Durham NAACP refuses to support war NAACP refuses to support war

By Rah Bickley

Durham, North Carolina, Sept. 25— The Durham NAACP voted Sunday to back leader Curtis Gatewood’s call for his members not to participate in any US retaliation for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, even after the national NAACP chastised him for the remarks.

“We are 100 percent agreed with his statement, each and every single word,” member Anita Keith-Foust said.

At the same time, though, the group agreed to be bound by national NAACP pronouncements, she said.

“The hour is upon us to put aside differences and dissent,” National NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said in a Sept. 18 statement on the group’s website. “This tragedy and these acts of evil that occurred on Sept. 11 must not go unpunished.”

Mfume could not be reached Monday for comment.

Gatewood, a Durham minister, said at a Sept. 15 monthly meeting that African-Americans should not have to fight in any military action, and that a violent US counterattack would be wrong.

“Black males can no longer afford to be used as sacrificial lambs at the time of war,” he said in his three-page statement. “Those black males who make it back home alive from war are likely to come home and be discriminated against by the people whose businesses were headquartered in the World Trade Center, racially abused/profiled by an American police officer, killed on the streets in their crime-infested neighborhoods” or harmed by Bush administration policies, he said.

Media reports of the remarks sparked threatening phone calls to the NAACP, Keith-Foust said.

Gatewood said that the NAACP supports the victims’ families and is praying for the country but that his group is nonviolent. He also said that the US government has oppressed Africans, Middle Easterners, and other people of color worldwide. Because Bush was selected president by a “right-wing Supreme Court,” he said, the attacks were not “an attack on freedom.”

A few days later, Mfume sharply criticized Gatewood for choosing the fourth day after the Sept. 11 attacks to point fingers about the flaws in US democracy.

On Sunday, members who attended a forum with City Council candidates voted to back Gatewood’s remarks. The Durham group has between 400 and 600 members, Gatewood said.

“There was lots of applause and ‘amens,’” said Keith-Foust. “This country is built upon terrorism. We have been terrorized since we were in this country. Anytime anyone can come and bomb your church ... that’s terrorism. Do you remember Medgar Evers?” she asked, referring to the Mississippi civil rights leader who was shot to death in 1963.

Gatewood said Monday that although he believes what he said, he will no longer say it as the head of the Durham NAACP.

Source: Charlotte News & Observer

Asheville voters prepare to hit the polls

By Brendan Conley

Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 3— Asheville voters will begin the process of choosing their mayor and three city council members in the primary election October 9. The candidates have distinguished themselves from one another in public statements, in the press, and at a number of recent candidates’ forums.

The candidates for mayor are: Terry Bellamy, William Boyd, Chuck Cloninger, H.K. Edgerton, Dave Goree, Mickey Mahaffey, Brian Peterson, Bill Porter, and Charlie Worley. The candidates for city council are: George Bancroft, Harold “Cicada” Brokaw, Bernard Carman, Joe Dunn, Jim Ellis, Fred English, Barbara Field, Ed Hay, Holly Jones, Sharon Martin, Carl Mumpower, Brownie Newman, Susan O’Neil, Kevin Rollins, Sam Webb, and Rod Whiteside.

Comprehensive information about each of the candidates is available in the Candidates’ Forum, a weekly newspaper sponsored in part by Asheville Global Report. Free copies are available in Asheville businesses, and the contents are posted on the web at .

Citizens can take the opportunity to address questions to the candidates at the final candidates’ forum before the primary, scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 4 at 7pm at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Asheville.

NC Green Party condemns current military buildup

Statement of NC Green Party

Sept. 26-- At their annual convention this past weekend in Charlotte, the NC Green Party called for its members to respond to the call for war. Green delegate Jeff Land of Wake County said that, “Our politics are rooted in nonviolence. We insist that there is a difference between revenge and justice. We urge President Bush to call off his armada and take the time to think about how the US can become better friends with the people of the Middle East and Central Asia, a possibility totally ignored by most politicians and the media.”

While opposing US government policy, the Greens expressed strong sympathy and support for the young soldiers being sent to combat. As former Naval officer Ed King, a delegate from Chatham County, asked, “What constitutes true patriotism; blindly rubberstamping the president’s rush to war no matter the consequences, or dissenting while there is still time to save innocent lives?”

The evolving NC Green Party position includes the following 4 central points:

* Deliberate, measured, and lawful response to the terrorist action;

* Increased public defense and support for Arab and Muslim American neighbors and those “mistaken” for being Arabs or Muslims;

* Complete maintenance of civil liberties;

* No draft.

The Greens also sent a letter of support to Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee for her strong statement and lone vote against the S.J. RES.23. According to Green Party member Josh McIntyre, “The Green Party is committed to sending Barbara Lee some allies in the years ahead so that she will no longer be the lone voice for peace in a Congress enthralled to the military-industrial complex.

The weekend gathering in Charlotte was attended by 30 delegates representing seven different Green locals across the state.

Guatemalan human rights worker to speak in Asheville

By Nicholas Holt

Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 1— Sabino Perez, spokesperson for the Association for the Defense of Human Rights of the Ixcán (ADDHAI), a group of rural Guatemalan communities seeking legal action against two of the country’s ex-dictators, will speak on Oct. 15 at Jubilee Community Church and again at Karpen Hall at UNCA on Oct 16. Both events begin at 7pm.

Following a US sponsored coup, Guatemala endured a 36 year civil war during which over 200,000 people were killed or disappeared and a million displaced. More than 80% of those killed were indigenous.

Eyewitnesses of the massacres report savage killings with special targeting of pregnant women and children. The ADDHAI has charged the military commands of dictators Fernando Romeo Lucas García and Efraín Ríos Mott with genocide.

Ríos Mott is currently president of the Guatemalan Congress. The lawsuit charging him with genocide is the first of its kind to be brought against a sitting politician in Latin America.

Perez, who is a volunteer fireman trained to disable land mines and other explosives, is himself an eyewitness to massacre. He will relate these experiences, as well as those as a community organizer, when he speaks here.

Perez’s appearance is sponsored by the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala, which coordinates related US activism, including lobbying for responsible US policy in Guatemala, publishing and education work, and the training and placement of human rights monitors.

Governor commutes death sentence

Compiled by Brendan Conley

Asheville, Oct. 3— Gov. Mike Easley has commuted the death sentence of Robert Bacon Jr., who was scheduled to be executed at 2am Friday for the 1987 murder of Glennie Clark. Bacon will now serve life in prison without parole.

Death penalty opponents cheered the decision, saying that their prayers and activism had influenced the governor.

People of Faith Against the Death Penalty continues its organizing work. The “Journey of Hope,” a traveling contingent of speakers against the death penalty, will arrive in Asheville this weekend. On Saturday, October 6, the group will hold a rally against the death penalty in Pritchard Park, at 2pm. On Saturday and Sunday, a group of family members of murder victims, participants in the national Journey of Hope, will be in western North Carolina, speaking to about 20 different congregations and civic groups. The speakers, including Sam Reese Sheppard, son of the man made famous in the movie, The Fugitive, will share their stories of grief and anger in the wake of the murders of their loved ones, and the way they wrestled with whether they wanted to see the perpetrators killed for their crimes.

The Journey of Hope concludes at the conference of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, which will be held in Raleigh, Oct. 18-21, at the Brownstone Hotel. The conference will open with a march and rally in downtown Raleigh, which organizers hope will be the largest death penalty abolition rally in the state’s history.

For more information: www.pfadp.org