PCUSA gives NAACP $10,000 for legal case By John H. Adams The Layman Online Tuesday, September 5, 2000 WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The Presbyterian Church (USA) has awarded a $10,000 grant to the NAACP in Forsyth County, N.C., to help pay lawyers to fight a five-year-old school redistricting plan. Dr. Otis Turner, associate director of the PCUSA's Racial Justice Policy Development, said approval of the grant came recently. The 1999 General Assembly and Salem Presbytery endorsed the NAACP's proposed legal challenge of the redistricting plan. The initial request to the PCUSA came from the Rev. Carlton Eversley, the leader of the education caucus of the local branch of the NAACP. Eversley is pastor of the 93-member Dellabrook Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem. NAACP officials oppose the school redistricting plan because they say it resegregates students. But school officials stand by the redistricting plan, said Doug Hinson, the school system's spokesman. Several federal courts have issued decisions recently that tend to support the practices of the plan, he said. School officials also say they devote more resources to the system's "equity-plus" schools, which have high numbers of low-income students. Many of those schools also have high numbers of minority students. The additional money is used to reduce class sizes and to provide teachers with bonuses. Eversley said the NAACP must raise $60,000 before it files suit against the redistricting plan. Besides the grant from the PCUSA, which will be disbursed by the presbytery, the Forsyth County group has a $30,000 pledge from the National NAACP and $5,000 in local contributions, Eversley said. The redistricting plan, which took effect in 1995, ended most cross-county busing and gave parents a choice of neighborhood schools for their children to attend. Turner said the PCUSA's interest in the case is to ensure due process for those who oppose the redistricting plan. He said the PCUSA has not made a judgment about the merits of the redistricting plan. The $10,000 represents nearly one-half of the money available to ethnic justice grants, Turner said.

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