Newspaper Page Text
VOLUME 16 No. 827
The ‘ ‘ B e e o /’ ]
s World: African nations in summit - rageza | M..g,@mf
SR o Naiio: Jesse’s brgther gets life - Page2d
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- Augusta Focus
Appeals likely in drive-by verdict
®Too many unanswered questions
remain, say defense attorneys of three
Augusta youths convicted of murder
this week. No eye witnesses, nomurder
weapon, no confessions were presented
as evidence.
Group vows
to fight against
Goshen site
By Frederick Benjamin Sr.
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
AUGUSTA
The furor over the so-called
Goshen site for the location of a
soon to be built new high school in
South Augusta has made for one of
the more interesting examples of
multi-racial cooperation and in
trigue in Augusta’s latest school
wars. :
On one side of the dispute is Su
perintendent Charles Larkeand the
entire Richmond County School
Board. On the other is a small, but
determined group of South Rich
mond County residents who have
organized under the banner of the
Citizens for Fair Schooling (CFAS).
The majority of the school board
has agreed to build the school off
Old Wayneshoro Road, south of
Grand jury indicts men in burning and beheading
®Black man begged to be shot
just before he was burned alive.
INDEPENDENCE, Va.
(AP) Two white men accused of dousing a black
man with gasoline and burning him alive after a
night of heavy drinking, then beheading his corpse,
were indicted Friday on murder charges.
The Grayson County grand jury found there was
enough evidence to charge Louis Ceparano, 42, with
capital murder and Emmett Cressell Jr., 36, with
STLIDY QUESTIONS
GENETIC CALISE
FOR BLACK LOW
BIRTHWEIGHT
BABIES
See Page 10A
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Bl o e
® Classifieds/Employment ................... 68-8 B
By Miranda Gasticburo
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
AUGUSTA
The three teenage Augusta men, Terry Dwayne
Holmes, 19; Theodore Marcel Allen, 18; and Lorenzo
Dexter Lindsey, 18, who were convicted of the July
11 drive-by shooting and murder of Ms. Rosa Lee
Barnes Tuesday plan to appeal the conviction, say
Tobacco Road and north of Spirit
Creek not far from Goshen Planta-.
tion. By all accounts it is an excel
lent selection. The land is attrac
tive and there’s plenty of it.
That is part of the problem, mem
bers of the CFAS suggest. There is
more land in the surrounding area
of the proposed site than people —
especially people who go to high
school. Instead, they say, the most
logical place for the school would be
somewhere further to the west,
closer to the more densely popu
lated areas already teeming with
high school students that have But
ler, Glenn Hills and Hephzibah
bursting at the seams.
CFAS draws the battle line at
Highway 25 (a stretch of which is
Peach Orchard Road).
See SCHOOLS, page 3A
first-degree murder.
Both men were also indicted on a robbery charge
for allegedly taking the victim’s watch during an all
night party.
No trial date has been set. :
Police say Ceparano and Cressell, along with two
women, had been drinking heavily at a party at
Ceparano’s trailer in mountainous Grayson County
when they attacked Garnett P. Johnson on July 25.
During an October hearing, one of the women,
Christy Harden, testified that Johnson begged the
Black women focus
on different issues
®Black women draw
distinctions between
themselves and the
yriorities of white
vomen,
y Paul Shepard .
SSOCIATED PRESS Writer
PHILADELPHIA
Tears filled Brenda Medina’s
eyesasshelooked over the gather
ing of black women that flowed
toward the Philadelphia Museum
of Art during the Million Woman
March on Saturday (Oct. 25).
. “I feel so encouraged by this,”
said Medina, 39, of Washington
D.C. “It feels good to see 80 many
of my sisters who care.”
A few feet away, Joanne Archie
of Wilmington, Del., wasjus* happy
to be able to be there.
“So many strong sisters in one
place. I never thought I would see
this,” said Archie, 47. “No disre
spect to any other groups, but it is
important to me to see these black
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RECOGNITION IS FINALLY AT HAND FOR NATION’S FIRST BLACK ASTRONAUT
Barbara Cress Lawrence, the widow of U.S. Air Force Major Robert H.
Lawrence, the nation’s first black astronaut, poses with a photo of her
husband in Chicago on Oct. 23, 1997. Lawrence died during a fraining
exercise in the 19605, but after years of rejection, Lawrence’s name will
join those of 16 others who died in the line of duty at the Astronaut Memo
rial Wall in Kennedy Space Center on Dec. 8. (AP Photo/Chicago Tribune, Milbert Orlando
Brown)
women here. It’s beautiful.”
