9.28 Indy Week

Durham | Chapel Hill September 28, 2022

BRIAN HORTON

Members of the Bull City jazz community—and fans around the world—mourn the death of the renowned saxophonist by Thomasi McDonald, p.18

Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill

CONTENTS

6 NC State is losing Black professors and other faculty members of color to greener pastures.

BY JASMINE GALLUP

8 The Rev. Ben Chavis, the godfather of environmental justice, reflects on the movement 40 years on.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD

10 Local elections boards are struggling with an influx of public records requests.

BY HANA STEPNICK

ARTS & CULTURE

12 Amid an uptick in local theater companies and productions, a venue shortage is causing concern.

BY BYRON WOODS

14 An interview with singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus, ahead of her performance at the Ritz.

BY RACHEL SIMON

16 Weeks after the release of Big Pooh's album Dreaming in Color, a Justus League reunion performance shows the rapper is doing just that.

BY KYESHA JENNINGS

18 Remembering the renowned Bull City saxophonist, Brian Horton: "The music was another matter. He was a beast who made you play or get off the bandstand.”

BY THOMASI MCDONALD

John Hurld

THE

Jane Porter

Geoff West

&

Sarah Edwards

Pi'erre Bourne performs at The Ritz on Sunday, October 2. (See calendar, page 16.)

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C K T A

Last week, we published an opinion editorial from Durham resident Frank Hyman about the wisdom (or perhaps lack thereof) behind voting for a third party in important elections such as this fall’s upcoming midterms. Our readers had plenty of opinions about the opinion.

From reader IAIN BURNETT via email: “This reminds me about The Onion article used ad nauseum after every school shooting with only the date and place changed. Only this version is about elections, and some iteration of it appears every two years. ‘An election is coming up, and boy it’s going to be close, so all you Green spoil ers out there, get with the program and vote Big Blue!’ Republicans likely feel the same way about Libertarians (who vastly outnumber Greens in NC, by the way)—per haps the GOP have their own ‘independent’ publications where they can slowly erode democracy with that inher ently reasonable talk that ‘this is the last time, baby, you can vote for who you want to next time.’ Disturbing. How about instead of letting partisan junk like this into your Op-Ed section (which by the way, I believe was written by a registered Democrat if NC voter lookup is correct), you call attention to the fact that close to two million regis tered NC voters don’t vote at all. That is the true shame of our elections. Is Ranked Choice Voting the fix? Are debates that include all candidates a good idea? I don’t know, but we need change that makes even the political outliers feel like welcome participants.”

From Twitter commenter NECCO WAFER: “The responsibility is on the party to move left if they want to capture voters on that side. If Dems keep sliding right to capture more conservative voters they shouldn’t be sur prised to shed votes on the left.”

From Twitter commenter CARE BEAR MECH SUIT: “Green party candidates don’t take votes away from Dems. They appeal to voters Dems have intention ally disenfranchised. Those are votes Dems wouldn’t have gotten anyway.”

And from Twitter commenter MICHAEL OAKES, who is also a Libertarian candidate for NC House District 49: “@indyweek, attacking third parties isn’t a good look.”

Finally, reader IAIN BURNETT weighed in again on Facebook: “Two Thumbs Down. Relies on faulty assump tion that people who support Green politics would forget that the Democratic party tried all summer to get the Green candidate thrown off the ballot (how democratic!). Misses the point that there are only a few thousand Green supporters and many more Libertarians who might just as easily realize a vote for Libertarians only helps Democrats (much danger!). Completely glosses over the fact that candidates should be appealing to the millions of voters who gave up on the gridlocked duopoly in Congress and won’t bother to vote (such sad!). Don’t be fooled by the Democrat pictured—he’s got morels, not morals.”

Chapel Hill

15 MINUTES

Winston Li, 34

Jeopardy! Contestant

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

What do you do when you’re not learning trivia?

In my day job, I’m a physician in psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. I did something called Academic Teams in school, so that’s kind of how I got into this. Some people call it Quiz Bowl. Essentially it’s just a trivia competition.

What do you enjoy about trivia?

You mean, besides just being a nerd? Honestly, as a kid, I just loved to read. I was reading fiction books, but I also loved reading history books. I love U.S. history. I guess I realized later that a lot of that reading just stuck in my brain. Doing Quiz Bowl, there’s a competitive part to it, and you play as a team. I can promise you I have no athletic ability, so I couldn’t play basketball for UNC or be a professional football player. But in my own nerdy way, [going on Jeopardy!] was like getting to play in the Super Bowl. It’s like, I’m never going to be good enough to play in the Dean Dome or Madison Square Garden, but this is the nerd equivalent.

How did you end up competing on Jeopardy!?

There’s a three-step audition process. The first step is taking a test online. It’s literally called the “Anytime Test,” so anybody could go online right now, tomorrow, and take an online test with Jeopardy! questions. If you pass the test, you go to the second stage, which is another online test. Then a certain number of people move on to the third stage, which is kind of a mock game of Jeopardy! with a personality interview.

When did you find out that you had been selected to be on the show?

I found out in early July. They don’t give you too much notice between inviting you to be on the show and your actual tape day, which was in early August for me. So by the time they tell you you’re going to be on the show, there’s not too much time to study. It’s more like some light cramming. It was incredible. My heart was pounding. It was also tough, because when they tell you’re going to be on the show, you can’t go out and tell anybody. I was sworn to secrecy, so it was hard to walk around and try to act normally.

What was the filming experience like?

It was surreal. I live a regular life, going to work and just doing my thing. And for this, you fly to Los Angeles. They film in a movie studio, Sony Picture Studios. So it felt very glamorous. I wore makeup for the first time in my life. I don’t do this every day! They actually film five episodes in a single taping day. On TV, they always make it seem like it’s Monday, it’s Tuesday, but in reality, those five days are one single day. There’s a lot of waiting during the actual filming process while you wait for your game. When you’re sitting at home, you’re well rested, you’re well fed, you’re relaxed. In real life, you’re just sitting and really anxious and excited and nervous. There were about a dozen people there that day for the whole week’s worth of episodes. We got to watch in a green room. Everyone there just knows so much. It’s kind of like when you shout out the answers from your living room couch. Well, just imagine 10 huge trivia buffs were in your living room. W

Read an extended interview online at indyweek.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT

Q U I C K B A

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

It's no secret that UNCChapel Hill has become less attractive to Black professors following the Nikole Hannah-Jones debacle, but how are the other two big universities in the Triangle doing? Data from 2020, the most recent available, shows that Duke and N.C. State fall below state and national averages when it comes to the percentage of Black faculty. Surprisingly, the percentage at UNC-Chapel Hill is comparable to the national average although below the state average. Racial equity remains a priority for minority professors, and many have left North Carolina for more welcoming institutions. See page 6 for more.

Alleviating Hunger

The Durham Food Bank’s Double Bucks program is doing a lot to alleviate hunger locally—but its funding runs out soon and it needs a new investor.

BY KAITLYN BREEDLOVE backtalk@indyweek.com

As the manager of the Durham Farm ers’ Market, I have had the privilege of meeting and talking with the many fami lies utilizing our Double Bucks Program. The Double Bucks Program incentivizes the purchase of local food by doubling SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps) and Farmers Market Nutrition Program benefits as well as providing cash for WIC recipients (Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children) and Durham Housing Authority residents at locations such as farmers’ markets. This is a huge benefit for many individuals and families in our community, especially as food costs continue to rise.

However, the future of the Double Bucks program in the Triangle is uncertain. Cur rent funding is coming to an end, and unless another funder steps forward, fam ilies who rely on Double Bucks will have to make do with less in a time when many families are already struggling to put food on their tables.

With the stated goal of ending hunger by 2030, the White House has organized lis tening sessions throughout the country to evaluate the success of various food bene fits programs. What they have found is that these incentive programs like Double Bucks are crucial to alleviating hunger.

