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VOLUME 17 No, 832
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fire from developers
BThe city’s Community and Neighborhood
Development department is accused of
hindering rather than facilitating economic
recovery in the city’s most heavily blighted areas.
By Frederick Benjamin Sr.
and Christy Allen
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writers
AUGUSTA
The largest community devel
opment corporation in the inner
city has blasted the city agency
responsible for assisting local
groups in obtaining federal Com
munity Development Block Grant
funds earmarked for housing and
economic development. Members
of Laney-Walker Development
Corporation (LWDC) have singled
out Keven Mack, head of the city’s
Department of Community and
Neighborhood Development, as
being responsible for the dearth of
programs designed to eradicate
blight f~’ § inner cities.
“A latefminorities are having a
hard time doing business with the
“department,” said Cedric Johnson,
chairman of theik
LWDC xd of Directors, even as
a financial officer from Mr. Mack’s
.office was going through their
‘books, the organization put the
‘finishing touches on its plans to
share their story with the full city
.county commission. Their chief
‘complaint has been that the city
‘agency has been ineffective since
‘Mr. Mack was named director
-shortly after the consolidation of
-the city and county governments.
- Among the points of dissatisfac
-tion are:
< (1) Few if any loans have been
.made to minority businesses in
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8
Cedric Johnson:
“Minorities are
having a hard being worked
time doing out and
business.” planned.”
the past 18 months.
(2) Minority organizations seek
ing to move forward on housing
rehabilitation and construction
have been stymied by excessive
audits, requests for modifications
and other bureaucratic slowdowns
which have been characterized as
harassment. For example, accord
ing to one local developer, the
agency has required applicants
selves. This requirement was a
unilateral decision by Mr. Mack,
critics charge.
Allegations have been made that
Mr. Mack is conducting a personal
vendetta against the LWDC.
Accordingto Fred Johnson, man
agement consultant forthe LWDC,
the Laney-Walker Development
Corporation has been attempting
to obtain funds to implement its
Super Block Area Redevelopment
project since it first submitted its
proposal to thedepartment of com
munity development inJuly of this
year. The program seeks to boost
11l Gotten Gains
opens in New York
Mlndependent film
explores horrors of the
African slave trade.
By Angetta McQueen
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer
NEW YORK
Sixty years after the United
States outlawed the African slave
trade, a vessel sets sail from the
Guinea Coast of West Africa car
rying deep in her belly 24 human
captives.
The resulting rebellion on this
fictional voyage is the basis of Joel
Marsden’s new film, 11l Gotten
Gains. The $1.9 million indepen
dent film opened Wednesday for
an exclusive run at the Victoria 5
in Harlem.
11l Gotten Gains is one of two
films this season about the dim
mest part of American history.
Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film,
named Amistad after a real slave
ship that sailed in 1839, also de
picts rebellion aboard an illegal
slave ship.
Marden’s film, shot in black and
white in Cameroon, is filled with
dark, brutally violent scenes of
rape and torture that might not
been as easy on mainstream stom
achs as Spielberg’s work.
Marsden, a New Yorker of Brit
ish and Swedish ancestry, was in
spired to make the film in 1991,
after visiting a “slave house” mu
seum in Senegal. He has said I/l
Gotten Gains was intended to stir
up feelings of people who might
otherwise be indifferent to
DECEMBER 4 - 10, 1997
the supply of affordable housing
and implement phase II of the
Armstrong Galleria complex. But
after spending nearly $4,000 to
make modifications suggested by
Mr. Mack, the only action taken
by his office was to request the
Dec. 1 audit. LWDC board mem
bers were angered that Mr. Mack
sought an expanded probe of the
organization’s books.
“Wehave already been audited,”
Mr. Johnson complained. “Why
wait until December 1 [at the year’s
end] to monitor our books? It’snot
a question of our board [doing
somethinginappropriate], it’sjust
their way of not doing business
with minorities. To come in at
December is ridiculous” he said.
The Laney-Walker Development
Corporation is qualified as a Com
munity Housing Development Or
ganization (CHDO). There areonly
two such organizations in the in
ner city. They are concerned that
if the money set aside for housing
development projects are not used
in the current fiscal year, they will
be lost entirely. According to Mr.
Fred Johnson, some $500,000 has
been earmarked for housing de-
Welepmentprojects. Se faz, mvae of
it has been released to any of the
inner-city CHDOs.
Critics of the city community
development department suggest
that the department , which has a
staff of 13 people, has expended
more on salaries than it has on
allocating federal grant money
designed to assist developing
neighborhoods.
According to Mr. Fred Johnson,
the proposal for the Super Block
Area Redevelopment were pre
sented to city administrator Randy
See DEVELOPMENT, page 3A
slavery’s legacy.
