civil rights

Why Are Police Stifling First Amendment Rights in Carrboro?

On November 15th, around four p.m., local Earth First! activists gathered outside of the Royal Bank of Canada in Carrboro to protest the bank's investment in the world's most destructive project, the Canadian Tar Sands.  We were holding signs, banners, and doing some chanting.  The police arrived and told us that we could not stand anywhere on the sidewalk at all.

Ashley Osment, y'all

This weekend, Chapel Hill lost one of the best human beings I've ever met. Ashley Osment was a civil rights lawyer, a mother, a musician, and a friend to many.  She was always an inspiration to me as a woman who didn't just balance community activism with parenthood but truly integrated the two, and succeeded at both fantastically.  She was so brave that after her ovarian cancer returned (with a vengeance), she responded in part writing a column in the Chapel Hill News about her experience. She knew she was dying.

A truly wonderful obituary (by Ashley's husband Al McSurely) is posted at the blog of Curmilus Dancy. I excerpt some of it below.  I also recommend the profile of her published in The Carrboro Citizen in March. The public is invited to a memorial service for Ashley on Wednesday at 11:00 am at Chapel Hill Bible Church.

Peace and Justice Plaza tribute

To celebrate the recently-named Peace and Justice Plaza (formerly known at the square in front of the downtown Post Office on Franklin Street where we always have rallies and community events) the Town and the local NAACP are having a rally today and a reception on September 20th when they formally unveil the public marker there. I'm going to try to swing by this when I get off the bus today.

From the Town of Chapel Hill's press release:

Chapel Hill and NAACP Honor Nine Community Activists on the Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington

On Friday, Aug. 28, the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, the Town of Chapel Hill and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP will jointly sponsor the first of two programs to honor nine local peace and justice leaders.

An outdoor rally will be held from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Peace and Justice Plaza outside the Post Office-Courthouse at 179 E. Franklin St. The program will include biographical tributes read by members of the community and remarks by Michelle Cotton Laws, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP. Following the program, there will be a reception inside the Post Office featuring light refreshments and an educational photo display.

Three weeks later, the public unveiling of a tribute marker at Peace and Justice Plaza will be held from 3 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20. Family members and others will speak of the nine peace and justice honorees. A reception for the families and all others in attendance will follow at the home of Chris and Sharon Ringwalt, at 8 Cobb Terrace, Chapel Hill, N.C.

The header on the granite marker reads "Peace and Justice Plaza" and commemorates nine local activists: Charlotte Adams, Hank Anderson, James Brittian, Joe Herzenberg, Mildred Ringwalt, Hubert Robinson, Joe Straley, Lucy Straley, and Gloria Williams. The quote on the marker comes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "True peace is not merely the absence of some negative force, it is the presence of justice." The Town Council has established a process to honor additional peace and justice leaders in the future.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. Attended by some 250,000 people, it was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation's capital, and one of the first to have extensive television coverage.

The Town of Chapel Hill has recently increased efforts to commemorate its history from the civil rights era, when the local movement played a leading role in ending Jim Crow. The Town Council in 2006 named the plaza the Peace and Justice Plaza in honor of the energy and spirit of the thousands who have stood in the shadow of the Courthouse and exercised their rights to assembly and speech and have spoken out on issues as diverse as the Vietnam War, environmental justice, women's rights, gay rights, the death penalty, and racial justice.

From 1960 to 1964, black Lincoln High School students led a powerful civil rights movement, including weekly marches that began at local black churches and ended at the old Post Office, now Peace and Justice Plaza. UNC students joined the civil rights movement in large numbers. They became increasingly vocal in their protests of local racial segregation, legislative restrictions on free speech (the Speaker Ban Law) and national events. Students used marches, sit-ins, and strikes to support the 1969 UNC cafeteria workers strikes and to protest the Vietnam War. Charlotte Adams and other members of the local chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom led a weekly peace vigil in front of the Franklin Street Post Office that began on Jan. 4, 1967. The weekly vigils continued every Wednesday until 1973.

In February 2009, national and local civil rights leaders gathered in Chapel Hill to unveil a historic state highway marker at the corner of Rosemary and Columbia streets. This is the first state marker to commemorate one of the most important North Carolina civil rights protests before the sit-ins of 1960. The Journey of Reconciliation, known as the "First Freedom Ride," consisted of an interracial group that used non-violent resistance to test a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1946 that ruled state Jim Crow laws on interstate buses and trains were unconstitutional. Their Chapel Hill stop created national news when local segregationists threatened and attacked the Freedom Riders. Four of the riders were sentenced to the state chain gang. The incident prompted a community wide debate on Jim Crow that had lasting impact.

For more information about the Aug. 28 rally, please contact Suepinda Keith, NAACP History Committee, suepinda@lanzilla.com or 919-338-2065 or Catherine Lazorko, Chapel Hill Public Information Officer, clazorko@townofchapelhill.org or 919-969-5055.

 

Date: 

Friday, August 28, 2009 - 1:00pm

Location: 

Franklin Street Post Office, Chapel Hill

Missing Ms. Clark

It's just starting to sink in that I'll never see Rebecca Clark again.  The last I saw her was just before the holidays, and she was as strong and firm and loving as always.  I'm glad that's my last memory but regret that I didn't know her better and never followed up on my intention to take her out for lunch to just talk. 

I bet that lots of you have Ms. Clark stories and wonder if you would share them...

[Note: Long-time community activist and anchor Rebecca Clark passed away this weekend. (N&O 1/6/09) -Ed.]

New leadership for County Commissioners

With the newly-elected (and newly-districted) members of the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) sworn in, they have followed their annual tradition of selecting a new chair and vice-chair of the group. This is a leadership structure that is quite different from other elected bodies in the county in that the chair has similar responsibilities as a Mayor would have in a municipality, but the seat rotates among the members in a very egalitarian fashion so that every commissioner in recent memory has served at least one year at the helm.

What I found especially interesting is that this year's chair will be Valerie Foushee (an African-American woman) and the vice-chair will be Mike Nelson (a gay man).

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