We hear a similar sentiment week after week at the farmers’ market. One local teach er described what Double Bucks (DB) means to her: “As a teacher, I can often find myself frustrated with the politics of North Caro lina. DB feels almost like a nice reward for hard work that isn’t economically valued. It makes it easier to do what I love and live the life I want. I lost my job during the pandemic and a friend suggested I sign up for EBT. I’ve always been a farmers’ market attendee, but it hasn’t always been the most economical choice. With DB, the farmers’ market is my first choice again for grocery shopping.”

Durham and Orange Counties have one of the strongest, most innovative Double Bucks programs in the country. The pro gram, which started in 2013, now runs at 11 local farmers’ markets. In 2021 alone, the program brought in about $232,000 to the economy from six markets and helped well over 400 families put food on their tables in Durham alone. And it continues to grow; markets saw an 81 percent increase in customers shopping with Double Bucks in the 2020–2021 market season. With proper investment, there are many more SNAP recipients and local farmers who can benefit from this program.

Groups such as the American Heart Association, Rural Advancement Founda tion International–USA, Durham County Department of Public Health, and Durham County Cooperative Extension are working tirelessly to find funders so families and farmers will continue to benefit.

We are seeing public investments of the Double Bucks program all over the country; this is what ensures sustainability to these impactful programs. One possible funding source is the American Rescue Program Funds that Durham City and County both received. Many other municipalities are using ARPA to fund their community’s incentive programs. Other possibilities include allocat ing local government revenue, private sector funding, and individual donations. Howev er it is funded, the Triangle needs to come together to ensure that the program that has helped so many continues to support our farmers and help families thrive.

In the words of a customer, “On Social Security income, I can’t afford to eat non-processed food. The Double Bucks have been a free gift of more food, less depression, and probably a longer and hap pier life. Being able to feel like a part of society and helping to support local farm ers definitely reduces some of the stress of relative poverty.”

W

WED 9.28 5PM

Raleigh's Community Bookstore

EVENTS

John Patrick Green, InvestiGators: Braver and Boulder AGES 7+

Barbara J. Sullivan, Climate Change Gardening for the South: PlanetFriendly Solutions

THUR 9.29 7PM

Denesha Seth Carley, Pollinator Gardening for the South: Creating Sustainable Habitats for Thriving Gardens Adventure

SAT 10.1 2PM

WED 10.5 7PM

Belynda Chambers, Beauty Queen Blues Show Up & Wear a Crown

Mary Llewellyn McNeil, Century’s Witness: The Extraordinary Life of Journalist Wallace Carroll

919.828.1588

NC

N E W S Raleigh Faculty Flight

Black professors and other faculty members of color are leaving NC State for greener pastures.

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

RaJade Berry-James, a public administration professor with a long list of credentials, left NC State Univer sity last month for a position at Virginia Commonwealth University. When asked what prompted her resignation, Berry-James said just two words: “fair pay.”

Berry-James was not looking for a new job. She had worked at NC State for 12 years both as a full profes sor and as the chair of the faculty. She’s a distinguished researcher with 35 years of experience in academia, plus a prestigious fellowship. But what happened last month was the last straw.

In mid-August, Berry-James’s request for an unpaid leave of absence was denied, in part because Berry-James would not disclose her “personal reasons” for the leave, she says. Berry-James resigned her position at NC State the next day.

The administration responded with a retention offer— typically an offer of a raise or other benefits in an effort to keep an employee—but Berry-James declined.

“While I had a short time to consider the retention offer, only fair pay would have kept me at NC State,” she says. “I left a small piece of my heart with the NC State Wolf pack. I loved the awesome students, engaged faculty, and brave campus leaders who shared my vision for fairness and justice. I hope to get back to the campus someday.”

Unfortunately, this is a familiar story. Since January, at least 10 Black professors have left NC State University for greener pastures. Their reasons for leaving weren’t all the same. Some mentioned pay equity. Some talked about the additional burden of work placed on Black faculty. Some said it was simply easier to seek a job somewhere else, where they could pursue their professional goals. But one sentiment came up again and again: faculty members say they felt undervalued.

Repeatedly, faculty members say the university did not

seem to value their work and didn’t seem to care when they left. Efforts made to keep them were modest at best and proposals of significant pay raises were rejected.

Warwick Arden, the executive vice chancellor and provost for NC State, didn’t address allegations of pay inequality or additional burdens of work in his response to the INDY’s request for an interview last week.

Instead, he deflected blame, writing that “the reasons why individual faculty and staff members leave the univer sity are varied and often include receiving significant pro motion, career, and personal advancement opportunities at other institutions or in the private sector.”

That’s not untrue. Two professors who left NC State this year said they left in part to pursue other career opportunities. But they also talked about the barriers minority faculty members face. The inability to advance their careers at NC State. A quiet form of discrimination in which the university pays less attention to their work, cuts their funding first, and expects them to work harder for less pay than white coworkers.

“The lived experience for underrepresented minority fac ulty is different, and yet sometimes our experiences are the same,” Berry-James says. “My story may be familiar to many others.”

Fair Pay

Louie Rivers III, a Black environmental justice scholar, left his job at NC State in January for a local research position with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

This was two years after he received tenure, a status many academics work their whole careers to achieve.

“A lot of us feel like we’re just severely underpaid at NC State,” Rivers says, citing a $6 million grant he helped bring to the university last year.

It’s a decent chunk of change, and half of the grant goes directly to the university. The rest is doled out by administrators to pay graduate students, among other things. One of the final straws for Rivers was the univer sity’s refusal to allocate $70,000 to hire a postdoctoral researcher, he says.

“This is a person with a PhD,” Rivers says. “I just got to this point where I brought in a fair amount of grant sup port for the university, but then I’m hustling to support my students. You kind of feel like you’re not getting paid the best, you’re not being treated the best, but it’s fine. But it became even more frustrating when I felt like they weren’t paying our graduate students right.”

Invisible Labor

Being a professor, especially one of color, isn’t an easy job, Rivers says.

“If you’re a Black professor, you end up being an informal mentor to pretty much every Black student on campus,” he says. “Which is fine, but it’s a lot of invisible labor.”

While professors who spoke to the INDY all say they enjoy supporting and mentoring students of color, they also agreed it was an extra burden of work not placed on white faculty members.

NC State University Campus

PHOTO BY JADE WILSON

Ryan Emanuel, a Native American envi ronmental science professor who left NC State for Duke earlier this year, says there was often a silent expectation he would reach out to Lumbee students.

Emanuel didn’t leave NC State because of issues of racism or discrimination—he was happy with his job there and left to pursue better professional opportunities, he says—but he noted some of the issues minority faculty members face.

Being one of the few Lumbee profes sors “causes excess burdens of service and advising,” he says.

“I don’t mean to say I don’t love inter acting with students, because I do …. But at the same time, we want recognition that we have this extra burden of mento ring and role modeling for students who … want to interact with faculty who have similar life experiences to them.”

Rivers, who knew Emanuel and another minority professor who left the college in January—Jason Coupet, who taught public administration—says NC State’s adminis trators simply don’t realize how exception al some of their faculty members are.

Coupet wasn’t available for comment for this story.

“I just don’t think the university real ized how special these people were, and they just didn’t value them,” Rivers says. “NC State doesn’t value the work of women and minorities the same, so if you get an opportunity to go somewhere else, it’s easier.”

A Small Percentage

Joy Gaston Gayles, an education pro fessor and advisor for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at NC State, is also troubled by the wave of minority fac ulty members who resigned this year. Last month, one of her colleagues (a tenured professor who was at NC State for almost 20 years) became the eighth Black woman to leave the university in 2022, she wrote in a recent op-ed for education magazine Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

“As I examined my list further, I realized that half of the Black women were full professors who have made extraordinary contributions to their respective fields,” Gayles wrote.

“I also know that many of them may have stayed if they were paid equitably, provided greater opportunities and path

ways to advance their careers, and didn’t have to navigate racialized, gendered, and hostile work environments.”

At NC State, as at many other colleges and universities, Black faculty members make up only a small percentage of the overall academic staff. Black faculty are most present in the lowest levels of aca demia (about 1 percent of assistant profes sors at NC State are Black) and least pres ent at the highest levels (only 0.4 percent are full professors).

