Ticker tape

Jet, Dec 17, 2001 by Simeon Booker

Confidential: After serving five House terms as the only Black member with a rural district, North Carolina Congresswoman Eva Clayton decided not to run for re-election because, "My heart is leading me somewhere else." Replacing her may be her husband's law partner, Frank Ballance, who is expected to run for her congressional seat ...

Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel is the leading sponsor of the congressional effort to hold a symbolic one-day joint session of the nation's legislative bodies in New York City. "It would be historic," says Rangel ... Celebrated historian John Hope Franklin brought his son, John W., along with him to the Smithsonian Institute's first National Book Festival to help autograph books for readers and fans ... Scheduling the first Black World conference in Atlanta, leaders confirmed that the city was a key minority center of opinion after the Sept. 11 terror attack, but discovered that no single Black leader of the faction represented the Black community. One conclusion gained, however, was that Blacks were not about to argue with President George W. Bush about his motives ... After TV Producer Edward Hotaling brought forward microfilmed pay stubs from the 1790s confirming that slaves were the majority of workers who built the Capitol and White House, the campaign to build a memorial for them in Washington gained momentum. Now the effort has gained more support to drive for a Revolutionary War heroes shrine and a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. project ... A Black woman, Deborah C. Jackson, was named to head the Massachusetts Red Cross ... Actively spearheading the national aviation security legislation was New Orleans Mayor Marc A. Morial, the president of the National Conference of Mayors. The group was one of the first "to call for full federalization of airport screening workers."