December 21, 2013 - December 21, 2013, www.afro.com
Volume 122 No. 20
s y a d i l o H y p p a H
The Afro-American A1 $1.00
DECEMBER 21, 2013 - DECEMBER 27, 2013
Past and Present Converge at Mandela’s Burial By George E. Curry NNPA Editor-in-Chief
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INSIDE A4
Three Blacks Receive Rhodes Scholarships
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22nd Annual Golden Scissors Competition INSERTS • Walmart
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The casket procession of his youth, culminating 10 days of national mourning. Mandela died on Dec. 5 at age 95. The Nobel Prize-winner, in accordance with his wishes, was buried in a family graveyard high in rolling green hills where other close relatives are buried, including his father, Makgatho Mandela, who died in 2005; his eldest son, Madiba Thembekile, who
died in an automobile accident in 1969; and Makaziwe Mandela, his first daughter, who died as an infant in 1948. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela described Qunu as a place where “I spent the happiest years of my boyhood and whence I trace my earliest
Continued on A3
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The Baltimore City Health Department suspended Mondawmin area operations for Safe Streets, a communitybased program to reduce crime and street violence, after two recent arrests, including the discovery of a loaded handgun and live ammunition in the possession of a Safe Streets worker who is on parole for murder. Safe Streets is a program to mitigate crime by using outreach workers, often ex-offenders, to mediate dispute and discourage criminal activity. Health department officials said they shut down operations at the Mondawmin site “until further notice” following allegations of criminal activity by two staff members at the West Baltimore facility. “These two incidents are not indicative of the work of most Safe Streets staff and should not be viewed as an indictment against the program,” health department spokesman Michael Schwartzberg told the AFRO. The most recent incident occurred Dec. 7 when a police pulled over a pickup truck driven by Levar Mullen, 33—also known as Var—because the driver was not wearing a seat belt. According to a BPD spokesperson, officers were acting on a tip they received in November that a black male driving a silver Dodge pickup truck was selling narcotics in West Baltimore. “On Dec. 7 detectives patrolling the Edmondson Ave. corridor—wearing plainclothes with black tactical vests with the word POLICE—pulled over Var’s pickup,” Sgt. Sarah Connolly said in a statement. Continued on A3
Members of Baltimore’s Carter Memorial COGIC Prepare to March Into New Home By Afro Staff When the Rev. Carl A. Pierce Sr. of Carter Memorial Church first walked into St. Peter the Apostle Church three years ago, he saw the carved angels, a statue of the patron saint standing over the altar and a pipe organ in the balcony. But Pierce also saw something else in the vacated church, he said. He envisioned himself walking into what would become his church’s new ministry campus. “Something just leaped in my spirit,” Pierce said during a recent interview. “I knew immediately that that was our home. I saw the building transformed. I saw it alive. I saw worship. I saw activity. I immediately saw it.” After 58 years at its current location, Carter Memorial Continued on A5
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Workers Arrested for Guns By Blair Adams AFRO Staff Writer
QUNU, South Africa (NNPA)—With a rich mixture of ceremonial military pomp and ancient tribal customs, Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected president, was buried here Dec. 15 in the village
days left to register on MHC for health coverage effective Jan. 1.
Program For ExOffenders on Hold
Rev. Carl A. Pierce Sr. and congregation
Navy Vice Adm. Michelle Howard Laurel Woman Charged With Tapped for Fourth Star Stabbing Husband to Death Trailblazer Would Become First Woman Admiral By Zachary Lester AFRO Staff Writer U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Michelle J. Howard was recently nominated by President Obama to be elevated to the rank of admiral. Howard would become the first woman—Black or White—to receive the fourth star. Her nomination requires Senate confirmation. Howard, 53, currently serves as deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy. If confirmed, she would become vice chief of naval operations at the Pentagon, the Navy’s second highest position. The latest honor is not the first instance in which Howard was tapped to become a first. In March 1999, she was named commanding officer of the USS Rushmore, the first time an African-American woman had been selected to command a U.S. Navy ship. Howard told Time magazine that being named “surprised people more
Protective Order Requested Against Him Six Months Ago
information about a suspect in the case. The next day, however, Sutton’s wife, Marquita Sharrice Berry-Sutton, The wife of a military officer has 30, turned herself in to authorities. been charged with second degree She was charged with second-degree murder for allegedly stabbing him murder in the case and was ordered to death in their Laurel home. Police held without bail by an Anne Arundel believe the incident District Court judge occurred as the after a brief hearing couple’s toddler was Dec. 16. inside the home. The Police said Sutton child was not injured. was in the U.S. Army. Anne Arundel According to County police were myfoxdc.com, Sutton called to the 8300 may have implicated block of Frostwood herself in the killing, Road in Laurel about allegedly telling 10:30 a.m. Dec. 13 to investigators that she check on the residents. stabbed her husband Inside the home, Courtesy Photo as they fought. they found Johnnie Court records in Marquita Berry-Sutton Sutton III, 38, suffering Anne Arundel District from several stab wounds. He was Court show that a protective order pronounced dead at the scene of the was filed against Sutton on June 16 incident. Police initially did not release Continued on A3 By Zachary Lester AFRO Staff Writer
public.navy.mil
U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Michelle Howard because of her race” than being a woman. “For some of the sailors, it was a big deal—not because of the woman thing, but because of the African-American thing,” she told the magazine. “I literally had people Continued on A4
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