“The academy remains white and steeped in whiteness because efforts to diversify the academy are performative rather than transformational,” Gayles writes.

In other words, colleges are talking the talk but not walking the walk. They’re posting DEI statements on their websites but not working to change the culture of

What’s Next?

According to Walter Robinson, a cli mate science professor who has worked at the university for over a decade, NC State has made an effort to recruit Black and minority faculty members. Their efforts to retain these faculty members are another matter.

“The search committees who are hiring new people are making an effort [to diver sify], but if we’re not keeping [minority fac ulty] here, then we just don’t see the prog ress,” Robinson says. “I don’t sense urgency from the chancellor and the provost to say, ‘We really have to diversify our faculty.’”

Robinson says he and many faculty thought the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 would be a “wake-up call” to the university. But since then, he hasn’t seen a genuine, intentional effort from admin istrators to recruit and keep Black faculty, he says.

“Given the small number of faculty of color, especially those on the tenure track, each such loss hurts,” he says.

The college made “diversity and inclu sion” a key goal in its 10-year strate gic plan—a fact highlighted by Provost Arden in his email to the INDY —but Rob inson thinks university leaders could be doing more.

The departure of minority faculty not only discourages students of color from becoming professors but also discourag es other minority faculty from applying to work at NC State, which ultimately hurts the community and its research, according to Robinson and others.

the university, Gayles writes. They’re not fighting to keep Black women the same way they are fighting to keep white men, she argues.

“The fact that so many Black women can leave an institution in such a short time period and no one notices or says anything, and no visible changes are made to prevent this from happening is a clear example of misogynoir [anti-Black racist misogyny],” Gayles writes.

“It isn’t easy for Black women in the academy to love institutions that do not love us back …. Writing this edito rial was not easy for me but necessary …. Institutions must do better to care for the humanity of Black women on college campuses.”

It’s similar to the debacle with the acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who was initially offered an untenured position, then offered the tenure for which she was more than qualified following an outcry at UNC-Chapel Hill. Several faculty members left UNC after that news spread nationwide, and the university gained a reputation for being hostile to faculty members of color.

Arden says NC State is “dedicated to advancing a culture of diversity, equi ty, inclusion and belonging. This includes a strong commitment to recruiting and retaining underrepresented faculty members.”

“While we have continued to make prog ress over the last several years, there’s still much that can be done to improve equity in higher education, including at NC State,” he says. W

“If you’re a Black professor, you end up being an informal mentor to pretty much every Black student on campus. Which is fine, but it’s a lot of invisible labor.”

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Minister of Justice

The Reverend Ben Chavis, the “godfather of environmental justice,” commemorated the movement’s 40th anniversary last week.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com

It was exactly four decades ago this month that Rev. Ben Chavis, while sitting in a Warren County jail for driving too slow, came up with the term “environmental racism.”

Chavis ended up in the hoosegow for driving down a road to lead Warren County residents who were protest ing the dumping of deadly toxins in their community.

“That night in the Warren County jail, I thought to myself, not only is this wrong ... this is an environmen tal wrong, and it’s tantamount to environmental racism,” Chavis said on September 15 while speaking at Duke University’s Wilson Lecture to commemorate 40 years of work with the environmental justice movement.

More than 500 people were jailed beginning in Sep tember 1982 while protesting the state officials’ decision to dump in predominantly Black, rural, and impoverished Warren County more than 60 tons of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a highly carcinogenic substance.

The protesters’ crime?

The men, women, and children of Warren County lay down on the highway to block the toxin-carrying trucks from entering their community.

The Warren County residents’ brave protest augured

by seven years the bold defiance of an unidentified man who stood in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, to protest the government’s vio lent crackdown on protesters.

When the residents of Warren County used their bod ies to defy the trucks carrying the toxins that arrived in their home that fall, the environmental justice movement was born.

Chavis is the descendant of a long line of clergy mem bers and educators. His great-great-grandfather John Chavis was the first African American to be ordained a Presbyterian minister in the United States. The cause of civil rights is in the junior Chavis’s DNA. At the age of 12, scholars say, his determination to obtain a library card at a whites-only library in his hometown of Oxford eventually led to its integration.

Chavis in 1967 was a college student at UNC Charlotte when he became a civil rights organizer with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Today, Chavis is widely recognized as the godfather of the environmental justice movement, which was born in Warren County. While speaking at Duke this month,

he gave credit “to the women, to the children, one of whom was only four years old, a child, arrested by the state of North Carolina for lying down in the road to block the trucks.”

Chavis said that about two years before the protests, a company in the Northeast dumped the toxins along North Carolina’s highways, and state officials, including former governor Jim Martin, decided to move the substance and “of the state’s 100 counties” chose the state’s “most pre dominantly Black” county for its relocation.

“I’m certain that state officials, including the governor, knew that it wasn’t appropriate to put tons of toxins in a poor rural community that got most of its water from wells. It’s the last place you want to dig a hole and dump tons of toxins,” Chavis said while speaking to a group of students, his former professors, supporters, and family members who had gathered at Duke Chapel.

“Warren County was deliberately targeted, and what we found out after more than 500 people were arrested 40 years ago [was] it brought national attention and the discovery that what was going on in Warren County was not isolated,” he said. He added that similar environmen tal challenges were taking place in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Moreover, Chavis noted, by 1985, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Reagan adminis tration was in denial about the existence of environ mental racism.

There’s been a significant turnaround regarding the EPA’s stance on environmental justice since the Reagan administration, or even the Trump administration that was at odds with the World Health Organization on top of its withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

On Saturday, Michael Regan, the EPA’s top administra

Rev. Ben Chavis speaking at Duke Chapel

PHOTO COURTESY OF DUKE UNIVERSITY SANFORD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

tor and a Goldsboro native, stood on the steps of the Warren County courthouse and announced that the agency is launch ing a new Environmental Justice and Exter nal Civil Rights Office.

“We are finally ensuring that com munities who have long borne the bur den of pollution see, breathe, and feel the benefits of the federal government’s investments,” said Regan, whose remarks appeared in NC Health News . “It’s about changing how our government works, and who it works for, something that so many of you today have dedicated your life to realizing.”

Regan also touted President Joe Biden’s “commitment to elevate environmental justice and civil rights enforcement at the EPA and across the federal govern ment and ensure the work to support our most vulnerable communities continues for years to come,” according to an EPA press release.

According to the release, the new office will oversee the implementation and delivery of a $3 billion climate and envi ronmental justice block grant program, created by the Inflation Reduction Act, and the law’s “historic $60 billion invest ment in environmental justice.”

T he United Church of Christ responded to the Warren County protest by com missioning a landmark study, “Toxic Waste and Race in the United States of America,” that relied on statistics to give evidence about the role of race and the location of toxic waste in communities across the country.

“The environmental justice [movement] grew first through the courage, per sistence, and sacrifice of Warren County and others who joined together to build a movement,” Chavis said.

Prior to arriving in Warren County 40 years ago, Chavis had risen to national and international prominence as the leader of the Wilmington 10.

Scholars and historians say Chavis was working with the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice in 1972 when he and 15 high school students were arrested for setting fire to a white-owned grocery store and shooting at firemen and policemen who answered the call.

Chavis, along with eight other Black men and a white woman, was convicted of arson and conspiracy to assault emer gency personnel. They became known as the Wilmington 10; Chavis entered prison in 1975, after his appeals were exhausted.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International des ignated the group as political prisoners due to the weak evidence used to convict

them. It was the first time Amnesty Inter national used the designation for people behind bars in American prisons.

The Wilmington 10’s sentences were overturned in 1980 by the U.S. Fourth Circuit of Appeals, whose justices deemed their incarceration as a consequence of “prosecutorial misconduct.”

In 2012, Chavis and the surviving mem bers of the Wilmington 10 were issued pardons of innocence by then North Car olina governor Beverly Perdue.

When the United Church of Christ dis patched Chavis to Warren County to lead the PCB protests just two years after he got out of prison, “the last thing I wanted to do was get arrested in North Carolina,” Chavis said this month.

