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SCLC members will gather to choose new president
ATLANTA (AP) — Several
people are vying to become
president of the Southern
Christian Leadership Confer
ence, replacing the son of slain
civil rights activist Martin
Luther King Jr.
SCLC delegates will meet in
Jacksonville on Saturday, July
31, to pick who will replace
interim president Fred Shut
Troubled Alanta jail under new
management: sherf suspended
y P
% . o
Jackie Barrett
I « ATLANTA (AP)-
- Georgia’s governor sus
. pended the sheriff of
| the state’s largest coun
| ty only hours after a
' retired federal prison
* administrator was
{ sworn in to take over
I the overcrowded jail.
' Gov. Sonny Perdue
. acted Friday, July 23 on
! the recommendation of
| a three-member panel
Barrow plunges into battle with Burns
after avoiding 12th District run-off
By RUSS BYNUM
Associated Press Writer
SAVANNAH (AP) -
One of the most vulnera
ble Republican congress
men seeking re-election
.in November will face a
~serious challenge from a
Democrat who handily
beat out his party’s other
hopefuls for the nomina
tion.
By avoiding a runoff in
the crowded primary,
Tuesday, July 20, Democ
rat John Barrow won a
three-week head start in
his campaign to oust U.S.
Rep. Max Burns.
Barrow, an Athens
attorney and county
commissioner, defeated
three opponents outright
with 51 percent of the
primary vote in the 12th
Congressional District,
which stretches 200 miles
from Athens to Savan
nah.
| Ducking an Aug. 10
runoff means Barrow will
have more time and cam
tlesworth, who has been filling
in after former President Mar
tin Luther King 111 stepped
down last November.
The group, which was co
founded by the late King, is
looking for someone who “can
lead a national civil rights fam
ily,” said the Rev. Clyde
Brooks, head of the groups
nominating committee.
he appointed to inves
tigate allegations of
mismanagement by
Fulton County Sheriff
Jackie Barrett, who
announced last week
she would take vacation
and other accrued time
off beginning Aug. 1
until her term expires
Dec. 31. Initially elect
ed in 1992, Barrett has
the distinction of being
the nation’s first black
female sheriff.
The panel, made up
of the state attorney
general and two sher
iffs, said it found rea
son to believe Barrett
violated her duty when
she invested $7.2 mil
lion in public money in
risky ventures, disre
garding customary gov
ernmental safeguards.
About $2 million was
lost.
Panel members said
they also found reason
to believe she violated
state ethics laws by
accepting contributions
paign cash to take on
Burns, whose 2002 victo
ry was an embarrassing
upset for state Democrats
who drew the 12th Dis
trict to give their party a
hefty advantage.
Burns knows his first
re-election battle will be a
tough fight. He wasted
no time attacking Barrow
as a liberal trial lawyer
and challenging the
Democrat to two debates.
“'m a teacher, he’s a
trial lawyer,” Burns, a
former college professor,
said in an interview.
“He’s is going to be pro
same-sex marriage ... he
is going to be opposed to
any reform of our tort
system.”
Barrow, a Baptist, says
he opposes' same-sex mar
riage but does not sup
port amending, the Con
stitution to ban them. He
said he hopes to debate
Burns more than twice
and dismissed the barbs,
saying Burns had gone
“over the top.”
“That means good adminis
trative skills, good relationship
building skills, the ability to
work with boards and task
forces and the ability to raise
funds,” Brooks said. “We need
to have a president who can
move us further into this cen
tury and into the next.”
The contenders for presi
dent include: TV Judge Greg
above the limit and by
failing to make timely
campaign disclosure
reports.
“We've been dealing
with this far too long
and, yes, I did believe
we need to move on,
heal this situation, ...
and move forward,”
Perdue said.
The jail, which hous
es more than double
the 1,400 inmates it
was designed to hold,
will be run by John
Gibson, who ran the
federal penitentiary in
Atlanta. The sheriff’s
duties will be handled
by former FBI agent
Theodore Jackson.
Barrett’s paid suspen
sion starts Monday,
July 26 and will last for
60 days. Perdue can
add another 30 days to
the suspension and told
reporters to assume
that he would.
Atlanta is the county
seat of Fulton County.
“I don’t know if this
shows that they’re scared
or mean,” Barrow said.
“But either way it doesn’t
reflect credit upon our
#
congressman.
Though Barrow faces a
freshman incumbent with
more than $1.7 million
in contributions raised to
defend his seat, the
Democratic Congression
al Campaign Committee
has marked Burns as one
of its top rtargets in
November.
Among the built-in
advantages for Democ
rats, state lawmakers
designed the district with
a 39-percent black vot
ing-age population. A
majority of the district
voted for Al Gore in the
2000 presidential elec
tion, while Georgians
overall favored George
W. Bush.
Burns rejects any,
notion that the 12th Dis
trict leans Democratic,
AUGUSTA FOCUS
Mathis, former state Sen.
Ralph David Abernathy 111,
activist Markel Hutchins,
SCLC board member James
Bush 111, James Baylark of
Moreno Valley, Calif., and Ali
cia Ivey of Atanta.
