Omega Wilson, president of Mebane’s West End Revitalization Association, stands in front of the historic church and cemetery that he and his neighbors have fought to save. Photo by Isaac Sandlin.

Editor’s note: This story is the sixth in a series that examines issues related to environmental justice and to the fight of the Rogers and Eubanks roads community to be relieved of what they allege to be an undue burden. To read the stories in this series and for other resources, go to www.carrborocitizen.com/main/rogers-road

Mebane’s West End Revitalization Association takes on city hall

By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

“A visceral response,” is how Omega Wilson describes it, a sensation “that makes you so angry you can’t think. That’s what people call rage. When you get so mad you can’t count to two.”

This, he says, is how his West End Mebane community, approximately 90 percent of which is African-American, felt when they learned a highway bypass was going to be laid smack through the neighborhood, displacing families, razing a 130-year-old church and destroying the cemetery in which generations of community ancestors, including Wilson’s own, are buried.

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The brilliant red of Red-berried Swamp Smilax adorns bare tree branches in swampy sites. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

If you are expert at using your “owl eyes” while driving, you may spot some red berries that are neither holly nor dogwood. Like holiday lights, these red berries are strung up in tangles and thickets. I’m describing the fruit of one of the species of catbrier, Smilax sp., that folks curse when they encounter them in the wild.

Most of the Smilax species bear round clusters of black fruit. One of them, the Coral Greenbrier, or Red-berried Swamp Smilax, Smilax walteri, sports brilliant red berries. Unlike the Common Greenbrier, Smilax rotundifolia, and Catbrier, Smilax bona-nox, this red-berried Smilax is most commonly found in the standing waters of the bogs and swamps of the Sandhills and coastal plain. Rarely will you spot it in our eastern Piedmont.

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By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Students at three Chapel Hill-Carrboro elementary schools could have the opportunity to enter the Spanish-English dual-language program next year, under a proposal recently considered by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education.

Under the proposal, the program – in which a class comprised equally of native English-speaking students and native Spanish-speaking students is taught both in English and Spanish – would be expanded to Frank Porter Graham, McDougle and Scroggs elementary schools for the 2008-09 school year.

The program is now offered only at Carrboro Elementary School. A Chinese-English dual-language program is offered at Glenwood Elementary School.

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Allan Friedman has the right moves as he leads the Women’s Voice Chorus to its first concert under his direction. Photo by Valarie Schwartz.

By Valarie Schwartz

It was not as an interloper that I sang during the first rehearsal of the Women’s Voices Chorus on Sept. 3. Being amidst them seemed like a good way to learn how accepting the women were going to be of their new director, Allan Friedman — the first man involved with the 15-year-old institution founded by Mary Lycan, the only director the chorus had ever had.

Silly me.

In order to sit among them and sing the music, I had to audition for Friedman, which proved a good introduction to his easy and easing style.

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Business director Jane Stein (left) and program director Miriam Palacio stand in front of a bulletin board displaying announcements and current events. Stein and Palacio helped start the Chapel Hill Institute for Cultural and Language Education (better known as CHICLE) in 1995. Photo by Kendal Walters.

By Kendal Walters
Carrboro Commons Writer

More than 30 people gather in a room above Weaver Street Market on a Sunday afternoon to watch ¡Salud!/Health, a movie about the Cuban Health Care system. The video draws viewers like Chapel Hill resident and local family practice doctor Carol Klein and Dina Castro, who has experience working in a community health program in Peru. Others in attendance are simply interested in the social, political and economic implications of international health care.
The movie screening is just one of a variety of cultural events put on two Sundays a month by the Chapel Hill Institute for Cultural and Language Education, better known as CHICLE.

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UNC News Services

Oxford University economist Paul Collier, who wrote The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, will give a free public talk at 7 p.m. Jan. 10 at UNC.

The speech in UNC’s FedEx Global Education Center will be drawn in part from Collier’s research on the economies of 48 poor countries, 70 percent of them in Africa. He found that poverty there is due to factors involving conflict, natural resources, being landlocked with neighbors in turmoil and/or problematic governments.

