Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 May 2000 — Page 10

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, MAY 12,2000

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OPINIONS

A call for a national moratorium on the death penalty • The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to deny hearing the Texas-based Gary Graham (a.k.a Shaka Sankofa) case has opened more questions about the death penalty. The most recent call for a moratorium has developed considerable momentum in large part because of the courageous voice of a Republican governor from Illinois — a state that implements the death penalty: there are now 780 groups, 18 municipalities, and four cities calling for a national moratorium. After 13 inmates have been released from Death Row since 1987, Gov. George Ryan declared the state’s capital punishment system was “fraught with error.” The Gary Graham case and Mumia Abu-Jamal cases are playing a role in election year politics. As Graham sits in a Texas prison awaiting his execution date despite the existence of evidence which may prove his innocence, Texas Gov. George W. Bush continues to stand behind his policy-line comment: under his watch, no innocent has ever been a victim of the death penalty in his state. According to Bush, that is a fact. But there are other facts in this case that may attest to Graham’s innocence. There are four witnesses that place Graham miles away at the time he is accused of killing a man with a .22 caliber gun in May 1981. Police tests have noted that Graham’s weapon — also a .22 — was not the weapon used in the shooting. (If Graham did the shooting, why would he be smart enough to get rid of the murder weapon, yet be caught with another?) Finally, the sole witness to the shooting, who saw the event from nearly 40 feet away at night, has been uncertain in her testimony since the case’s start. There are other inconsistencies. However, at the time of his trial, like tnany Blacks, Graham could not afford the best defense: much of what is known today never came to light at trial. Like the Abu-Jamal case, there appears to be enough unanswered questions to determine the need for a new trial. It wouldn’t be the first time Texas got the wrong man. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there are at least seven cases wherein inmates were freed from Death Row; however, only one of those released is Black. The state refused to give inmate Robert Nelson Drew a new trial in 1994 even though another man confessed to the murder Drew was accused of. He was executed in 1994, just a few months before Bush came into office. Blood tests were not enough to free Odell Barnes Jr. who was executed last March. The tests, taken from blood on the scene, proved the blood actually came from a blood storage facility, suggesting it was planted after the crime. Texas, known around the world for its harsh penal system, leads the nation in assigning the convicted to death row for crimes they were accused of committing as juveniles. Mistaken convictions are all too common. Between 1971 and 1993, nearly 90 inmates were freed from Death Row across the nation. Of that number, more than 40 were Black. Since 1997, another 18 were released from death row, most of them were Black, too. With so much human error and bias, Ryan and the growing coalition of anti-death penalty citizenry are correct: The judicial system itself should be on trial. Until a verdict is rendered, a moratorium is necessary. More cities, groups, businesses and citizens should call on their local and state representatives to put state funded killing on hold. As it stands, the death penalty is a costly, erroneous system that claims more Black lives than any other group. Beyond morality, it is illogical in its use and largely indefensible in the manner in which it is practiced. It needs to be ended before more innocent lives are destroyed. —TheBbckPresRofAmerica

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Voters break Demo slate, nominate 3 blacks

Well you did it! You went out and voted for a quality, qualified, balanced and diverse slate of Democratic judicial candidates. What Marion County Democratic Party bosses didi\’t do V alentine ’ s Day, you did primary day as Democratic voters, spearheaded by the party’s African-American base, broke the slate and nominated three African-Americans forjudge. Because of you, next January Indianapolis could have eight AfricanAmerican judges out of 31. Three extremely qualified Blacks, Judge David Shaheed and. attorneys Linda Brown and Grant Hawkins join Judges Evan Goodman and Thomas Carroll; and attorneys Barbara Collins, Becky Pierson-Treacy, Mark Stoner and John Hanley on a ticket Democrats, independents. Republicans and this curmudgeonly pundit can wholeheartedly support. I’m especially pleased that Hawkins, a quality attorney, (who along with African-American Judges Shaheed and Rueben Hill received the Indianapolis Bar Association’s “Highly Recommended” rating) got tfye second highest vote total among the Democratic candidates. And to think party leaders wouldn’t originally slate Hawkins. Marion County Democratic Party Chairman Steve Laudig hoped I’d be eating columnists crow. Laudig and other party mavens were livid after my column Feb. 25 that strongly encouraged our Black community to break the slate and vote only for the Black judicial candidates. After that column appeared, white party leaders and judicial candidates phoned Black precinct committeepeople and held meetings worried about the effects my words would have on voters. I didn’t break the slate, you did! You and thousands of others, in a grassroots effort, sent a message to Democratic leaders. You forced the white candidates to come into our Blackcommunity. You forced them to come to our neighborhoods, our churches. You made them give interviews to Black media and appear on our community’s talk shows. You forced the white judicial candidates to listen to our community and now we have judge candidates we can be proud of. The nine Democratic judicial candidates you chose mustn’t rest on their primary laurels. They must continue to be visible in our Black community, not just Center Township, but in the Black and integrated neighborhoods in the other townships. They must continue being visible on Black media. The nine Democratic judicial candidates are experienced and diverse and they’ll deliver fair, evenhanded justice. We must insure that all nine are elected Nov.

