Chronicle Jan 21 09

PRST STD US POSTAGE PD CHARLESTON, SC PERMIT #415

Text of President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address OBAMA: My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition. Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds

and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans. That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irre-

sponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America's

decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will

be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false

promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.

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foto: Beverly Birch SERVING CHARLESTON, DORCHESTER & BERKELEY COUNTIES SINCE 1971

THE

C HRONICLE VOLUME XXXVII NUMBER 21

From Hunting “Coons, To Earnings As a Landscaper in Maryville, Sedrick Smalls Says Success Based on Diversity, Good Customer Service By Bob Small Sedrick Smalls has always had the entrepreneurial spirit in him. As a child growing up in Maryville he’d hunt raccoon and squirrels and go door to door selling them to the neighbors. He later borrowed his father’s lawn mower and with his earnings bought his first lawn mower and started a landscaping business. Today Smalls is the owner and operator of Smalls and Brown Construction and JJS Trucking Company that is thriving at a time when other companies are hurting as construction has slowed and trucking is down. How does he manage to keep busy? Two things, “Diversify and good customer service,” he says. “When trucking gets slow I lease out some of my trucks. If construction slows down I turn to demolition and land clearing,” he said. “If I relied on just one thing I would be hurting so I look at what the needs are and see how I fit in.” The business also

does vinyl siding and lays foundations. He considers customer service very important. “Customers have a choice as to who they want to do their work. If I want to be that choice I have to let them know I care about them and their projects I don’t mind going the extra mile,” he said. The reasoning has paid off. He said a lot of his work comes from referrals and networking with others in the business. The 38 year-old businessman said having the equipment has been a plus. He owns seven tractor trailers and two dump trucks in addition to owning his own heavy equipment, like back hoe and track hoe. Smalls said he did not have a lot of money to buy all the equipment he presently owns. “I bought one thing at a time. A lot of times it was a sacrifice but I lease them out at times to keep something coming in,” he said. Having the right certifications is also important. His trucks have a See pg 2

•1111 King St. •Charleston, SC 29403• January 21, 2009 •

Report Cites Burke-Baptist Hill Disparaties

Young Haiti Ambassador Adopted by Presbyterian Churches on John’s Island Reaches Out for Support

By Barney Blakeney

By Barney Blakeney

The Fall 2008 annual brief of the Center for Partnerships to Improve Education at the College of Charleston indicates its collaborative efforts with Burke and Baptist Hill high schools have yielded positive results, but the brief also indicates unacceptable weaknesses in the Burke High program. The South Carolina consistently ranks last in high school completion rates. Education Week, a national education publication, reported in 2007 only 53 percent of the state’s high school seniors graduated. The Center for Partnerships to Improve Education (CPIE) is a consortium of professors, staff members, school districts, businesses and civic leaders collaborating to strengthen the education students in South Carolina receive. In 2005 (CPIE) and the College of Charleston’s School of Education, Health and Human Performance entered an agreement with Charleston County School District to improve the educational performance of students at selected schools. Burke, the first school targeted to receive services, was in danger of

24-Year-old Bill Nathan has spent most of his brief life travelling. During his infancy and childhood in Haiti he travelled from one home to another as an impoverished youth. Later as an orphaned teenager he travelled the western hemisphere playing African drums. Now he’s travels as an ambassador seeking the financial security for a home. Nathan is a director for St. Joseph’s Family, a network of homes and

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programs for poor children in Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the new world. It is a nation where millions of children live in abject poverty. At age eight Nathan was among the thousands of children in Port Au Prince facing a life of begging or slavery. His father had died of a fever when Nathan was an infant and after six years of seeking financial security for her and her two children, Nathan’s mother suddenly died of an unexplained illness. Neighbors in their commu-

nity split the care of Nathan and his older sister between two families. For his sister that was a blessing, but for Nathan the benevolence of the family he was sent to eventually turned to indentured servitude. Two years after going with his adopted family Nathan was taken out of the school he attended and was cast into indentured servitude as are many of Haiti’s children. His tribulations lasted only months however before God smiled on him, he See pg 2

Rev. Robert Capers and Bill Nathan

We Must Keep up the Fight to Keep Our Schools! By Arthur Peter Lawrence, President Westside Neighborhood Association

Sedrick Smalls

We were over three hundred strong at the Jan. 12 Chas. Co. School Board Meeting, to show our opposition to the closing of our neighborhood schools. It appears that we had success in our numbers, because School Board officials expressed the need for more time to consider other options to the ones set before them; options that would keep our ele-

mentary schools open, that would keep our Charleston Progressive students at their own school. We should feel hopeful that District officials will consider finding a way to save their budget and our schools. Hopeful, and watchful. When the Board meets again on Monday, January 26th, we must be there in large numbers again. We need to show that our community’s passion for our children and our schools run deep, that our commitment is not temporary. We must main-

tain interest in what the School Board reviews and considers as they come to a vote. One reason for us all to be concerned is the fact that District officials are even considering to have our children vacate Charleston Progressive to make room for Buist Academy students. That the option is even on the table should make us attend the next School Board meeting in droves. And the next. And the next. On Jan. 12, we may have won the battle, but the war to save our schools

wages on. The School Board stated that their alternative plan to keep our schools open is not the final one. We should be concerned that, if we do not maintain our determination to keep our neighborhood schools open, we will lose them. Our community has been misperceived by many as not wholeheartedly caring about our children’s education. The truth is that we care, but we don’t show it enough. Sure, we come out in large numbers at the See pg 2

The Chronicle

2- January 21, 2009 From Hunting -------------------------------------------cont. from pg 1 Trucking Authority certificate to travel to every state in the nation and Canada. While business is important to him he feels a deep commitment to helping the community and is constantly involved in various community projects and helping youth. He thinks it is important for young blacks to see other blacks in charge. He credits hard work as the key to his success. “If you are not committed to hard work it is hard for you to be successful and maintain it,” he says. He also credits his parents for instilling the work ethic in him. He said they didn’t give him everything but they provided opportunities that allowed him to get the things he needed. He also credits Barbara Nelson of Dorothy’s Funeral Home and Frasier Construction with being mentors to help him succeed. Smalls is quick to point out the importance of family. Both his mother and father work in the business and the trucking company is named after his two daughters, Jasmine and Jerica. He has come a long way from selling raccoons and squirrels in the neighborhood but he has never forgotten his roots. He still spends a lot of time in MaryvilleAshleyville and some of his workers are from this old neighborhood. Smalls said he has a crew of workers but has had a many as 15 for special jobs. Teaching the business to young people is another of Smalls’ passions. “If they can learn a trade they can make it for themselves and set their own limits.” Smalls stresses learning about the business before jumping into it. “You could get into something you find you don’t want to be in, so learn as much about the business before jumping into it,” he says. Smalls looks back on promoting teen talent and step shows at the old King Street Palace which increased his desire to own his own businesses. His business are grossing close to a million dollars a year. Not bad for a young man who has not yet turned 40 years old.

Young Haiti ----------------------------------------------cont. from pg 1 said.

Among those who had helped his mother before her death was Sister Caroline, a member of a missionary group in Port Au Prince. She learned of Nathan’s indentured servitude and took him to St. Joseph’s Home for Boys. Established in 1985, St. Joseph’s Home for Boys has grown from its start with Catholic missionary founder Michael Geilenfeld and the five boys he rescued from the streets of Port Au Prince to include three facilities serving more than 300 children. In 1985 Gielenfeld had the foresight to capitalize on the boys’ use of street dancing, an adapted mix of African rhythms and movements, to start the Resurrection Dance Theater of Haiti. It initially was incorporated to produce income supporting the home. From that beginning has sprung the Resurrection Singers and the St. Joseph’s Community Art Center which incorporates the artistic talents of Haitian children into the program. All the boys at St. Joseph’s participate as dancers in the theater group, as singers or as drummers. Nathan started drumming for the group shortly after his arrival at the home and has since studied playing the African drum at Duke University and in Gambia and Senegal in Africa. Graduates of the St. Joseph’s family leave at age 18 to make room for others coming behind them. Many have found success in the United States, Canada and England. Nathan however, was asked to stay on in recognition of his achievements and commitment to St. Joseph. For the past three years he has served as St. Joseph’s director of programs and international ambassador. Since Dec. 23 Nathan has been in the U.S. taking the St. Joseph story to churches affiliated with the South East Regional National Black Presbyterian Caucus. Adopted at age 12 by the family of Rev. Robert Capers pastor of Bethel and Salem Presbyterian churches on Johns and Wadmalaw islands respectively, Nathan has

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(843) 723-2785 Fax: (843) 577-6099 Email: [email protected] J. JOHN FRENCH, SR. President - Editor//Publisher VALENTINA SMALLS Operations-Business Mgr./ Comptroller-Advertising SIMONA A. FRENCH ReceptionistTraffic/Photographer Marketing Tolbert Smalls, Jr. Contributing WritersHakim Abdul-Ali Beverly Birch Bob Small DEADLINE: PUBLIC SERVICES FRIDAY PRIOR TO PUBlICATION DATE Member: National Newspaper Publishers, Assoc. South Carolina Press Assoc. Amalgamated Publishers S.C. Chamber of Commerce NO REFUNDS ON SUBSCRIPTIONS Published Wednesday TRI State PrintingNorth Charleston Credo of The Black Press The Black Press believes that America can best lead the world from racial and national antagonism when it accords to every person, regardless of race, creed or color, his or her human and legal rights. Hating no person, fearing no person, the Black Press strives to help every person in the firm belief that all persons are hurt as long as anyone is held back

spent the past month visiting the churches of the caucus. Capers says the Black community must take a more active role in supporting the children of Haiti. He encourages the Black community to send inquiries and donations to the St. Joseph’s Family through Hearts With Haiti, an organization in the U.S. founded by Geilenfeld. Based in Cincinnati, Oh., the non-profit organization insures all donations go directly to St. Joseph’s, he said. The organization can be reached by calling 888-8026452, writing to 11503 Springfield Pike, Cincinnati, Oh. or going online at [email protected].

