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Episode 1917
Revitalizing Macedonia
Lewis: Mitchell Lewis, Host
Smothers: Mayor Rebecca Rhodes Smothers
Arbuckle: Dr. Margaret Arbuckle, Associate Director of the Center for Youth, Family and Community Partnerships at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Wilkins: Ron Wilkins, High Point City Council Member
Lewis: Can a small black community in High Point, North Carolina revitalize itself after 30 years of poverty, despite our sluggish economy? Stay tuned for Black Issues Forum to hear how the mayor, a city council member and residents are managing to turn their community around.
Voiceover: This program was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV from viewers like you. Thank you.
[THEME MUSIC]
Lewis: Good evening and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I'm Mitchell Lewis. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation that compiles state health data, there are over 810,000 families in North Carolina who live within the poverty level. This poverty level was taken from 2002 census data, which also defines the poverty level as those who make less than 100% of the federal poverty level. The federal poverty threshold for a family of three was $14,128 in 2001 and $14,348 in 2002. Despite the alarming poverty level in North Carolina, poverty stricken communities like Macedonia of High Point are trying desperately to revitalize its community with building new homes and businesses and creating new jobs. Here to share with us on how Macedonia is trying to climb their way out of poverty is Mayor Rebecca Rhodes Smothers of High Point who is currently serving a fourth term as mayor of the city; Ron Wilkins, the High Point City Council Member who represents the Second Board where Macedonia is located; and Dr. Margaret Arbuckle, Associate Director of the Center for Youth, Family and Community Partnerships at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. And to the three of you, welcome to Black Issues Forum.
Several: Thank you. We are delighted to be here.
Lewis: Now before I begin with questions, we would like to give you a history on the Macedonia Community located in High Point North Carolina. Producer Thomas Todd traveled to the area to provide some background information.
[BEGIN VIDEO CLIP]
Voiceover: Here in Macedonia, construction is nearly finished on this first home in Phase I of the long awaited revitalization plan for this historically black community.
M: For 60 years we have been waiting for this. I've always loved this neighborhood. This is a good neighborhood. It always had good people in it. Ain't had a whole lot of money but we had good folk and they worked toward this-this here. And it has finally come.
Voiceover: Macedonia, an area that covers one square mile was once a booming community that offered residents a middle class lifestyle. Large homes and businesses dwelled in the middle of prosperous furniture factories, textile mills and coal yards. During the 1970s, major furniture companies, such as Bassett, uprooted from the Macedonia area and relocated to other areas of the state and the country for cheaper manufacturing costs. As companies left the community so did homeowners. Their flight forced Macedonia's booming economy to take a downhill turn.
F: Before the blight came in, during the time that I resided in this area, it was beautiful. It was clean, safe. We didn't have any drug problem. We didn't have any murder. We were just a comfortable living community.
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Lewis: And we are back with our three guests this evening. Councilman Wilkins, I'll start off with you. How did Macedonia develop into a predominately black community?
Wilkins: When Macedonia was developed-it used to be predominately white. Under normal circumstances that is how it would have been. As time grew on, Macedonia became a predominately black neighborhood because that is where the cheaper homes were, that is where the cheaper rental property was. That is where the people that had the lesser means could move to, so they moved to that particular neighborhood. There was a housing project there. There were some homeowners that lived there but they tended to move out when the businesses moved out.
Lewis: Mayor Smothers, what were the types of businesses that the community relied on in order for its economic survival?
Smothers: Well, High Point's history was manufacturing. And so Basset was mentioned on the lead-in. Furniture definitely had a strong presence in High Point, as well as hosiery and textiles. There were a number of hosiery companies that were in the Macedonia area, and only one now remains.
Lewis: Dr. Arbuckle, what caused the Macedonia area to really fall into a poverty-stricken community?
Arbuckle: Well it was very much what happened across the south: manufacturing entities moved to where they could have cheaper labor. As a consequence, the neighborhoods that had been so vibrant surrounding those manufacturing centers fell into disarray and disrepair. Absentee landlords did not maintain the homes and it just spiraled downward.
Lewis: Councilman Wilkins, it seemed like the community was dormant. Why did it stay dormant so long before revitalization plans started?
Wilkins: There wasn't any business there for the people to come. They could walk to work from where they lived, but there were no businesses there. The furniture market, what happens twice a year-but not like you go to a business everyday. There is a furniture industry business, Marsh Furniture Company, that is still there in that neighborhood and community but it wasn't enough.