With the march, hundreds of
thousands of black women hoped
to raise issues usually relegated to
the back burner of traditional
women’s advocacy.
“I don’t sense any dislike be
tween black and white women.
It’s more a lack of understand
ing,” said Marjorie Mosley of Cin
cinnati. “They don’t have a clue
about what’s important to us and
I’'m not sure they care.”
The event’s organizers hope the
march adds a new and black per
spective to the national women’s
rights movement.
Thedifference in black and white
women’s concerns is best shown
in the march agenda, with its fo
cus on human rights abuses
against blacks, the start of inde
pendent black schools and a de
mand for an investigatlion into al
legations of CIA invo vefimaq%k ent in
the crack trade in black neighbor
hoods.
Some — like Bernice Powell
See MARCH, page 4A°
gmir attorneys Ben Jackson, Joe Neal Jr. and Sam
ruse.
Jackson, defense attorney for Terry Holmes, stated
that there are too many difficult questions left unad
dressed in the case.
“Terry, in my opinion, is being punished for being
honest,” he said. “He is a perfect example of the old
adage ‘whatever you do if you're in trouble, don’t
talk to the police.”” Jackson stated that being con
victed with the murder is the last thing Holmes
two men to “just shoot me” as they carried him
outside the trailer.
A sheriff’s deputy testified that when he arrived at
the trailer, he found Johnson’s body still smoldering
and his head lying in a hole that had been dug
nearby.
If convicted, Ceparano could be sentenced todeath
and Cressell could get life in prison.
The Justice Department is investigating whether
the killing of Garnett P. Johnson was a racially
motivated hate crime.
I Solidarity at Million Woman’s March
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Winnie Mandela, former wife of South African President Nelson Mandela,
right, and activist Dick Gregory raise their fists at the beginning of her
keynote speech at the Million Woman March in Philadelphia, Penn., Satur
day, Oct. 25, 1997. Hundreds of thousands of black women stood shoulder
to shoulder at the march, showing their solidarity and drawing attention so
issues they believe mainstream groups ignore. (AP Photo/ H. Rumph, Jr.)
e T S—
MIt. 68 MENNEBERGER -
GEORGIA NE /31. PER
UMIVERSITY OF GA ‘
ATHE I 8 GA 20002 12 1) ml
expected. “When he found out that he was a suspect,
he and his parents called the cops and met with them
at T.W. Josey,” said Jackson. “He hadn’t slept in a
couple of days and asked them for some time to clear
his head and get his thoughts together—then he
talked to the police the next day. He testified that he
wasn’t there at the time of the shooting.”
In addition to Holmes’ own testimony, other wit-
See GUILTY VERDICT, page 3A
CSRA BUSINESS LEAGUE
® *»
Experience is
& & @
key in decision
&
to hire Bussey
BFormer city development expert
tabbed to lead CSRA Business
League into new era of advocacy
and professionalism.
Frederidk Benjamin Se.
AUGUSTAFOCUSStaff Writer
AUGUSTA
Chided in the past for
laxness in the area of pro
fessionalism and account
ability in its small-busi
ness loan operation, the
CSRA Business League
has taken a giant step to
ward rebuilding its image
with theannouncement of
Atlanta consultant Gary
Bussey as its new execu
tive director.
League officials con
firmed the selection of Mr.
Bussey on Wednesday.
Board member Ronnie
Brown told Augusta Fo
cus why Mr. Bussey was
the right selection.
“We decided upon Mr.
Bussey because of his out
standingleadership, quali
fications, management
style and past work his
tory.”
Mr. Bussey will guide
the League as it redirects
its focus from developing
new businesses to helping
existing businesses to ex
pand.
Mr. Bussey, a graduate
of Morehouse College,
holds a Masters of Public
Administration from the
University of Georgia. He
headed the City of
Augusta’s economic de
velopment programs
from 1982-1995 before
thecity consolidated with
Richmond County.
“The League is taking
off in a new direction,”
Mr. Bussey said from his
Atlanta office. “By bring
ingmeback, they cantake
advantage of my 14 years
in the mayor’s office. We
will change the image of
the League to a profes
sional, well-managed
agency.”
Inkeepingwith the new
direction of the League,
fundraising and going af
ter new revenue sources
willbe one of Mr. Bussey’s
key responsibilities.
“We want to be finan
cially independent within *
three to five years,” Mr.
Brown said. “We can no
longer remain dependent
ongovernmental funding
sources,” he said.
The league intends to
be proactive in seeking
investors outside of the
CSRA.