Mail problems bring to light old road issues 75 CENTS
FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2014
BY BRISTOW MARCHANT bmarchant@theitem.com (803) 774-1272
SERVING SOUTH CAROLINA SINCE OCTOBER 15, 1894 3 SECTIONS, 22 PAGES | VOL. 119, NO. 181
Residents on a rural Dalzell road recently got an unwanted delivery in their mailboxes. Notices from the post office arrived notifying residents of the 11 homes on Bolden Lane that their mail delivery would be cut off because the road had become impassable. Problems with mail de-
livery on the unpaved, county-maintained road that stretches for nearly a mile off Peach Orchard Road have re-opened longstanding concerns among residents about the state of their little country lane. Those living there like the country location but have long experienced difficulties with the roadway, even before the notices were mailed April 22, saying mail delivery would be stopped
BRISTOW MARCHANT / THE SUMTER ITEM
Clayton Feagin, 11, walks every day from his home on the private Eight Point Drive down Bolden Lane to catch a school bus on Peach Orchard Road, a nearly one-mile hike. The Feagins have been told Bolden Lane is too narrow for school buses to travel. within two weeks. “I’m worried about getting my check,” said resident Larry Bolden. When Lori Feagin, who lives on a private drive with a mailbox on Bolden Lane, asked how she could be sure she received
her mail, “they said I should get a P.O. box.” Newspaper carriers have also told residents they couldn’t make deliveries on the street, which often floods when it
SEE BOLDEN, PAGE A6
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Segregation still present decades after landmark civil rights ruling WASHINGTON (AP) — Segregation is making a comeback in U.S. schools. Progress toward integrated classrooms has largely been rolled back since the Supreme Court issued its landmark Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision 60 years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. Blacks are now seeing more school segregation than they have in decades, and more than half of Latino students are now attending schools that are majority Latino. In New York, California and Texas, more than half of Latino students are enrolled in schools that are 90 percent minority or more, the report found. In New York, Illinois, Maryland and Michigan, more than half of black students attend schools where 90 percent or more are minority. Project co-director Gary Orfield, author of the “Brown at 60” report, said the changes are troubling because they show some minority students receive poorer educations than white students and Asian students, who tend to be in middle-class schools. The report urged, among other things, deeper research into housing FILE PHOTOS segregation, which is a “funHarry and Eliza Briggs were one of 21 families who became part of the Briggs v. Elliott damental cause of separatecase, which ultimately joined with other cases to form Brown v. Topeka Board of Edu- and-unequal schooling.”
cation which, in a Supreme Court decision in 1954, ultimately ended state-sponsored segregation in American public schools.
SEE 60 YEARS LATER, PAGE A6
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.com Students from Summerton pass a school bus in the 1940s. More than 20 families from the area joined together in 1947 to request adequate transportation for their students, and they filed suit with local courts when refused. That case, Briggs v. Elliott, ultimately was joined with several others to form the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education case.
S.C. House speaker ruling raises accountability questions COLUMBIA (AP) — Who has the power to choose which cases to prosecute in South Carolina, if not the state’s attorney general? It’s a question being raised after a judge halted an investigation involving the House speaker — ostensibly the state’s most powerful lawmaker — ruling the case should first be heard not by the State Grand Jury but by the House Ethics Committee, where the accused would be judged by a panel of his legislative peers. Prosecutors say the move
seriously undercuts the attorney general’s power, while watchdogs worry the action means legislators are able to break laws with minimal consequence. Both groups worry the case sets a dangerous precedent by saying lawmakers aren’t held to the same legal standards as the people who elect them and instead are judged solely by their colleagues. Attorney General Alan Wilson had been in the midst of presenting state police findings regarding possible cor-
ruption charges against Speaker Bobby Harrell to the State Grand Jury. The case stems from allegations the powerful Charleston Republican used his influence to get a permit for his pharmaceutical business and HARRELL improperly appointed his brother to a judicial candidate screening committee. But, after objections from Harrell’s attorneys, a circuit
judge overseeing the process this week ordered Wilson to halt the investigation. The judge ruled that such allegations against a lawmaker must first be heard by a legislative ethics panel, which could ultimately then send the matter to prosecutors for consideration. State ethics law, Circuit Judge Casey Manning wrote, requires that the attorney general first have such a panel’s approval before pursuing his own case. “The Attorney General’s
initiation of this matter is premature,” Manning wrote. “Any investigation by the State Grand Jury at this stage is illegitimate.” The move was immediately celebrated by Harrell, who had decried the entire case as “politically motivated” and criticized Wilson for pursuing it. “By defying the court’s order the way he did, Alan Wilson is trying to act as both prosecutor and judge in this case,” Harrell said Wednesday. “He’s made it clear that this is about playing politics.”