He landed in a Warren County jail cell after a state trooper charged him with driving too slowly on the road leading to the protests.

Chavis said that while sitting in his jail cell he began to define the term “environ mental racism” as “racial discrimination in public policy making,” with “the deliber ate targeting” of communities populated by people of color “for toxic waste and hazardous waste facilities and excluding people of color from public policy making.”

Chavis pointed to the water crises in Jackson, Mississippi, and Flint, Michi gan, but he could have also pointed to the town of Albemarle in Stanly County, where the poverty level is nearly 25 per cent and officials with the long-closed Alcoa aluminum smelting plant want ed to “increase the amount of cyanide it discharges into Badin Lake, a popu lar fishing and swimming destination— and a drinking water supply”—for Albe marle residents, according to reporting from NC Policy Watch . (State officials blocked the move).

Chavis noted the progress the environ mental justice movement has made over the past 40 years: it’s now global. But he also said there are still formidable challenges and noted the convergence of environmental justice deniers with the same elements across the national and international landscape who deny climate change.

Pointedly, Chavis said, those same forc es want to deny people the right to vote, deny women’s reproductive rights, and deny that systemic racism exists.

He added that one of the lessons of the pandemic was the disproportionate impact it had on communities that were exposed to environmental hazards.

“The earth belongs to the Lord,” he said. “The earth doesn’t belong to polluters who create toxins.” W

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Election

North Carolina

Disruption

Public record requests are flooding NC elections offices—and disrupting planning for the fall midterm elections.

BY HANA STEPNICK backtalk@indyweek.com

Across North Carolina, self-proclaimed defendants of election integrity are disrupting day-to-day ways county officials preserve the integrity of elections. The effort seems to be a new strategy by people who pro mote the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 elec tion: a nationwide barrage of public records requests to county boards of elections. The effort is delaying the officials’ ability to do their jobs—hiring poll workers, ordering ballots, and all the other things required to run smooth elections.

Patrick Gannon, the public information director for the North Carolina Board of Elections, said county offices are being flooded with requests.

“They’re not only coming in the form of emails. People are showing up at election offices with public records requests. They’re showing up with video cameras as they drop off the public records requests. They’re emailing them. They’re mailing them. They’re faxing them. They’re coming in by the hundreds,” Gannon said, noting that the requests are going to all 100 county boards of elections in the state.

Public records requests to boards of elections are use ful tools for journalists, researchers, and any person who’s genuinely curious about the state’s voting pro cesses. The requests are normally just a trickle and can be handled by the election staffers. But lately, counties across North Carolina have been overwhelmed, as have counties around the country.

Certain types of requests seem to come in waves, elec tion officials said. For instance, they reported receiving an influx of demands to see “cast vote records” (CVRs), files of scanned ballots usually used by academics and auditors. It is illegal to release them to anyone but

election officials in North Carolina, although legal in some states.

Gannon said the high volume of requests has become such a burden that they are distracting workers from the important tasks of preparing for the November election.

“It is having a great effect on the ability of county boards of elections and staff to focus on the task at hand, and that is conducting a fair and accurate 2022 general election,” Gannon said. “Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong. I talk to county directors every day. I email with them every day. And it’s definitely having an effect.”

Besides asking for records that cannot be released under the law, many of the requests are just arduous.

Daniel Lassiter, the voter services manager at the Durham County Board of Elections, mentioned a request he got this year for the results tapes of the 2020 NC Supreme Court race between Cheri Beasley and Paul Newby. The tape, which is different from a cast vote record, looks like a long receipt, so it was tricky to figure out how to scan it onto a single page.

“That did take some time to do,” Lassiter said. He also described a recent request to produce every email his office exchanged with about 15 organizations, a task that required not only tracking down the emails but redacting sensitive information.

Gary Sims, the elections director for Wake County, also said the requests can be time consuming for elec tion workers.

“Some of these are very, very, very, very cumbersome,” he said. “It could be looking at a 10-foot tape or, if it’s in early voting, be looking at a 20- to 30-foot tape. How do you even copy a 20-foot document that’s only three inches

wide or so? Some of them, logistically, we’re trying to figure out—just one after another.”

Although the requests appear to be coming from indi viduals, several election officials reported language that looked cut-and-pasted from a template. But the officials said answering these requests is their job and said they intend to fulfill them.

“I don’t really have time to hunt down and search who these people are or what they’re using this information for. That’s not really our goal,” said Lassiter. “Our goal is to respond in a reasonable time, which is what the law states.”

“We all do what we’re obligated to provide,” Sims said.

Still, officials seem a little jumpy.

When asked for clarification about what zero tapes are, Michael Dickerson, the Mecklenburg County elections director, paused for a moment.

“If I tell you that then, geez, now everybody’s gonna ask me for it,” Dickerson said. “Are you looking for it? I’ve never heard of Ninth Street News, no offense. I’m not trying to be funny.” (The correct title is actually The 9th Street Journal.)

When asked what groups might be behind the requests, Dickerson said that wasn’t a part of his role.

“That would be your job,” he replied. “It’s a public records request to me. I do not care.”

Sims sees the groups behind these requests as a com plicated web spanning the country and state.

“Picture one of those CSI crime shows where they have the wall and they take the string and tie this person with this person,” Sims said.

A key figure in the flood of requests seems to be Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who has been a leader among

PHOTO VIA ARCHIVES.GOV

election deniers and hosted a national conference in August in which he called on people to seek vote records. According to The Washington Post, he’s worked with Jeff O’Donnell, who goes by the alias The Lone Raccoon and runs a website filled with falsehoods about election security.

In North Carolina, the requests appear to sprout from a number of groups, some easier to spot than others. They include We the People, Transparent Elections NC, and the North Carolina Audit Force, whose Telegram channel carries messages from The Lone Raccoon. One Lone Raccoon message calls for a hidden army of elec tion deniers. Others refer to news accounts reporting the truth about American elec tions as “hit pieces.”

Officials in bigger North Carolina coun ties are better able to deal with the flood of requests, although challenges persist.

“Thankfully, I was able to get a person who is dedicated just to handling public records, but no matter what, it not only tries to tie up our office, but it ties up our communications office and also our county attorney’s office,” Sims said.

Smaller counties lack these resources. They might have a lawyer on retainer, but it’s less likely they have a full department, Sims said.

Lassiter said that Durham is considering hiring a full-time employee to deal with the requests. Still, he considers himself fortu nate that the county hasn’t been as over loaded as other areas.

But for some officials, the chaos is begin ning to hit a breaking point.

Sims said he has heard from elections directors in other parts of the state who no longer want to put up with the abuse and pressures of the job. In his office, he tells his colleagues to send him any angry phone calls or disruptive individuals who show up at the door.

“You want to call and yell at me or cuss at me or threaten me? OK, if that’s what makes you feel better,” Sims said.

It’s important that his staff members stay focused on doing their job—running North Carolina elections, he said.

“All these people that are trying to do this—do they want people to quit?” Sims said. “Well, how is democracy supposed to work if you don’t have good people making sure things are done properly? And that’s the part that, I guess, is a little sad or dis heartening to me.” W

This story was published through a partner ship between the INDY and 9th Street Jour nal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy.

Stageless

BY BYRON WOODS arts@indyweek.com

The numbers have looked encouraging: no less than 18 separate shows running, simultaneously, on stages across the area as we’ve headed into the largest regional theater and dance season in years.

That metric, along with the five new companies we reported on in preview coverage of the fall season, speaks to significant new growth as artistic communities return to active practice after two years of fluctuating levels in social and artistic lockdown.

But even as the newest of the new, including LGB Pro ductions and Firebox Theatre, opened their first works, disquieting developments were unfolding offstage with the potential to affect not only their long-term health and sur vival but that of fledgling companies like them.

As the season starts, three venues that in the past have dependably provided a home for such groups—Pure Life Theatre, North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre (NRACT), and the Renaissance Centre in Wake Forest— have either seen their spaces close or signaled that they are unable to host groups at the levels they previously have. Why is that a big deal? Over two-thirds of the region’s 90-odd theater and dance companies are itinerant, with no permanent rehearsal or performance spaces of their own. Before they can develop and place new works in the public eye, they have to find a place that lets them show up in the world.