Lewis: Thank you. After companies had uprooted themselves from the Macedonia Community in High Point it has taken many efforts of residence and organizations working together to get the community on its way to recovery. Here is a look at one of the initiatives.
[BEGIN VIDEO CLIP]
Voiceover: For nearly 35 years, residence of Macedonia watched buildings sit abandoned with collapsing cement walls and rusting fences, while vacant home sat decaying from chipped paint and crumbling structures. It was in 1997 when the city of High Point joined efforts with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Guilford Technical Community College and other agencies to steer a brown field initiative for the Macedonia area. The Environmental Protection Agency describes a brown field as a designation where pollution or the threat of pollution slows economic development. The initiative was granted to the city to evaluate the Macedonia area for potential contaminants, marketability, and community needs.
M: The federal government, UNCG, GTCC-we got all those names together working with the community, working with the neighborhood-the neighborhood association. We got all those things working together and that is when things started coming together.
[END VIDEO CLIP]
Lewis: And Councilman Wilkins, especially trying to get this revitalization plan started, were there any challenges in trying to get that plan together?
Wilkins: There was one particular challenge. At one time, public housing wanted to put a little bit more rental property down there. I'll never forget that meeting as long as I live. We said, "No. No more rental property." I don't think people understood that at first, but now I believe they do. I've always been behind homeownership, because homeownership is what going to take a community-people who have. They are going to have the things that they need to support the community. They are going to own the property. They are going to pay taxes on the property. I think that is part of what happened to-to split up all the homeownership and revitalization possibilities.
Lewis: And Mayor Smothers, what role did city government play in that revitalization?
Smothers: The public sector was able to provide the initial leadership. I was fortunate to have sat on the Advisory Board of the Bryan School of Business and approached the dean there for some assistance in doing an assessment of Macedonia. He referred me to the Center for Study of Social Issues. It was through that collaboration that all this really good stuff got started. I think, as Ron mentioned a while ago, one of the key ingredients has been how the community has come together. Not just Macedonia, but part of the stipulation with the brown field grant was that there be a broad based community committee. And from there, so many good things have happened.
Lewis: And Dr. Arbuckle how did UNCG get involved with this? Was there a mindset that you had to change once you got involved?
Arbuckle: It is probably one of the most exciting things that has happened to the university over-at least in its recent history, was for High Point, the City of High Point, to invite the university that is in the neighboring city of Greensboro to come and partner with its residences and its city government to do this revitalization work. Students and faculty members became immediately engaged in this Environmental Protection Agency, EPA grant, by doing the community needs assessment, by doing the evaluation work that was required, as well as participating very actively on the steering committee. The steering committee was made up of city government, UNCG, community agency representatives and most importantly citizens from the neighborhood. And I think UNCG learned some very important lessons in how to work and become engaged in a very genuine way with community partners by listening to the citizens. And that meeting that Ron referred to, the one where citizens said, "We want homeownership," and spoke out and spoke strongly. I think it helped the rest of everybody else in the room realize that listening to the citizens was going to be the most important piece of this effort.
Lewis: Mayor Smothers, why was Macedonia chosen, perhaps, over other black communities in the High Point area?
Smothers: I think most cities in North Carolina have made a strong effort to try to revitalize their inner core. Macedonia was particularly a target for us because of the number of substandard units in the neighborhood, and the really detrimental effect it has on quality of life. The city put behind this effort its full forces in terms of police protection, in terms of trying the clean up the neighborhood, offering opportunities to the residents there to be part of a solution long run. I think one of the things that I would suggest to other communities is that it takes continuity for this to happen. It has to go across public administrations and you have to have the commitment throughout the community to stay with it.
Wilkins: I want to add one thing to what Becky said, because she is being a little modest. But one of the things that helped start this was a baseball field. $100,000 that was put in an escrow account to pay for a baseball field. And a lot of people did not believe it was going to happen. But I believed it was going to happen because she said, you know, it happened during her tenure as mayor. $100,000. The baseball field is there. The Macedonia Resource and Family, sponsored by Wesley Memorial Baptist Church is there-Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church is there. And all these things have come together along with UNCG and the city of High Point. They have all come together. It has been an astronomical thing that has happened to us. And we think that because of that, some great things are going to happen.
Lewis: Dr. Arbuckle, you are also working on an oral history project.
Arbuckle: Right.
Lewis: Tell us a little bit about that.