Collier’s proposed solutions include military intervention, new laws and charters for better governance and trade preferences.

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UNC News Services

The gilt floral spines and petite dimensions of the Everyman’s Library book series are familiar to anyone who has frequented used bookstores or explored a dusty attic.

Joseph Malaby Dent founded Everyman’s Library in London in 1906 with the goal of publishing 1,000 classic titles in beautiful and widely affordable editions.

UNC’s Wilson Library will examine the 102-year history of Everyman’s Library in the free public exhibit “The ABC of Collecting Everyman’s Library: Archives, Books, Collections.”

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In the tradition of the Lincoln/Douglas Debates, Coalition for the Constitution (www.CoalitionForTheConstitution.com) will host a Debate on Impeachment between Republican Bruce Fein (pro-impeachment) and Democrat Michael Tomasky (anti-impeachment).

The debate will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Carrboro Century Center and will be moderated by UNC professor of leadership and public policy W. Hodding Carter III, and hosted by Orange County Commissioner Moses Carey.

The university’s residence halls will reopen at 9 a.m. on Sunday, January 6. Classes begin on Wednesday, January 9. Chapel Hill Transit buses will operate on a reduced service schedule through Sunday, January 6 and resume normal service on Monday January 7.

The Carrboro Branch Library will hold an event entitled “Symposium: Water — Our Most Precious Resource” on Sunday, January 13 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. The event will feature presentations by OWASA and other water specialists and was inspired by an art exhibit featuring depictions of water and bearing the same name. For more information, call the library at 969-3006 or contact the exhibition curator Nerys Levy at 932-1533.

The Orange County Human Relations Commission, the Orange County Department of Human Rights & Relations and the Orange County Board of Commissioners will host a kick-off ceremony to acknowledge February as Human Relations Month in Orange County. The Human Relations Month Kick-Off will take place at the Carrboro Century Center on Sunday, January 27, 2008 from 2:30 to 5:00 p.m.

The idea that all human beings should have the right to equitable health care will be the theme of this year’s Human Relations Month Kick-Off Event.

The Kick-Off includes musical entertainment by the band Big Much and a performance by the Chuck Davis African-American Dance Ensemble.

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Attorney Bob Saunders is recognized in the Best Lawyers of America 2008, a peer-review publication for the legal profession which names the best practicing lawyers based on a vote by other lawyers.

Saunders is a partner at Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, LLP and is recognized for his work in nonprofit and charities law. He serves clients in Chapel Hill and Raleigh.

His representation of exempt organizations includes charities, trade associations, social welfare organizations and social clubs and involves all manner of their activities. Saunders also represented exempt organizations in federal and state tax audits.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce is now accepting nominations for the Business of the Year (Small, Mid-size, and Large categories) and the Business Newcomer of the Year awards.

Nominations should be emailed to Tracy Hager at thager@carolinachamber.org. Nominations should not be longer than one page and must contain contact information for the nominee. Only current members of the chamber are eligible for nomination. Businesses can self-nominate.

Nominations must be received by Wednesday, January 9. For more information, call 967-7075 or visit carolinachamber.org.

Joan Terry Wallace of Chapel Hill died on December 20, 2007, at the Duke Hospice at Meadowlands. She was 80 years old.

Joan was born in San Francisco. She was preceded in death by her husband, William Wallace. She is survived by two sons, William Wallace of Islip, N.Y., and Patrick Wallace of Chapel Hill.

Memorials may be made to Duke HomeCare and Hospice, Inpatient Care Facility (ICP).

Arrangements are by Walker’s Funeral Home in Chapel Hill.

Ruby Mae Tripp Vowell Seals, 78, of the Brian Center died Thursday, December 20, 2007. She was retired from the VA Medical Center and was a member of Greystone Baptist Church.

Surviving are her daughters, Valinda V. Holloway and Deborah V. McLamb; son, Mike Vowell; and sister, Marie T. Duncan.

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