Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick, Charlotte athlete and legend, takes his rightful place in civil rights history

It’s rare to think of history as front page news. But that is exactly where history belongs when, in its own right, it is an untold story.

Today, you can expect to read many things about Charlotte’s history that are news to you as we begin a special three-part series called “Breaking Through."
 

I’ll start with the obvious. Nearly 50 years later, the identity of an African-American who became one of the greatest high school football player's in the history of Charlotte remains unknown to even some of the city’s most ardent sports fans.

He made a courageous decision to break through racial barriers, hoping that college scouts would notice him at a predominantly white high school. We have never connected that choice to one of the most racially violent chapters in our city’s history.

Today, you can read that story. Today, Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick takes his rightful place in history.

Observer Senior Sports Editor Gary Schwab stumbled onto a reference to Kirkpatrick in November. Schwab was searching online for information about Charlotte’s annual Shrine Bowl, which features the high school all-star teams of North and South Carolina.

“I didn’t know who Kirkpatrick was, even though I have worked at the Observer for almost 30 years, mostly as sports editor,” Schwab said. “No one I asked knew, either.”

Observer researcher Maria David found a phone number for Kirkpatrick in Portland, Ore. Schwab and reporter David Scott made the call.

“I’m humbled that you want to tell my story,” Kirkpatrick said on the other end of the line.

It turns out that Kirkpatrick had been telling it for years in Oregon during Black History Month. But he had never had the opportunity to tell it in Charlotte, where his brush with history unfolded.

In 1964 and 1965, when Kirkpatrick was in high school, the Observer did notice him, but only in breathless bouts of breaking news. Kirkpatrick, the unstoppable running back for all-black Second Ward High School. Kirkpatrick, the black athlete who created a buzz by transferring to mostly white Myers Park High. Kirkpatrick, the first black player to make the Observer’s all-star high school football team.

Even the appearance of those stories was unusual. And though there were episodic reports of Kirkpatrick in a civil rights battle, it is only this week's stories that acknowledge the price he paid on his journey.

“Mainstream newspapers rarely covered black athletes in the 1960s, or earlier during segregated times,” Schwab said. “There are dozens of great athletes whose stories went untold or are long forgotten, dozens more whose potential was never realized because of lack of opportunity.”

The Observer has doubled back to report some of those stories in recent years, writing about people like Paul Grier who went to West Charlotte High School in the mid-1950s and is considered by some to be the city’s best-ever high school basketball player.

When we first interviewed Grier, he paused before answering a question. Tears ran down his face.

“Stan Olson, the reporter, asked if he was OK,” Schwab recalled. “’Yes,’ Grier said. ‘It's just that no reporter has ever talked with me before.’”

David Scott wrote about Willie Cooper. While Charlie Scott is remembered as the North Carolina Tar Heels' first black basketball player, Cooper played briefly as a freshman two years earlier, in 1964. In response, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in the front yard of his family’s home in Elm City, about 80 miles east of Chapel Hill.

“I have always been struck by the fact that there is a history here that has gone untold for decades,” Schwab said.

Many people helped us reassemble the history surrounding Kirkpatrick. His former Myers Park quarterback, Neb Hayden, still has the school's film from most of the games of the 1965 season, on 16mm reel-to-reel tape. Hayden let us convert to a digital format some of that film, plus other footage previously transferred to VHS tapes.

As a result, you can see for yourself at CharlotteObserver.com/MyersPark why fans found it necessary to rise to their feet nearly every time Kirkpatrick had the football.

We also interviewed former teammates and opposing players. Some now meet as alumni of two of Charlotte’s former all-black high schools, Second Ward and West Charlotte. Once bitter rivals, they work together to support the community and call themselves the Thursday Morning Breakfast Club.

Kirkpatrick spent hours with Schwab and Scott, recounting his childhood in Charlotte’s Grier Heights community and his fateful decision to leave Second Ward High for Myers Park High. He then traveled to Charlotte to reunite with teammates from both teams, black and white.

Most had not seen him since their days as teenagers.

“This became a chance to talk to his old teammates,” Schwab said, “to see if what happened mattered to them as much as it mattered to him.”

