Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current, August 08, 2007, Page 2, Image 2

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    (Elte
Page A2
Jefferson Search Illegal
(A P) — The FBI violated the legislative business.
The raid was part o f a 16-month
C onstitution w hen agents raided
U.S. Rep. W illiam Jefferson's office international bribery investigation
last year and view ed legislative o f Jefferson, w ho allegedly ac­
docum ents in a corruption investi­ cepted $100,000 from a telecom ­
gation. a federal appeals court ruled munications businessman, $90,000
ofw hich was later
Friday.
re c o v e re d in a
Jefferson argued
f re e z e r in th e
that the first-of-its-
c o n g r e s s m a n 's
kind raid tram pled
W a s h in g to n
congressional inde­
home.
pendence.
The
Je ffe rso n
C o n stitu tio n p ro ­
p
le
aded
n ot
hibits the executive
guilty
in
June
to
branch from using
charges
o
f
solic­
its law enforcem ent
iting m ore than
pow ers to interfere
$500,000in bribes
with the lawm aking
w hile using his
process.
U .S. R ep. W illiam J e ffe rso n
office to broker
The U.S. Court o f
A ppeals for the D istrict o f C olum ­ business deals in Africa.
"W e are confident that as this
bia Circuit held that while the search
itself was constitutional. FBI agents case moves forward, and when all
crossed the line w hen they viewed o f the facts are known, we will pre­
every record in the office w ithout vail again and clear Congressman
giving Jefferson the chance to ar- Jefferson's name," defense attor-
gue that some docum ents involved ney Robert Trout said Friday.
The Portland Chapter of the L.I.N.K.S.
August 8, 2007
^Jortlanh ©hseruer
Famed Civil Rights Lawyer Dies at 100
Had pride in
his black
heritage
(AP) —O liver W. H ill.a c iv il
rights law yer w ho was at the
front o f the legal effort that de­
segregated public schools, has
died at age 100 in Richmond, Va.
In 1954, Hill was part o f a
series o f lawsuits against racially
segregated public schools that
became the U.S. Supreme Court’s
landmark Brown v. Board o f
E d u c a tio n d e c is io n , w h ic h
changed A m erica’s society by
setting the foundation for inte­
grated education.
"H e was am ong the vanguard
in seeking equal opportunity for
all individuals, and he was stead­
fast in his com m itm ent to effect
change. He will be m issed,” said
L. Douglas W ilder, who in 1989
becam e the nation’s first elected
black governor and was a confi­
dant o f H ill’s.
In 1940, Hill won hisfirstcivil
Oliver W. Hill lived a full cen tu ry, m u c h o f it s p e n t a s a n a d v o c a te
fo r civil rights.
rights case in Virginia, one that re­
quired equal pay for black and while
teachers. Eight years later, he was
the first blackelected to Richm ond’s
City C ouncil since R econstruction.
A law suit argued by Hill in 1951
on b eh alf o f students protesting
deplorable conditions at their high
school for blacks in Farm ville be­
cam e one o f five cases decided un­
der Brown.
T hose battles to end the J i m Crow
era w ere dangerous ones for Hill
and other civil rights leaders. Hill
once received so many threats that
he and his wife, Berensenia, w ould
not allow their son to answ er the
telephone.
N or did his battle for civil rights
bring him wealth.
“W e got very few fees for any o f
this," he said in a 1992 interview in
The R ichm ond News Leader.
Hill neverlost sight o f the im por­
tance o f the 1954 court ru I i ng. Wi th-
out it, he said in an interview in the
Richm ond T im es-D ispatch this
year, “ I doubt (the Rev. M artin
Luther) King w ould have gotten
to first base.”
Hill was bom May 1,1907. While
his parents w orked. Hill stayed
with a fam ily that he says instilled
in him pride in his black heritage.
“C o n seq u en tly , from c h ild ­
hood I developed personal es­
teem and expected w hite folks to
treat m e like they did one another
in such settings,” Hill w rote in his
autobiography.
