New Leader In North Carolina

The cover story of the Independent Weekly out of Durham focuses on the newly elected president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. Outspoken and fiery Rev. William J. Barber II hopes to reinvigorate the almost 100 year-old Civil Rights organization.

In his campaign, Barber criticized the number of inactive branches around the state, the dearth of youth involvement and a banqueting and socializing culture that he felt had lost touch with the organization's mission. "The banqueting ought to be a time of reflection," he says. "We need this if we're really truly fighting for justice. But what we can't do is simply banquet alone."

Besides trying to get the NAACP more active on the grassroots level and increasing involvement in inactive chapters, Barber is most passionate about the resegregation of black school children. White-flight and the resegregation of rural and inner city schools are some of the most important problems facing Southern Progressives today. The article highlights the problem of resegregation in Wayne County schools.

The statistics in Goldsboro are startling. The city is the seat of Wayne County and home to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Like much of the state and nation Barber hopes to change, the city is predominantly black and the surrounding suburbs mostly white. In the more than 30 years since integration, Wayne County's urban schools have shown a steady decline in population. Dr. Craig McFadden, assistant superintendent for accountability, said there were 8,000 students in the six central schools in 1970. When the city and county school systems merged in 1992, 5,000 students were registered. Today, that number is 2,659. Of those, 2,478 are black, 50 are white, and 131 are other races. Overall, the six city schools have a racial breakdown that is 93.2 percent black, 1.8 percent white, 5 percent other races.

"It's clearly systemic racism, but now it's also classism. Racism is not just somebody putting on a white sheet or burning a cross," Barber says. "It doesn't matter to me that in Goldsboro, or anywhere else in the state, folks don't sit around and say, 'We deliberately took these kids out and put them over there,' though I believe some of that goes on. When you implement policies that in fact make that happen, it still has the consequence of racism." The leadership built schools just outside of the city limits and started grafting off parts of the city, Barber says.

Barber’s statement highlights one of the most serious problems facing schools across the South. Hopefully, with his astute insights and charismatic leadership, he can lead a movement toward a greater understanding and solution to the unfortunate pattern.