DATE: Saturday, March 8, 1997               TAG: 9703080220

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   50 lines

NSU'S NEW PRESIDENT URGES PRIDE IN PROGRESS AS YOU RISE, HELP ANOTHER UP, SHE SAYS.

African-Americans must work harder to reconnect with the inner city and to elect black office-holders if they want a brighter future for today's young, the next president of Norfolk State University said Friday.

``We must always, with one hand, pull ourselves up even higher, but with the other hand, pull another African-American up as well - particularly young people,'' Marie V. McDemmond told the statewide conference of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

``If you are not each other's keepers, you better start being.''

Too many blacks, McDemmond said, have abandoned the inner city in their embrace of a better life in the suburbs.

``The only role models they (urban youth) see now are drug dealers and pimps,'' she said. ``What a sad legacy we have left. . . .We must return to our communities, to Norfolk State and its neighborhood, and contribute in some way to the raising of a child - be it as a tutor, big brother or sister or a mother's helper.''

McDemmond was selected by NSU's Board of Visitors in December to succeed Harrison B. Wilson, who is retiring on July 1 after 22 years as the university's president. She is vice president for finance and chief fiscal officer at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, Fla.

McDemmond spoke to more than 150 people attending the 54th annual convention of the Virginia Association of Chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. The audience at the Holiday Inn Chesapeake included several Norfolk State administrators, deans and professors.

Too often, she said, the talents and contributions of African-Americans have been dismissed, and not just by whites. But ``when we belittle each other,'' McDemmond said, ``we are really belittling ourselves. We must learn to support each other, sister and brother, when they open their own business or run for political office.''

In her 25-minute speech, McDemmond warned that despite gains in the business world, blacks still face salary inequities and are often the first to lose their jobs in downsizing.

She also complained about the rap singers ``blaring in the headphones in my 16-year-old son's ears'' and comics ``trying to talk dirtier than each other for laughs. . . .They are doing much to destroy African-Americans' moral core, which is the basis on which our race has always succeeded.''

And McDemmond made a pitch for black women to stand tall. ``To my sisters here, I say, we all must have much more self-esteem than we do,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: [Photo]

Marie V. McDemmond

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