Since demand for affordable, reliable spaces that can also serve as functional theaters has always outstripped the available supply, new arrivals in the numbers that we’re seeing are likely to place further stress on a per formance ecosystem already ill equipped to handle the artists here at present.

“It’s extremely, extremely difficult,” says David Hender son, cofounder of Honest Pint Theatre. “Venues for small itinerant companies are hard to find.”

Since its inception in 2013, the independent group has regularly won superlatives as one of the region’s strongest companies. While planning its current season, it has also

struggled to find a viable space in which to present its work to the public, after Pure Life and NRACT, the two companies that had hosted the group in recent years, both unexpectedly flashed the “no vacancy” sign.

At NRACT, a full season of eight productions precludes presenting other companies through next June.

“We’ve got to recoup what we lost from COVID,” says managing artistic director Timothy Locklear. Paying top-dollar rent during the lockdown on a retail space in a tony North Raleigh shopping center burned through most of the company’s savings and donations. “We’re just trying to get back to a place where we can continue,” says Lock lear, who hopes to resume hosting groups next year.

The people at Pure Life certainly didn’t think they would join the ranks of the nomadic themselves this fall. Since January 2020, the group had shared office, rehearsal, and performance space with a collective of itinerant companies including Sips & Scripts and Seed Art Share and hosted groups including the enigmat ic Other Only Windows at its base of operations in Raleigh’s Royal Bakery building.

But when faced with a significant rent increase on top of intractable noise issues from an adjacent event space, the group made plans to transition to a new venue by mid summer. After those plans fell through at the last minute, “we had to literally move the theater twice,” says company cofounder Deb Royals-Mizerk, as the group put its office and theatrical equipment in storage. “It took a huge toll on us, both physically and on our psyches.”

Then came the challenge of finding new locations for the

five productions Pure Life had already planned.

Its season opener, a notable August production of August Wilson’s Fences, landed at William Peace Universi ty. A Motown cabaret sold out last Friday in Wake Forest; subsequent shows will play this winter and next spring in Durham, Raleigh, and Cary.

Royals-Mizerk stresses that the company is still actively searching with real estate brokers for a venue “where we can share space with the emerging companies we’re already committed to working with.” Until it does, the nine compa nies named in its collective must look elsewhere for places where they can be seen.

Whatever solution they come up with will come too late for the fall season at Forest Moon Theater. The compa ny canceled the season after learning it could no longer secure its longtime presenters at Renaissance Centre, a performing arts venue run by the city of Wake Forest, for a two-weekend run for its shows—the minimum booking that almost all itinerant companies believe they need to stay sustainable.

(Conventional wisdom and company track records across the region suggest that theaters come close to breaking even after family and friends attend a show’s first week and usuallly only make a profit from word-of-mouth ticket sales in the second week.)

That hadn’t been a problem in the venue’s early years. From 2015 to 2018, Forest Moon ran full seasons of four multi-week shows at Renaissance Centre each year. But in 2019, the center asked them to cut back to three—the last of which was canceled at the start of the pandemic.

Amid an encouraging uptick in local theater companies, a venue shortage is causing concern.

PHOTO VIA PEXELS

Given the struggle everyone was experi encing attempting to return from lockdown over the last year, Forest Moon acquiesced to a two-show season, with a single-week end run of The Odd Couple in October and a February production of The Diary of Anne Frank, which the company then canceled with the advent of the Omicron variant.

Push came to shove in a meeting last month in which Forest Moon board mem bers told management at the center that they couldn’t survive on single-weekend shows—and were offered only a single-week end slot in the fall and spring seasons.

The company’s counterrequest for a sin gle production running two weekends was also rejected.

When Forest Moon subsequently went dark this fall, the move surprised and sad dened center manager Debbie Dunn.

“I didn’t realize we were moving in that direction,” she says.

Both sides acknowledge that space has gotten tighter as demand for private and public bookings at the center has increased in recent years. It’s also agreed that Forest Moon has never sold out the center—delib erately, according to company director Bob Baird, since sightlines in the room make viewing a stage play difficult beyond the fourth or fifth row.

“We’ve tried to limit our house to a maximum of 100 seats,” Baird says. “I’m sure we’re not a money-making proposi tion for them.”

Though the Renaissance Centre’s mission statement includes presenting community theater by name, such bookings involve “a delicate balance,” according to Dunn. Since the venue is funded by the city, it has to critically consider and favor bookings that generate larger audiences.

At the same time, Dunn acknowledges that problematic sightlines have kept the ater houses small and says the venue is testing a staging technology this fall that might help solve that problem and per mit theater groups to mount productions that would be visible to full houses. Even if it works, though, with growing demand she’s uncertain if Renaissance Centre will have room in their calendar going forward to accommodate Forest Moon’s traditional four-show seasons.

Still, she says, “We are huge fans of For est Moon Theater and have worked very hard to help them be successful,” Dunn says. “At the end of the day, we’re all try ing to do the same thing—which is bring art to our communities.”

As it turns, others are making concert ed efforts to loosen the space squeeze in the region this fall, and not a moment too soon. Stay tuned. W

Night Shift

Singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus on crying onstage, selling out the Ritz, and why she feels a special connection to Raleigh.

BY RACHEL SIMON arts@indyweek.com

When Lucy Dacus logged onto our Zoom call in late August, she was taking a walk through a quaint Ger man town, the phone perched in her hand as she stretched her legs. It was a rare quiet moment for the 27-year-old singer-songwriter, who’s currently on a worldwide tour to support her 2021 album, Home Video, a record that had outlets ranging from The New York Times to Rolling Stone naming it as one of the year’s very best.

For all her recent success, though, Dacus is just at the onset of her career. She recently released a new sin gle, “Kissing Lessons,” as well as a widely shared cover of Cher’s “Believe”; her work in the supergroup boygen ius with Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker continues to earn praise; and fans’ excitement for her work is so high that the musician’s upcoming October 3 show in Raleigh required a move from the intimate Lincoln Theatre to the more formidable Ritz.

Ahead of the highly anticipated performance, the INDY spoke with Dacus about her tour rituals, activism, and the reason Raleigh will always hold a special place in her heart.

INDY WEEK: You’re currently on the European leg of your Home Video tour. How’s it been going?

LUCY DACUS: It’s been really great. I feel like every time we come here, it’s better and better. I know the internet exists, but we played in Helsinki to a bunch of people, and it still felt crazy that people in Helsinki know my music. I feel very lucky to be able to do this.

You grew up outside Richmond, Virginia. How familiar are you with the Raleigh area?

We’ve played some shows there that I remember really fond ly. Raleigh’s actually the city where I found out that Matador [Records] was interested in signing me. So I remember walk ing around and being like, “My life might change,” and then it totally did [laughs]. So, only good associations.

Do you have anything specific planned for the Raleigh show?

The opening band, Crooks and Nannies, are good friends of ours and are just starting to put out music, but I’m lucky enough to have heard it and know that it’s awesome.

Some members of that band and some members of my band had a quarantine band in my basement called Cars 2, and we might play some of our Cars 2 unreleased secret tracks at the shows together. I don’t know what yet, but we’ve kind of both joked and been serious about doing that.

You had to change the venue to the Ritz because tickets sold out. How did you feel when you heard that news? Oh my gosh. I was like, “What, really?” That was so quick for a venue to sell out. And if it sold out, it means that the people are stoked, so I’m looking forward to the show even more than most.

In the past, you’ve donated proceeds from your concerts and merch to pro-choice groups. Will you continue doing that or similar activism work with your upcoming shows? I actually have a call right after this with someone from the Working Families Party. I think that my values align with theirs a lot, and I’m gonna ask them about what the local elections are for our cities on this tour and if there are people they support. The other thing I’m really excited about is that hopefully, on every stop of the tour, there will be a local Indigenous organization there to do a proper land acknowledgment and talk about local initiatives and issues and collect money. That’s something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time. So hopefully, both of those will be in place for the Raleigh show.