And now it becomes history that matters to all of us.

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com, twitter.com/rthames and www.facebook.com/rthames.obs. Phone: 704-358-5001.

Come hear your Congress member assess the 'Cliff'

The election is over. The Thanksgiving table’s been cleared. But, believe me, this is no time to nap.

Your government has worked itself into a national crisis. Call it a fiscal cliff. Call it a wall of fire. Or simply call it a train wreck.

Just know that it is coming on Jan. 1 if the president and Congress do not find some way to defuse a time-bomb that would again derail the economy.

“A recession would begin in the first half of 2013, reducing economic growth by about 0.5%,” predicts Forbes magazine. “Unemployment would increase. The jobless rate would rise to 9.1% by Dec. 2013.”

If that’s so, why are we here? The short answer is government gridlock. And it doesn’t end with this crisis. Congress is gridlocked on the next moves for Medicare. Immigration. Social Security. Even passage of a farm bill.

On Sunday, Observer reporter Tim Funk explained the root causes of this paralysis and, just as important, what can be done about it.

Now, you are invited to a public forum on Friday, Nov. 30, at UNC Charlotte. Come hear current and former members of Congress suggest ways the nation can move forward

despite its political differences.

For this special report, Tim talked to people who should know: retired Senate Majority leader Bob Dole and his wife, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole; Erskine Bowles, chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and co-chair of the Bowles-Simpson Commission on shrinking the federal deficit; members of Congress who now represent our region; congressional scholars; and journalists who cover Capitol Hill.

Nearly all agree that Congress is in a ditch.

“It’s the most dysfunctional in our lifetime,” says Norm Ornstein, author of “Congress Inside Out,” a column for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. “Maybe not quite as bad as during the Civil War, the War of 1812 or the 1890s. But these are not great periods to compare yourself to.”

These interviews also unearthed potential solutions to the problem. Some can help right away. Others will take time.

All of them ultimately will require the support of the American people. If you want to be part of that, I urge you to join us for the forum at 7 p.m. on Friday in the auditorium of UNCC’s uptown campus building at 320 E. 9th St.

Expected participants include at least three current members of Congress from our region: Rep. Patrick McHenry, Rep. Mel Watt, and Rep. Mick Mulvaney. They will be joined by two former members, Jim Martin and John Spratt, as well as Kimrey Rhinehart, a former top aide to Sen. Richard Burr.

The Observer is presenting the forum in partnership with PNC Bank, the event’s underwriter. The evening’s moderator will be WCNC-TV’s Sonja Gantt. UNC Charlotte is the forum’s host and venue sponsor.

Admission is free, but seating is limited. Here is the link to register in advance.

Moving America forward will not be easy. But it won’t be possible at all unless its people make clear that this is their No. 1 priority.

Free to you: Wednesday's late, late election edition

Because the presidential election went very late, some of you missed the most up to date version of today's newspaper. This was particularly disappointing for many, since a printed newspaper can be a prized keepsake on historic days.

So here are two ways we want to help.

In the A-section of all of Thursday's print editions, we will reprint the final front page as it appeared in today's paper.

And through Thursday, we are offering free access to that final edition in an electronic form. It's our E-edition and it is a replica of the printed paper.

Here is the front page that rolled off our presses between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. today. About a third of our readers got this version.

Here is how to read and save this edition in electronic form today at no charge.

If you are using a PC, link here.

If you are using a tablet other than an iPad, link here:

If you are an iPad user, simply download the app for our E-edition in the Apple store at no charge and it will give you free access today.

To print a copy of your E-edition, go to the upper-right-hand corner of the page of the electronic paper and click on the icon depicting a printer.

To create a copy of the E-edition that you can store on your computer, again go to the upper-right-hand corner and look for the "application link" icon just to the right of the printer icon. Pull down the menu for that icon and click on "Download newspaper PDF."

Once you have your PDF on your computer, it's yours to keep in whatever form you'd like.

Presidential elections are an important part of our history. Even amid the toughest of deadlines, we want your printed Observer to capture that for you.

