Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper June 29 2013 by AFRO News

June 29, 2013 - June 29, 2013, The Afro-American A1 $1.00

www.afro.com

Volume 121 No. 47

JUNE 29, 2013 - JULY 5, 2013

Voting Rights Gutted COGIC’s AIM to Make By Zenitha Prince Special to the AFRO A Supreme Court decision on June 25 has unraveled important civil rights gains of the past 50 years, activists and some legal experts are saying. In the 5-4 ruling, the justices struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the formula that decides which jurisdictions must submit election changes for federal review to prevent discrimination against voters, a mandate dictated by Section 5. Added to the high court’s ruling the day before, which imposed tougher standards on universities that use racebased admissions policies to boost diversity, the

INSIDE C1

COGIC Feature Section

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

ruling on June 25 reflects a disheartening trend, observers said. “This marks the beginning of a pattern of retrenchment that will erode many hardfought civil rights gains,” said Jose Anderson, professor of law at the University of Baltimore’s School of Law. “The conservative wing of the court seems anxious to allow local governments to abandon racial progress sooner rather than later.” The case, Shelby County v. Eric Holder, raised the controversial issues of race and federalism. In 2010, Shelby County, a largely White suburb of Birmingham, Ala., filed suit asking for Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act to be declared

unconstitutional. The law usurped the authority of the states, undermined the equal sovereignty that states are supposed to share and is based on an outdated formula, the plaintiff argued. Shelby’s “arguments have a good deal of force,” said Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion. Joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Roberts voted to uphold Section 5, acknowledging that discrimination at the ballot box still exists, but invalidated Section 4. “Coverage today is based on decades-old data and eradicated practices. The formula captures States by reference to literacy tests and low voter registration and turnout in the 1960s and early 1970s. But such tests have been banned nationwide for over 40 years. And voter registration and turnout numbers in the covered States have risen dramatically in the years since,” Roberts wrote. He later added, “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is

Disciples Worldwide By Zenitha Prince Special to the AFRO No man is an island, including the leader of a religious body. Jesus gave the “great commission” to his disciples to go out and make disciples of people all over the world, baptizing them and teaching them all he had taught them. It was a daunting task: They couldn’t do it alone, and neither can the “apostles” of this age, which is why the Church of God in Christ’s Auxiliaries in Ministry Convention is such an integral part of that denomination. From July 1-5, thousands of Church of God in Christ (COGIC) members will journey to Baltimore for the 2013 AIM Convention, an annual conclave. “The goal of AIM is effectiveness in ministry,” the church’s website states. “Its primary goal is training for a more effective

domestic and global outreach, and its mission is to advance Kingdom work through training, worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and service.” During the formative stages of COGIC, its founder Bishop Charles H. Mason organized departments to further support the work of the church. As it continued to grow and expand, new departments, auxiliaries and ministries were added, a reflection of the church’s holistic approach to ministry both to its members and to the communities in which they serve. Today, COGIC has several subsidiaries. The work of the International Department of Evangelism is to fan the flames of evangelism by providing “structure, mentoring, moral support and training” for all COGIC’s members, as all are called to spread the work of the gospel. According to COGIC’s newsletter, the department’s new leader, the Continued on A3

Continued on A3

27 Shot, 9 Dead in the First Five Days of Summer By Blair Adams and Krishana Davis AFRO Staff Writers The first days of summer have been busy for the Baltimore Police Department, as a string of shootings and murders have swept the city. In the first five days of summer, from June 21 to June 25, there were 27 shootings in the city. Police said nine people have been killed, bringing the homicide total, as of June 25, to 111, up nine from the 102 who had died at the same time last year. “These acts of violence are unacceptable... and those responsible

will be held accountable for their actions,” saie Col. Garnell Green, Baltimore’s chief of patrol, during a news conference on June 25, the day five people were shot, including one who died. That incident occurred just before 9 p.m. in the 2900 block of Gwynns Falls Parkway. Police who responded to 911 calls reporting gunfire arrived to find a man shot multiple times. He was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police did not immediately identify the victim. A few hours earlier, at 6:34 p.m., a man and a woman who were headed into the Wendy’s restaurant

Photo by Krishana Davis

Col. Garnell Green holds a press conference at around 10:45 p.m. to address the five shootings, including one murder, which occurred on June 25.

in the 2700 block of Martin Luther King Blvd. were shot by suspects who fled on foot into the 900 block of McCulloh St. The woman was transported to a local hospital suffering from a gunshot wound to the leg. Later, the man walked into a hospital seeking treatment for a non-life threatening gunshot wound, authorities said. Police said two other shootings— one at the intersection of St. Lo Drive and Sinclair Lane and another in the 2000 block of Northbourne Road—are related. In both incidents, two men were shot in the leg. None of the injuries was believed to be life Continued on A4

Eliminating Affirmative Action Family Reunions Now Would Hurt Black Enrollment Big Business

By George E. Curry NNPA Editor-in-Chief

Whenever states have eliminated affirmative action in the past, adecline in Black college enrollment has followed that decision, astudy by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA shows. Rather than make a definitive ruling on a case involving the University of Texas, the Supreme Court on June 24 sent the case back to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals with instructions for the judges to determine whether the university met the strict scrutiny standard mandated by previous Supreme Court ruling involving the University of California-Davis Medical School (Bakke) University of Michigan Law School (Grutter). At issue in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin was whether the university could consider race as a factor in admissions in addition to their race-neutral Top 10 Percent Plan that

guarantees the top 10 percent of each high school class admission to the state’s flagship university. “To understand what the likely outcomes of a loss of affirmative action nationally would be, one only needs to look at the state of California,” said Patricia Gandara, in her report entitled “California: A Case Study in the Loss of Affirmative Action.” She noted that the Regents of the University of California passed a resolution in 1995 eliminating affirmative action in university admissions. In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209, a ballot measure that abolished affirmative action in employment and university admissions. “In the University system as a whole, there was a 22% decline in enrollments of African American students between 1995 and 1998 and a decline of 15% for Chicano/Latinos for the same period,” the report found.

Not Your Grandmother’s Gathering By Zachary Lester AFRO Staff Writer Once upon a time, families gathered in Grandma’s backyard or at a park for reunions. They ate hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and watermelon as the children played tag and the old folks reminisced about family reunions past. Today’s reunions are likely to be fancier gatherings that take months to plan and cost tens of thousands of dollars—or more. Some families rent whole floors of hotels in their hometowns, book conference rooms and design extensive activities including sports events, dances and fancy dinners to catch up with family. Others rotate reunions around the country, moving from one vacation Continued on A4

Courtesy the family

Glayds Johnson, a member of the Graham family