Arbuckle: I want to back up just a little bit before that. Before the oral history project got started, following the EPA completion of that needs assessment, the university in partnership with the city, applied to the federal government's Department of Housing and Urban Development for a community outreach partnership grant. And we call that a COPG and we created a Community Outreach Partnership Center, which facilitated continuing involvement of the university in the neighborhood. I smile about the baseball project, because one of the important pieces in our community needs assessment was the identification of activities-the need for activities for youth. The baseball has just taken off with the leadership of Mr. Marley. He was interviewed in one of the early leads. He is a former baseball player, and his commitment to making certain that children in that neighborhood played baseball was great. Out of all this work, we've had the Citizen's Advisory Committee helping all along the way. One day, in the midst of one of our meetings, some of the people started talking about how wonderful this neighborhood once was and how wonderful it is now going to be. There was just this reminiscence about it. Somebody said, "You know we really ought to be recording these stories and listening to these wonderful voices to pass onto our children." And out of that came the oral history project that, like the baseball, has taken on a life of its own. We now have collected interviews, oral interviews, with 30 or more citizens. We have compiled that into a curriculum that is going to be used in the High Point schools and hopefully across North Carolina to look at what it means to evolve from a depressed community into a revitalized community and all the various aspects of history that happened along the way.
Lewis: And Councilman Wilkins, you also have an organization within Macedonia, an association that. The new Macedonia if you will. Tell me a little bit about that.
Wilkins: The Neighborhood Association?
Lewis: Yes.
Wilkins: That was formed, and then utilized, because we didn't have a building to meet in. They utilized Grime Street Baptist Church. But after the Macedonia Family Resource Center was brought into play, then that is when they started meeting. But what we've been trying to do all along is involve the neighbors, involve the people in the community, involve-get to know your neighbor. Get to know who your neighbor is. I think they were waiting on them to see what was going to happen. And all this stuff was coming together. You know the Macedonia Family Resource Center, the Macedonia Neighborhood-all this stuff was coming together like it should have been done all along.
Lewis: Thank you folks. Now during the revitalization planning, residence of the Macedonia Community found working together with federal and local governments, local organizations and colleges was a big benefit to developing a successful revitalization plan. Here are some of the results of that plan:
[BEGIN VIDEO CLIP]
M: The plan basically was to take a four block area of substandard, dilapidated housing, clear that area out, and redevelop it with a resource center, a ball park and affordable housing mixed in between. We had a developer that was going to do the construction, you know, building and selling the homes.
Voiceover: In 2003, the plan started giving residence hope for pulling itself out of economic plight. The community was able to use their new Macedonia Family Resource Center and the new baseball field.
M: We are hoping that it is going to bring in a better kind of people who really wants to build up the community, who wants to do things to help the kids. We have a little league and a pony league already. The point is, is getting these kids in a safe haven where they can feel good about themselves.
M: Here in the area you have a lot of different things that are going on. We have this building here which is one, the Macedonia Family Resource Center, which we are working to build this as the cornerstone of the Macedonia Community, to provide childcare services, GED, computer training-all the types of resources that a community may need.
[END VIDEO CLIP]
Lewis: And we'll go back to you Councilman Wilkins. How much did the center cost and who contributed to it?
Wilkins: The Macedonia Family Resource Center cost about $1.2 million. The kind people at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church committed-pledged and committed the money. That was the first thing they built. They did some other stuff with their church as well, but they did that first. And it took about, what? Eight or nine months for them to have it completed. After they did that we had a grand opening celebration that was unlike any other.
Lewis: Mayor Smothers, were there other agencies or other groups that got involved in this revitalization plan?
Smothers: Oh my goodness, yes! It really was a true community effort. And I think that the fact that we had such good leadership and support from UNCG-I was fond of telling them that, "Finally we got them out of the classroom, and into the real world." It was such an invaluable partnership. I think for other communities who do not have a university, still the ingredients are there for everyone to be able to make a difference in their own hometown.
Arbuckle: One of the things I think has helped make the Family Resource Center so successful as it has opened has been that we had the Community Outreach Partnership Center there that was housed in the neighborhood that developed programs like the youth baseball and some other classes for the adults. It offered an opportunity for people to come together and talk and dream about what they wanted their neighborhood to be. That laid the foundation there for the Family Resource Center to really, when it opened its doors, to be very vibrant and important in the community itself.
Smothers: But as Ron has pointed out, it takes people like Thurmond Marley who are persistent and will not take no for an answer. His kids were all-important.
Arbuckle: And his children were the neighborhood's children.
Smothers: That is right.
Lewis: There is something I would like to ask the three of you, because you are making things happen in Macedonia. I'll start off with you Mayor. What suggestions would you have for other cities that are trying to get out of their economic struggles? You are doing it-what suggestions would you have for them?