Text of------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------cont. from pg 1 The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the Godgiven promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom. For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do. Now, there are some who

question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint. We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you. For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are

shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace. To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist. To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it. As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all. For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate. Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship. This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have

been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: "Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it)." America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

We Must ----------------cont. from pg 1 beginning, but it seems that, over time, too many of us lose interest and walk away. And the scant few who remain are not enough to attain success. We cannot be successful if only a handful persists in the fight for our schools. We are parents and grandparents; we are taxpayers. We have options; we do not have to beg the School District to do what is right for our children. We must assert what we believe is just and fair for our children. If we don’t, there are others who will gladly decide for us. There is a small group of people who meet with District officials, purporting to relay our views, when they actually provide no objection to the District’s plan. How can the powers that be accomplish what is just and fair when they only listen to those with views similar to their own? We should be wary that there are folks who aspire to divide our community. And the divide could mean the loss of even more schools along the peninsula. This is why we must continue to come to School Board Meetings. We must not sit home Monday night and hope that the School Board will make the right decisions. We must hold them accountable and keep them honest. If the District wants to put a bond referendum up for the public to vote for in order to provide additional school funding, they must be honest about that. Same thing applies should they want to be a part of the property tax allocation again. But we must no longer allow scare tactics like the current impending closing of more of our schools. We must stay engaged and vocal. Or we jeopardize our children’s future. Must our children-from ages 4 to 14- have to be put on buses to drive past their neighborhood school to have to go to one outside their community? Must our children have to vacate their own campus to make room for another group of children? If your answer is a definite “No!” then I hope to see you at next week’s County School Board Meeting, which starts at 5:15pm, in the Board Room on 75 Calhoun Street. Please arrive at least 45 minutes early to sign up to speak. If you do not want to speak, just come. Our presence must be felt.

The Chronicle

January 21, 2009- 3

As New Chairman of County Council Pryor Will Continue Focus on Constituent Services

After serving on Charleston County Council four years Dist. Six representative Teddie Pryor was elected as the council’s chairman Jan. 8. In the middle of his second term on council, Pryor said he hopes to continue council’s the focus on equity, diversity and constituent services. Elected in 2004 to a twoyear term after county council switched to single member district elections, Pryor was elected to a full four-year term in 2006. Pryor’s election and that of councilmembers Henry Darby and Curtis Inabinett represented the first time more than two African Americans served

at the same time on the nine-member council since the county’s 1948 incorporation. They joined Tim Scott to form a four member bloc of minority representatives. Through their efforts several initiatives were enacted to address inequities that had persisted over decades, Pryor said. Within 18 months the county went from spending less than one percent of its total budget with minority owned businesses to spending some 18 percent of the total budget with minority businesses. The contingent, joined by other councilmembers also was able to address diversity among employees and inequities in salaries as

well, Pryor said. “At first we were criticized as noisemakers, but we came with the right approach and ideas speaking to what was right and other members of council, though not everybody, saw that and supported us. They saw the inequity over the years and wanted to correct it,” Pryor said. Moving swiftly, councilmembers focused attention disparities like the disproportionate number of women and minorities in key management positions in the administration. Council took steps to increase salaries for its lowest paid employees and to improve the performance of constituent services

Councilman Pryor

in outlying rural communities such as South Santee, he said. All of that took place in the first 18 months, but council has remained busy with other issues. “There always are bumps along the road and as they come up we try to address them,” he said. The county’s controversial trash incinerator, located in his Sixth District, is among those bumps, Pryor said. The contract for its operation ends Jan. 2010. Council must decide if it will close the incinerator or expand the county landfill. Council will review a consultant’s report of the options in February, he

said. During the upcoming year as chairman Pryor said he hopes to steer council toward a balanced budget without tax increases, consolidating the county’s 911 dispatch center services and completing the new detention center at its projected cost of $101 million. Further down the road he said council should consider a partnership with neighboring counties to develop a regional landfill. “I want the county’s citizens to pray for us because we’re facing tough times and to remember we’re here to serve the people and to make their lives better,” he said.

Report Cites--------------------------------------------------------------------------------cont. from pg 1 being taken over by the South Carolina Department of Education. In the previous five school years Burke’s administration had changed three times. It’s curriculum program had changed radically and its facility had undergone radical renovation and construction. Discipline problems at the school were among the highest in the district. During the 2006-2007 school year Burke’s graduation rate was 39.9 percent, according to the CPIE brief. About 35 percent of English students passed their courses and 39.1 percent of students taking math courses passed. Eleven percent of students taking physical Science passed. After CPIE implemented 10 initiatives that included technical assistance to Burke teachers, reinstatement of dual enrollment at Burke and the College of Charleston for high performing students and tutoring programs, 20072008 school year statistics show Burke’s graduation rate increased to 63.1 percent. Students passing English increased to 40 percent, 43.4 percent of math students passed and 45.8 percent of students taking Physical Science passed. Baptist Hill High was the second school targeted to receive (CPIE) services. Though often perceived in a similar light as Burke

High, a victim of disparities in the CCSD system, the academic performance of Baptist Hill students exceeded that of Burke High students. Observers contribute the advanced academic status of Baptist Hill students compared to the academic status of Burke students to Baptist Hill’s more stable leadership. CPIE found that the services needed for the two schools were vastly different. For the 2006-2007 school year Baptist Hill had a graduation rate of about 70 percent. Thirty-one percent of students taking English passed their courses, some 60 percent of math students passed their courses and about 19 percent of students taking Physical Science passed. CPIE implemented seven initiatives focused on building relationships between the school community and College of Charleston representatives. Among them were donating classroom resources to Baptist Hill’s teachers and its library, providing science kits, math kits SAT tutoring materials and college prep opportunities to students. Baptist Hill’s student performance, significantly higher than that of students at Burke even before the CPIE partnership, continued to improve. Baptist Hill’s graduation rate improved some 19 percentage points from 69.4

percent in 2006-2007 to 78.3 percent in 2007-2008. Passing rates for students taking English improved to 53.2 percent and for students taking math courses to 72.7 percent. However the number of students taking Physical Science dropped from 23 in 20062007 to two students taking the course in 20072008. Neither passed the course that school year. In conclusion, “Partnerships enable students to reach their full potential,” said the brief. “CPIE is eager to continue working with Baptist Hill (and Burke) to witness the changes and growth in its students.” While some observers say financial benefits for the partnership’s co-ordinators probably are significant and numerical statistics often are manipulated, the partnership’s benefit to students at Burke and Baptist Hill are undeniable. But more importantly, the brief underscores the inadequacies of Burke’s leadership. For more information about the partnership contact Fran Welch ([email protected]) Dean of the School of Education, Health and Human Performance; or Paula E g e l s o n ([email protected]) Director of the Center for Partnerships to Improve Education at the College of Charleston.

Reasons to be Happy Bush is Gone By. George E Curry NNPA Columnist George W. Bush is gone and it’s not a moment too soon. I am not the only one who feels this way. A recent CNN poll found that 75 percent of Americans – three out of every four – said they are glad Bush was leaving office. When I started writing this column, I did so with the intention of listing Bush’s top 10 failures. I could have easily named 30 reasons Bush should let the door hit him where the Good Lord split him, but in the spirit of David Letterman, I wanted a Top 10 list. I couldn’t do it. It was a struggle to list only 15, considering all of his blunders, but here they are in no particular order: 1) Bush lied while campaigning for the White House, saying he was a “compassionate conservative.” His record eight years later, as had been noted, is one of being compassionate toward conservatives. 2) George W. pledged to be a uniter, not a divider. The CNN poll found that 82 percent of Americans feel he had failed to unite the country, compared to only 17 percent – most of them probably relatives – who think he has. 3) Bush told the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and used that lie as the pretext for invading Iraq. 4) Bush also misled the American people about what the war would cost. He said it would be in the neighborhood of $60 billion. It’s at $600 billion and counting. 5) W. told us over and over that capturing Osama bin Laden was his top priority. Bush boasted that he was wanted dead or alive. Well, judging by the recent audio tapes, the al-Qaeda leader is

still alive. Osama bin Laden is still Osama Been Missing. 6) Bush refused to let a catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina disrupt his vacation in Crawford, Texas. When he finally decided to take a peek, it was from Air Force One as it flew over the devastated area. 7) Instead of heads rolling, the president who speaks glowingly about the need to take personal responsibility, spoke

glowingly about the person who was asleep at the switch when Katrina struck. Bush told Michael Brown, the head of FEMA, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” 8) Bush used the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 2003 to announce his opposition to affirmative action programs operated by the undergraduate admissions office and the Law School .

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he ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”



.   , .

The City of North Charleston honors the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. January 15, 1929–April 4, 1968

The Chronicle

4-January 21, 2009

The Morning After By. James Clingman NNPA Columnist Blackonomics On Wednesday, January 21, 2009, after the Inauguration, the festivities, the parties, the formals, the “pomp and circumstance,” the tears of joy, the line dances, and the speeches, I wonder what our next action items will be. I wonder if we will even have an action item. I wonder if Black folks especially will immediately get back to work on the things that negatively affect us, and continue to move forward on the issues by which we are positively affected. On that morning after, I wonder if we will muster up the same kind of energy we displayed during the run-up to Barack Obama’s election. I wonder if we will remain excited and enthusiastic about working to “change” our economic condition, improve the education of our children, reduce crime in our neighborhoods, and strengthen our overall social condition. I wonder. After the party, will we remain focused on these and other important issues, or will we awaken on the morning after with a terrible hangover? A hangover so bad that we say, “I am glad that’s over; at least I don’t have to worry about it for another four years.” Will we then sit back and relax in our easy chairs, thinking we have it made now, and retire to a life of complacency? When it comes to economic empowerment, especially, we cannot afford to stop fighting because we have a “Black” President. The education of our children will not improve through some hocuspocus sleight of hand. The crime in our local communities will not subside as a result of someone doing something in Washington, D.C. The discrimination against and mistreatment of Black people in social, economic, and political circles, on a local level, will not magically go away because Obama is in the White House. But you already knew that, right? So, what now? That question has been asked thousands of times in the past few months. What are we to do now that we have the “First Black President”? The first thing we had better do, and continue to do, is pray for the brother and his family; they surely need it. Then we must realize that with his election, the work has only just begun. Whether you supported his candidacy or not, you should make every effort to bring to fruition the victories for which we have been fighting long before Obama even thought about running for President. Locally, of course, we must continue to fight for inclusion and equity in development projects, i.e., contracting, construction management, and ownership. We must continue to fight for justice in our courtrooms from our judges and prosecutors. We must fight for real representation from our politicians in return for our votes. We must show up at school board meetings and fight for our children’s education – and be participants in their education rather than mere observers. Wouldn’t you like to see Black people expend the same energy on the essential tasks necessary for our full liberation as we have seen over the past 18 months or so? Imagine the possibilities, as the saying goes. Picture Black people putting our money together for a common cause, the same way we did for Barack Obama’s campaign. We had enough money to send to the campaign; let’s do something similar with our money when it comes to contributing to an equity or investment fund. Let’s use some of our money to support our organizations, our institutions, and our Black owned businesses. Let’s start a “safety net” fund in our neighborhoods to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters in their time of need. Let’s start a Collective Banking Group in every city and use the collective leverage that exists in our churches to gain more benefits and equitable treatment for our church members. Let’s support Compro Tax this tax season, or any other Black owned tax preparation service in our local areas. C’mon, brothers and sisters, it’s tax preparation! Stop buying in to the “colder ice” myth. As I reflect on all of the money that was raised during Obama’s campaign, some $650 million or so, and yes I know the vast majority of it did not come from Black folks, it is amazing that we never even blinked at such a sum. But when it comes to our putting a little money together to help one another, you can’t find some Black people with a search warrant. That’s sad. So let’s consider what took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009, and then let’s think about the morning after. Let’s think about the year after, the decade after. Let’s understand that there is much work to do, work that started before Obama, and work that did not end with his ascension to the highest political throne in the land. After the party, think about all the money we spent to throw the party and to celebrate the occasion. Then, figure out what your particular niche is and get back to work; that is, if you took a respite from the essential work of liberation and building a future for our children. Some of us did not take a few months off; some of us continued to work right through the euphoria and excitement of Obama’s election. We won’t have a hangover on the morning after. We will get up and get right back to the work at hand. The work of Economic empowerment, political representation, the proper education of our youth, criminal justice rather than injustice, and social equity for Black people, is absolutely essential for our survival and growth in this country. On the morning after, and on subsequent mornings, make a commitment with yourself and your own consciousness to make a difference. Get busy and stay busy; we have to do the work ourselves.

