INDY Week November 29, 2023

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill November 29, 2023

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WITH AMBITIOUS NEW PROGRAMMING, WUNC IS EXPANDING ITS PORTFOLIO— AND MAINSTREAM NARRATIVES ABOUT THE AMERICAN SOUTH.

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Sydney Sprague performs at Cat’s Cradle Back Room, on December 3.

(See calendar, page 22.)

VOL. 40 NO. 34VOL. 40 NO. XX

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAT'S CRADLE

CONTENTS NEWS 4

In Durham, million-dollar home sales are no longer outliers.

BY LAUREN PEHLIVANIAN

7

When a Durham mother fled an abusive partner, the county took her children away—and she almost lost them forever.

BY JEFFREY BILLMAN, WHITNEY CLEGG, AND NICK OCHSNER

13 The historic St. Paul's A.M.E. Church is building a residential village with affordable housing in the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood.

BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR

ARTS & CULTURE 16 Nance's new album is a sensitive meditation on "making it."

BY KYESHA JENNINGS

18 "We're trying to zag a little bit, and we want people to zig," says Jeff Tiberii, host of WUNC's new daily show, Due South. BY LENA GELLER 20 With the addition of a new podcast and new daily show, WUNC is expanding its media portfolio. BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW

THE REGULARS 22 Culture calendar

COVER Concentric images from the center/smallest to largest: The WUNC offices and recording studios at the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham; (From left) Due South hosts Leoneda Inge and Jeff Tiberii at WUNC; (From left) The Broadside podcast host Anisa Khalifa and producer Charlie Shelton-Ormond outside WUNC at the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham. PHOTOS BY ANGELICA EDWARDS Bonus: can you find and decipher the Morse code?

WE M A DE THIS PUB LI S H E R John Hurld EDI T O RI A L Editor in Chief Jane Porter Culture Editor Sarah Edwards Staff Writers Jasmine Gallup Lena Geller

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Reporters Justin Laidlaw Chase Pellegrini de Paur Contributors Desmera Gatewood, Spencer Griffith, Carr Harkrader, Matt Hartman, Brian Howe, Kyesha Jennings, Jordan Lawrence, Glenn McDonald, Thomasi McDonald, Nick McGregor, Gabi Mendick, Cy Neff, Shelbi Polk, Dan Ruccia, Harris Wheless, Byron Woods, Barry Yeoman

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Copy Editor Iza Wojciechowska Interns Mariana Fabian Hannah Kaufman

CR EATIVE Creative Director Nicole Pajor Moore Graphic Designer Izzel Flores Staff Photographer Angelica Edwards

ADVER TISING Publisher John Hurld Director of Revenue Mathias Marchington Operations Assistant Chelsey Koch CIR CU L ATION Berry Media Group MEMBER SH IP/ SU BSCR IP TIONS John Hurld

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N E WS

Durham

Moving On Up In Durham, million-dollar home sales are no longer outliers.

BY LAUREN PEHLIVANIAN backtalk@indyweek.com

N

ot so long ago, a million-dollar home sale in Durham was rarer than a blizzard in the Bull City. No more.

In 2010, just one single-family home in all of Durham County sold for more than $1 million. In 2022, 61 homes sold for seven figures.

The 9th Street Journal analyzed home sales data from the Durham County Tax Administration from 2010 through the first half of 2023. Even after adjusting for inflation, the increase in seven-figure sales is significant: between 2010 and 2022, the last full year for which data is available, the number of homes that sold for at least $1 million in today’s dollars grew from 15 to 84.

Viewed in terms of percentages, the rise is even steeper: between 2010 and the first half of 2023, the percent of Durham homes that sold for at least $1 million increased sevenfold.

Peter Skillern, CEO of the North Carolina–based nonprofit Reinvestment Partners, has witnessed the transformation of Durham’s housing market.

“With the advent of billions of dollars moving into the Durham real estate market, and the incredible explosive growth, central city neighborhoods have transformed over the past 10 years,” he says. “There are million-dollar homes being built and sold where once you could buy property for less than $20,000.”

Condominium sales—while a minority of total Durham home sales—made a big contribution to the rise in seven-figure sales.

The first seven-figure condo sale in Durham County took place in 2015. That single sale represented less than 1 percent of all condo sales for the year. In the first half of 2023, nearly 10 percent of condominiums sold in Durham went for $1 million or more—a more than tenfold increase.

After adjusting for inflation, the pattern persists. In 4

November 29, 2023

INDYweek.com

One City Center, a 28-story high-rise downtown completed in 2018, sold 12 units for more than $1 million in 2019. PHOTO VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

2012, less than 1 percent of Durham condo units sold for $1 million in today’s dollars. In just the first half of 2023, that number was 10 times higher.

“If you’re buying a downtown condo in Durham, that’s about as expensive housing as you can find anywhere in the Triangle, per square foot,” says Jeff Lyons, a realtor at Inhabit Realty.