How has your relationship to your music changed over the time you’ve been touring?

It’s a cycle. There was a really long time where we weren’t playing “Please Stay,” because I was like, I just don’t like bringing people down like that. But recently, it’s felt like some people show up because they want to hear that song, and it feels important, so we’ve been playing it more. I also come in and out of liking “Timefighter,” because the vocal runs are a little bit not my taste anymore. Being like, “Oh, oh, oh” [laughs]. But a lot of people like it, and it’s really fun live.

You’re clearly open to letting fans take control. My guitarist will search my name on Twitter sometimes and see if people are requesting songs, and then I’ll make a note. Because I’ve been to tons of gigs where I’m like, I hope they play this song, and then they don’t, and then you walk away a little bit disappointed. So yeah, if people have any recommendations, tweet about it.

You’ve had a huge year and a half between the album’s release, touring, TV and festival performances, and more. Looking back now, what moment felt most surreal? Our first show out of COVID we were opening for Shakey Graves, who I’m a huge fan of, at Red Rocks, where I’ve always wanted to play. I just cried, not in a cute, dainty way, but, like, ugly cried, so much that by the end of “Night Shift,” I was like, “I can’t do this, y’all do it,” and I just had the crowd sing it for me. My band came up and hugged me, and I just went backstage afterwards and wept and wept. There have been lots of surreal moments, but that was a really wild way to kick everything off. W

LUCY

Lucy Dacus

PHOTO BY EBRU YILDIZ

Dream Ticket

BY KYESHA JENNINGS arts@indyweek.com

T

he large sign taped to the door of the Pour House was disappointing for the ticketless fans outside: “Tonight’s Show Is Sold Out.” It signified, though, that after five Little Brother albums and 15 solo projects, Rapper Big Pooh has built a core fan base that wants to see him win.

The energy at the show, in late August, remained high the entire night, as fans of Big Pooh and Little Brother were gifted with an overdue reunion: hip-hop collective the Justus League, founded by 9th Wonder and Cesar Comanche back in 1996. It had been more than 15 years since Rapper Big Pooh, Cesar Comanche, Chaundon, Phonte, Median, L.E.G.A.C.Y., Sean Boog, and Edgar Allen Floe had all shared a stage.

“We just wanted to do something special for Raleigh,” Big Pooh says. “What better thing to do than to reunite the crew?”

The full-circle moment reminded Pooh of the group’s early beginnings. Twenty years ago, he’d been the one to organize the collective’s show sets and now, once again, he found himself sequencing the run of the show. The mem orable moment was captured on tape for Little Brother’s upcoming full-length documentary May the Lord Watch: The Little Brother Story, directed by Holland Randolph Gallagher. Although there isn’t an official release date yet, the documentary is set to release in 2023, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of Little Brother’s debut album, The Listening. A trailer for the documentary features live

footage, archival clips, and interviews with members of Little Brother, Questlove, and others.

It also highlights the recent success Phonte and Pooh have achieved and gives viewers a sneak peek at the drama that led to the disbanding of Little Brother in 2010.

“COVID slowed us down, which ended up, I believe being for the best,” Pooh said over the phone. “It has allowed us to really get the correct direction for the documenta ry. I believe it’s going to be a different film from the one we started in 2018. But it’s a better film than the one we started in 2018.”

The trajectory of Rapper Big Pooh’s career over the last 20 years has resulted in him wearing many hats, rang ing from artist to artist manager and DJ, and during the show, fans were able to witness the repositioning of his professional identity in real time. Not only did he assist Chaundon with DJ-ing during the Justus League set, but the artist that Pooh manages—Dreamville signee Lute West—also performed.

When asked what his current dream is, Pooh shared that it is to help “other artists live out some of their dreams.” He’s been doing just that: at the rapper’s Raleigh show, North Carolina–based rappers Shame Gang and Tab-One (of Kooley High) opened.

“Me and Tab-One been trying to do a show together for a long time,” Big Pooh says. “It was just dope to have him on the bill for the Raleigh show, and I’ve known Shame Gang for a couple of years now. I just always loved his

energy. He forces me to actually make sure I’m on my p’s and q’s when I come out on stage. Or if not, he’s gonna steal the show.”

To Dream in Color, released August 22 on Soulspazm, is an autobiographical concept album filled with per sonal stories about love, loss, insecurities, broken dreams, personal growth, and perseverance.

The project’s strength lies in Pooh’s lyrical abilities and vulnerability. He walks listeners through the finan cial challenges present in his upbringing and opens up about insecurities from his younger days. In many ways, To Dream in Color is a sonic time machine: listeners are transported to the days when his dreams of becoming a rapper first began. On “Changing Again” Pooh doesn’t shy away from talking about the obstacles his group Little Brother faced, from bad contracts and internal conflicts to the group’s very public breakup.

A recurring thread throughout the project is the rap per’s personal commitment to his dreams and craft with out the pressures of mainstream success.

“You know, it’s different now,” Big Pooh says when asked to reflect on his decision to tell these specific stories— some of which are 20 years old. “When you go through certain situations, you don’t fully understand what’s hap pening. You’re just trying to make it to the other side. As I look back, it was a number of lessons in those situations that I may have missed or ended up catching a little later.

Weeks after the release of Big Pooh’s Dreaming in Color, a Justus League reunion performance shows the rapper is doing just that.

Rapper Big Pooh

PHOTO BY TOBIAS ROSE

I just felt it was important for me to show the process.”

Ultimately the project allows listeners to understand how Big Pooh—given name Thomas Louis Jones III—evolved into the man he is today. We live in a time in which much of what fans see on social media isn’t reality. The importance of showing one’s process often isn’t valued in an era where obtaining fame by going viral is the end goal.

Rapper Big Pooh will tell you, though, that fame is fleeting.

“Nobody is going to work harder for you than you will for yourself...I understand what I want out of this. I’m not concerned with being the superstar. I just want to get my message out and live comfortably— and I’ve been able to do that by going to get it for myself.”

In “In Surround Sound” he guides us through the moments that led to him and Phonte rekindling their brotherhood and also paints an honest picture of what it’s like to be a working rapper. “Whether it was Amazon, drive Uber, drive Lyft or con centrate on my gifts … I was down but I did not quit,” the lyrical emcee raps.

Now, three years since the release of the critically acclaimed Little Brother project May the Lord Watch, and a few weeks after the release of Pooh’s To Dream in Color, which has received rave reviews on social media and on hip-hop blogs, Rapper Big Pooh says he has what he calls “a healthy fear of failure.”

According to the veteran emcee, fail ure has taught him grace, humility, and patience.

Following his collaboration with produc

er Nottz on 2015’s Home Sweet Home, To Dream in Color was originally envisioned as the follow-up album. Almost seven years later, Pooh shared on his Instagram that the “album would not have happened without Phonte telling [him] to start from scratch and make the album that [he] real ly wanted to make.”

Phonte also served as the co–execu tive producer of the album—a first for the group members. He has a big personality and charismatic aura, but it doesn’t steal the spotlight from Pooh—rather, the pair’s energy seems perfectly complemented.

“I think at this point we really under stand who we are and who each other is,” Pooh says. “I think that was missing ear lier. We didn’t understand who the other person really was at the core. And now that we understand that, there’s a differ ent level of respect. There’s also a different level of understanding that we have with each other that we didn’t necessarily have when we were younger. I hate how our paths played out, but I can’t lie—it’s the reason why we’re as close as we are today.”

The making of To Dream in Color was a family affair. Phonte’s role in the devel opment didn’t involve being present in the studio or selecting beats. Instead, he focused on the big picture by making sure the creative process was as smooth as Pooh needed it to be, and he sequenced the final 10 tracks. Pooh also called on longtime collaborators Rich and J Smash of The Nukez to produce the album; his close friend, rapper Joe Scudda, made the album’s artwork; and Lute is featured on the project along with Blakk Soul and Phonte’s artist BeMyFiasco.

“I just wanted to make this project, for the most part, very much insulated with people that I’ve worked with for years,” he says.