Study Finds Rampant Discrimination in Advertising Industry Special to the NNPA from the Louisiana Weekly (NNPA) - An exhaustive new study of America’s advertising industry released Jan. 15 has found dramatic levels of racial discrimination throughout the industry. Bias against African-American professionals was found in pay, hiring, promotions, assignments and other areas. The study was initiated by a coalition of legal, civil rights, and industry leaders who created the Madison Avenue Project. The Project was created in 2008 to address advertising’s deep-rooted racial bias and today, Cyrus Mehri, Project leader and prominent civil rights lawyer, called the findings “absolutely astonishing in this day and age.” Angela Ciccolo, Interim General Counsel of the NAACP, another project partner, commented that “the time has come to stand up to change this industry.” Overall, the findings reveal that racial discrimination is 38 percent worse in the advertising industry than in the overall U.S. labor market, and that the “discrimination divide” between advertising and other U.S. industries is more than twice as bad now as it was 30 years ago. Specific findings include: • Black college graduates working in advertising earn $.80 for every dollar earned by their equally qualified white counterparts; • Based on national demographic data, 9.6 percent of advertising managers and professionals should be AfricanAmericans. The actual percentage in 2008 is 5.3 percent, representing a difference of 7,200 executive-level jobs; • About 16 percent of large advertising firms employ no Black managers or professionals, a rate 60 percent higher than in the overall labor market; • Black managers and professionals in the industry are only one-tenth as likely as their White counterparts to earn $100,000 a year; • Blacks are only 62 percent as likely as their white counterparts to work in the powerful “creative” and “client contact” functions in advertising agencies; • Eliminating the industry’s current Black-white employment gap would require tripling its Black managers and professionals. Though employment discrimination has sharply diminished in America in the last 40 years, systemic barriers to equality in the $31 billion a year advertising industry have not budged. In 1978, for example, the New York City Human Rights Commission found that limited minority employment “was not simply the result of neutral forces, but emanated directly from discriminatory practices.” Those practices continue today. The study found the primary source of discrimination to be agencies’ implicit assumption that the cause of Black underrepresentation is a shortage of “qualified” Black job seekers. In reality, the problem is not a shortage but a “persistent unwillingness by mainstream advertising agencies to hire, assign, advance, and retain already-available Black talent.” Moreover, the study found, the industry’s response to long-running charges of discrimination has consisted of “token efforts. The industry’s primary response has been extremely modest expansions in training and entry-level hiring.” At today’s rate of progress, Black numbers among advertising managers and professionals will not reach their expected level for another 71 years. An appropriate response, the study concluded, “will require fundamentally transforming the workplace culture of general market advertising agencies.” Specifically, agencies must root out the stereotypes that make race, not ability, determine employment potential; halt the “buddy system,” in which personal relationships and social comfort often count for more than job performance; and eliminate the assumptions that racial minorities can’t succeed in non-ethnic markets. The Madison Avenue Project is led by the NAACP and attorney Cyrus Mehri, of Mehri & Skalet, PLLC, who has won several multi-million dollar discrimination settlements against such corporations as The Coca-Cola Company, Morgan Stanley and Texaco Inc.; with the cooperation of Sanford Moore, a former advertising executive, current New York City talk radio co-host, and longtime advocate for racial parity in advertising. “Today we are sending a message to the advertising industry: this conduct is unacceptable and must change,” Mehri said. “I have witnessed firsthand the mendacity and machinations that have kept African Americans invisible on and to Madison Avenue for over four decades,” Moore said. “Madison Avenue has created and perpetuated a ‘separate and unequal’ marketing paradigm which is reflected in their advertising, their workforce and among their executive ranks. Even though our dollars provide the profits, the industry is still afraid of the dark.” Ciccolo added, “The Madison Avenue Project is designed to send a special wake-up call to the advertising industry...It’s time for Madison Avenue to wake up to civil rights and to the meaningful inclusion of African Americans in this highly segregated industry.” The NAACP also plans to circulate the report not just to its members, but also to Fortune 100 companies to urge them to stop aiding and abetting widespread discrimination by this industry. The study, entitled “Research Perspectives on Race and Employment in the Advertising Industry,” was conducted by a leading research firm, Bendick and Egan Economic Consultants. The complete study can be found at findjustice.com (Mehri & Skalet), naacp.org (NAACP), and bendickegan.com (Bendick and Egan).

I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Who Asked Me? by Beverly Gadson-Birch

(President Obama - A Journey I Had to Take) On Saturday, January 17, 2009, I traveled along with a group of St. Johns’ High School students teachers, chaperones, and local residents left Charleston for the 56th Presidential Inauguration to be held on Tuesday, January 20. It was the beginning of a journey that would take the students on an unbelievable journey that they would never forget. Although the journey began on one of the coldest days this winter, it was warm on the bus as the excitement escalated. You could just feel it in the air. Rev. Edward McClain, Radio Personality and Pastor of Calvary A.M.E. Church, offered a prayer for safe travel for the group before they pulled out of the old West Ashley Wal-Mart. I was thinking as I boarded the bus that this trip was going to be a long, noisy, sleepless trip. I have never been a lover of bus rides but this was a journey I had to take; it was different. I don’t like planes either; but I just knew I had to be at the Inauguration. After all, this was a one time event. I may never get this opportunity again. I thought about riding the long distance with students and I thought, Oh boy can I do this? After all, yours truly isn’t a spring children anymore. We were transporting approximately 36 high school students and the media has painted our children as thugs, baggy pants and out of control. Upon settling in on the bus around 4:00 AM, I had to look in the rear of the bus to make sure the bus driver had not forgotten their load at St. Johns High School. The children were so quiet and so well behaved I could not believe they were on board. One of the other passengers said what do you expect, it’s 4:00 AM in the morning, they are sleeping; just wait until in the morning. Well, morning came and three days later either I am living in the Twilight Zone or those kids must be the most well behaved children on the planet. I must credit their parents, chaperones, Ms. Sarah Buncomb, the Olsens and all of those that made it possible for the students to witness the swearing in of the first African American President in this country’s history. Even at the hotel, you would not have known that the hotel was full of students. They were quiet at night. They walked and not run down the halls. Contrary to public belief, all is not lost with our children. Yesterday, we spent the day at the Capitol and around in the Mall area; no one strayed from the group. And not one time, did we have to wait because a student was not at the point of pick up on time. In the restaurant, you would not know that those children were from South Carolina. They were so well behaved. Their decorum was always quiet and polite. They were very attentive and took pictures so they could share with family and friends upon their return home. Tomorrow, we will leave our hotel around 5:30 AM to make our way to the Capitol area to watch the swearing in of the 44th President of these United States, Barack Obama. It still doesn’t seem real. There is always someone that stands out on a trip and for me it is Ms. Washington. Now I don’t want to put her age out there without her permission but I am sure she must be in her 70’s; she has been a real trooper. It was a breath of fresh air to see someone so intent on being at that inauguration that she just pressed her way. Not once did she ask for any special treatment. She rode the Metro as far in as she could and walked as far as she could. I applaud her niece for taking the time out to accompany her to such an event. When I asked Ms. Washington about making the trip, she said all of her life she was working when there were special events in Washington like the March On Washington or when Dr. King delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. She said “I am retired now and I am going; I will not miss this one”. I thought about my deceased mother and what this occasion would have meant to her. I thought about how important this trip was to Ms. Washington and how important Ms. Washington was to me. She represented those mothers who raised their children to believe in the possibilities. That’s what my mother instilled in her children—the possibilities of what they could become if they have manners and work hard for a honest day’s pay. Some of these whippersnappers of today don’t know the meaning of working hard or even working at all. A very special thank you to a very special friend, Barbara Cameron from Vance, SC, who pressed her way to the Inauguration. She was as close to death door as they come but she, too, pressed her way to be there. We were in good hands with twin drivers, Terryl and Derryl. I know frogs are not supposed to praise their own ponds but those boys sure ‘nuf know how to drive a bus. That’s right!! They are my brothers and ‘dem boys didn’t fall too far from the tree. By the time you read this article, hopefully we will be back safe and sound. And, former President Bush will be back safe and sound in Texas. Oh, thank you Lordy!! He will be back where he ought to be.

The Twins, Derryl & Terryl, of Twin Tours stand on the grounds where the Inauguration of President Barack Obama will be held in Washington, D.C. Tuesday.

