Volume Volume 124 123 No. No. 34 20–22
www.afro.com
March 26, 2016 - March 26, 2016, The Afro-American A1 $1.00
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MARCH 26, 2016 - APRIL 1, 2016
Building a Bridge
Inside
Baltimore
• AFRO Connects
Senior Living Guide
Employers with Job Seekers
A6
B1
Washington Ravens React to Tray Walker’s Death
• Exelon, Pepco
C6
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
President Barack Obama, Cuban President Raul Castro, and members of the first family pause during a moment of silence before the start of an exhibition baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National team at the Estadio Latinoamericano March 22 in Havana, Cuba.
Third in a Series
Merger Approved
D1
AFRO Archived History
Aftermath of the Groveland Four – Justice Denied
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By Zenitha Prince Senior AFRO Correspondent zprince@afro.com
A White woman crying rape. That was all it took for four AfricanAmerican young men, Samuel Shepherd, Walter Irvin, Ernest Thomas and Charles Greenlee to be shanghaied into a legal lynching that changed their lives—and those of their loved ones—forever. The accusation, and what came after during that summer of 1949, turned the citrus town of Groveland, Fla., into center stage, where familiar actors such as the Ku Klux Klan,
NAACP and civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall starred in a macabre theater of Jim Crow (in)justice. This is the story of the Groveland Four.
As a child Change.org growing up in Three of the four ‘Groveland Four’ around 1949. Florida, Carolyn Greenlee felt there was a black mark of rape…. I never really talked about against her last name. my father,” she told the AFRO. “Growing up, I was ashamed The now-66-year-old Nashville because I didn’t want anyone to know consultant was not even born back my father was in prison and accused in 1949 when her father, Charles
Greenlee and the rest of the men dubbed the “Groveland Four” were, without due process, arrested, tortured, tried and sentenced for the supposed rape of then-17-year-old Norma Padgett in one of the greatest miscarriages of justice the state had seen. Greenlee, who was 16 at the time, was relatively lucky: he was sentenced to life in prison, and paroled after 12 years. Ernest Thomas, his friend, was hunted down and killed by a posse and never saw the inside of a courtroom. Samuel Shepherd, a World War II veteran, Continued on A3
D.C. Leaders Cautiously Supportive Rap pioneer Living with Deadly Water of Garland’s Confirmation Phife Dawg of By James Wright U.S. Court of Appeals, Judge By Tatyana Hopkins Special to the AFRO Garland has served ably here A Tribe Called Howard University News Service jwright@afro.com in the District of Columbia and has earned respect that Quest dies at 45 Life over the past months has changed District leaders appear to transcends party and politics,”
afro.com
Your History • Your Community • Your News
Life in Flint
dramatically for Alaya Smith and her family, which includes her two-year-old son, Amarus Jones, and her fiancé. They live in fear of the water.
Continued on A3
Alaya Smith has been collecting water from friends and family because she cannot drive to the distribution centers. Her 2-year-old son has tested positive for lead poisoning. Photo by Tatyana Hopkins, Howard University News Service
Listen to Afro’s “First Edition” Join Host Sean Yoes Monday-Friday 5-7 p.m. on 88.9 WEAA FM, the Voice of the Community. 21
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be cautiously supportive of President Obama’s selection of the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals-District of Columbia Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 16, President Obama tapped Merrick Garland to be the next jurist to sit on the Supreme Court. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) attended the White House announcement ceremony and said that Garland should have a chance to air his views. “As chief judge of the
Bowser said. “I stand with the president and I urge the Congress to move Judge Garland forward through a fair and judicious process. Just like the residents of the District of Columbia, Judge Garland deserves a vote in the Congress.” Garland, a valedictorian graduate of Harvard College and a magna cum laude alumnus of Harvard Law School, has served on the District’s Continued on A3
By The Associated Press
Phife Dawg, a masterful lyricist whose witty wordplay was a linchpin of the groundbreaking hiphop group A Tribe Called Quest, died March 22 from complications resulting from diabetes, his family said in a statement March 23. He was 45. Dawg, born Malik Isaac Continued on A3
In Cuba, Obama Recalls Long Struggle in U.S. to Confront Racism By George E. Curry Editor-in-Chief EmergeNewsOnline.com Speaking in moving, personal terms, President Obama credited the Civil Rights Movement in the United States for his election as the nation’s first Black president and for breaking down other racial, ethnic and gender barriers. “Now, there’s no secret that our governments disagree on many of these
issues. I’ve had frank conversations with President Castro. For many years, he has pointed out the flaws in the American system – economic inequality; the death penalty; racial discrimination; wars abroad. That’s just a sample. He has a much longer list,” Obama said to laughter. “But here’s what the Cuban people need to understand: I welcome this open debate and dialogue. It’s good. It’s healthy. I’m not afraid of it.” “We do have too much money in
American politics. But, in America, it’s still possible for somebody like me – a child who was raised by a single mom, a child of mixed race who did not have a lot of money – to pursue and achieve the highest office in the land. That’s what’s possible in America.” Even so, America has not been without its problems, Obama candidly acknowledged. “We do have challenges with racial
Copyright © 2016 by the Afro-American Company
Continued on A3
Photo by Brian Ach/Invision/AP, FIle
Phife Dawg (Malik Isaac Taylor) of the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest poses for a photo at SiriusXM studios in New York.