This week, we bring you the election and more

You could easily guess one reason Wednesday’s Charlotte Observer will be special. We’ll have expansive coverage of local, state and national elections.

Here’s another: Wednesday marks the debut of ShopTalk, a new Observer feature focusing on the world of small business. More on that in a moment.

First, here’s some of what we have for you in the run-up to Election Day.

Did you vote early? You are among millions in the state who are reshaping the dynamics of elections. See today’s 1A story analyzing early-voting trends and their potential impact across the state.

Today’s Big Picture section offers context. With polls suggesting a virtual tie in the presidential race, we explain how the Electoral College could come into play. Also don’t miss a breakout of key congressional races to watch and seven burning questions that the election will answer.

If you have yet to vote, go to CharlotteObserver.com, where you can make your own sample ballot by simply typing in your address. You will also find background on the candidates and other helpful voter information.

Need encouragement just to vote? On Monday, we complete our profiles of people who are so enthusiastic that they are working to turn out people like you. Read what inspires them.

On Tuesday, Election Day, we’ll offer last-minute tips for voters still going to the polls. On CharlotteObserver.com, you’ll find frequent updates on turnout and other developments as they unfold.

Tuesday night, you can check the returns for yourself, minute-by-minute, as they accumulate on CharlotteObserver.com. Dozens of Observer journalists will also report live on races from commissioner to president. They include the reporting team of Jim Morrill and Tim Funk, veteran political observers who began following these contests more than a year ago.

On Wednesday, all of our reporting, photos and graphics will fill 15 extra pages in a special election edition of our printed paper.

A unique feature of the Wednesday paper will be our expanded use of full-color graphics. We’ve planned 10 in all. At a glance, we hope to show you how every N.C. county voted for governor and president. In Mecklenburg, we will break down results for your precinct. Other graphics will detail congressional races and voter turnout.

Now, a preview of ShopTalk, our new Wednesday feature that will be devoted to advice and insights for small business.

Whether you run a small business, or are merely thinking about starting one, we think you will find this to be very useful reading.

Every week, we’ll ask small-business owners who are succeeding to share their experiences, as well as their secrets. This Wednesday, for example, learn how Olive Stewart convinced Whole Foods to stock its shelves with her homemade marinades and seasonings.

Other features include an Ask the Experts column, a calendar of networking opportunities and columnists with advice on everything from time management to having a spouse as business partner.

Nearly one of every five jobs in North Carolina is tied to small business. We are pleased to expand our own coverage of this sector through our underwriting program.

The underwriter, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, pays for the cost of these pages. The Observer’s newsroom independently produces the content and maintains sole editorial responsibility.

Our editor for ShopTalk is Celeste Smith, a member of our business news team who has 18 years of experience at the Observer. The section’s reporter is Caroline McMillan, a Charlotte native who covers the region’s small-business scene.

Smith and McMillan have already been in touch with many in our business community. They look forward to hearing from you.

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com or 704-358-5001.

My talk with MacDonald during his 1979 trial

I can see how someone coming across the murder trial of former Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald 33 years later would think he was wrongly convicted.

As a reporter who covered the trial, I watched the case build for and against MacDonald, day by day, for seven weeks inside a Raleigh courtroom.

I was a 24-year-old reporter for the Fayetteville Observer, barely a year into my first job as a journalist. My beat was the military, and MacDonald, 35, had been a doctor in the Army’s Special Forces.

Fort Bragg was where I reported most of my stories. It was there, nine years earlier, that MacDonald’s family had been savagely wiped out in one night.

Now, MacDonald stood accused of committing that savagery against his own pregnant wife and two small girls.

As the jury went into deliberations, the press corps quietly took its own poll. A majority said MacDonald would be found guilty.

I voted with the minority.

It wasn’t that I was convinced that MacDonald was innocent. I simply doubted that a jury of 12 people could see what I had seen and unanimously agree he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yet they did. They looked right past nagging details that supported MacDonald’s case and decided that what really mattered was this: He was lying.

A 33-year-old tape of the interview.

On Monday, the case gets another airing in a court in Wilmington. MacDonald’s lawyers say they have fresh evidence and testimony that gives more credence to MacDonald’s version of what happened.

