Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper October 12 2013

Page 1

www.afro.comOctober 12, 2013 - October 12, 2013,

Volume 122 No. 10

The Afro-American A1 $1.00

OCTOBER 12, 2013 - OCTOBER 18, 2013

Justice Department to Challenge New N.C. Voting Laws

reduce early voting days; eliminate sameday registration WASHINGTON – during early voting; Stepping up efforts to impose a restrictive combat voting laws that photo identification discriminate against requirement for Blacks, Attorney in-person voting; Attorney General General Eric Holder and prohibit Eric Holder announced plans to sue the counting of announced plans to otherwise legitimate North Carolina over sue North Carolina. provisional ballots restrictive, new voting that are mistakenly laws that critics say will cast in the right county, but in the suppress the minority vote. wrong precinct.” In a press statement, Holder said: He said the Justice Department “The North Carolina law includes expects to show that the clear and troubling new restrictions, such as provisions that will significantly Continued on A4 By Freddie Allen NNPA Washington Correspondent

INSIDE A7

Opinion The Federal Shutdown is Very Personal Bill Fletcher Jr.

B2

Morgan Homecoming & Gala INSERT • Walmart

Listen to “First Edition”

afro.com

Your History • Your Community • Your News

Join Host Sean Yoes Sunday @ 8 p.m. on 88.9 WEAA FM, the Voice of the Community.

Join the AFRO on Twitter and Facebook

Judge Rules Maryland Violates HBCU Constitutional Rights By Alexis Taylor AFRO Staff Writer

Nearly one year after closing arguments were submitted in the lawsuit brought against the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC), a decision has been handed down by United States District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake. In a 60-page opinion released Oct. 7, Blake found the state of Maryland in violation of the U.S. Constitution for operating a system of higher education still rooted in segregation. The Coalition for Excellence and Equity in Higher Education initially filed their case against MHEC in October of 2006. The suit claimed that programs of study first offered by historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were being duplicated at traditionally white institutions (TWIs), thus, diminishing their ability to attract and fully matriculate students-

especially when coupled with a history of underfunding for Black schools. The six-week trial didn’t begin until Continued on A5

Decades Later, Black Woman’s Cells Assist Medical Research

Henrietta Lacks Honored with Plaque By Alexis Taylor AFRO Staff Writer Henrietta Lacks was only 30 years old when her primary care doctor, William C. Wade, sent her to Johns Hopkins University Hospital to treat a mysterious ailment wreaking havoc on her body. A mother of three boys and two girls, the Roanoke, Va. native had been complaining of pain and a lump on her cervix for months when doctors informed her that radium treatments were needed to cure her illness: cervical cancer.

The year was February, 1951. By October she was dead. And while her remains are at rest in an unmarked grave in Virginia, Henrietta Lacks’ unwitting gift to mankind is a form of self-perpetuating life. Lacks possessed cells that replicate outside the body, providing a platform on which medical researchers have developed scores of vaccines. Named HeLa cells, they are the human cells on which new substances are tested. “They’ve been used as the foundation for making everything from polio vaccines to prototypes of the HIV vaccine,” said Daniel Ford, vice

dean for clinical research at the Johns Hopkins University. “We know so much about what the human cell does by studying the HeLa cells. It would be like asking ‘How is a television used in entertainment?’” “We use it all the time,” he said, shortly after a plaque in Lacks’ honor was unveiled Oct. 5 at the Baltimore house where she lived. Ford said that the cells extracted from the cervix of Henrietta Lacks were cancer cells, but aside from their out-ofcontrol replication due to invasion by the human papillomavirus (HPV), they Continued on A5

Henrietta Lacks

Baltimore Mayor Unveils Pact in Place to Assure Balto Fix for Preservation Tax Residents’ Involvement in Harbor Point Credit Inequity By Alexis Taylor AFRO Staff Writer

By Ansar Miller Special to the AFRO Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has unveiled a fix for a city administrator’s nightmare: A tax credit that resulted in a windfall for developers and tax increase for city homeowners. Rawlings-Blake unveiled a new automated system to make calculation of the tax credit to encourage preservation of historic buildings easier –and far more accurate. City officials are scrapping the old system in which humans calculated the tax break by hand to a streamlined computerized system. “I am pleased to highlight Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake a series of positive steps my administration has undertaken of fairness—fairness to people who to help reduce Historic and Enterprise have done the right thing but are Zone Tax Credit errors in Baltimore paying the price for an inefficient City. The errors have frustrated tax and poorly coordinated system. credit recipients and have caused them This administration has worked to lose confidence in government’s diligently to proactively identify ability to do one of its most basic errors and overtime. We have put in functions,” Rawlings-Blake said. place mechanisms to crack down on Under the old system a few mistakes. I believe the reforms we developers obtained windfalls of are highlighting today will go a long millions while at least 300 Baltimore way toward building the public’s homeowners face tax bills that were confidence in our ability to provide up to $600 a month higher. correct tax bills.” “I share those frustrations and City Director of Finance Harry realize how upsetting these errors Black put it simply: “There are too can be. At its core this is an issue Continued on A4

Developers of the Harbor Point site in downtown Baltimore say they are placing significant focus on the inclusion of city residents and minority and women-owned businesses as they move forward with their plans to reinvent the space. Binding memorandums of understanding have already been signed between city officials and the project developers, Beatty Development Group, LLC (BDG), to ensure that all qualified Baltimoreans get an opportunity to participate in the project. According to Sharon R. Pinder, director of the Mayor’s Office of Minority and Women-Owned Business Development (MWBD), the agreements are a first in the way the city handles business contracts and opportunities for relevant companies. “There has never been a memorandum of understanding done with a private developer before,” said Pinder. “To have that in place- a level of commitment from a developer that includes a minority business- is a first for Baltimore.” Pinder considered the memorandums of understanding “game changers” because the “biggest piece of the contracting pie is not government contracting -it’s what happens in the private sector.” “This is a great step toward insuring that the private sector puts in place an inclusion strategy that

Copyright © 2013 by the Afro-American Company

provides opportunities for women and minority businesses,” she said. The Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED) has also signed a memorandum of understanding. Developers estimate that the project will mean 7,175 construction jobs and 6,611 permanent positions after construction is complete. Indirect employment opportunities as a result of Harbor Point are expected to number over 2,500. The efforts to work with more local businesses and minorities have already resulted in many opportunities for Richard Jones, president of Mahan Rykiel Associates, a minority-owned landscape architecture, urban design and planning firm with offices on two continents. The company worked with BDG in the planning of Harbor East, and was brought back to work on Harbor Point. “It’s a huge opportunity for our business to position themselves not only regionally but nationally with our design work,” Jones told the AFRO. “There are more and more solid companies in landscape architecture and architecture engineering in the minority ranks that are looking for opportunities to get involved in projects like what’s going on in Harbor Point.” “Beatty Development has been open--in our experience--to bringing on minority participants and really valuing them as partners.” While the memorandums offer Continued on A3


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.