The Chronicle

January 21, 2009-5

As I See It

Hakim Abdul-Ali

Winter Reflections With An African Vibration It’s winter time, and the effects of its aura has me huddled up in my home looking out of a window facing the distant sky. My thoughts are racing. I’m in one of my solitary modes of peacefully “chilling,” and I’m thinking about things from bygone days with fond sweetness because they make smile inwardly. It’s a beautiful day, even with the coldness making me shiver from moment-to-moment as the home heating system appears to be acting up. “Such is life” is where my mind tells me to look at the situation at present because, like everything else in my worldly view, “it is what it is.” I tend to think that way with regularity as I get older and the seasons change now so quickly in my mind’s eye. Living in the seasons of the American experiences for me have been ones of great insight and joy coupled with sadness and pain. It’s a good balance in my thought processing because, again, “life is what it is” as I view life in general. There are many seasons of living and learning that I’ve experienced growing up in the American landscape. For example, from my birth in Harlem to places like Charleston, South Carolina, Cairo, Egypt, and Washington, DC, among many others, I’ve had numerous opportunities to learn things about myself and other ethnically “colored” folks scattered throughout the globe. In all of those venues, forever how long or short a time that the I’ve been there, I’ve learn lessons that have transformed my soul and helped me understand a little about who I am, along with learning some things about others and their living and learning conditions. At this moment, I’m delving into a few of my “Winter Reflections,” and they make me pause and thank the Creator Alone for having made it thus far and to want be a better “hue-man” being.. I don’t know about you but this journey in life thus far has been one in which I have had to reflect upon because I have much to be thankful for. My tests, like yours, I’m sure, have been many and they came in all sorts of emotional and mental twists and turns. Some may have been likened to the cool breeze of a warm summer’s night in Florida, and other’s, let’s politely say, could have been likened to the “hawk” of a bitter and chilly winter’s Chicago evening. It’s all how you view your seasonal experiences of living and learning that determines what you are and feel. Yes, I do believe you are what you think, and “life is what it is,” even in the winters and summers of our experiences no matter where you presently reside or may have lived elsewhere. Feeling reflective in this winter time zone somehow helps me see the beauty of a still moment that frozen in my thoughts. Reflectively, I thinking of a love shared between two trusting and loving souls that could heat up the coldest nights during winter just as I am thinking about the struggles of my ancestors during the African, Arab and European enslavement journeys through mental and physical hells and back. As my thoughts revolve around the silent recognition that there some needy people of color who are suffering in this world of materialism and glitter , I sense another “chill” in my soul letting me know that something is very, very wrong with the priorities of some shaky and tricky politicians everywhere. Let me explain. In the “Winter Reflections” of my soul I feel immense, but humble, pride in being a Black man, born of African lineage. As I mentally reflect on those known and unknown great and noble ancestors of mine (and yours), I think of the Motherland and how she has been raped and plundered over countless centuries of her men, women and children and valuable riches, I pray silently to the Most High that peace be forever on their souls. It may be winter in America, but for me mentally and spiritually, I’m in an African global sense of awareness. I love the Motherland, even though I’ve had to struggle to learn and love the pure essence of her beauty and nature. I hope that, if you’re of color and you understand humble ethnic pride is, you’ll know where I’m coming from today. “All” people of color owe so much to their original Motherland until their reflections should always be on her to study about her unwritten greatness and majesty. That takes some serious reflections on all of “hue-manity’s” part because Africa is the Mother of “all” civilization. That’s where my head and heart’s at this exact moment as I’m trying to visualize what life would have been like if bigotry and racism were not a part of those enslavers’ prejudiced and bigoted criminal DNAs. It’s a sickening feeling to image the slavers’ whiplashes upon the backs, minds and bodies of bewildered Africans from throughout the world’s second largest continent. I guess you could call my views and thoughts “Winter Reflections With An African Vibration,” because I’m certainly thinking about my brothers and sisters over there and elsewhere who live in and under modern 21st Century enslavement. From Darfur to the Gaza Strip to the deadly streets of America’s forgotten “colored” ghettos, my thoughts, or inner vibrations, tell me that ethnic racism and political bigotry are alive and well, even if some folks tend to deny and ignore it. The sufferings of any mistreated ethnic group of people disturb me, but somehow, or the other, it always smacks me in the face like a blast of winter’s invisible anger, that racism and bigotry haven’t gone anywhere. “As I See It,” they only chose to politically snuggle up together and took refuge under the bed sheets of “good old boy” local, national and international blindsided diplomacy and neglect. Am I dreaming, but doesn’t it seem as though people die globally by the thousands and everyone is more concerned about who’s going to the Super Bowl? I don’t get it but, here again, “life is what it is” in so many dysfunctional presentations. Sometimes, I don’t get it. From the Horn of Africa to the so-called Middle East to the tiny island of Haiti people of color are dying daily, and I believe that some people in the world need a wake-up call of sensitiveness about caring for their fellow brothers and sisters of “hue-manity” who are homeless and hungry. Their cries of sorrow and struggle are heard by a caring few, but their plights are for the many to decipher. Is ignorance that rampant? Hmm! Remember that racism is alive in the summer minds of abstract villains like bigotry exists in the winter of some economic enslavers of modernity. I hope that you get that vibration, just as you should recognize that some gangsters in DC, and elsewhere in the world, went to sleep during the last eight-year political watch. Hello! It’s a wake-up time. Need I say anymore! I don’t think so, because “his-story” does repeat itself and like I said before, and pardon me for repeating it again, but “life is what is.” So, I ask, very respectfully, “Colored people of the world. What y’all gonna do when hunger, homelessness, bigotry and racism comes a knockin’ at your door?” I hope that I’m not being too invasive of your mental space and time today by asking that very timely question, but the next catastrophe during “your” next seasonal experience could me in your own family arena and from your personal world of experience. Think! The world-at-large is closer than you may realize. I hope that you recognize that because you could only be a cold stone throw away from experiencing what “Winter Reflections With An African Vibration” is all about. I pray for peace and love in the world, and, that’s, “As I See It.”

'Tain't Funny, McGee' By Ken Wibecan You won't remember that saying if you aren't old enough. It's from the old "Fibber Magee and Molly" radio show. Whenever Fibber made a bad joke, Molly would reply, "'Tain't funny, Magee." Well, I have a similar message for Chip Saltzman, the candidate for Republican Party chairman, who is disseminating the racist parody called "Barack the Magic Negro." Taint funny, Chip. While the president may be legitimate fodder for the punsters, his race isn't. There is a difference between a joke and an insult and Chip should know better. Meanwhile, cartoonists, comics, caricaturists and copycats are having a hard time plying their trades these days. For many reasons it is not easy to satirize the new president of the United States, usually the number one subject for editorial cartoons and late night talk show jokes. They will miss George W. Bush for a long while because he was easy. Not only is Barack

Obama an exceptionally serious person, but the historical relationship between cartoons and African Americans is not a pretty one. If one looks back at newspaper cartoons of African Americans (Jews, Native Americans and Arabs were also victims) from as late as the 1950s, they will find an accumulation of insulting and derogatory stereotypes. In addition, many white folks once thought it was fun to dress up in black face and ridicule African Americans. In fact, it wasn't until the 1970s that the University of Vermont, our neighbor across the lake, surrendered their black-faced kakewalking excuse for a winter festival to community pressure. It is that cumulative history that makes it difficult to make fun of our new president. There is a fine line between poking fun and promoting hate, one that is often easy to cross. On the other hand, there is no way that President-elect Barack Obama can escape the daily images of America's editorial cartoonists, or

jokes about Bush's, Clinton's or Reagan's ethnicity or white skin (in fact I never remember it being discussed); and the same should hold true for Obama. The media pundits have already made too much of the "black president" bit. And it is past time they viewed Obama simply as an American man.

Ken Wibecan hide from Jay Leno's and David Letterman's nightly laugh-filled monologues. Nor should he be exempt. These are long-standing American traditions, an integral part of our national media offerings. But Obama doesn't have the big lips, bulging eyes, dark skin and colloquial language that was the way black folks were once portrayed. He does have big ears, however, and they are as much fair game as his broad, toothy smile, his thin frame and his love for shooting hoops. But what is clearly off limits is race. We never heard

"Saturday Night Live," which was right on with Tina Fey's remarkable imitation of Sarah Palin, is working on a Barack Obama sound-alike. But, unlike his predecessor in the White House, Obama doesn't mispronounce words and his Harvard education is evident in his speech. While impressionists haven't got his voice down yet, they are certain to make fun of all the "ahs" and "ums" that characterize Obama's speaking style. So let's not let Obama off the hook — he can take the jokes and parodies like all presidents before him. As long as we keep off the racial insults, that is. They just 'tain't funny.

Political Insight: While I Breathe, I Hope my home state do what Colorado has done.

by Clay N. Middleton In a state whose population is about 4% AfricanAmerican, far less than the national average of 12.1%, Colorado has elected State Representative Terrance Carroll and State Senator Peter C. Groff to lead their respective chambers in the Colorado General Assembly. Mr. Carroll, originally from Washington, DC, is the only black member of the state House of Representatives, and Mr. Groff, originally from Chicago, IL, is the only black member of the state Senate. Both chambers are controlled by Democrats. For the first time in Colorado’s history and in the United States, both chambers of a state General Assembly will be led by African-Americans at the same time. In a year with many historical contexts with the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, Colorado has much to be proud of. This story causes me to pause and think about the state I love, my home state, South Carolina. This red state has an AfricanAmerican population of 30% and the Republican Party controls the Governor’s seat, the General Assembly, both U.S Senate seats, and the Congressional Delegation. Thirty members out of 170 of the South Carolina General Assembly are black, eight senators and 22 house members. I must note that this year will mark the first time in South Carolina’s history that a black Republican will serve in the General Assembly. Rep. Tim Scott (Berkeley & Charleston Co.) proves to many blacks that you do not need to be a Democrat to be elected in South Carolina. One cannot equally compare Colorado politics to South Carolina politics. From a Democratic Party perspective, one can ask if the South Carolina General Assembly once again can be controlled by Democrats. From a young African-American’s view, one can ask if Colorado can elect a black Speaker of the House and a black Senate President, can South Carolina ever do the same. I don’t want to answer Never. After all, that was the response for generations about whether an African-American could be elected President of the United States of America. My great-grandmother is 106 years old and still can’t believe that America has elected the more qualified and capable person to the Presidency. Nevertheless, despite having a more educated electorate in South Carolina, with Senator John McCain winning the state by a sin-

I am not saying that Colorado is better than South Carolina for their historical place in history. Nor am I saying that South Carolina is better because we have more minority state legislators. I believe that we must examine ourselves by exploring outside our comfort zone to see if we are reaching our full potential.

Clay Middleton gle digit, and with the Democratic Party gaining seats on the local and state levels this past November, at 27 years old, I would have to live as long as my great-grandmother to see

Too many in South Carolina and Charleston are content with moving backward by supporting recycled ineffective leadership. When we truly take a leap of faith and believe in each other and what we

can actually do, we, too, can make tangible progress. South Carolina has two mottoes: Dum Spiro Spero, meaning “While I Breathe, I Hope,” and Animis Opibusque Parati, meaning “Ready in Soul and Resource.” It is in these mottoes that I find comfort in the future of race relations and politics in South Carolina. We must continue to have hope and we must dig deep within our souls to use our collective resources to make national headlines for something positive and true headway towards a more perfect union.

