Racial & Economic Justice

The Herald this morning reported that Carrboro is requesting that the legislature grant authority for two tax increase. The funds are apparently needed to support rising costs for the bus system.

The first is a doubling of the motor vehicle license tax to $30 per vehicle. In one sense, this seems sensible to add costs to a behavior that you want to discourage to fund one you want to support. Nonetheless, this is a regressive tax. The only people the extra $15 might hurt are those truly at the margins financially. Still, I wouldn't quibble over $15.

More problematic is the second proposal which is to increase the sales tax from 2.5% to 3%. The sales tax is notoriously regressive. Carrboro's working poor will be hurt by this tax.

Both these items are on the agenda for discussion with the legislative delegation and were placed there by a unanimous vote. It's truly shocking that none of the Aldermen voted against a resolution with the sales tax provision. Hopefully it will die in discussion with the legislators if not before then.

Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, February 05, 2005

The spring of 1969 was a heady time for the U.S. left. Halfway between the violence of the Democratic convention in Chicago and the peace-and-love of Woodstock, it was a time when millions joined protests against the Vietnam War while increasing militancy turned the movement for civil rights into one for Black Power.

In Chapel Hill, a highly contentious mayoral race was at times overshadowed by striking cafeteria workers at UNC. Nonetheless, a coalition of blacks, liberal civil rights supporters, anti-war activists and those galvanized by the 1968 campaigns of Eugene McCarthy for president and Reginald Hawkins for governor waged an unprecedented campaign to elect Howard Lee as the first black mayor of Chapel Hill (or of a white-majority Southern town since Reconstruction).

In doing so and by also electing a liberal slate to the then-Board of Aldermen, voters swept out an old guard that had dragged its feet on civil rights, on establishing a public transit system and on support for the efforts of the Inter-Church Council.

It looks like we will be continuing our long tradition of the Martin Luther King Day March and Rally. For many years this event has brought together a coalition of progressives from all sectors of the campus and community. This year is expected to be especially significant in the wake of Chapel Hill's decision to rename Airport Road as Martin Luther King Boulevard.

In honor of King, the NAACP is organizing a rally at 9:30 a.m. Monday in front of the Franklin Street post office. The rally will be followed by a march down Franklin Street at 10:15 a.m.

The march will end at 11 a.m. at First Baptist Church for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. service. The keynote speaker at the event is the Rev. William J. Barber II.

Barber served as the executive director of the N.C. Human Relations Commission for many years and formed a community development corporation in Goldsboro that, among other things, works to revitalize the inner city.
- Daily Tarheel, 1/14/05