DONTAE SHARPE
WHY HASN’T DONTAE SHARPE
BEEN GRANTED A PARDON OF
INNOCENCE BY NOW?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Next month, will mark two years since Dontae Sharpe was finally released from prison after 26 years of being falsely convicted for a 1994 Greenville murder he did not commit.
It has been documented in court how Sharpe, then 18, was framed by Greenville police who cajoled so-called witnesses to lie under oath, and also misled the judge overseeing the case.
So there has been little question about Sharpe’s innocence, and yet, activists say Gov. Roy Cooper has inexplicably not granted Sharpe a pardon of innocence - an official acknowledgment by the state of North Carolina that Sharpe was unjustly convicted and imprisoned for 26 years.
Gov. Roy Cooper was petitioned to grant a pardon of innocence in November of 2019.
Without that official designation, Sharpe is not eligible to collect the legislated $50,000 per year, or $750,000 maximum in compensation from the state.
Sharpe, now 46, along with several supporters including Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach, and co-chair of the national Poor People’s Campaign, went to the State Capitol last Friday to ask what is the holdup?
What else does Gov. Cooper need to know or hear to grant Sharpe what he is rightfully entitled to?
“[Sharpe] represents the great tradition of Black men who have had to walk with their backs straight even when the system was trying to break them and bend them,” Rev. Barber told those gathered.
Sharpe and his supporters delivered letters and petitions containing 17,000 signatures demanding a pardon of innocence for him to representatives of the governor.
“This pardon — I’m not begging for it, I’m not pleading for it. I’m just here to put Mr. Cooper and this whole system on notice that I’m going to keep right on talking. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing, because there are more guys that I left in there behind me who are innocent,” Sharpe said. “There are still so many [other innocent] people left in [prison].”
Sharpe says he wants repay his mother for all of the money she has spent over the 26 years he had pent in prison helping him, as well as also rebuilding his life.
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NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES
BLACK UNC STUDENTS
DEMAND CHANGE AFTER
HANNAH-JONES INCIDENT
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
In the eyes of many observers, the image of UNC - Chapel Hill in the aftermath of the Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure debacle is in tatters. The question now is “How does UNC go forward being responsive to the needs of it’s Black students, and Black faculty?”
The question is important because as the oldest public university in the nation, UNC - Chapel Hill is supposed to be a beacon of free, informed thinking and research where African-Americans from across the nation from across the nation can come to learn to be become scholars - like Nicole Hanna-Jones - as well as teach to produce the next generation of world changers.
Last week, after Hannah-Jones announced that she was rejecting the UNC Trustee Board’s half-hearted offer of tenure after months of literally ignoring the fact that she had obviously been denied what other scholars of her caliber had been previously and automatically been given when recruited to teach at the journalism and media school, Black UNC students made clear that they would be heard.
The “horrible way,” Hannah-Jones says, Black student demonstrators were treated by campus police at the June 30th emergency trustee board meeting, being pushed and grabbed with none of the administrators coming to their defense, cinched her decision to accept Howard University’s generous offer to teach there.
If the university wants to redeem itself, Hannah-Jones told the Raleigh News and Observer afterwards, it needs to apologize to its Black students for that harsh treatment during the tenure vote; come clean on why the trustee had ignored codifying Hannah-Jones’ tenure in the offer she was made since last year; and change the process of how the mostly white male UNC System Board of Governors an the UNC - Chapel Hill Trustee Board are chosen so that both reflect the true demographics, racial an gender makeup of North Carolina and the school.
Both NC House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President pro Tem Phil Berger, Republicans, have already backhandedly dismissed changing the boards’ selection process., saying change was not needed, even though both boards are majority comprised of conservatives.
Reportedly, Black females comprise just 1.9% of all tenured faculty at UNC-Chapel, with tenured Black faculty just 5%, and Black students just 8% - a far cry from North Carolina’s 22% Black population.
Hannah-Jones also wants the trustee board to agree to a list of demands from the Carolina Black Caucus in an effort to retain and recruit Black faculty, many of whom have expressed a desire either to steer clear of, or leave UNC - Chapel Hill.
Per the Black student 54 point list of demands they want to see the trustee board agree to, it includes a permanent, fully funded monument to James Cates, a previous student stabbed to death on campus in 1970; removing campus police from Residence Hall move-in; establishment of an “anti-racist” alert of white supremacists on campus for Black student safety; no white supremacists, like members of the former Trump administration, being invited to speak or appear on campus, in an effort to “…to create a safer space” for Black students.
The list, supplied by the UNC Black Student Movement (BSM), makes clear that the demands should be approved and go into effect by this August, when the student body returns for the fall semester.
Black UNC students were particularly upset right -wing activists were seen carrying Confederate battle flags on campus last Saturday, and planted smaller flags around the Unsung Founders Memorial, which was erected in 2005 to honor Blacks who helped to build the university.
The students accused UNC police of “looting” known white supremacists to roam the campus freely, while black students were pushed an shoved at the June 30th trustees’ meeting.
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR JULY 15TH, 2021
US NEWS & WORLD REPORTS HIGHLY RANKS RALEIGH-DURHAM AREA
[RALEIGH] A national news magazine ranks the Raleigh-Durham area as the second best of the country in which to live. The latest edition of U.S. News and World Reports ranks Raleigh-Durham second behind Boulder, Colorado in terms of quality of living, per the top 150 cities listed. Next in the Top 5 are Huntsville, Ala., Fayetteville, Ark. and Austin, Texas. Raleigh-Durham moved up from 11th last year. Other North Carolina cities on the Top 150 list are Charlotte at #20; Winston-Salem at #46; Asheville at #48 and Greensboro at #94.
PUBLIC SAFETY SECRETARY HOOKS WILL RETIRE AUGUST 1ST
[RALEIGH] After four and a half years, NC Public Safety Secretary Erik Hooks has announced that he is retiring on August 1st. Before he took over the department, Sec. Hooks served 27 years with the State Bureau of investigation, becoming assistant director in 2005. “Thanks to the leadership of Erik Hooks, North Carolina is a safer, more prepared state,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. “Under Secretary Hooks, the Department of Public Safety has put the safety of North Carolinians first, working to combat crime, respond to emergencies, including a once-in-a-generation pandemic, attract and retain quality staff and address inequities in the justice system. I’ve been fortunate to know Secretary Hooks for more than two decades, and while his leadership and counsel will be missed, I congratulate him on a well-deserved retirement."
APEX GETS FIRST BLACK FEMALE TOWN MANAGER
[APEX] The Western Wake County town of Apex got it’s first Black female town manger this week, amid a report that it’s police department is “deeply entrenched” with racism. Katy Crosby comes to the job from Toledo, Ohio, where she spent three years serving as chief of staff. Right now, Apex, like other similarly sized towns across the seat, is experiencing rapid growth, and Crosby says she feels that her skillset makes her more than qualified to help continue down that path.
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