The Chronicle

6- January 21, 2009

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The Obama Girls Will Be Fine, But What About Other Children? By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com For the Obama girls, moving from the fish pond that was the Windy City into the fishbowl of the White House won’t be easy. But I’m not worried. Why? Because Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, already have enough anchors to keep them moored in waters that are bound to be stirred up by the glare of publicity or the growing pains of

childhood and adolescence. It’s also probably a safe bet that their mother, Michelle, and their father, President-elect Barack Obama, have probably talked to them about what it means to be the nation’s first black First Daughters. They probably know that like their father, they’ll be role models for millions of children. Their parents probably know they’ll also be targets for tasteless, Don Imus-types who’ll be salivating for them to validate stereotypes rather than defy them. Michelle and Barack have probably prepared their girls for all this. So I’m not too worried about Malia and Sasha. They’ll be fine .I do, however, continue to worry about the scores of black children in America today who aren’t as lucky as the Obama girls. These are the children who don’t have to survive being in the media spotlight, but have to struggle with the social isolation that hobbles their progress early in life. Social isolation is what

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happens to children who live in concentrated poverty. It’s the thing that causes black children to do things like fight over one cookie instead of asking the teacher for more; because that’s the way they’ve learned to assert themselves in a world where survival is about aggression, not compromise. Social isolation afflicts many poor, black teenagers as well. These are the kids who don’t have anyone around

them who has ever held a real job. Therefore, many don’t see a problem with walking into a restaurant to apply for work wearing low-slung pants and having a mouthful of gold or silver grills – and then wondering why they didn’t get to work at the front counter. That is, if they got a job at all. They are the ones who don’t understand why people like me cringe when they walk down the street or in malls cursing loudly or using the N-word. When they do that, I want to crawl under a bench. Most of all, such isolation creates a situation so that children don’t have any adults around them to disappoint by behaving badly – or, for that matter, no adult who they respect enough or care enough about to not disappoint. So when people like me look at them and are embarrassed for them, it does no good. They haven’t learned enough to be embarrassed for themselves. tion.

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12.20 Ounce Froot Loops, 12.2 Ounce Apple Jacks or 12.5 Ounce Corn Pops

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Kellogg's Cereals Without MVP Card $3.51 Each

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Nabisco Chips Ahoy! Without MVP Card Regular Retail

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The Chronicle

January 21, 2009-7

Who’s Counting on Blacks to Fill Prisons? Those Making a Profit By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com Black men who shrug at incarceration as the cost of doing business in struggling communities might want to know that some folks are counting on them to cling to that warped notion. I mean, literally counting on them. Just the other day, I received this investment email titled “Turning Prison Into Profit (Without Going to Jail).” In it, it comes breathtakingly close to extolling the prospect of unemployment hitting 10 percent and ratcheting up the crime rate. And it advises investors to bet bucks on that dismal future. “Readers might want to capitalize on this nascent trend by looking into shares of commercial jails,” it reads. “Florida-based Geo Group [a prison-management corporation] comes to mind as a prominent up-and-comer in this field of endeavor, with some 53,144 ‘beds under management…’” Now, the definition of capitalism isn’t lost on me. Yet when I see unemployment and mass incarceration coldly reduced to a matter of dollars and cents; when I think of how someone may be putting his or her child through college with money made on speculating that someone else’s child will wind up in jail, I get angry.

are there because of drugrelated offenses, black men and women often tend to pull stiffer sentences. And once they are released, they return to communities in which their incarceration record will invariably stifle them in getting any legitimate employment. So they wind up back in the slammer. And now, some investors are unabashedly looking to turn their misery into money. That’s terrible. We have to try to begin to stop it. We can begin to stop it by first generating a sense of awareness among the young black men who the prison speculators are counting on to mess up. We can encourage our churches and our community organizations to let these brothers know that if they give up on themselves too quickly; if they descend into the world of the drug trade and the other assorted pathologies that go along with it, they’re actually enriching people who are depending on them to stay despairing and destitute. We can also begin to talk about dealing with the incarceration business in the same way that we have dealt with other entities that have exploited or disrespected us. We can talk to black men in the same way that Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists talked to blacks in

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It’s a war that has done more to devastate black communities than put a dent in drug sales. As of June 2007, black men were being locked up at the rate of 4,618 per 100,000. White men were being incarcerated at the rate of 773 per 100,000, according to U.S. Justice Department statistics. While a disproportionate number of the people who are filling jails and prisons

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munity for some time now, partly because of a lack of opportunity and hope, and partly because of a cultural tendency to view criminality as being cool, or just being the way of things.

Montgomery, Alabama about boycotting a segregated bus system; we can talk to them about "boycotting" jails and prisons. Most of all, we can inspire them to be angry at the thought that a lot of folks are looking to make money off them if they fail, and that they shouldn’t give them that satisfaction. Times are tough. A lot of struggling people, regardless of race, may wind up incarcerated.

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It’s time to begin to find another way – because if speculators start making big money off black men going to jail, and they start using that money to influence politicians and policymakers, that exploitative trend will be tough to reverse.

But mass incarceration has been a problem in our com-

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I just wish more black people would get angry – because the people who’ll invariably make up a disproportionate number of the inmates who’ll fill those jails and prisons and fatten the pockets of private investors will look like them. To be sure, this crisis that some investors are obviously poised to profit from isn’t new. Before the mortgage crisis plunged the economy into a freefall, the flight of jobs from black communities ushered in the drug trade – which ushered in the even more devastating War on Drugs.

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The Chronicle

8-January 21, 2009

Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the will be received from qualified bidders will be received from qualified b--__idders,properly licensed under will be received from qualified licensed under the wil will be received from qualified bidders Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under- from qualified bidders, will be received from Advanced Medicine licensed under the properly under the will be be received from qualified bidders,properly licensed under will be received from qualified licensed under the wil will be received from eceived from qualified bidders, dvanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the will be received from qualified bidders will qualified biddersackage for licensed

Classifieds

Last Sunday Before Inauguration: Obamas Worship at Black Church in Washington By. James Wright Special to the NNPA from the Afro-American Newspapers W A S H I N G T O N (NNPA) - President-elect Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and their two daughters, Sasha and Malia, worshipped today at a prominent Black church in Washington, D.C., keeping their word that they intend to be active District residents while they reside in the White House. And officially starting their search for a place of worship in the nation’s capital. The first family attracted a long line of parishioners at The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, which is located in Northwest D.C. on 16th Street, one of the city’s busiest streets that leads for several blocks to the White House itself at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Nineteenth Street Baptist Church is located in a tony, upscale area of the District popularly known as the ''Gold Coast.'' This collection of neighborhoods has some of the city's wealthiest and most i n f l u e n t i a l Washingtonians, including Mayor Adrian Fenty. The church is well-worn white with a huge light green dome to its right and an adjacent building that houses a nursery, activity center and church offices. Word of the Obamas’ visit STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF CHARLESTON IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS FOR THE NINTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT CASE NO: 2008-CP-10-7395 Michael R. Nelson, Christopher Nelson, Trantor Corporation, and John Doe or Mary Doe, fictitious names to designate minors, infants, persons of unsound mind, under disability or incompetent, persons imprisoned, or persons in the Military Service within the meaning of the Title 50, United States Code, commonly referred to as The Soldiers and Sailors Civil Service Act of 1940, if any, and Richard Roe and Sarah Roe, fictitious names to designate the unknown heirs, devisees, distributees, issue, executors, administrators, successors or assigns of Michael R. Nelson and Christopher Nelson, also all other unknown persons claiming any, title, estate or lien upon the real estate which is the subject of this action, Defendants. SUMMONS YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONDED and required to answer the Complaint in this action, a copy of which is herewith served upon you, and to serve a copy of your Answer upon the subscribers at their office located at 575 King Street, Suite B, Charleston, South Carolina 29403 within thirty (30) days after the service hereof, exclusive of the day of such service; and if you fail to answer the Complaint within the time aforesaid, judgement by default will be rendered against you for the relief demanded in the Complaint. Derfner, Altman & Wilborn, LLC Samuel H. Altman 575 King Street, Suite B Post Office Box 600 Charleston, SC 29402 (843) - 723 - 9804 Fax (843) - 723 - 7446 Attorney for Plaintiff

was largely word of mouth until a radio station announced yesterday where the Obamas intended to worship the last Sunday before his historic inauguration as the first Black president of the United States. The line began forming around 7 a.m. for the 11 a.m. service. Nineteenth Street Baptist, which is pastored by Dr. Derrick Harkins, generally holds its morning services at 10 a.m. The visitor’s line was long and many people were eager to brave the cloudy, cold weather to have the chance to worship with the

first family. ''I am going to stay in this line until I get in the church,'' said Mary Sullivan, who is not a member of the church. ''I want to see Barack Obama up close and to see Michelle also. I think he is a good person and he will lead our nation to better times.'' At 9:15 a.m., a Secret Service agent announced to a disappointed crowd that the church had reached capacity, with the exception of the members of the choir and church officers. A light moment occurred when presiding usher Gerald Young asked

CP0805D2 – Rotary Fountain Sculpture at Marion Square City of Charleston Invitation for Sculpture Proposals Project: CP0805D2 – Rotary Fountain Sculpture at Marion Square Proposed Form of Contract: Design-Build Contract Description of Project: The City of Charleston, Washington Light Infantry and Sumter Guards Board of Officers, and the Rotary Club of Charleston are seeking artist’s proposals for a sculpture to be placed in historic Marion Square. The sculpture location will be within the top tier of the Rotary Fountain that is located at the corner of King and Calhoun Streets. The selection team is looking for a symbolic sculpture proposal that successfully interprets the theme of ‘service above self’. This service theme should reflect the proud 200 year heritage of the Charleston Militia in times of war, civil emergency and peace. It should also interpret or compliment the Rotary four-way test that is represented on the existing fountain: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? Anticipated Design and Construction Cost Range: The current budget for this sculpture is $40,000. Proposals will be accepted for sculptures costing between $40,000 and $75,000 for design and construction. Description of Services Anticipated for Project: Artist will be responsible for the design, fabrication and installation of the sculpture within the project budget. Structural engineering services are also anticipated. Resumes & Submittal Requirements: Artist resumes should not exceed three 8 1/2”x 11” pages. Resume should include Education, solo & group exhibits, public/private commissions, public/private collections and gallery representation. Artist depictions of the sculpture proposal should be submitted on 8 1/2”x 11” paper not to exceed five sheets; including a two page statement and three pages of illustrations. Multiple submittals are allowed. Selection Criteria: A Selection Committee will evaluate the information submitted and will select three finalists for interviews. The following criteria will be used to evaluate each artist: Past performance Ability of artist Related experience on similar projects Creativity and insight related to project Demonstrated ability to meet time and budget Location of artist Finalists will be selected and provided with an allowance of $500 each to be used to further develop the sculpture proposal. Interviews with each finalist and a review of the developed proposal are anticipated to occur in February 2009. Resume and Submittal Deadline Date: Resume and submittals are due at the address shown below by 2:00pm on February 27, 2009. Electronic submittals are accepted. Number of Copies: 7 copies To request an information packet detailing the site constraints for the sculpture, please contact: Dustin Clemens, Senior Construction Manager City of Charleston, Dept. of Parks 823 Meeting Street Charleston, SC 29403 Phone (843) 724-7322 Email: [email protected]