But choosing a new presi
dent has been a source of dis
sension in the SCLC. There
are already accusations that
Former UN Ambassador
Andrew Young finds his
African roots through DNA
| By DANIEL YEE
1\ Associated Press Writer
| ATLANTA (AP) - Former
| United Nations Ambassador
} Andrew Young was hesitant
| to learn about fiis African her
| itage, even tho the tech
’ r:f)fogy to traoeul%i}sl roots had
| been available for years.
| The 72-year-old finally
i yielded to a :iz:mt by a com
| pany called African Ancestry,
- which matches DNA samples
| from clients with a database
| of more than 22,000 African
i lineages.
1 ficw weeks after a simple
| swab of the cheeks, Young’s
l mother’s line was linked to
' the Mende tribe in Sierra
l Leone. The tribe also has
| roots in Sudan. The link indi
cates he is a distant cousin of
the leader of the Amistad
| slave rebellion in the 1850 s.
‘ “I guess I never really want
| ed to know where in Africa |
was from because I would
decide where I was from by
where 1 happened to be,”
Young said. “I wanted to be
from all of Africa, not just a
particular place in Africa.”
Hundreds of other blacks,
troubled by dead-ends and
yellowed records in old gov
ernment offices, churches and
cemeteries, have used DNA
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5 £
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- D,
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a V. ?
\ '4.'_.“ ol 4 4
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o o 55 %
John Barrow
calling it “a conservative
district with core family
values.”
“l think Mr. Barrow’s
got an uphill battle,”
Burns said.
Barrow’s campaign has
already raised more than
$867,000. He said he
expects a far different
race this time around.
“That was an open
seat” in 2002, Barrow
said. “Mr. Burns has a
record to run on, and if |
were him it would be one
I would be running
from.”
members of the SCLC board
are trying to hijack the elec
tion.
The board has also been
criticized for trying to push
Mathis into the president’s
seat. He is a former Michigan
district court judge and the
star of the popular “Judge
Mathis” courtroom reality
show. Mathis is also a national
tests to reveal their ancestry to
other African tribes and
countries.
About 2,000 blacks -
including 80 in Georgia and
300 throughout the South —
have used the company’s
$349 DNA test since it was
first offered in February 2003.
Some of the best known
include filmmaker Spike Lee
and actor LeVar Burton of the
television miniseries “Roots.”
Young, a longtime civil
rights activist and former
Adanta mayor, has been
Eoing to Africa for 30 years,
el ing countless countries
witfi his political and practical
wisdom.
Prior to his DNA test,
Young said he felt close to the
African countries of Angola,
South Africa and Tanzania
because those were places he
actively worked to lfi)elp pro
mote economic development.
But his new link to war-torn
Sierra Leone and Sudan has
helped provide a focus for the
civil rigfits leader.
“This gives me more reason
.to be interested in involved in
what’s going on,” he said.
The program has its skep
tics. Stanford University law
professor Henry Greely warns
that the tests only identify
wo of possibly hundreds of
About 80 rally for
slave reparations
at Statehouse
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -
About 80 people marched to
the Statehouse on Saturday,
July 24, to rally for reparations
for slave descendants and to
kick off a national campaign
to drum up support for the
movement across the South.
A national group called
Millions for Reparations plans
to march through several
Southern states this summer,
ending in Tennessee this fall,
said spokeswoman Amadi
Amaju.
The group has held annual
rallies at other cities in the
nation, drawing hundreds in
Washington, D.C., in 2002.
A much smaller crowd gath
ered at the South Carolina
Statehouse, but organizers say
they expect to gain momen
tum as they move across the
South.
“We know that going
through the South will be a
test of wills,” Amaju said. He
said the group is trying to do
grass-roots work in churches
and through other groups to
July 29, 2004
board member of the SCLC
and chairman of the Rain
bow/PUSH-Excel Board.
Martin Luther King 111,
who took over the group in
1998, stepped down to serve
as president and chief execu
tive of the King Center for
Nonviolent Social Change.
roy 2 |
Andrew Young
ancestors and can only give a
person a rough idea of one’s
ethnicity. <
But “knowing just a litde
bit is a lot better than know
ing nothing,” said company
spokesman Michael Darden,
who said the test pointed his
ancestry to Nigeria.
“It’s particularly important
for us because our history was
lost when we were taken from
the continent of Africa,” said
Gina Paige, African Ancestry’s
president, who is black and
has used the test to find DNA
family links with people from
Nigeria, Liberia, Angola and
Portugal. “Knowing where
you are from is a very central
component to knowing who
you are.”
get people familiar with the
reparations movement.
Black Americans worked
without pay to help build the
country for hundreds of years
and still suffer today because a
system that enslaved them,
said Ernest Louis, a Columbia
minister who heads the South
Carolina Statewide Maafa
Reparations Committee.
The residual effects of sub
sequent segregation policies
can be seen in modern-day
statistics showing that blacks
have lower average salaries
than whites and do not have
equal access to health care or
an adequate education, Louis
said.
“We were freed without any
compensation, just thrown
out,” Louis said. “When we
needed food and a secure job,
what could we do?”
The march kickoff coincid
ed with the Statewide Maafa
Reparations ~ Committee’s
annual conference on repara
tions.
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