That version goes like this. MacDonald and his family were attacked by two white men, a black man wearing a fatigue jacket and a blonde-haired white woman wearing a floppy hat and carrying what appeared to be a candle. The woman, he said, chanted: “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs.”

Journalists tend to hang on to their work when they report memorable stories. For me, the MacDonald trial was that kind of story. When I heard last week about the new hearing, I dragged a plastic tub from a closet and soon was leafing through dozens of articles I filed over that seven-week period.

Reading those yellowed pages, I was reminded how the jury could think the unthinkable.

I also found a cassette tape. On it was my one-on-one interview with MacDonald, conducted while the trial was under way.

I didn’t know this in 1979, but it was remarkable we were talking at all. The government had begun presenting its case. MacDonald decided he could talk because the judge’s gag order covered witnesses, but not the prosecution or defense.

So there we were, sitting in a pizza restaurant during a lunch recess. The rookie reporter asking questions of a defendant who had been honing his story for nearly a decade.

In playing the tape now, I’m reminded of how indignant MacDonald was over the idea of a trial.

Nine years earlier, the Army had investigated MacDonald for the murders and declined to prosecute.

The latest set of prosecutors, he assured me, would present nothing new from that time.

“There is no case,” MacDonald said. “They know there is no case. What they are trying to do is, they are trying to mound up a pile of stuff and make it look like a good investigation was done, and then in a closing argument, unbuttressed with any facts at all, they’re going to misinterpret the witnesses’ words. You watch.”

He heaped special scorn on two people he held principally responsible: His stepfather-in-law, Alfred Kassab, whose complaint with the Justice Department was the basis for re-opening the case; and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Murtagh, who helped prepare the case for trial.

I asked again. Are you sure there’s nothing new?

And then he brought it up. The blue pajama top.

MacDonald had worn it the night of the murders. He said a government expert had come up with a model of that shirt, which would be shown during the trial.

“(It’s) something he devised in 1974 that he felt added to the case,” MacDonald said.

He didn’t seem particularly worked up about this model. And showing my inexperience, I didn’t ask him to explain further.

But a few weeks later, its significance showed when the former FBI expert, Paul Stombaugh, took the stand.

Stombaugh said the shirt had 48 ice pick holes in it, more than four times the number of wounds found on MacDonald. None of the holes matched his wounds. But it was possible to fold the shirt in such a way that the holes equaled the 21 ice pick thrusts into the chest of MacDonald’s wife, Colette.

The shirt was found on her chest. MacDonald said he only put it there after regaining consciousness and finding her severely wounded.

But prosecutors asserted that he stabbed his wife with the ice pick through the pajama top to simulate an attack on him.

As the jury deliberated, among the evidence it requested to see again was that blue pajama top, as well as the top Stombaugh used as a model.

Later, jurors said it was part of a patchwork of physical evidence that convinced them MacDonald had made up his story.

Never mind that the initial Army investigation mishandled critical evidence.

Never mind that a neighbor saw three people, one with a candle, walking toward the MacDonald home the night of the murders.

Never mind that the defense worked to implicate a drug addict who owned a floppy hat and blonde wig, and bore an uncanny resemblance to one of MacDonald’s alleged attackers in a police sketch.

Clothing, blood, fibers and wounds all told a different story.

“All the pieces came together,” one juror told a Charlotte Observer reporter also covering the trial. “You couldn’t deny it.”

As long as those pieces stay firmly in place, it’s difficult to imagine MacDonald’s fate changing now.

Clippings of some of the stories Thames wrote in 1979 while covering the Jeffrey MacDonald trial in Raleigh for the Fayetteville Observer.

Click here for your free copy of today's Charlotte Observer

Want to see today’s printed newspaper? Do that here this week -- for free.

Through Friday, we are offering our popular e-edition of the Charlotte Observer at no charge. Get it on your computer, iPad or smartphone.

PC users go to: http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODE/CharlotteObserverD/
 
Mobile users go to http://tablet.olivesoftware.com/Olive/Tablet/CharlotteObserver

IPad users download our iPad app at the Apple Store.