Durham home prices across all categories have increased steadily in the past decade. In the first half of this year, half of Durham County homes sold for over $400,000—more than double the median price a decade ago.

Luxury sales are still the minority of all home sales in the county. But they have accelerated even faster than overall home sales in Durham.

Realtors and policy activists say they have seen the starkest transformation in downtown Durham, where several large condominium developments opened in recent years.

One City Center, a 28-story high-rise downtown completed in 2018, sold 12 units for more than $1 million in 2019. The Bartlett, a seven-story condominium completed in 2019, added more million-dollar sales that year.

More luxury high-rises are on the way.

The Novus, a 27-story development at 404 West Main Street, is slated to be completed in 2024. It is being developed by Austin Lawrence Partners—a real estate developer based in Durham and in Aspen, Colorado—the same company that developed One City Center. The median list price for a unit in the Novus is over $1.7 million, and a three-bedroom condo lists for over $4 million.

Lyons has watched downtown Durham’s transformation in the nearly 25 years since he moved to the Triangle, as

more restaurants opened, along with tourist attractions like the Durham Performing Arts Center.

“Once upon a time, if you wanted to have a big grand night out … you go to Raleigh,” he says. “Now, you can have a staycation in Durham.”

Some Durham realtors have mixed feelings about the pace at which new condominiums are being developed. Sudi Swirles, Durham realtor and cofounder of Peak Swirles & Cavallito Properties, believes that developers downtown are “doing a real disservice to the community” by replacing historic buildings and green spaces with high-rise condominiums. She also worries about the effect on local businesses.

“You can’t afford to live downtown unless you’re making serious money,” she says. “I sure hope that [these developers] aren’t going to end up running out and pricing out all these small businesses that are … what makes downtown interesting.”

One factor driving up area home prices is the entrance of Fortune 500 companies such as Apple, Meta, and Google, which has a large enough Bull City presence that it now has its name on the side of a downtown office building. Apple recently announced plans to hire 3,000 locally at expected average salaries of $187,000—more than twice the median household income in Durham County.

However Adrian Brown, a realtor and partner at Inhabit Realty, says he thinks high-end units downtown often attract older people. Sometimes, Brown says, buyers have properties elsewhere. “So, [this condo] could be a second home,” he says. “But with the intention of it eventually being a full-time home.”

“I get the impression, at least from my experience, that

they’re more older people buying them—people here who want to be closer to their kids who live here,” he says.

Some clients, he says, are drawn to the convenience and amenities of downtown Durham’s condominium high-rises.

“They’re basically just wanting a no-upkeep, turnkey sort of lifestyle—lock it and leave it,” he says.

Brown recently helped a client from Florida purchase a townhouse unit.

“She was thinking she wanted a house, and I showed her a great condo,” he says. “She wanted that very easy, low-maintenance kind of life.”

Skillern says buyers’ tastes, too, are changing. A wealthy buyer might have previously preferred a neighborhood that allowed them to “isolate” in neighborhoods with “people who look like [them], share [their] values,” he says.

While those neighborhoods are still in demand, Skillern says he has seen recent growth in neighborhoods located more centrally to downtown Durham.

“As opposed to getting a big house with a big lawn on an exclusive golf course, [wealthy buyers are] getting a home that’s on Roxboro Street,” he says.

Many of the wealthy buyers Lyons sees have been from out of state. His first out-of-state client, around five years ago, was a buyer from Pennsylvania, whose budget for a “middle-of-the-road” house in Durham exceeded $600,000.

The couple had moved to Durham for a medical provider job at Duke University. Lyons helped them purchase a “lovely, old farm-style house” in Trinity Park, a neighborhood near downtown Durham.

“I remember them saying that they didn’t want to spend much on a house,” Lyons says. “The scale of affordability is just different for people who come from other places.”

Since then, he has served clients from New York, Washington, and Massachusetts, among others, whose budgets have shifted increasingly upward.

For clients who come from states with higher costs, Durham still seems relatively affordable.

“To be able to buy a brand-new house for $700,000 in North Carolina, with everything they wanted, and three times bigger than the place they’re living in now—that’s incredibly attractive,” Lyons says.

Brown agrees that out-of-state buyers are often unfazed by sticker shock that locals may experience.

“They just have more resources to throw at a house,” Brown says. “They were coming from an area where they’d go, ‘$1.5 million for this house [in Durham]? You’re kidding.

This would be like, $5 million, where I’m coming from.’”

Brown worked with a buyer to purchase a condo unit downtown this past winter. The clients, who were older but still working, purchased a $1.5 million condo unit in a high-rise where they had previously been renting. They saw downtown Durham real estate as a good investment opportunity—better than the stock market.

“They just thought, ‘Why don’t we just buy one [unit] and put our money to good use?’” he says. “They just wanted to put their money into something that would appreciate.”

Lyons’s most recent million-dollar client was a couple around 30 years old, from New York.