“If you kidnap people, beat and
abuse them ... you will see afight,”
said Marsden, 27. “It’s been docu
mented, and it must be shown
before we continue to repeat the
mistakes of the past.”
The film follows the plight of the
24 black captives chained in the
bowels of the “Argon Miss.” The
rebellion is started by three fe
male captives, who, using their
sexual appeal to the slavetraders,
manage to smuggle the captors’
firearms to the male slaves.
11l Gotten Gains is the first fea
ture film for Spats Films, an inde
pendent film company formed by
Marsden and his partner Don Wil
sonin 1994. The film had its world
premiere at this summer’s Pan
African Film Festival in Burkina
Faso.
11l Gotten Gains features vet
eran actress Eartha Kitt, whose
role as a spirit who guides the
slaves to freedom is based on West
African folklore; Akosua Busia,
best known for her performance
as “Nettie” in Spielberg’s The
Color Purple, and Benin-born ac
tor and model Djimon Hounsou,
who also stars in Amistad, to be
released Dec. 10.
Amistad, which stars Hounsou
and Anthony Hopkins, depicts the
true story of an 1839 shipboard
rebellion by 53 Africans who had
been illegally sold into slavery.
They were tried for murder in
Connecticut and eventually won
their freedom after John Quincy
See SLAVE DRAMA, page 2A
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Morehouse College head football coach Doug Williams poses at the Morehouse football and
track field in Atlanta in this Jan. 6, 1997, file photo. Williams, the former Washingtad
Redskins quarterback and Super Bowl XXII most valuable player, will succeed his ol mentor
Eddie Robinson as the second Grambling State coach in history. Robinson, who starled the
program in 1942, retired last weekend after Grambling’s final game. Photo/Wilford Harewood
Zimbabwe continues plans
to take land from whites
®The government.pledges to quickly
redistribute confiscated farms to
mostly black new owners.
| HARARE, Zimbabwe
(AP) Zimbabwe will have the first of hundreds of
mostly white-owned farms in the hands of their new
black owners
Kumbirai Kangai pledged to move quickly in taking
over 1,503 commercial farms targeted in a massive
land redistribution program.
“We mean business. It is going to be a revolution,”
Kangai told a news conference on the program, which
will change ownership of 12 million acres of the
CEO Jordan leads richest athletes
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Michael Jordan is the richest athlete in the world, regaining the top spot in
the Forbes list, released Sunday, Nov. 30, 1997, displacing Mike Tyson at
Neo. 1. In announcing its Super 40 list, Forbes put heavyweight champion
Evander Holyfield in second place at $54.3 million. Boxer Oscar De La Hoya
was third with S3B million, followed by Formula One driver Michael
Schumacher ($35 million), and Tyson ($27 million). (AP PhotofFiles)
Alabama pastors criticize
Lyons about money
TAMPA, Fla.
(AP) Pastors and deacons of Alabama
churches that burned two years ago say
the Rev. Henry J. Lyons, president of the
National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc.,
betrayed their trust.
A year ago, Lyons accepted a check for
$225,000 from the Anti-Defamation League
and the National Urban League. Two weeks
later the St. Petersburg minister wrote the.
Anti-Defamation League, saying six Ala
bama churches had been given $35,000
each to help rebuild.
But most of the money was never distrib
uted. After The Tampa Tribune reported
the status of the funds two months ago,
Lyons returned most of the money to the
Anti-Defamation League.
“Aliarisaliar,” the Rev. John Alexander
nation’s most productive land.
The government released a list of the targeted farms
last week.
Asked how President Robert Mugabe’s government
would pay for the land, valued at $429 million, Kangai
cited alleged pledges by Britain and the United States
in 1979 to assist land reform after independence.
However, British Prime Minister Tony Blair last
month refused any more aid for resettlement without
a program in place to alleviate poverty and compen
sate evicted owners.
Former Prime Minister lan Smith, who governed
when the nation was called Rhodesia, said Monday he
See LAND GRAB, page 2A
De La Hoya
44 .
Holyfield
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Schumacher
told The Tribune in a Sunday story. “If you
tell one lie, you have to make up another to
make it fit.”
Lyons said the letter was mailed by mis
take and that all the money wasn’t given out
because he decided that some of the churches
really didn’t need the help. But four of the
six churches still need to build or complete
improvements, the Tribune reported.
Investigators with the Alabama Attorney
General’s Office have questioned the pas
tors about whether they received any money
from Lyons, who remains under investiga
tion by federal and Florida officials examin
ing his financial dealings.
Whilethe investigations continue, the tiny
congregations of the unfinished churches
See LYONS, Page 2A
9