Smothers: I think it helps to have an identified area so that people can define their neighborhood. But it also requires that there be an agency, organization or whatever that provides that safe place for everyone to come and develop a plan. Unfortunately we don't know our neighbors like we used to. That has been true in Macedonia, I think-Ron and Margaret will observe as well. So we can all come together but it needs to have encouragement, support of government, and the private sector. And mainly, the whole community.
Lewis: Dr. Arbuckle?
Arbuckle: Well this has been such a wonderful partnership for the university with the city of High Point and its residents. We have evolved in our understanding about how change occurs. And as I said earlier, I think one of the important ingredients is the capacity to listen and then respond to what people say. I think that initial trust building that was able to occur helped lay a foundation on which we could build even more.
Lewis: Councilman Wilkins?
Wilkins: Well one of the things that we need to consider is that we don't need to give to give up when the money runs out. That is part of one the dilemmas that have faced people in the past. They tend to let the money go as far as it can go, and then they say, "Well, we are going to let these people do this on their own," but that is not what is happening in Macedonia. The people still come: UNCG, Wesley Memorial. They put the building up, the bricks and mortar, but they still are there involving, getting their hands dirty per se, and still getting involved. And the city is still involved. So we don't need to-like it has been said before, we don't need to consider this about money, because it is not about money, it is about people's lives.
Lewis: Dr. Arbuckle, you are working on a Youth Build Program. Tell us about that.
Arbuckle: Youth Build is another federally funded initiative that gives opportunity for young people whose lives have gone off on a crooked path to hopefully get themselves straightened out again. We've identified, particularly young people in the Macedonia neighborhood, who had dropped out of high school and were interested in getting their GED and also learn construction skills. So these young people have opportunity to do those things and build houses. And we have built houses in cooperation with the High Point Housing Authority, that then are available for low income families to purchase. With young people-I mean, it is a saving lives, building neighborhoods initiative that has been very successful, and again, represents the partnership of the community, the churches, the non-profit organizations, the Housing Authority, Guilford Technical Community College and the city in working to build support for these young people
Wilkins: There is one thing I want to add. I think the second or third meeting that I went to of the Macedonia Family Resource Center, because I sit on that board, and I'll never forget what I said. We were talking about doing something in the community and so they were talking about having the meeting at a certain time of day. And so I said, "Ya'll." I said that, "Ya'll need to have this meeting when people can come." The chairman of the board, Bob Rule said to me, "What is this ya'll stuff? It is us." And so I think that really turned me around at that particular time. It is an us thing, not a ya'll thing.
Smothers: That is great.
Lewis: Mayor Smothers, what do you see the future of Macedonia? How do you see it?
Smothers: I think Macedonia will be what we want it to be. And the collaboration will have to continue between the neighbors, the neighbors and their elected leadership, which is Ron Wilkins at this point. Also with the rest of city government and the other support agencies that can truly lift people and to help to build a stronger future for all.
Lewis: Dr. Arbuckle, what do you think of that?
Arbuckle: Oh I agree completely. I'm just sitting here smiling, thinking of what an ingenious thing it was when Becky called UNCG and said, "Hey guys. Get out of the classroom and come over here and be a part of this wonderful initiative." It is going to grow. It will grow the way people want it to grow and continue to be increasingly vital.
Lewis: And Councilman Wilkins?
Wilkins: I see the revitalization happening right before our eyes. It is like someone took a magic wand and spread it all over and said, "This is what is going to happen." The transformation, the revitalization-it is going to continue on. I hope there are no more setbacks, no more changes-but I hope that everything we've done is going to come to full fruition.
Smothers: I think the community has stood the test. There have been setbacks. I don't want to imply that it has all been raises and awards, because it hasn't been. The strength of people has been tested and they passed.
Lewis: We thank you so very much and continued success to all of you. We've been talking with Mayor Rebecca Rhodes Smothers of High Point, City Councilman Ron Wilkins and Educator Dr. Margaret Arbuckle, who have all taken a role in helping to revitalize the 30 year old poverty stricken community of Macedonia. I'd like to thank you for joining us in this discussion and thank you for watching. If you would like to get in touch with our guests, or obtain a copy or transcript of tonight's show, visit us online at www.unctv.org/bif. When you visit, be sure to give us your comments and program suggestions. You can also call us on the BIF line at 919-549-7167. Join us each and every Friday night at 9:30 for more stimulating discussion. For Black Issues Forum, I'm Mitchell Lewis. Good night.
[THEME MUSIC]
Voiceover: This program was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV from viewers like you. Thank you.
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