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the crowd where the organist was and 15 hands immediately shot up. Metropolitan Washington police were posted at the front of the church, in the back, on the side as well as across the street. Secret Service agents dressed in dark suits and ties generally stayed closer to the church, with a few patrolling the lines. Each person entering the church had to go through a metal detector. For some, it was a new experience. ''I never thought that I would have to go through a metal detector to get into my own church,'' Dale Brooks said. ''But then, I never thought that I would have the chance to have a president sitting in the congregation with me, either.” Denise Goldman, another church member, agreed. ''I am not one to stand in line for a long time but I will do it to see Obama,'' she said. The Rev. George Holmes, a D.C. minister who is politically active, said that Obama's visit to Nineteenth Street Baptist was ''surreal.'' ''I think this is one of the greatest things that has happened in the city,'' he said. ''Obama made a statement when he came here.'' When a president visits a church, it can be a defining moment in a church’s history. In order to avoid bedlam because of the Obama visit, church officials did not inform many members of the congregation or the general public that the Obamas were coming until the very last minute. The church sanctuary is bowl-shaped with small red chairs that are attached as a row, usually with 20-30 chairs, depending on whether it’s at the back, middle or front of the

AUCTIONS/SHOWS

church. The balcony has red chairs that are 30 chairs long on six rows. The front of the sanctuary where Harkins delivers his sermons has a white backdrop with the choir on the right side of the front and church officers and guests on the other. During the nearly twohour service, the Obamas sang ''Blessed Assurance,'' ''God is My Everything'' and ''Lift Up Your Head” with other church-goers. Obama himself was seen smiling as the Kandelite Choir, the church's youth choir for youngsters aged 3-7, performed loudly and with pride in their red robes with white trim. The topic for the sermon by Harkins, a former minis-

ANNUAL BOARD MEETING Notice is, hereby, given that the Board of Commissioners of the City of Charleston will hold its ANNUAL BOARD MEETING on Tuesday, January 27, at 5:30 p.m. in the Board Room located at 550 Meeting Street, Second Floor, Charleston, SC The purpose of such meeting is to transact any business that legally comes before the Authority/. Donald J. Cameron Secretary

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ter from Dallas, Tex., was ''For Such a Time as This.'' Carol Woolridge, a church member was impressed with the sermon. ''Dr. Harkins always gets it right but I think he hit the nail on the head when he preached,'' Woolridge said. ''He first talked about Ruth, then he tied it to today. He mentioned Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and the history that got us to where we as Blacks are today. ''Another part of his sermon was to Barack Obama. He was basically telling the president-elect that you are prepared for the challenges that our nation faces.''

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The Chronicle

January 21, 2009- 9

Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the will be received from qualified bidders will be received from qualified b--__idders,properly licensed under will be received from qualified licensed under the wil will be received from qualified bidders Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under- from qualified bidders, will be received from Advanced Medicine licensed under the properly under the will be be received from qualified bidders,properly licensed under will be received from qualified licensed under the wil will be received from eceived from qualified bidders, dvanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the properly licensed under the Package for the MUSC Center for Advanced Medicine will be received from qualified bidders, properly licensed under the will be received from qualified bidders will qualified biddersackage for licensed

Classifieds

STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTY CHARLESTON

ASK GWEN

OF

WACHOVIA BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS TRUSTEE OF THE SECURITY NATIONAL MORTGAGE LOAN TRUST 2005-1, Plaintiff, v. ANNABELLE S. FRAZIER AND IF SHE IS DEAD, HIS HEIRS, PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVES, SUCCESSORS, ASSIGNS, SPOUSES AND CREDITORS, AND ALL OTHERS CLAIMING ANY RIGHT, TITLE OR INTEREST IN THE REAL ESTATE KNOWN AS 12 ENDO DRIVE, C H A R L E S T O N , SOUTH CAROLINA,FIRST FEDERAL SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION OF CHARLESTON AND CITY OF CHARLESTON HOUSING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,

NNPA COLUMNIST Ask Gwendolyn Baines ESTATES’ CREDITOR’S NOTICES All persons having claims against the following estates are required to deliver or mail their claims to the Personal Representative indicated below and also file subject claims on Form #371PC with Irv Condon, Probate Judge of Charleston County, 84 Broad Street, Charleston, S.C. 29401, before the expiration of 8 months after the date of the first publication of this Notice to Creditors, or else thereafter such claims shall be and are forever barred. Estate of:

KING DAVID GRAHAM 2008-ES-10-1456 DOD: 08/30/08 Pers. Rep: EDNA K. GRAHAM 2144 MIDLAND PARK RD., NORTH CHARLESTON, SC 29406 Atty: EDUARDO K. CURRY, ESQ. PO BOX 42270, NORTH CHARLESTON, SC 29423 ************************************************************************** Estate of: MARY LEE SMALLS 2008-ES-10-1806 DOD: 11/14/08 Pers. Rep: MAE FRANCES MIDDLETON 2946 LIMESTONE BLVD., CHARLESTON, SC 29414 Atty: GEORGE E. COUNTS, ESQ. 27 GAMECOCK AVE., STE. 200, CHARLESTON, SC 29407

Defendants. IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS

ADVERTISEMENT FOR A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

Case No. 2008-CP-10-4804

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR A NEW PORTABLE CONCESSION TRAILER RFP#09-01-OPS, BY THE CHARLEStON COUNTY PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION 861 RIVERLAND DRIVE CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA 29412

(NON-JURY MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE) AMENDED SUMMONS DEFICIENCY DEMANDED TO THE DEFENDANTS ABOVE NAMED: YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED and required to appear and defend by answering the Amended Complaint in this action, of which a copy is herewith served upon you, and to serve a copy of your Answer to the Amended Complaint upon the subscriber at his address, Larry D. Cohen, LLC, Attorney at Law, P.O. Box 30547, Charleston, South Carolina 29417, within thirty (30) days after the service hereof, exclusive of the day of such service; except that the United States of America, if named, shall have sixty (60) days to answer after the service hereof, exclusive of the day of such service; and if you fail to Answer the Amended Complaint within the time specified above, or otherwise appear and defend, the Plaintiff in this action will apply to the Court for the relief demanded in the Amended Complaint, and judgment by default will be rendered against you for the relief demanded in the Amended Complaint. R E S P E C T F U L LY SUBMITTED, Larry D. Cohen, LLC Attorney at Law P.O. Box 30547 Charleston, South Carolina 29417 Tel. (843) 225-4445 Fax (843) 225-2009 ATTORNEY PLAINTIFF

FOR

THE

Charleston, South Carolina August 29, 2008 NOTICE OF FILING DEFICIENCY DEMANDED NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Amended Lis Pendens, Amended Civil Cover Sheet, Amended Summons and Amended Complaint in this action were filed in the Office of the Clerk of Court for Common Pleas for Charleston County, South Carolina on September 18, 2008. Larry D. Cohen, LLC P.O. Box 30547 Charleston, South Carolina 29417

January 2009 Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission (PRC) requesting proposals from qualified Vendors for the purchase and delivery of a New Portable Concession Trailer for use by CCPRC at the James Island County Park, 871 Riverland Drive, Charleston, SC To receive a copy of the Request for Proposal, contact Mr. Justin Leyh, Operations Project Coordinator, 843-7628025, Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission, 861 Riverland Drive, Charleston, SC 29412. Proposals should be submitted no later than 2:00PM on Thursday, March 5, 2009 as outlined in the Request for Proposal.

By: Mr. Tom O’Rourke, Executive Director CHARLESTON COUNTY PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION

IDC 0900 City of Charleston Invitation for Professional Services

Public Notice of Meeting will be posted at: Front lobby, 823 Meeting Street, Charleston SC Proposed Form of Contract: City of Charleston’s Indefinite Delivery Contract - Large Description of Project: Provide engineering design services for the City of Charleston Capital Projects Division on an as-needed basis. Projects may include new construction, repairs & systems replacement. The contract period shall not exceed two years. The maximum fee for the IDC shall be $300,000, with a maximum fee of $100,000 for each delivery order. Anticipated Construction Cost Range: $5,000 - $1,000,000 per project. Description of Professional Services Anticipated for Project: Civil Engineering, landscape architecture, surveying, structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Firms must offer a minimum of civil, surveying and landscape architecture services in-house, but may utilize sub-consultants for others. M/WBE firms are encouraged to apply. Resumes: Current Federal Standard Forms 254 and 255 are to be submitted. If consultants are to be used, they must be included in a single Form 255 for the proposed team. Selection Criteria: A Selection Committee will evaluate the information submitted and will select three finalists for interviews. The following criteria will be used to evaluate each firm: Past performance Ability of professional personnel Related experience on similar projects Demonstrated ability to meet time and budget Location of firm Resume Deadline Date: 4:00 PM, January 30, 2009.

