Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 January 2003 — Page 3
FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 2003
THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER
PAGE A3
2002 ► Continued from Page 1 mond, a 70-year-old former Ku Klux Klan member was implicated in the murder of Carol .Jenkins, a young Black woman who was stabbed to death in Martinsville. Richmond never went to trial for Jenkins’ murder because he was declared incompetent to stand trial. On Aug. 31, Richmond died of cancer. Not all that happened in 2002 was bad. State Rep. William Crawford, an Indianapolis Democrat, was named chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the most powerful budgetary position in the Legislature. Crawford is the first African American ever to serve in this capacity. Claudia Cummings became the first African-American female to serve as a permanent
member of the Indiana Election Commission. And Gov. Frank O’Bannon signed a bill that prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from being sentenced to death. After a bitter campaign match with Republican Brose McVey, JuliaCarson won her fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives by a comfortable margin. And Frank Anderson sealed a landslide victory to become Marion County's first Black sheriff as well as the first Democrat to serve in the office since 1.986. Republicans kept all fourstate offices including secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, and clerk of courts. Democrats narrowly maintained control of the Indiana House, with Republicans in charge of the Senate. In the U.S. Congress, Republicans took control of the Senate and kept their control of the House. 'Contributions by Brandon A. Perry.
Mbeki re-elected ANC chief
STELLENBOSCH, South Africa. (GIN) — South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) re-elected Thabo Mbeki as party leader at their recent convention , virtuallyguaranteeing he will remain president until 2009. He was re-elected unopposed, automatically making him the movement’s candidate for president in 2004. In a tw-o-hour address to the convention, Mbeki thanked the group for expressing confidence in his leadership, adding he believes it “will not disappoint your expectations." South Africa still has a long way to go, he said, to create a non-racial society. The bulk of the economy - including the land - remains predominantly whiteowned, nine years after the end of apartheid, he said. ANC policies are working, Mbeki insisted, and they are pro-
ducing greater wealth for the Black majority, although more rapid progress was needed. Still, President Mbeki faces mounting criticism from the leftwing of the ANC, the Cosatu trade union and the South African Communist Party, for the party ’s approach to poverty, unemployment and the AIDS pandemic. They also oppose the government’s privatization programs. Opinion polls released last month showed support for the ANC dow-n from 66 percent at the 1999 election to approximately 50 percent now. About 5,000 people - including 3,000 delegates with voting rights - attended the conference, which is the third since the party took power in 1994. Ironically, it is being held at the Afrikaans-language Stellenbosch University, where the segregationist doctrine of apartheid was born in the 1940s.
Moseley-Braun says she could win her old Senate seat back
WASHINGTON (AP) - Claiming victory is within her grasp, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun said Monday she will announce this month whether she w ill run for the seat held by GOP Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, who. narrowly defeated her in 1998. “If I ran. I’d win both the primary and the general election,'’ the Chicago Democrat said in a phone interview. “That’s w hat people are telling me and that’s my feeling as well." Democrats view Fitzgerald as the Senate's most vulnerable Republican up for reelection in 2004. About a half-dozen Democrats are already actively campaigning or considering the race. Meantime, members of Fitzgerald's own party are suggesting that they are looking for an alternative to the political maverick. Moseley-Braun in 1992 be-
came the first Black woman ever elected to the Senate. She said she has seen growingsupport for her comeback in the aftermath of the controversy stirred by Mississippi GOP Sen. Trent Lott, Lott’s comments seemed to approve Strom Thurmond’s presidential platform as a segregationist in 1948. “My phone has literally been ringing off the hook," MoseleyBraun said, adding, “There are no Black people in the U.S. Senate and there has not been since I was there." Lott resigned late in December as Senate majority leader, after repeatedly apologizing for remarks that he acknowledged were racially insensitive. When Lott bowed out. Fitzgerald praised him as a “patriot" and “friend" -something Moseley-Braun said she found appalling. Fitzgerald spokesman Brian Stoller said the senator had no comment on Moseley-Braun's
plans. It Moseley-Braun becomes a candidate, she may face another Black candidate, state* Sen. Barack Obama. D-C’hi-eago. who already has begun raising iponcy. But she said Obama told her earlier this year that il she got in the race, he would get out. “We ilon t know w hat Senator Moseley-Braun is going to do. but we re in. countered Obama campaign manager Dan Shomon. Other Democrats, Blair Hull, a wealthy Chicago businessman. and Gcry Chico, a former Chicago school board president, have also put together campaign teams. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago. Illinois Comptroller Dan I h ues and Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas are also weighing entry into the field. Former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, a Makanda Democrat who was in the Senate with Moseley-Braun, said her chances of winning the Demo-
cratic primary would be “very good ” because she would be the best-know n candidate, she retains a solid base of support and likely would be the only woman candidate. But Simon added. "She clearly has a residue of public relations problems," among them, her trips to Nigeria to visit that country’s brutal former military dictator, the late Gen. Sani Abacha. Moseley-Braun has said her trips were no different from those made by other politicians against 'State Department wishes. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Polities, said if MoseleyBraun runs in a primary against two or three white males she would have a reasonably good shot of winning the primary and then draw ing substantial Democratic Party fund-raising support for the general election as probably the only Black Senate candidate in the nation in 2004.
Louisville's new Black police chief faces tough job
(Special to the NNPA) — Louisville, Ky., hired its first Black police chief last month in the middle of conflict surrounding the fatal police shooting of a handcuffed Black man. Robert White, a former police chief of Greensboro, N.C., will start this month as chief of the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Police. ”1 assure you that in a veryshort time we will have one of the finest police departments in the country," White said at a news conference. ”My whole focus on policing is crime prevention.” The police department has
Robert White been heavily protested following the Dec. 5 shooting of James Taylor, 50, who had his hands cuffed behind him when a white
detective shot him 11 times. Police accused Taylor of intimidating two detectives with a knife. Five African-American men have been fatally shot by area police officers since 2000. None of the officers have been charged. The Rev. Louis Coleman, a community activist leading many of the protests, said he is pleased the city hired a Black chief. However, it is too early to make a decision about what’s ahead. ’He’s Daniel going into the lion's deni,” Coleman told report-
ers.
CORRECTION
In The Indianapolis Recorder’s Dec. 27.2002, issue, Rufus "Bud" Myers’ name was incorrectly spelled. Myers is the executive director of the Indianapolis Housing Agency, which recently initiated a program that helps promote better lives for children in the city.
www.indianapolis recorder.com
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