular misconduct.”

WASHINGTONPresident Carter and members of the Congressional Black Caucus held a political makeup session at the White House late last week. Caucus members, at least, appeared satisfied with the outcome. They went to the White House to get a “top priority” commitment from Carter to push for Senate approval of the Humphrey-Hawkins fullemployment bill before the Senate adjourns next month. “We were pushing for the President to classify this as a ‘must’ piece of legislation, and the President has agreed to do this,” Rep. Parren J. Mitchell, D-Md., caucus chairman, said at a press conference after the meeting. The meeting followed by four days an acrimonious Black Caucus session at the White House from which one member. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., stalked out in anger. Carter and other administration officials maintain that he has always made full employment a “top priority.” But there were other priorities such as getting out an energy bill and curbing inflation, they

say.

This is what was on the mind of caucus members when they met with Carter and Vice President Mondale at an earlier meeting Tuesday. The other priorities seemed to be

getting the attention, while time was running out on Hum-

phrey-Hawkins.

At the meeting last Tuesday, caucus members warned that the White House would get the blame if Congress failed to pass the full employment bill. Carter and Mondale heatedly challenged that assertion, leading Conyers’

angry departure.

Mitchell said Friday the caucus called for the second meeting to clear up what he called a "misunderstanding.” The White House agreed.

The second meeting went smoothly, Mitchell said. Conyers stayed. The Detroit congressmen even “shook hands and exchanged warm pleasantries” with Carter upon leav-

ing, Mitchell said.

Mitchell said the White House didn't understand at the first meeting the intensity of the feeling of the people who support Humphrey-Haw-kins. At Friday session, he said, the President

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Richard Pryor sentenced in shooting incident

LOS ANGELES Entertainer Richard Pryor left a California courtroom last week full of rage after he was fined $500 and given three options to complete his sentence for ramming his car into another automobile belonging to two of his wife’s friends. After pleading “nolo contendere" (no contest) Pryor was told by the judge that he could either go to jail, give benefit performances or donate 480 hours to community service. The charge for which Pryor was sentenced stemmed from

an incident which occurred at his San Fernando Valley home last New Year’s Eve. According to a statement given by Pryor’s estranged wife, Deborah, Richard became outraged by a statement made by one of Deborah’s friends and ordered everyone out of the house-including his wife. After two of Deborah’s friends allegedly gave some “backtalk,” to Richard, he chased the women and caused some $5,000 in damages to one woman's Buick with his Mercedes Benz. He then allegedly shot holes into the automobile.

WHITE -HOUSE VISIT-A ddegathm of Indianapolis residents, all active in promoting employment-especially •■MMig minorities pose on the White House lawn with Mrs. Rosalynn Carter, the wife of the President during a recent visit to Washington, D.C., where they attended a job workshop. Following the workshop participants attended a White House luncheon, where they also were greeted by

President Carter. Posing with Mrs. Carter are [left to right] Arthur Weimer, Mrs. Doris Parker of Ivy Tech; Gilbert Cordova, of IMAGE and representative of the Hispano Employment Program at Ft. Harrison; the Rev. Arthur Johnson, deputy director of CAAP and president of the Concerned Ministers’ Alliance, and Nyofu Elmore, director of People of Jobs Now.