Later, his fam ily m oved to
W ashington, w here he graduated
from high school and graduated
second in his class from H ow ard
U niversity’s law school in 1933.
The top law graduate that year
w as h is frie n d T h u rg o o d
Marshall.
M arshall and Hill w ere part o f
the N A A C P Legal D efense and
Education Fund team that fought
the d eseg reg atio n case to the
Suprem e Court. They rem ained
close friends after M arshall be­
cam e the co u rt’s first black ju s ­
tice.
&
Il!r|Jiirtlattb © hseruer
Newspaper
‘Community
School Supply
Drive'
Seeking the community s support in the
ongoing effort to provide local children
with much needed school supplies for the
upcoming school year.
Donation Drop Site:
The Portland Observer Newspaper
4747MLKBlvd.
M onday-Friday
9 am - 5 pin
Oregon Bridges Inspected after Disaster
Oregon bridges are being in­
spected for im m inent dangers in
the wake o f last w eek’s deadly
collapse o f a freeway bridge across
the M ississippi River in M inne­
apolis, Minn.
The state is also undergoing a
$1.3 billion, 10-year state-funded
project to fix 365 state bridges found
in m ost need o f repair. M ore is
e a rm a rk e d to c h e c k c ity an d
county-ow ned bridges.
(A P) - A 19-year-old handy­
man for a Black M uslim splinter
group in O akland, Calif, has co n ­
fessed and will be charged with
m urder in the shooting death o f an
A frican-A m erican journalist who
was investigating the group's ft-
join Roy jay
President and CEO ol the
African American Chamber oi Commerce
Saturday, Aug. 18th at 9:00 AM
in Dawson Park
(a t N. Vancouver & Stanton)
5K W alk and 1.5 mile loop!
Music, food, & fun!
$20 registration, children under 6 free
Discounts available for teams of IO or
more!
Contact the AAHC to register
at 503.413.1850 or
www.aahc-portland.org
££A¿-H2010
r
Siskiyou
Parte
Slart/Fmmh
R»e!*t And Fthi’ic Approach«« to Community
A PnoorW”
Atneoo
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R
i
NE Thompson
nances, the assistant police chief
said M onday.
D evaughndre Broussard, 19, was
one o f seven people arrested in
Friday's raids on Your Black Muslim
Bakery and nearby houses.
The raids on the bakery organiza­
tion, founded nearly 40 years ago
with a mission toem pow erO akland's
poor, capped o ff a yearlong inves­
tigation into an alleged series of
violent crim es police said w ere co n ­
nected to the group.
C hauncey Bailey, 57, w as a long­
tim e reporter for the O akland T ri­
bune before becom ing editor o f the
D ev a u g h n d re B ro u ssa rd
Post, a w eekly new spaper geared
tow ard the Bay A rea black com m u­
nity, earlier this year.
W itn e sse s said he w as a m ­
bushed Thursday morning in dow n­
town O akland by a man w earing a
mask who shot Bailey multiple times
and then fled.
O v er the w eek en d , co m m u n ity
lead ers g ath ered to m ourn B ailey,
w h o se fu n eral is sc h ed u led for
W ed n esd ay , an d to call fo r an
en d to v io le n ce in the city . S even
h o m ic id e s w ere rep o rted in O a k ­
land sin ce B ailey 's k illin g T h u rs­
day m o rning.
M M M K M M M
Obama to Vibe: Rap creates own reality
A Healthy CokKkVLizpuLty S ta rts W ith yoiz!
IN/NE Morns ]
and other codes.
Federal T ransportation A dm in­
istration figures from 2006 show
that o f O regon's 7,238 bridges, 635,
or 11.66 percent, w ere structurally
deficient.
M any w ere built som e 50 years
ago with an expected life o f about
50 years. A bout a quarter o f the
state's bridges are older than that.
T he A ssociated Press contrib­
uted to this report.
Arrest Made in Journalist Murder Case
Health Coalition, Inc.
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Dave Thom pson said Thursday.
He said m any o f the bridges with
problem s were built using a steel
and reinforced concrete system.
