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Volume 122 No. 10
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OCTOBER 12, 2013 - OCTOBER 18, 2013
Justice Department to Challenge New N.C. Voting Laws
combat voting laws that discriminate against Blacks, Attorney General Eric Holder announced plans to sue North Carolina over restrictive, new voting laws that critics say will suppress the minority vote. In a press statement, Holder said: “The North Carolina law includes troubling new restrictions, such as provisions that will significantly reduce early voting days; eliminate sameday registration during early voting; impose a restrictive photo identification requirement for in-person Continued on A3
By Freddie Allen NNPA Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON – Stepping up efforts to
Attorney General Eric Holder announced plans to sue North Carolina.
INSIDE
Marc Willis, furloughed federal worker Courtesy Photos
More than 800,000 federal government workers remained off the job Oct. 9 as the shutdown moved into it’s second week. Furloughed employees include administrators and blue collar workers, each hoping to get back to work soon. The workers include long-time residents and new hires, administrators and blue-collar workers, each hoping to get back to work soon.
Victoria Jones has spent much of her furlough with nephews Cade (right) and Carson Binns.
Marc Willis, Sterling, Va. Public Affairs Specialist
Continued on A5
Henrietta Lacks Honored with Plaque
Emmanuel Baptist Celebrates 32 Years
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Ayanna Gregory Pays Homage to Father, Dick Gregory INSERT • Walmart
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
Suit Alleges JC Hayward Involved in D.C. Charter School Scam By AFRO Staff
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Decades Later, Black Woman’s Cells Assist Medical Research
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Three former managers of one of the city’s charter public schools allegedly diverted at least $3 million in taxpayer funds to enrich themselves with the assistance of local news personality JC Hayward, according to a lawsuit filed by city officials Oct. 1, The Washington Post reported. The suit alleges that the three managers engaged in a contracting scam by creating two for-profit companies which provided services to their school, Options Public Charter School in Northeast D.C., at inflated prices. JC Hayward According to the Post, the three were aided by the thenchairwoman of the Options board of trustees, JC Hayward, who allegedly signed contracts to provide funds to the two companies. Hayward, who was the weekday noon anchor at WUSA9, local affiliate of CBS, where she was also the station’s vice president for media outreach, was relieved of her duties with the television station the day the suit was filed, according to a news report by
WUSA. Hayward told WUSA reporters that she had not done anything wrong, only signed the contracts in her capacity as chair of the school’s board, and had not received any money herself. She said she resigned from the school’s board in late September, before the suit was filed. In addition to Hayward, also named in the civil suit filed by D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan were Dr. Donna Montgomery, Dr. David Cranford, and Paul Dalton, the three managers of Options, all of whom left the school in July. Also named was Jeffrey Williams, who until August was the chief financial officer of the D.C. Charter Public Charter School Board and allegedly aided in the scheme. According to the Washington CityPaper, Williams alerted the school’s managers of imminent inspections. According to the Post, criminal charges have not been filed in the case, but a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr. said prosecutors were aware of the suit and “will review all pertinent information” in the case.
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 A4
Henrietta Lacks
Conservative Black Pastors Meet in D.C. By Zenitha Prince AFRO Contributing Writer Tea party figurehead U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.), was the keynote speaker at an awards dinner Oct. 8th that kicked off the Coalition of African American Pastors’ 8th Annual Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. “Senator Paul is one of the most prominent leaders in Washington because he understands issues that affect all Americans and is willing to offer solutions that will make their lives better. We are proud to have him featured at our awards dinner,” said the Rev. Bill Owens, president of CAAP, in a statement before the event. “The 8th Annual Leadership Conference will serve as a forum for those willing to stand up and speak out for many in the disenfranchised Black communities of America. With the help of strong leaders like Senator Paul, these are goals that CAAP is certain can be achieved.” Despite that glowing praise, and with a list of other invited guests that included Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), and the conference’s cosponsorship by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in the District, Owens insisted the group is a nonpartisan one that does not endorse “anybody.” “Senator Paul will be here to discuss Bishop Aubrey Shines inequities in education and the prison system— that’s all he can talk about,” the 74-year-old retired pastor, who participated in the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis, Tenn., during the 1950s and ‘60s, told the AFRO in an interview before the event. “We are not for any political group. We deal with the issues Blacks face every day, [so] if the Democrats are not addressing [those] issues we go at them; if the Republicans are not doing right, we will go at them.” For example, said Owens, many CAAP members voted for President Obama, but they now find themselves at odds with the –Bishop Shines administration’s stance on several issues, Continued on A4
“Black and Hispanic clergy have awakened. We will not be bamboozled by this political agenda.”
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