www . ThESkAnnEr . CoM
S EpTEMbEr 21, 2011
S EATTlE , w AShingTon
V oluME XXXiii, n o . 47
25
CEnTS
I NSIDE
‘bridesmaids’
page 2
‘Sister Citizen’
page 5
Toure
page 6
C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow
Troy
Davis
Execution
Helping
Vets
Worldwide protests
held over Georgia
inmate’s fate
By Greg Bluestein
The associated Press
PHOTO BY SuSaN FrIED
Volunteer Michelle Echols cuts the hair of
Ann Merwin at the 1st Annual Seattle
Stand Down Sept. 15 at Seattle Central
Community College.
The event
provided a “hand up” to veterans and
their families with a variety of services
including eye exams, health screenings,
education and employment information
provided by more than 50 organizations
and agencies.
Tacoma Teacher Strike Continues
Gov. Gregoire commands both sides to hammer out agreement
OLYMPIa, Wash. (AP) —
Washington
Gov.
Chris
Gregoire has told both sides in
the Tacoma teachers strike she
wants an agreement by 3 p.m.
Wednesday or she wants to see
them in her office.
The governor has no direct
control
of
schools
in
Washington, which has a sepa-
rate superintendent of public
instruction, but Gregoire wants
kids back in the classrooms, her
spokesman Cory Curtis said.
“There is no question that the
Tacoma teacher strike has con-
tinued for far too long - disrupt-
ing the lives of families and the
28,000 students who need to be
in school,” Gregoire said in a
written statement.
Wednesday is the seventh day
classes have been canceled in
the state’s third-largest school
district. Seattle’s and Spokane’s
school systems are larger.
Talks broke down Tuesday
night. Issues include pay and
class size, but the major sticking
point is how the district handles
teacher transfers. The district
wants to consider some factors
INDEX
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bids/Classifieds............3
in addition to seniority.
Last week a judge ordered
teachers to go back to work.
The decision came following
arguments by the Tacoma
School District that 19 different
state courts have ruled teacher
strikes illegal since 1976.
Pierce County Superior Court
Judge Bryan Chushcoff said he
would issue a temporary
restraining order against the
picketing teachers, but the lan-
guage of the order wasn’t
expected to be decided until
later Wednesday.
Hundreds of teachers began
picketing in front of Tacoma’s
major high schools Tuesday
after contract negotiations broke
down over the weekend. The
strike has kept 28,000 students
home.
The school district said it
would wait until it sees the lan-
guage of the order before decid-
ing whether classes would
resume on Thursday.
Gregoire said she wanted dis-
trict and union negotiators to
stay in her office “until their dif-
See STrIkE on page 3
aTLaNTa (AP) — Troy Davis support-
ers in the U.S. and Europe were trying just
about anything to spare him from lethal
injection Wednesday evening for killing an
off-duty Georgia policeman, a crime he and
others have insisted for years that he did not
commit.
As The Skanner News webnt to press a
temporary injunction had been issued by the
US Supreme Court, but the final fate of
Davis remained up in the air.
Supporters planned vigils around the
world. They’ll be outside Georgia’s death
row prison in Jackson and at U.S. embassies
in Europe.
At presstime Wednesday morning, the 42-
year-old’s most realistic, though slim,
chance for reprieve is through the courts,
and his lawyers are trying. His backers have
tried increasingly frenzied measures: offer-
ing for Davis to take a polygraph test, urg-
ing prison workers to strike or call in sick,
posting a judge’s phone number online, urg-
ing people to call and ask him to put a stop
to the 7 p.m. execution. They’ve even con-
sidered a desperate appeal for White House
intervention.
“We’re trying everything we can do,
everything under the law,” said Chester
Dunham, a civil rights activist and talk show
host protesting in Savannah, where in 1989,
prosecutors say Davis fatally shot 27-year-
old Mark MacPhail.
Davis’ supporters include former
President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI
and a former FBI director, the NAACP, as
well as conservative figures. The U.S.
Supreme Court even gave him an unusual
opportunity to prove his innocence last year,
but ultimately didn’t hear the merits of the
case.
Several witnesses have recanted their
accounts that it was Davis who pulled the
trigger, and some jurors have said they’ve
See DavIS on page 3
black longshore workers hold help Event
A boisterous crowd fills Portland cafe in bid to counter racist history
A
bout 100 prospective longshore
workers thronged Reflections
Coffee and Books Tuesday morning
at 11 sharp to make sure their application
cards were filled in correctly for the
Portland Maritime Association “casual
worker” jobs lottery.
African American employees of the PMA
held the event on their own time, staffing
the help table on their lunch hour, then trad-
ing off with other workers scheduled to
come down, in turn, when their lunch hour
arrived.
The effort by local Black workers to help
others make sure their job bids are filled out
and submitted correctly comes amidst a
long struggle against discrimination on the
waterfront dating back almost 60 years.
“It’s a big deal because most of what
we’ve been talking about locally is the
opportunity for Blacks to have free access to
the economic development of Oregon,” said
Portland City Council candidate Teressa
Raiford, who attended the Tuesday help ses-
sion at Reflections.
“A lot of these guys who are here now –
we’re talking about past generations of fam-
ily members who were also longshoremen
See wOrkErS on page 3