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May 19, 2006
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May 19, 2006
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BY JOHN CHAPPELL: Staff Writer A bus load of new faculty members from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill visited Jackson Hamlet on Wednesday to see what the university's law school has been doing to help this 100-year-old black community wedged between Aberdeen and Pinehurst. "Tar Heel Bus Tour" is an exploration of The Old North State for faculty who are in their first three years at UNC. The group had dinner Tuesday night at Little River Golf Resort and spent the night there. They left before breakfast to spend the morning in Jackson Hamlet -- one of only 14 stops on the five-day trip. "We aim to help faculty gain a better understanding of North Carolina and the people we serve," said Chancellor James Moeser, introducing this year's trip. "I hope you will observe how Carolina faculty are using their research to improve local communities, and that you will look for ways to provide your own service to North Carolina." UNC has been heralded for this longtime policy of "engagement" and consistently places in the top tier in Black Enterprise magazine's university ratings, according to Linda Brown Douglas, director of community relations on the chancellor's staff. "The faculty on this tour come from all over, from many countries," she said. "We have lots of accents and lots of colors on the bus today." The white bus rolled down the hill and out of Little River, navigating the Traffic Circle to pass through the edge of Pinehurst proper -- seeing large homes on one side, watching men at play on the broad green sweep of one of the world's most famous golf courses on the other. Passing beneath the rails of Aberdeen, Carolina and Western, past the Fair Barn, and on down N.C. 5, they turned abruptly right into another world entirely. Carol Henry waited for them outside St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, a stone's throw from the ruins of Chelsea School, its tall brick chimney lost in overgrowth -- the last remaining reminder of racially segregated classrooms where she learned to read and write. On this same day -- May 17, 1954 -- while she was still in high school, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its historic decision, Brown vs. Board of Education, declaring racial segregation unconstitutional. She said she is still waiting for segregation to end. As president of Jackson Hamlet Community Action, she joined with Hilton Dunlap and Bobby Person of Voices for Justice to ask UNC law school help them lobby local leaders for change. Person, a sergeant fresh out of the Army in the mid-1970s, went to work in Carthage as a state prison guard. When he tried to take a sergeant's exam for promotion, he found his life in danger, crosses burning at his house, men he knew from work showing up in white sheets to threaten him. Person, a fighter, got in touch with the Southern Poverty Law Center and took the Ku Klux Klan to court. He and Dunlap teamed up to help others. Last year, they were recognized with an award from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The Tar Heel Tour promised bus riders a "continental" breakfast. Person and the church thought they could do better than that. As the bus unloaded and visitors filed in, they found Person's two sisters had loaded long tables with scrambled eggs, bacon, two kinds of sausage -- a full country breakfast. "We finally get to taste grits," one said.
Meet Basic Needs Henry and the others explained their communities are pleading for simple, basic services such as water and sewer. They want unincorporated and impoverished Moore County communities on the edge, between, or surrounded by towns such as Aberdeen, Pinehurst, and Southern Pines to have safer, cleaner places to live. At their request, Jackson Hamlet, Waynor Road, and Midway are getting help from the Center for Civil Rights. Anita Earls, director of advocacy for the center, described them as holes in Swiss cheese town maps -- not rural, but urban and with the same population density of the towns they are in, but not of. Two other communities, Lost City and Monroe Town, are in much the same plight, she said. "We are split up," said Oneal Russ, church deacon and longtime resident of Jackson Hamlet. "People across the track have to go all the way to Southern Middle School to vote. I vote just up the road. Really, we are part of the same community." Even after the center started to help two years ago, Russ has seen little change. "There's been a lot of talk," he said. "This humble community needs basics: police, water, sewer. We have abandoned homes, where people died or moved out. Families can't stay together. Young people -- people who became doctors, lawyers, teachers -- migrated out. They don't live here." In Modesto, Calif., Hispanic communities have sued, Earls said. Asked if the center will file a similar suit in Moore County, she said leaders in the affected communities hope to find a better path working with local officials.
‘Not Let Hope Die' Aberdeen found out last month it will receive a $750,000 grant to connect homes in Midway to town sewer lines. There is a public hearing on the proposal set for June 12, at 7 p.m. Pinehurst applied for a similar grant to connect Jackson Hamlet. "That grant was turned down," Russ said. "They say they are going to apply again this year." Earls has a "wish list" of research she hopes some of these faculty members will undertake. "If they get these services, will this help the community develop?" Earls said. "Or will property values increase and lead to gentrification? Areas could be bought up by developers. Historic values would be gone, low-cost housing gone. "All of you have disciplines that could be helpful to these communities." Henry boarded the bus to take the visitors as close as possible to parts of Jackson Hamlet that illustrate its situation -- warning them they would not get far. Streets narrow, many houses are on unpaved roads where no bus, and few cars, can venture. "Henry took us to the back of Jackson Hamlet where it connects to an incorporated area," Douglas said. "When it snows, they can only drive out one side, because the pavement stops at the incorporated area and the unincorporated portion on the back side is a rough dirt road. There had been talk about closing access to that road, because the residents in the incorporated area complained about the traffic coming from the unincorporated area. "And for a while it was blocked by sand pilings -- but her organized community group worked with local officials and stopped the road closing. Carol showed us a very close Marina that children from the nearby community can see, but aren't allowed to use." She guided the tour past old houses on lots too small for new septic systems, many on land that won't perk. Where Jackson Hamlet ends, and Pinehurst begins, they could see new homes going up overlooking Pinehurst Lake. Back at the church, waiting for Henry to return, Russ warned one severe storm could saturate the hamlet, flood out failing septic systems and send a tide of polluting waste down the hill directly into that lake, an ecological disaster waiting to happen. "That is only one Katrina away," Russ said. These communities are determined, and Russ is certain they will succeed -- with leaders like Henry, Dunlap, Person, church pastor Elder Floyd, and help from Earls and the center in Chapel Hill. County and town leaders, working with their community leaders, are bound to find solutions, he says. "We will not let hope die," Russ said. "We will not let love die. We will not let faith die. We will survive. There are enough people here to move the world."
John Chappell can be reached at 783-5841 or by e-mail at jchappell@thepilot.com. |
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