Fax (843) 225-2009

Number of Copies: Seven

FOR

THE

Charleston, South Carolina September 23, 2008 NOTICE OF ORDER APPOINTING GUARDIAN AD LITEM NISI TO: THE DEFENDANTS HEREIN, NAMES

Dear Gwendolyn: Four years ago a man came into my office and I fell in love with him at first sight. We started talking and later he told me that it was love at first sight with him as well. Then after dating for about three months, he told me he was married. He showed me a picture of his wife and said that he had never been attracted to another woman all the years of his marriage. But with me he didn’t know what happened. The picture was a plain looking woman with short hair. I told my girlfriend to go with me while I drove by his house. I parked across the street and waited for her to hopefully come out. After about five hours, she came out into the yard cutting dead leaves off of some plants. My girlfriend could not believe what she was seeing and neither could I. The picture gave her justice because she was not a good looking woman – but I am. Just before we met I had undergone surgery for breast enhancement and liposuction for my stom-

ach. I didn’t have to do anything to my buttocks as they have always been fine. Gwendolyn, I do think I can get this man. They have no children. I am prettier than his wife. He adores my breasts and buttocks. From the way his wife looks you would not believe he has stayed with her. Sarah

while you are chasing a married man, you will probably miss a good single man. You are too vain and will be nothing but trouble for any man. Like many women you view beauty as a physical attraction. That’s sad. Let me tell you this: In his wife he sees her beauty from inside out. With you he only sees - what’s hanging out.

Dear Sarah: I can believe it. Because they have no children should tell you something. Men sometimes say they stayed due to the children. Therefore, this lady has not held her husband on that basis. So, it must be love. I don’t have a lot to say to you except the fact that

Write to Gwendolyn Baines at: P. O. Box 10066, Raleigh, NC 27605-0066 (to receive a reply send a self-addressed stamped envelope) or email her at: gwenbaines@hotmail or visit her website at: www.gwenbaines.com

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

ESTATES’ CREDITOR’S NOTICES All persons having claims against the following estates are required to deliver or mail their claims to the Personal Representative indicated below and also file subject claims on Form #371PC with Irv Condon, Probate Judge of Charleston County, 84 Broad Street, Charleston, S.C. 29401, before the expiration of 8 months after the date of the first publication of this Notice to Creditors, or else thereafter such claims shall be and are forever barred. Estate of:

CELIA FORD GADSDEN 2008-ES-10-1731 DOD: 07/13/08 Pers. Rep. RUEBEN M. GADSDEN, JR. 759 BEAR SWAMP RD., JOHNS ISLAND, SC 29455 Atty: THOMAS P. MORRISON, ESQ. PO BOX 1056, CHARLESTON, SC 29402 **************************************************************************

Name of Project Manager: Dustin Clemens, ASLA City of Charleston Department of Parks 823 Meeting Street Charleston, SC 29403 Tel: (843) 724-7322 Fax: (843) 724-7300 E-mail: [email protected] * We follow SC Office of State Engineer fee guidelines*

STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA NOTICE OF DEFAULT AND INTENT TO SELL COUNTY OF CHARLESTON

TO: BRIAN L. LYONS AND REBECCA L. LYONS – POST OFFICE BOX 683 ISLE OF PALMS, SOUTH CAROLINA 29451 The undersigned as Trustee for the Non-Judicial Lien Foreclosure of timeshare estates in Sea Cabin on the Ocean, III and the Counsel of Time Sharing Interest Owners of apartments of Sea Cabin on the Ocean, III, have previously filed a Notice of Lien for unpaid assessments on use period 13, Apartment 234, of Sea Cabin on the Ocean, III. This lien was dated February 15, 2008, and recorded in the Charleston County Register of Deeds Office in Book L-653 at Page 658. You are currently in default of the provisions of the original timeshare instrument and all amendments thereto, by failing to pay the assessments due on your timeshare interest. The amount needed to cure your default is $330.00 plus all interest, attorney fees and costs incurred by the Regime. South Carolina Code of Laws §27-32-325, as amended.

CHARLESTON COUNTY GRANTS ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIVISION STATEMENT OF FINDING AND PUBLIC EXPLANATION Evidence of Compliance with Executive Orders 11988 and 11990 Floodplain Management and Wetland Protection 8-Step Process

Project: IDC 0900, Multidiscipline engineering services

Tel. (843) 225-4445

ATTORNEY PLAINTIFF

I'm Prettier Than My Boyfriend's Wife!

Charleston County Grants Administration Department has analyzed the project identified below as required by Presidential Directive EO 11988 and determined that assistance should be granted therein: PROPOSED PROJECT Construction of freestanding Bathroom Facility PROPOSED LOCATION Ravenel Railroad Depot Museum Corner Highway 165 and Martin Street, Ravenel, SC 29470 TMS# 187-00-00-100 Since a portion of Ravenel Railroad Depot Museum is located in wetlands as established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the County of Charleston is required by EO 11988 to deny assistance to this project unless there are no practicable alternatives. An analysis by Charleston County Grants Administration Community Development Division revealed that there are no practical alternatives. The basis for this determination is as follows: It is not possible to carry out the objectives of the CDBG and HOME Investment Partnership Act Programs to develop affordable housings and participate in the growth plan of the community without participating in projects in the base Floodplain; The projects meet local planning and zoning requirements; The proposed construction will not displace or redirect waters to seriously affect other areas; Construction will meet the Wetland Resource Management Plan prepared by the community as a condition of their participation in the National Flood Insurance Program; Any comments received as a result of the Early Public Notice for this project on December 12, 2008 were considered in the analysis which can be reviewed at the Charleston County Community Development Office, 4045 Bridge View Drive, North Charleston, South Carolina 29405. Public comments on this statement will be received and considered for a period of 15 days from today’s publication of January 21, 2009. Comments will be received at the address above. The proposed projects will not be implemented without considering public comments.

“If you fail to cure the default or take other appropriate action with regard to this matter within thirty calendar days after the date of this notice, you will risk losing your interest in this timeshare estate through a non-judicial foreclosure procedure. However, under the non-judicial procedure, you will not be subject to a deficiency judgment or personal liability for the lien being foreclosed even if the sale of your timeshare estate resulting from the nonjudicial foreclosure is insufficient to satisfy the amount of the lien being foreclosed. You may object to the sale of your timeshare estate through the non-judicial foreclosure procedure and require foreclosure of your timeshare interest to proceed through the judicial process. An objection must be made in writing and received by the trustee before the end of the thirty-day time period. You must state the reason for your objection and include your address on the written objection. In a judicial foreclosure proceeding that results from your objection, you may be subject to a deficiency judgment and personal liability for the lien being foreclosed if the sale of your timeshare state resulting from the judicial foreclosure is insufficient to satisfy the amount of the lien being foreclosed. Furthermore, you also may be subject to a personal money judgment for the costs and attorney’s fees incurred by the lien holder in the judicial foreclosure proceeding if the court finds that there is a complete absence of a justifiable issue of either law or fact raised by your objections or defenses. You have the right to cure your default at any time before the sale of your timeshare estate by payment of all past due loan payments or assessments, accrued interest, late fees, taxes, and all fees and costs incurred by the lien holder and trustee, including attorney’s fees and costs, in connection with the default”. CHRIS J. LOUDEN as Trustee for Sea Cabin on the Ocean, III, A Horizontal Property Regime October 8, 2008 Moncks Corner, South Carolina

10-January 21, 2009

The Chronicle

Obama Conducts Exclusive Black Press Interview During Historic 'Whistle Stop' Train Tour By. Hazel Trice Edney NNPA Editor-in-Chief BALTIMORE (NNPA) – Then First Lady-to-be Michelle Obama, standing behind a little boy inside the Baltimore War Memorial, placed her hands on the child's shoulders and guided him toward her husband. “I want you to meet my new friend,” she gleefully told then President-elect Barack Obama. Looking down at the approximately 7-year-old, Obama broke into his trademark broad smile. His hands replaced hers on the boy’s shoulders. “Yes, I know,” he said, looking down into his face. “And, he’s got ears just like mine.” The child beamed with pride. Returning the broad smile, he boldly asked for an autograph. “Children are really drawn to him,” whispered Jen Psaki, an Obama aid. She observed the warm exchange only a few feet away, sitting beside this reporter, who was among members of the press traveling aboard Obama's historic “Whistle Stop” tour train on Saturday. Moments later, the mode switched. Obama was whisked by stone-faced Secret Service men into a small room inside the vast Baltimore War Memorial. “Okay, let’s go,” said Psaki, whisking this reporter into the room behind him. There, Obama sat and engaged in a 10-minute,

exclusive interview with the NNPA News Service, the Black Press of America. Still wearing his dark, cashmere coat after speaking to a Baltimore audience of 40,000 in bonechilling temperatures during the Amtrak train tour from Philadelphia to Baltimore, he described plans to use his presidential “bully pulpit” to challenge the Black community to strengthen itself from within, while also pushing public policies to deal with inequities that have long plagued African-Americans from without. “In terms of the AfricanAmerican community, one of the things that I want to make sure that everybody’s clear about is - to paraphrase JFK – ‘Don’t ask just what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for yourself.’” He was responding to a question about how his administration will address social and economic ills that have historically and disparately plagued Black Americans. He continues, “I want fathers to start being part of their children’s lives. I want our children to stop spending so much time watching television and hit the books. There are a lot of things under our control that can make our communities stronger and can open up opportunities for all of us. And I want to make sure that I’m using the bully pulpit to send that message loud and

clear throughout my presidency.” Nevertheless, Obama, a civil rights lawyer, who made 100 percent on all NAACP Civil Rights Report Cards as a U. S. senator, recognizes that systemic racism and White supremacy have caused the African-American jobless rate to remain nearly twice that of the national average. “Because AfricanAmericans and Latinos are often the last hired, it also means they’re the first fired,” he says. “That’s why getting the economy moving for everybody is so important because they’re disproportionately impacted going up and going down.” One way to address the economic woes of America’s general population while specifically improving the employment rates of Blacks and Hispanics would be to focus on jobs in urban communities, Obama said.

More than three-fourths of African-Americans live in inner city or urban communities. “I do think that we’ve got to focus on economic development in our urban areas…That’s not a racebased program. That’s a recognition that, ‘Cities and suburbs, we’re all in it together.’ And we can’t just deal with one without dealing with the other,” he says. Obama reminded that his economic recovery plan, now before Congress, calls for special training at community colleges to help people obtain so-called “new energy” or “green” jobs. Illustrating, he said, high school drop outs could be trained at a community college to help weatherize Baltimore homes. “We think that we could have a big affect on our unemployment rates for all people.” Obama says his administration will maintain an open door to African-American organizations and commu-

High Court to Review Voting Rights Act ; Political, Civil Rights Leaders Fear By. James Wright Special to the NNPA from the Afro-American Newspapers W A S H I N G T O N (NNPA) - Civil rights leaders and a leading scholar on Black politics said that if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of a case that challenges a central provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Blacks will encounter widespread discrimination in trying to assert their political rights. The high court has agreed to hear the case of Northwest Austin Municipal District Utility No. 1 vs. Mukasey, which argues that a utility district located in Texas does not have a history of discrimination and, therefore, should not be subjected to the VRA’s Section 5 preclearance requirements, a provision at the heart of the law. The provision requires states or local governments with histories of racial discrimination to get federal approval before making any changes in election procedures. If this case is supported by the court, it could spell trouble for voting rights for minorities, said Hilary Shelton, NAACP Washington Bureau Chief. “This case is important because what is at stake is the right of African Americans and other minorities to vote and participate in the political system without harassment,” Shelton added. “Austin (Tex.) is well covered by the VRA and it should continue to be that way.” Texas is one of the states whose election laws and boundary changes must be cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice before implementation. The law was designed to protect the voting rights of minorities. In addition to Texas, states that are entirely covered by the provision are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. In Virginia, all but 15 cities and counties must comply with the measure. Parts of California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota need permission to make voting changes. Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, said the legislation protects the rights of all Americans, not just people of color.