To Dream in Color also features sea soned and new talent from North Carolina, including the Grammy-nominated produc er D.R.U.G.S. Beats; Westtopher; and The Mercenaries, a new producer collective out of Raleigh. After 20 years in an industry that has the potential to suffocate dream ers, the biggest lesson Rapper Big Pooh has learned is how to take his destiny into his own hands.

“Nobody is going to work harder for you than you will for yourself,” he says. “I really started to see a return when I stopped depending on labels and start ed handling my own business. I under stand what I want out of this. I’m not concerned with being the superstar. I just want to get my message out and live com fortably—and I’ve been able to do that by going to get it for myself.” W

Brian Horton’s Last Song

Members of the Bull City jazz community—and around the world—mourn the death of the renowned saxophonist.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmdconald@indyweek.com

B rian Horton looked like a jazzman.

He cradled the tenor saxophone like it was a lover, closed his eyes to press the keys and caress it. Horton was a consummate reedman who gave it his all, always intent on blowing breaths of love and life, heaven, and hell, into his instrument.

For the past three years on Tuesday nights, Horton, tenor saxophonist, composer, and newly named director of jazz studies at NC Central University, led a trio of musi cians—horn, upright bass, and drums—at Kingfisher bar in downtown Durham.

On September 14, two days after missing that weekly gig, officers with the NCCU Police Department found Horton dead inside his Durham home.

He was 46, six days shy of his next birthday.

Last Tuesday night, on September 20, Horton would have been performing at Kingfisher.

Instead, Horton’s fellow musicians, students, university peers, and everyone else who loved the man and his music gathered at the NorthStar Church of the Arts in Durham to honor and celebrate his brief, albeit impressive, legacy.

Lenora Helm Hammonds, NCCU’s interim department chair and director of graduate programs, jazz, and music, said school officials called the Durham police and asked for a wellness check at Horton’s home after he did not show up to teach his classes on Wednesday, September 14. No one answered the door at Horton’s home when the police arrived.

The next day, university officials filed a missing person report and campus police went to his home and discovered his body. The officers notified Durham police.

Although Horton’s cause of death has not been made public, Hammonds said NCCU police reported no signs of foul play.

“He didn’t look harmed,” she says. Hammonds adds that social media has been buzzing with folks “demanding answers” to the unexplained questions about his death.

“That’s all we know,” she says. “I promise you, that’s all there is to it. We’re not hiding anything.”

Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon, who cofounded the NorthStar Church with her husband, the legendary architect Phil Freelon, months before Phil died in 2019, was among members of the city’s jazz community who gathered at the sanctuary last week to honor Horton. Freelon sang a song that Horton wrote for her.

“Brother Horton,” she said, “I think he thought he had some more tomorrows. I thought he had some more tomor rows. But with this thing we call life, we don’t come here to stay. So he has given his tomorrows to us.”

Horton was ever the teacher, even on the bandstand.

Kinston native and NCCU-trained alto saxophonist Eric Xavier Dawson told the INDY he sat in with Horton at Kingfisher about three weeks before he died.

Dawson floundered on the bandstand that night.

“I ain’t really been playing that much,” Dawson told the INDY. “Brian dropped a jewel on me. He called me and

told me I needed to take that ass-whupping and go home and come back next week, and not talk about it. He lit a fire under me.”

Another Kinston native, Brian Miller, who is also an NCCU-trained alto saxophonist, had also recently shared the bandstand with Horton at Kingfisher.

“We played,” Miller told the INDY last week. “I mean we played. Anytime me and Brian got together there was a mutual respect and love for one another. Brian would keep you on top of your game.”

“It’s tough to talk about because Brian would keep you honest,” Miller added, a sob catching in his throat. “Brian wouldn’t let you fake it. It was genuine. He wasn’t doing this because he was trying to show you up. He wanted you to be at your best.”

Jonathan Brian Horton was born September 20, 1975, in Kinston, a little over 100 miles east of Durham. He was the younger of two children, and both his parents and older sister are deceased.

During a professional career that spanned more than two decades, he toured and recorded as a bandleader, sideman, and arranger, playing alongside jazz greats like Dr. Billy Taylor, Betty Carter, Clark Terry, and Sir Roland Hanna. He recently composed work for Delfeayo Marsa lis, and Ellis Marsalis. Horton’s discography includes the albums Brand New Day, the live album Obsidian, Walking Tall, and New Morning Lullabies, a series of duets with pianist Kevin Sholar.

Brian Horton, celebrated jazz educator, saxophonist, composer, and director of the jazz program at North Carolina Central University.

PHOTO VIA NCCU

Ira Wiggins, Horton’s mentor, said he had a “melodic, soulful” playing style, “with an element of the blues.”

“His playing reflected his writing and arranging,” Wiggins adds. “Great phrases and a great tone.”

Horton’s obituary announcement by R. Swinford Funeral Service in Kinston posted his day of death as Wednesday, September 14. But it’s likely the beloved musician died the day before.

Celebrations honoring John Coltrane’s birthday on September 23 notwith standing, it’s been a tough month for the jazz community. Days after Horton’s death, Pharoah Sanders, whose tenor saxophone was described as “a force of nature,” by The New York Times, died. He was 81.

Horton was part of a Kinston musi cal legacy of producing outstanding sax ophonists who continue their studies at NCCU, including Nat Jones, an alto saxo phonist who graduated with honors. Jones joined James Brown’s band in 1964. Two years later he played the now iconic sax solo on “I Got You (I Feel Good),” accord ing to the African American Music Trails in North Carolina.

Another Kinston horn player, Maceo Parker, went on to greater acclaim with Brown’s band, The Famous Flames, but folks around Kinston say Jones was the saxophonist. Jones’s enrollment in NCCU’s music program was followed by that of a host of Kinston-bred horn players, includ ing Ira Wiggins.

Before Horton’s mother died his senior year of college, Wiggins said she gave him a call.

“She called and asked, ‘Is Brian gradu ating?’” Wiggins says. “I told her, ‘Yeah. He’s graduating with honors.’ I know she would be so proud of him. I couldn’t be more proud of him.”

The Kinston saxophone legacy at NCCU was burnished this fall when Hor ton replaced Wiggins as the school’s jazz studies director following his retirement in 2021.

Wiggins told the INDY that Horton’s tal ents reminded him of what someone once said about the great jazz trumpet player Louis Armstrong: “He was a genius in spite of himself,” a saying implying that one of the most influential jazz musicians ever born “didn’t know what he was doing.”

“Brian was similar in that way,” says Wig gins, who adds that his former student’s biggest musical influences were Dexter Gordon and Joe Henderson. “He had a lot of the basic skills, and he worked at it. He was a great writer and arranger, as well as a

great player. It’s just a tragic loss for NCCU, the community, and the world community.”

Miller agrees.

”Brian was a great performer and great arranger beyond his years,” says Miller, who earned an undergraduate degree in music performance and a master’s in jazz studies from NCCU. “That’s why every body was so excited about him being the director. Brian was a special guy. When the announcement was posted everyone was excited, like ‘Oh my god, it’s getting ready to be bananas.’”

Here in the Bull City, Horton—along with NCCU jazz studies faculty member Al Strong, who was a cofounder of the Art of Cool Project that later became the Art of

and taught jazz arranging and saxophone. This year, the ensemble was one of the top three winners of the Jack Rudin Champion ship at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York.

Miller says he was a freshman at Kinston High School during Horton’s senior year in high school but had heard about him years before starting high school.

“My brother was a junior at Kinston High School when he came home one day talking about this young brother playing the sax who had just got into the [school’s] jazz band,” Miller said. “He was a freshman and he had come in as a soloist. That’s saying something.”

After graduating from high school, Hor ton received an undergraduate degree in

Miller says while growing up in Kinston, everyone called Horton “8-Ball.”

“Brian was cool,” Miller says. “He was very quiet and kept to himself unless he already knew you. The music was another matter. He was a beast who made you play or get off the bandstand.”

Miller says Horton became even more deliberative and quiet during college when his older sister and mother died within days of one another.

