Washington Afro-American Newspaper March 8 2014

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Volume 122 No. 31

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MARCH 8, 2014 - MARCH 14, 2014

D.C. Council Decriminalizes Pot Possession

Lupita Nyong’o Scoops Oscar Win

By Ben Nuckols Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana would no longer be a criminal offense in the nation’s capital under a bill approved Tuesday by the D.C. Council. If the bill becomes law as expected, the District of Columbia would join the 17 states that have decriminalized pot possession in some way. Mayor Vincent Gray supports the measure, and Congress is not expected to intervene to stop it. The council approved the bill March 4 by a 10-1 vote, with one abstention. Last month, the council watered down the bill to maintain criminal penalties for smoking Vincent Orange urged support of his amendment pot in public. Gray and Police before the marijuana vote. Chief Cathy Lanier had expressed concerns that civil fines for smoking in public would be unenforceable. Despite that change, Councilmember Tommy Wells, the bill’s lead sponsor and a candidate for mayor, Attack on D.C. said the district will have Postal Carrier one of the nation’s strongest Prompts $50k decriminalization policies. Civil fines for possession will Reward be just $25, and police won’t be allowed to search someone just because they smell Howard Students marijuana. Take $10K Prize “It really begins to get in Ford at the issue of how much Community harm has been caused by criminalizing,” said Wells, a Challenge Democrat. Possession “will no longer be a reason to arrest you, a reason to frisk you, a reason to detain you.” Wells said he pushed for the legislation in a bid to cut down on the number of arrests for low-level drug crimes,

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By Zachary Lester AFRO Staff Writer

AP Photo

At the 86th Academy Awards, Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 19th-century drama “12 Years a Slave.” The 31-year-old is the the first person from Africa to receive an Academy Award.

Ben Jealous Announces Next Move — From NNPA to NAACP to Silicon Valley

Twenty-four people were slain in the District in the first 60 days of the year, a dozen more than were killed during the same time in 2013. The first to die was Claudia Hall, 51, of Northeast Washington, who was found dead Jan. 3 about 2:20 p.m. inside her home in the 300 block of 18th Pl. NE. Officers who responded to a call for an unconscious person found

By Hazel Trice Edney TriceEdneyWire.com

Benjamin Todd Jealous, the former NAACP president who has weaved a career through politics, the Black press and civil rights, has now announced his next move in pursuit of racial equality and economic justice. Jealous and the Oakland, Calif.-based Kapor Center for Social Impact, located in the Silicon Valley, announced this week that he has joined the center as its first venture partner. The center’s co-founders and cochairs, Mitchell Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein, are bringing Jealous on to find techsavvy entrepreneurs and inventors with ideas for using technology for social impact. Jealous will assist the entrepreneurs, help them shape their tech visions and establish the selection criteria for possible seed money. He will also help lead the center’s effort to make investments in non-profit organizations and will join the board of the Kapor Center-funded Level Playing Field Institute, a non-profit AP File Photo dedicated to breaking down racial barriers in science, technology, engineering and math. “I’ve always been interested in technology. Benjamin Todd Jealous has now announced I’ve always been interested in [deepening] his next move in pursuit of racial equality and economic justice. Continued on A6

Ronnetta Hurley-Brown

Ervin Phillip Ingraham Photos: homicidewatch.org

her inside a building with obvious trauma to her body. She showed no signs of life, according to a police report. The next day, homicide detectives arrested her estranged husband, Alphonso Cleveland, 52, of Northeast, and charged him with second degree murder while armed in the case. Continued on A3

Employees Complain

World Bank Continues Systemic Discrimination By Maria Adebola and Talibah Chikwendu Special to the AFRO

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D.C. Reports 24 Homicides in First Two Months of 2014

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Yona Biru came to the United States after the military government takeover in Ethiopia resulted in a communist government. “I came to the U.S. with $12 in my pocket, including a $2 bill because I was told that was good luck,” Biru said. He worked hard, financing his education by working as a waiter. With his doctorate degree in economics in hand, he started working at the World Bank in 1993. For 17 years, he provided stellar service to the organization, spending seven of those years as the deputy global manager of the International Comparison Program (ICP), “one of the most prominent programs that the bank has ever managed,” he said. On Feb. 20, Biru told a group of civil rights leaders from local chapters in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia areas, that despite his hard work and success, he was not promoted because he is Black. His description of the working environment at the World Bank can be characterized as “Jim Crow” or “apartheid.” It is why the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), D.C. and Prince George’s County chapters; the National Action Network (NAN), D.C. chapter; National Urban League; and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition gathered to hear about and discuss the World Bank and these issues. “We are coming together as a group of local civil rights leaders representing organizations to say that we will Continued on A4

Moorehead Keeps ‘Moving on Up’ First African American to open a Rolls Royce dealership By Zenitha Prince Special to the AFRO The world of Rolls Royce dealerships is a rarefied one – only 38 exist in North America and 121 in the entire world. Thomas Moorehead joined that exclusive fraternity last December when he opened his franchise in Virginia, becoming the first African American to do so. “It took a lot of hard work,” said the 69-year-old entrepreneur of the accomplishment and his other thriving Continued on A4

Copyright © 2014 by the Afro-American Company


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