"The w ay we built bridges then
is not the way w e w ould build
bridges today," he said.
He said transportation depart­
m ents have been w arning for years
that trillions o f dollars o f updates
are needed nationally to bring older
bridges up to seism ic, construction
MWMHMHMNMI
Wellness Within
¿ 5 3 REACH Walk
NF Fremont
A 2003 draft report by the Oregon
D epartm ent o f T ransportation co n ­
cluded that with accelerated crack ­
ing and w eight restrictio n s," 13 per­
cent o f O regon's bridges are at or
near the end o f their useful life."
Som e bridges on Interstate 5 in
the Roseburg and Eugene areas and
on Interstate 84 are weight-restricted
because o f cracks and other prob­
lem s but are being fixed beginning
this sum m er, O D O T spokesm an
KAISER PERMANENTE
NEW s e a s o n s !
m a r x it
]
FIT »IrtHT M 0*TH W B «f
( A P) — - B arack O b am a is now
o ffic ia lly h ot — he's on the co v e r
o f V ibe m agazine.
In a p ro file for the 14th an n iv er­
sary issue o f the m usic and lifestyle
g lo ssy , the D em o cratic p re sid e n ­
tial ca n d id a te clarifies his view s
on rap.
T h o u g h he had a h ig h -p ro file
m eeting w ith rap star L u d acris las,
fall, he w as also q u o ted in A pril as
say in g that rap p ers w ere "d e g ra d ­
ing th e ir sisters. T h at d o e sn 't in ­
spire m e."
O b am a to ld V ibe that he w as
m isquoted — he w as talking about
the c u ltu re as a w hole, not rap p ers
in p articu lar.
"I stand by exactly w hat I said,
w hich was that the degrading c o m ­
m ents about w omen that (radio host
Don) Imus said is language that we
hear not ju st on the radio, not ju s, in
m usic. W e o urselves perpetuate
that, and we all have to take respon­
sibility for that."
Bu, the Illin o is se n ato r also
d id n 't let rap p ers o ff the hook.
"T h ere's no doubt that h ip -h o p
cu ltu re m oves o u r yo u n g people
p o w erfu lly . A nd som e o f it is no,
ju s t a reflectio n o f reality ," he told
the m ag azin e. "It also cre ate s re ­
ality . I th in k th at if a ll o u r k id s see
is a g lo rifica tio n o f m aterialism
an d blin g and casu al sex and kids
are n ev er seeing th e m se lv es re ­
flected as h ittin g the b o o k s and
b eing resp o n sib le and d elay in g
g ra tific a tio n , then they are g e t­
ting an u n rea listic p ic tu re o f w hat
the w orld is like."
S till, O b am a seem ed u n w illin g
to use rau n ch y rap as a rally in g
cry in his c a m p a ig n : "M y p rio rity
as a U .S. se n ato r is d ea lin g w ith
D em o cra tic p re sid e n tia l h o p e fu l S e n . B a ra ck O bam a, D-lll, is th e
first p o litica l figure to g ra c e th e c o v e r o f Vibe m a g a zin e . (AP p h o to )
p o v erty and ed u catio n al o p p o r­
tu n ity and ad eq u ate h ealth care.
If I'm ig n o rin g those issues and
spen d in g all my tim e w orry in g
ab o u t rap lyrics, then I'm w asting
my tim e."
So why put a p o litician on the
co v e r o f a m ag azin e that had 50
C ent fro n tin g last m o n th 's issue?
"B ecause for the first tim e since
V IB E w as Iaunched in 1993, a p o -
litical figure has burst on the scene
and fired up yo u n g peo p le in a
m ajo r w a y ,” V ibe ed ito r in c h ie f
D anyel Sm ith said by e-m ail. "B e­
cau se reg a rd le ss o f w ho w ins the
elec tio n , the se n ato r w ill have
in sp ired m any new v o ters to the
p o lls. B ecause O b am a is frank,
b rillian t, v ib ran t, and no, cy n ical
— all th in g s that m ake him a p e r­
fect VI BE co v er."
i