NEW THIRD STORY
ST. AUG LOSES SECOND BID
TO SAVE ACCREDITATION
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
In yet, maybe, another decisive blow to its future, St. Augustine’s University (SAU) announced Monday that it has lost its final appeal with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to retain its accreditation through the organization.
That accreditation is considered vital for schools to be formally recognized by the federal government to receive financial aid for attending students.
SAU leaders said that the private, Episcopalian HBCU in Raleigh will file a lawsuit against SACSCOC, and petition the court for an injunction, in hopes that it can maintain its temporary accreditation status during court proceedings if granted.
By doing so, SAU says it can hold classes for the fall semester virtually online. The school's last graduating class was in May, consisting of approximately 25 students. Enrollment for Fall 2024 classes was 200 students, down from a traditional high of 1500 per semester.
“We will stop at nothing to ensure that SAU maintains its accreditation and continues serving our students,” assured Brian Boulware, SAU chair of the Board of Trustees.
This is the second time in a row that SAU has lost an accreditation appeal with SACSCOC, meaning that it can no longer any more. The academic designation was first stripped from SAU in December 2023, primarily because of allegations of fiscal mismanagement at the nonprofit institution.
In recent years, SAU has been plagued by lawsuits from vendors claiming that they have not been paid, former employees who cited allegations of mistreatment, and failure to pay back taxes to the federal government, all of which have amounted to tens of millions owed or will be owed.
SAU’s efforts to secure loans, using some, if not most of its 105-acre property, have fallen short, partly due to failure to pass muster with the state Attorney General’s Office.
Beyond litigation, one of the only accreditation cards left for SAU to play in order to stay in business “if necessary” according to the school, is to apply to the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, or TRACS.
TRACS was able to help rescue Bennett College for Women in 2018 in Greensboro when the HBCU lost its SACSCOC accreditation after a legal battle.
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RULING IN RACIAL BIAS
REDISTRICTING CASE
EXPECTED BY AUGUST
By Cash Michael
The six-day federal racial bias redistricting trial that ended July 9th in Winston-Salem is not expected to see a final decision until sometime in August, at the earliest.
In fact, attorneys for both sides in the legal dispute are expected to submit their concluding motions in the case to the three-judge federal judicial panel that heard the case by August 5th.
Attorneys for a group of black voters, in addition to the NC NAACP and Common Cause NC who served as plaintiffs in the case, squared off against defendant attorneys for Republican legislative leaders.
A key factor in arguments for both sides is that African-Americans overwhelmingly and traditionally vote fo Democrats. Plaintiffs used this fact to allege that blacks in what is known as the state’s “Black Belt” of majority-minority districts in the Piedmont were denied electing their choice of candidates.
Republicans countered that because blacks vote primarily Democratic, they were treated as political partisans, not racially, which is legal.
At issue is whether race was a deciding factor in drawing six of 14 congressional districts, nine of 120 NC House districts, and five of 50 state Senate district voting maps for North Carolina in 2023 for the 2024 elections, constituting illegal racial gerrymandering.
Claims against the state House districts were dismissed early in the trial.
The allegations in two federal lawsuits, specifically that black voting power was diluted mostly in the Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point areas, where it is normally prominent, were merged into one case when the trial began on June 16th.
Republicans vigorously denied the allegations, charging, instead, that the maps they drew were examples of legal partisan gerrymandering that plaintiffs allege were “in racial garb.”
Republicans also maintain that they did not use racial data to draw the 2024 maps.
The 2024 GOP redistricting maps were used, but will have to be redrawn for 2026 if the federal judicial panel decides they are unconstitutional.
The three judge federal judicial panel - all appointed by Republican presidents - heard arguments in the case during the six-day trial.
On the first day of testimony, former NC state Rep. Earl Jones told the court that the congressional redistricting map for Greensboro looked like a “glass smashed against the pavement.”
“I’m concerned about the carving up and cutting up of my community, and I’m trying to get that changed somehow,” said Jones, noting that portions of nearby mostly white Republican areas were effectively combined with predominately black voting areas in Guilford County, for example, to dilute black voting strength there.
The result was that no Democrat chose to run in the newly constituted 6th Congressional District there, even though Democrat Kathy Manning had previous represented the area before it was redrawn.
The 2024 North Carolina congressional redrawn maps saw ten Republicans and four Democrats elected, as opposed to a 2022 court-ordered redistricting maps which saw seven Republicans and seven Democrats elected.
Testimony was also heard about how redistricting negatively affected legislative Senate districts 1 and 2, and Senate District 8 which includes Columbus, Brunswick county, plus a part of inner city Wilmington.
Expert testimony from both sides concluded the trial on July 9th.
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NATIONAL NAACP CONFAB
IN CHARLOTTE TOUTS
“FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW”
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The National Association or the Advancement of Colored People wrapped up its 116th four-day national convention in Charlotte on Wednesday, the first in the Queen City since 1996.
With thousands of delegates and attendees from across the country attending, the convention, which did not invite Republican President Donald Trump, to speak, touted its theme, “The Fierce Urgency of Now.”
The theme was derived from a phrase used by civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his 1963 “I Have a Dream’ speech during the historic March on Washington.
According to the NAACP, the current political landscape under Trump is ‘hostile and divided’, and “Civil rights are in danger. Race is once again being used as a tool to deny promises this country made to all of its citizens. The NAACP was built for times such as this.”
“There has never been a time in our generation where it is more important to take power back into our own hands and really see what we want to see in the world that we live in,” Vanessa Mbonu, vice president of marketing for the NAACP Convention, told Charlotte television station WSOC-TV. “So whether that be civic engagement, whether that be economic equity, whether that be social impact, we want people to understand that we are truly living in perilous times, and the fierce urgency of now is really the only way we can explain how important it is that we all get, you know, activated, and we all put power back into our own hands.”
Clearly some of that power is economic, as when all the tally sheets are completed, the city of Charlotte expects the convention to have generated over $16.7 million in economic impact, which would exceed what was generated in the last two convention sites - Las Vegas and Boston - respectively.
But still, beyond the dollars spent, the most important aspect of the NAACP Convention was the issues addressed by various speakers, like race and justice; advocacy and litigation; and next generation leadership, among others.
Among the attendees and noted speakers, there were black business entrepreneurs, black artists, black scholars and black activists, in addition to black entertainers.
Youth empowerment was clearly another call to action that was prevalent at the convention, as the importance of voter registration and voter mobilization, especially on black college campuses throughout the nation, was stressed.
Several policy enactments by the Trump Administration and the Republican-led Congress, like the recently ratified ‘One Big Beautiful” law that severely slashes the federal social safety net for poor people, in addition to policies that attack institutional diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government and the private sector (DEI), are seen as antithetical to the African-American community, and must be not only addressed, but actively respond to, several NAACP convention speakers said.
“It’s our job at the national level to ensure that people have the tools and the resources to be the best advocates that they can be in their communities,” Karen Boykin-Towns, vice chair of the NAACP National Board of Directors, told the Charlotte Observer.
‘“A lot of people are feeling powerless, “ she continued. “Once the people understand they have the power, then we can be even more engaged, involved and push back because we can’t be silenced.”
The 2026 NAACP convention will be held next year in Chicago, Ill. July 18 - 22nd.
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