Just Tellinlt By AMOS BROWN

7. Some 91,000 voted last Tuesday and in a major surprise, 24 percent of those votes cast were in the IPS School Board race. That’s where we find the other big election loser; Elder Lionel Rush who lost badly to Clarke Campbell in the IPS at-large race. This was Rush’s race to lose. He had the name recognition and the visibility, particularly in our Black community. Parents for Public Education and the Indianapolis Education Association, the district’s teachers supported the winner Campbell. Pro-school choice and voucher supporters and groups pushed Derek Redelman, who came in third. But, Rush’s campaign never caught fire; he failed to gamer the endorsements of significant groups within our community. Rush should have rolled up big margins in the city’s Black wards, but he didn’t. His campaign was disorganized, disoriented and unfocused. Rush ran radio ads sporadically, ignoring Black-owned WBKS and W YJZ in the last week of the campaign. A serious error since those two stations reach 57 percent of Black IPS voters. Rush didn’t have workers passing out literature at many key Black precincts. He complained to the Indianapolis Star about his lack of resources against the well-funded Campbell and Redelman, but

Rush’s campaign didn’t utilize grassroots techniques, like phone trees or door-to-door campaigning that has worked for many local Black candidates. But, what really did Elder Rush in was his ill-timed press conference the evening before the election. Rush called the TV stations and Star (ignoring Black media) to charge that Campbell, a deputy prosecutor, would take a hard line against IPS students. Unfortunately, the image voters saw on the 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. news the night before the election was of Rush heatedly shouting at his opponent. The next day, voters rebelled against what they saw and Campbell crushed Rush by a 1,800 vote margin. In another shocker, Marion County Republican officials were stunned by Dr. Marvin Scott’s upset win over Tony Samuels. Every major GOP leader and faction endorsed Samuels, yet he lost by 12 percent, 3,161 votes, to the veteran candidate Scott. Samuels, a young, moderate Republican, was preparing an energetic, community-oriented campaign that could have posed trouble for Congresswoman Julia Carson. Now, Carson faces the conservative Scott and some Republicans fear he’ll wage a nasty, negative campaign. But if he does that, he’ 11 anger, energize and mobilize Black voters and white moderates to turn out for Julia as never before. Some say Samuels lost because of overconfidence by the county Republican machine. Others feel racism did Samuels in, as white conservative Republicans refused to vote for Samuels, because he was of Pakistani heritage. Meanwhile, a victory of sorts in Pike Township as an AfricanAmerican returned to the school board after a two year absence.

John Newton came in third in the 13 candidate race, with six of those candidates being Black. Though Newton will serve a four-year term, with Pike’s growing Black population just one Black on a seven member board isn’t right, Blacks in Pike must come together to change the diversity on their school board. Blacks who run for school board in Pike, mustn’t limit their campaigning to parents. Many Black residents, of Pike didn’t know there was a school board election. Black Pike candidates must reach out to all Blacks in the township, parents and non-parents. Interviewed last week on our week day WAV-TV/Channel 53 program both Congresswoman Julia Carson and Gov. Frank O’Bannon said they will NOT participate in televised debates sponsored by WISH/Channel 8 or WFYI/Channel 20 until those stations agree to end their exclusion of panelists from the state’s Afri%> can-American owned media. ;B Finally, Mark Williams was aj bright, young African Aihericartt actively involved in politics. He] worked hard in Virginia] Blankenbaker’s many campaignsg and in Sue Anne Gilroy’s mayoralg campaign. A prolific inventor j Williams held a score of patent^ on products for fun and good. Thifi exemplary young man who cared] deeply about our city and commuM nity passed away last week. My® deepest sympathies to the family of this young lion who left us too soon. See ‘ya next week. Amos Brown’s opinions are not necessarily those of the Indianapolis Recorder. You can contact him at (317) 293-9600 or e-mail himj at [email protected].

Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is a land of ugliness

WASHINGTON — Old injustices and hatreds generate new injustices and hatreds. And the corrupting force of power and a lust to retain it forever know no boundary of race. Those are two of the lessons of today’s Zimbabwe, where ugly racial tragedy is reinventing itself. When I first went to what was called Southern Rhodesia in 1955,1 thought it was the most beautiful land I had ever seen. The flowers were gorgeous beyond my imagination. The climate promised eternal spring. Yet it was an ugly place in terms of human relationships, because it was an unrelenting outpost of colonialism and racism rooted in concepts of a superior race and a slave class. It would take another quarter century for the African majority to cast off the yoke of colo-

nialism and the oppressive rule of Ian Smith and a white minority that tolerated much unnecessary violence as it sought desperately to retain power. But outraging vestiges of colonial rule remain. In this country of some 12 million people, 4,500 white farmers still own a third of the arable land. Violent bands of Black squatters are trying to take this land by force, arguing that what they do is morally right. White farmers, terrorized m ways that any Black man ought to understand, are saying that their families have owned the land for three generations, and that there must be some law-

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ful way to remedy injustices committed as much as 100 years ago. The courts of Zimbabwe have said that a rule of law must prevail, and that the squatters cannot just take land without someone compensating the owners. But Zimbabwe is as burdened today as it was in 1955. It had a white man then, Ian Smith, who wielded great power and did not want to surrender it. It has a'Black president today, Robert Mugabe, who has wielded dictatorial power for 20 years and does not want to give it up.. Mugabe, like too many African politicians who won independence and then came to see themselves as “president for life,” has led this magnificent little country into near min. So Mugabe seeks to hang on by telling miserable Black people that the white farmer if “the enemy” of Zimbabwe. He is trying to beat back a challenge by the Movement for Democratic Change by provoking a racial crisis. The hatreds that Mugabe and the leader of the squatters, Chenjerai Hunzvi (self-named “Hitler”), are generating are much like AIDS or other great diseases. They know no nationaa boundaries. It is proper, then, that the United States pm on Mugabe and on the squatters great pre^ sures akin to what was placed on the white colonials to ensure that the violence and killing in Zimbabwe end and the rule of law prevails. Mugabe should have relinquished power many years ago. Tragically, his ruthless grip is such that the people of Zimbabwe no longer have an opportunity to impose their will. They deserve the help of the democratic world. 1