“That would have been enough to take a lot of people out, and after that, for a period Brian grew dark, even to those who know him,” Miller says. “Years later, he lost his dad. So it was just him and had been for a good part of his life. But Brian never gave up on his craft.”

Heath, Horton’s lifelong pal, echoed Mill er’s observation.

“He was a person who had seen a lot of loss in his life,” Heath says. “I know he’s seen a lot of people come and leave abrupt ly. He was very guarded with his heart, and at the same time he was extremely giving,” Heath described his best friend as “an amazing storyteller.”

“He had this thing that he would say if someone told him the story wasn’t true,” Heath says. “He would say, ‘It doesn’t mat ter if it’s true. It’s a story. Did you like the story?’ And when you think about it, that’s what jazz is. Is it true? It doesn’t matter if it sounds good. He was a good embellisher. The point was just to laugh.”

Horton had other opportunities to teach elsewhere, Wiggins says, but was set on being at NCCU. At the time of his death, he was working on a musical score for a docu mentary about the late, legendary Durham pianist Yusuf Salim.

the Cool Festival—was on the leading edge of musicians who brought virtuoso jazz to the masses in the revitalized downtown dis trict at places like Kingfisher and the old Whiskey bar.

“He only played there one night a week, and the INDY [readers] named it the best jazz venue in the Triangle,” Scott Heath, Horton’s best friend of more than forty years, says about Horton’s memorable Thursday night stands at Whiskey. “And it wasn’t even a jazz club. Brian was like, ‘I’ll turn y’all into a jazz club. Bring your girl, and I’ll make y’all fall in love.’”

Wiggins says months before Horton was named NCCU’s director of jazz studies, he had already taken over the position’s duties. He conducted the university’s jazz ensemble

music from NCCU in 1997, and a master of arts degree in jazz studies from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in New York in 1999.

In 2013, he enrolled at the University of North Texas and earned a doctor of music degree.

After graduating from NCCU, Wiggins says, Horton considered enrolling at How ard University, but his mentor encouraged him to attend Queens College, where Jimmy Heath, who died in 2020, had founded a master’s program in jazz studies a decade before.

“Jimmy called me and told me, ‘Yeah, we going to take him,’” Wiggins says. Before Brian graduated, Jimmy called and told him, “Brian did a great job, and he’s graduating.”

Miller says after Horton was named NCCU’s new jazz studies director, everyone he spoke with, including Wiggins, believed the program was going to be in good hands for the next 15 years.

“Everyone felt like he was going to take the program through another major turn,” Wiggins says.

“Little did we know it would be over in the next 15 days,” he adds, a sob catching in his throat. “You don’t question God’s word. I’m thankful for the times with him on the bandstand and on the phone—‘Hey Miller!’

‘Hey, 8-Ball!’”

“Brian used to say, ‘Don’t withhold the love, man. If you love someone let them know,’” Scott Heath continues. “He real ly said that. He loved a lot of people. I’m hearing from some people who regret they did not express their love for him. I have my regrets, but not loving him is not one of them.” W

“Brian used to say, ‘Don’t withhold the love man. If you love someone let them know.

He really said that. He loved a lot of people. I’m hearing from some people who regret they did not express their love for him. I have my regrets, but not loving him is not one of them.”

CULTURE CALENDAR

music

Siempre Puente $10. Wed, Sep. 28, 7:30 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Billy Bragg

$33+. Wed, Sep. 28, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Bloodywood: Nine Inch Naans Tour Wed, Sep. 28, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill

Jonathan Byrd $5+. Wed, Sep. 28, 5:45 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.

King Buffalo $15. Wed, Sep. 28, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Michael Beach $12. Wed, Sep. 28, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

The 502s SOLD OUT. Thurs, Sep. 29, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Al Strong: Jazz on the Roof Thurs, Sep. 29, 7 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.

Andy McKee $20. Thurs, Sep. 29, 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Below Decks $10. Thurs, Sep. 29, 8 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

D-Jay the Architect $10. Thurs, Sep. 29, 8:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Electric Six and Supersuckers $20. Thurs, Sep. 29, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro

Highly Suspect $33. Thurs, Sep. 29, 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Mellow Swells Thurs, Sep. 29, 7:30 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Ranky Tanky

$10. Fri, Sep. 29, 7:30 p.m. Stewart Theatre, Raleigh. Bands at Brookside Fri, Sep. 30, 6 p.m. Brookside Bodega, Raleigh.

Ciompi Quartet

Fri, Sep. 30, 12 p.m. Goodson Chapel, Durham.

COIN: Uncanny Valley Tour $30. Fri, Sep. 30, 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

The Drowning Lovers

$10. Fri, Sep. 30, 8:15 p.m. Schoolkids Records, Raleigh.

Monica & Friends $60+. Fri, Sep. 30, 8 p.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Ninja Sex Party: Up Close and Personal Tour $40. Fri, Sep. 30, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers $25. Fri, Sep. 30, 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Shiner $18. Fri, Sep. 30, 9 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Titus Andronicus $21. Fri, Sep. 30, 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

UNC Faculty Jazz $25. Fri, Sep. 30, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham. YOLO Karaoke $10. Fri, Sep. 30, 9 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Jukebox the Ghost $22. Sat, Oct. 1, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Watchhouse $30+. Sat, Oct. 1, 8 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.

Whitey Morgan and the 78’s $20+. Sat, Oct. 1, 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

The Birthday Massacre

$22. Sun, Sep. 25, 7 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

The Legacy of the Great American Song Book $20. Sun, Oct. 2, 3 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

Mega Colossus $7. Sun, Oct. 2, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Noah Vonne

Sun, Oct. 2, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

North Carolina Opera: Manon Lescaut $24+. Sun, Oct. 2, 2 p.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Panic! At the Disco $48+. Sun, Oct. 2, 7 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.

Pi’erre Bourne: Good Movie World Tour $30. Sun, Oct. 2, 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Danny Grewen and Griffanzo

Mon, Oct. 3, 6 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Death Cab for Cutie: Asphalt Meadows Tour $39+. Mon, Oct. 3, 7 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.

Lucy Dacus $26. Mon, Oct. 3, 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh. Melt $16. Tues, Oct. 4, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Mourning [A] Blkstar

$12. Tues, Oct. 4, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

of Montreal $17. Tues, Oct. 4, 8:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Rare Americans $15. Tues, Oct. 4, 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Rob Gelblum Tues, Oct. 4, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

stage Frozen $29+. Sep. 14–Oct. 2, various times. DPAC, Durham.

Watchfly: A Horror Puppet Show

Wed, Sep. 28, 7:30 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

A Great Big Woolly Mammoth Thawing from the Ice $20. Sep. 29–Oct. 16, various times.

Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh.

Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias

$50+. Thurs, Sep. 29, 7 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.

Sibling Rivalry Tour

$40+. Thurs, Sep. 29, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

JB Smoove: Physical Therapy Tour $30+. Sat, Oct. 1, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Mourning [A] Blkstar performs at the Pinhook on Tuesday, October 4. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINHOOK

Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.

CULTURE CALENDAR

Barbara Sullivan and Danesha Seth Carley: Gardening in the South Thurs, Sep. 29, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Rochelle Hurt and Leslie Wheeler: The J Girls Thurs, Sep. 29, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Keith Knight: Good on Both Sides Fri, Sep. 30, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Belynda Chambers: Beauty Queen Blues Sat, Oct. 1, 2 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Mur Lafferty: Station Eternity

Tues, Oct. 4, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. screen

Sparrows $8. Wed, Sep. 28, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

The Holy Mountain and El Topo $10. Fri, Sept. 30, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Mean Girls Movie Party $24. Sun, Oct. 2, 7:30 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.

Ackland Film Forum: In Fabric Tues, Oct. 4, 7:30 p.m. Varsity Theatre, Chapel Hill.

Psycho/Psycho Tues, Oct. 4, 7 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

like to plan ahead?

In Fabric screens at the Varsity Theatre on Tuesday, October 4.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ACKLAND MUSEUM OF ART

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