The e-edition looks exactly like the printed Observer, only it arrives digitally. I read the Observer this way on an iPad three or four times a week. It’s very user-friendly. We’ve arranged for you to link to it easily from the home page of CharlotteObserver.com.

Why the free offer now? Because tighter security measures for the Democratic National Convention could, at times, delay the delivery of the printed Observer.

Our offices are within blocks of the convention. That’s great for news coverage. But we’ve also learned that our delivery trucks will be slowed by security checkpoints next Tuesday through Friday. As a result, some papers may arrive later than usual those days.

We apologize for this inconvenience. As a help, we are offering all readers free access to our printed newspaper, via the Web.

The free access remains in effect daily through Friday. (To report e-edition problems, please call 704-358-5980.)

When you link to the e-edition, you will read the latest possible edition of the newspaper. This could be especially helpful during DNC week because much of the convention will unfold after our early edition deadlines.

So, if either the paper or the news is late, we hope this helps.

Observer is covering conventions from your perspective

Bloomberg will bring 90 people to Charlotte. CNN is sending 100. The Fox News Channel, another 100. In all, 15,000 journalists are predicted to visit for the Democratic National Convention. 

Can you imagine them missing anything you’d want to know? I can.

On Friday, the Observer told you that the Secret Service plans to seal off streets in the heart of Ballantyne during DNC week. Bloomberg, Fox and CNN did not.

Not their mission. But it will be part of ours.

Our media visitors are here for the nation. We’re here for you. That means reporting all that the nation cares about, plus how this convention touches you and your community.

If you’ve read the Observer lately, you know we are already reporting in-depth on the local impact. But we are also prepared for the actual convention. 

In all, the Observer has assigned 85 journalists to cover this moment. They are spread among eight teams, each tackling a specific topic. Those topics range from politics on the convention floor, to protests in the streets, to parties across the region.

One team will focus solely on how Charlotte is doing on this world stage. Were arrivals orderly at the airport? Were there enough cabs? Does the Wi-Fi work? Can visitors find enough places to eat? Are the security checkpoints running smoothly? 

High-caliber extras

For our coverage of the convention itself, we’ll be joined by an additional 20 journalists from our McClatchy Washington Bureau and our sister McClatchy newspapers. This group includes Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts and humor columnist Dave Barry.

We’ve also partnered with Politico.com, a nonpartisan journalism organization based in Washington, D.C. Politico specializes in coverage of the president, Congress and elections. It will have more than 50 journalists here. 

In fact, for DNC week, our newspaper will also be Politico’s designated newspaper. Politico will suspend publication of its printed paper in Washington and, instead, join us in producing a special edition for conventioneers. The best of that edition will also appear in copies of the Observer going to our regular readers. 

All told, we will draw from the work of more than 150 journalists. And that’s not all. Our wire services will continue to give us the best of the New York Times, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press, among others.

We have the same partnerships in place in Tampa for our coverage of this week’s Republican National Convention. We’ve also sent three Observer journalists there and will be picking up stories from the Tampa Bay Times.

Our stepped up coverage of the RNC begins today with stories on Page 1A and a special report on the Tampa convention in place of our Big Picture section.

We’re listening to you

All of these journalists need your perspective. Elections should center on the concerns of voters. What would you ask either candidate for president? Email your question to reporter Tim Funk, tfunk@charlotteobserver.com (please put “candidate question” in the subject line and specify which candidate to ask).

We’ve requested interviews with both President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. If they agree to speak with us, we’ll ask a representative sample of your questions. If not, we’ll still publish the questions for you to see.

Here is a question submitted by Amy Sass of Matthews. 

“Mr. President, If the Republicans retain majority in the House after November, and the Democrats retain majority in the Senate, if you win re-election, what will you do differently over the next four years that will reduce the partisanship in both houses on the major issues facing us today – economy, debt, health care, etc. – so this country can really start moving forward?”

I’d say that’s a good question worth asking both candidates. Who has another?

Reach Rick Thames at rthames@charlotteobserver.com, twitter.com/rthames and www.facebook.com/rthames.obs. Phone: 704-358-5001