“This landmark civil rights legislation is essential in continuing to wholly protect the voting rights of all Americans,” Arnwine said. “The preclearance requirements of Section 5 remain necessary to prevent discrimination intended to exclude and intimidate minority voters. The Lawyers’ Committee remains in strong support of Section 5, which has stopped and deterred countless efforts of disen-

those areas is still racially polarized. In fact, Obama did worse than Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) did among Whites in 2004 in those areas. “…attempts to keep Blacks from voting will continue despite Obama being elected as president.” In Alabama, McDonald said, Kerry won 19 percent of the White vote while Obama got only 10 percent. In Mississippi, Obama only got 11 percent of the

franchisement over 40 years.” The utility district advocates have also argued that the election of Barack Obama as president has made the Voting Rights Act obsolete and should be declared unconstitutional. That would be a mistake, said Dr. David Bositis, senior research associate at the Washington, D.C.based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “It’s my suspicion that attempts to keep Blacks from voting will continue despite Obama being elected as president,” Bositis said. “Southern conservatives opposed the VRA and will continue to do so because they don’t have a commitment to see that Blacks exercise their voting rights.” Laughlin McDonald, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, agreed with Bositis, saying that in many of the states covered by Section 5, Whites still voted along racial lines. “In the nine southern states covered by Section 5, six went for McCain and the White vote was overwhelmingly for him,” McDonald said. “Voting in

White vote while Kerry got 14 percent, he pointed out. The VRA was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 and was extended in 1970, 1975, 1982 and 2006. Soon after Congress extended the law, the Texas municipal utility district sued and argued it should be exempt from the law. In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the claims of the lawyers of the utility district that Section 5 of the VRA did not apply to their client and was unconstitutional. The three-judge panel said that the utility board didn’t qualify as a “political subdivision” and could not be exempted from the law. It also ruled that racial discrimination practices in voting still persist and that Congress acted appropriately when it extended the law. Attorneys for the municipal utility appeal to the Supreme Court, calling the law “overly intrusive.” One of the utility lawyers is Gregory Coleman, a former law clerk to Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. Arguments in the case will

be heard in April and a decision rendered in June. President Bush signed the extension into law in 2006 after Congressional hearings revealed that more than 2,400 proposed voting changes have been blocked since 1982. The Bush administration has joined with civil rights groups to keep the VRA.

nity groups that desire to influence public policy, but who are also willing to make progress through service outside of government. “We want to have an inclusive administration where all voices are heard,” he said. “My job for all of my team is that they’re constantly reaching out and listening to all voices. And so, we’re going to have a very aggressive public liaison.” The White House Office of Public Liaison is headed by Valerie Jarrett, a long time friend of the Obamas, who is one of his senior advisors and among his leading African-American staffers. “It will be constantly accessible to groups outside the White House and we want to make sure that every voice is heard in this process,” he says. The first African-American to hold the office of president, Obama has risen to leadership during tumultuous racial issues and incidents, including criminal justice inequities that have sparked protests over the past two years, race hate crimes, Black on Black crime, and a string of controversial police shootings in African-American communities. Crime escalation is often the result of economic recession, Obama said. His economic recovery package includes more police on the streets to help deter crime. But, unjust police practices will not go unheeded either, he said. “It is important that police officers receive effective training. And I think that my Justice Department is going to be in a position to work with local and state officials to provide the kinds of training that allows for effective law enforcement, but also fair and just law enforcement.” Obama appointee Eric Holder will soon become the nation’s first Black attorney general to head the Justice Department if he is confirmed by the U.

S. Senate. Obama assumes power during one of the most tumultuous moments in American history. The U. S. is engaged in war in Iraq and Afghanistan and there is escalating conflict in the Middle East. The military conflicts serve as backdrops for the nation’s economic crisis and a constant threat of terror. Asked if he is ever fearful, he said in a deeply serious tone, “The only thing I worry about is obviously the problems we face are huge. I worry about the speed with which Congress gets our recovery plan passed; then we can start dealing with the home foreclosure situation,” he says. He credits his faith and a supportive and loving wife and family for keeping him “cool” as some have described him. Their daughters, Malia, 10, and Shasha, 7, joined him on the train tour, bouncing onto the stage together in Philadelphia. “They’re handling this transition wonderfully. And Michelle is so steady and so supportive,” his voice lowers with affection. “Faith makes a huge difference; and then just confidence in the American people.” Preparing to take the presidential oath of office Jan. 20, he said he will be forever grateful for the civil rights struggles that put him there. “Thanks to all our ancestors and earlier generations that fought, struggled and some died to give me this opportunity,” he says. Among those warriors was the historic Black Press, which will celebrate its 182nd year of existence during Black Press Week in March this year. Reaffirming a commitment to host a White House event in honor of the anniversary, Obama said, “We’ll look forward to it.”

The Chronicle

January 21, 2009-12

Chronicle Columnist Beverly Gadson-Birch to Keynote Canaan Bible College Founder’s Day; Wll Receive Doctorate

Canaan Bible College will observe its Founder’s Day January 30, 2009, at Canaan Missionary Baptist Church beginning at 7 p.m., with the keynote speaker, Chronicle columnist and community activist Beverly Gadson-Birch, who will also be awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the college, according to the Rev. Dr. Cornelius Campbell, founder and visionary at the bible college. Ms. Gadson, born in Colleton County to the late John and Lucille William Gadson, is the vice president of Birch’s Heating & Air along with her husband, Cyrus, has been serving the tri-county the past 20-years. Her most recent business venture is the recently-opened Twin Tours Charter Bus and Travel, operated by her siblings and spent four days in Washington, D.C.. for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Involved the past 40-years to advance the causes of civil rights, she noted that it was the ‘69 Hospital Workers Strike that brought her to Charleston as a secretary for the organizers and later chaired the O p e r a t i o n PUSH(People United to Save Humanity) convention held in Charleston with Rev. Jesse Jackson. She later served as secretary of the Rainbow Coalition and the Southern L e a d e r s h i p Conference(SCLC), founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Earlier, Dr. Gadson-Birch received her education in the

time she founded the Scholars for Excellence program where she works with the youth in underserved schools and is an active member of The Ministerial Alliance, vice-chair of the Education Committee.

Beverly Gadson-Birch Chronicle Columnist Charleston County School System and is a graduate of Atlantic City High School in New Jersey with further training at Trident Technical College and the College of Charleston. Starting her career as Administrative Assistant at Reid House, she then worked for several years as a Paralegal and then ended her career in the offices of District 20 as an administrator after 23-years of service. As a contributing writer for The Charleston Chronicle the past 30-years, Dr. Gadon-Birch has been cited locally and nationally for her insightful and informative columns under the bylines “Bits & Pieces,” “Frankly Speaking,” and her present writing in “Who Asked Me?” She also writes for an online periodical and has to her credit, been cited for national speeches printed in journals outside the state. In her spare

She was appointed by S.C. Governor Mark Sanford to serve on the State Procurement Panel and is currently in her second term. A subscribing Life Member of the Charleston Branch NAACP and a member of the Emancipation P r o c l a m a t i o n Association. A recent recipient of the MLK Award, honoring those individuals, in the Charleston community, Dr. Gadson-Birch has also been cited by the Charleston Branch NAACP. A member of Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church where she is a member of the Sunday School and the Missionary Ministry, she and her husband are the proud parents of Jein Kenyatta and Rose Renee Gadson. Her most enduring achievement, she said Monday, was to “Leave behind a legacy of service,” and that will live for the ages. The Bible College began with a Spirit inspired vision of Rev. Dr. Cornelius Campbell in January 2006. Rev. Dr. Campbell took his vision to the pastor, Rev. Dr. Alfred Williams, and he received the approval to move forward with the planning stage. The college officially opened its doors on September 11, 2006. The college is fully

accredited by the A c c r e d i t i n g Commission international. On May 8, 2006. The Executive Board held its first meeting. Rev. Dr. Cornelius Campbell was elected President; Rev. Dr. Alfred Williams, Pastor of Canaan Missionary Baptist Church, was elected as Chancellor. Other members of the Board are; Rev. Timonty Simmons, Chairperson; Rev.

Rev. Dr. Campbell Bible College Founder

Anthony Williams, ViceChairperson; Mr. Carrol Kearse, Grant Writer; and Mrs. Blondell E. Kidd, Recording Secretary. Members of the staff are; Linda Murphy, Vice-President; Linda Prioleau; Rev. Janet O. Bolds, Academic Dean; Dr. Emanuel Williams, Director of Admission; Dr. Barbara Hayward; Dr. David Brown Sr.; Ms. Shirley Ford; Dr. George Ferguson; Dr. Dollie Brown and Sally Bain, College Secretary.

Rice Departs Predicting a World Free From Tyranny By: Associated Press W A S H I N G T O N Capping four years as the Bush administration's top diplomat, a teary-eyed Condoleezza Rice bade a spirited farewell Friday to an assembly of several hundred State Department employees. Rice was greeted by thunderous applause as she appeared in the building's C Street lobby to thank the staff in optimistic oratory that echoed President George W. Bush's 2005 Inauguration speech in which he said he would fight for freedom in every nation with the "ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice smiles as she leaves the State Department in Washington Friday. (AP)

that one day there is going to be a world in which every man, woman and child will be free from tyranny," she said.

Rice said her own story the first black woman to serve as secretary of state showed how far the United States has come in making its ethnic, religious and racial diversity a catalyst for social progress.

After her remarks Rice plunged into the crowd to pose for pictures and shake hands, tears welling in her eyes.

"And that's why I know

On Tuesday, after President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration, Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate and arrive at the State Department as the third woman in U.S. history to be secretary of state.

A-66817 (G_LG) 01/22/09

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