The couple, who graduated from Duke, lived and worked in New York City and owned an apartment there. They approached Lyons for help finding a house in Durham.

“They would come down here from time to time and [thought] it’d be nice to have a place to stay here,” he says.

They bought a house in a Durham neighborhood, where

DURHAM'S MILLION-DOLLAR HOME SALES The percentage of single-family homes sold in Durham for $1 million or more, by year 10.00 % % greater than or equal to $1 million % greater than or equal to $1 million (inflation-adjusted)

8.00

4.00

3.58%

0.00

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

MILLION-DOLLAR SINGLE-FAMILY HOME SALES, BY TYPE % of homes that sold for $1,000,000 or more 10.00 %

9.6 % Condominium Units Single-Family Houses

8.00

3.2 %

4.00

0.00

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

MEDIAN HOME PRICE Single-family homes sold in Durham, 2010 - 2023*.

600K

380k

400K

406k

327k

200K

179.5k 177k 185k

2010

2012

191k

196.5k 210k

2014

225k

2016

244k 260k 260k

2018

279.5k

2020

2022

SOURCE: DURHAM COUNTY TAX ADMINISTRATION

INDYweek.com November 29, 2023

5

they plan to stay when they are in town.

They plan to convert it to a short-term rental in the months when they aren’t here, Lyons says, while they consider eventually moving to Durham full-time.

“As far as I can tell, they can very easily afford to do what they were trying to do,” he says.

The increase in demand for homes in Durham has turned the housing market into a sellers’ market, says Lyons.

And in that market, wealthy, out-oftown buyers often have an advantage over local buyers. Not only can wealthier buyers outbid others, they can also offer a higher due diligence fee—a sum the buyer pays in exchange for the seller removing the home from the market.

Swirles says many wealthy buyers from out of state are also less affected by high interest rates.

“Many people are coming from areas like

is that happens to be some of the most expensive real estate in all of Durham.”

Skillern and the nonprofit he leads, Reinvestment Partners, have been working to maintain Durham’s relative affordability despite the transformation the city has undergone.

“The gap of affordability is bigger than it’s ever been,” Skillern says. “There’s a tremendous need for us to continue to advocate and produce permanent affordable housing for a range of needs.”

Previously, Skillern’s nonprofit was able to buy property for community use relatively cheaply. “The dynamic is a bit different now,” he says, “because of this investment that’s now driving multibillion-dollar apartments in central city neighborhoods that, at one time, nobody wanted to live in.”

With a subdivision of million-dollar homes currently being built in Chatham County, and a recent $7 million home list-

“You can’t afford to live downtown unless you’re making serious money. I sure hope that [these developers] aren’t going to end up running out and pricing out all these small businesses that are … what makes downtown interesting.”

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New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and California, with a lot of cash in their pocket,” she says. “They’re able to pay cash, and interest rates don’t affect them.”

As a result, some local buyers have trouble finding homes in Durham they can afford to buy.

“I think what’s really hard is the people trying to move locally, going from a $500,000 house to a $1 million house,” Brown says. “That’s been a lot harder, locally. I don’t see that as much.”

Lyons says he now encourages local buyers with lower budgets to look outside Durham’s central neighborhoods—either farther out from the center of town or in a neighboring county.

“Folks start their search thinking that they’re going to be able to find a house in a walkable neighborhood in the center of Durham,” he says. “The problem with that

ing in Raleigh, the luxury market’s growth is affecting the entire Triangle.

Despite rising interest rates and housing slowdowns elsewhere, neither Swirles nor Lyons believes the boom in Durham’s highend housing sales is slowing.

Swirles works mostly in higher-end neighborhoods in Durham. In the weekly sales meetings she attends with other realtors, Swirles says, they often discuss Durham’s rising home prices.

“No one really sees the prices flattening too much in the markets that we personally work in.” W This story was published through a partnership between the INDY and 9th Street Journal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.

N E WS

Durham

The Poverty Trap When a Durham mother fled an abusive partner, the county took her children away—and she almost lost them forever. In the first of a threepart series, The Assembly and WBTV investigate a state child welfare system that wields enormous power with little accountability.

BY JEFFREY BILLMAN, WHITNEY CLEGG, AND NICK OCHSNER backtalk@indyweek.com

Alexis Wynn with her children. PHOTO BY HARRISON BRINK FOR THE ASSEMBLY

T

he police officer stood on Samantha Wynn’s front porch in East Durham, flanked by social workers and other officers, trying to keep the tension from boiling over.

“What they’re saying is, they’ve got paperwork from the courts saying they’re taking the kids,” he explained matter-of-factly.

By July 28, 2021, Samantha’s grandchildren—Prince and Zion, then two and three, respectively—had lived there with her since Child Protective Services investigators accused their mother, Alexis Wynn, of neglect and petitioned a court for custody in December 2019. Though Durham County social services officials told a judge two months earlier that they wanted Samantha to be the kids’ permanent guardian, their plans had apparently changed.

“I don’t have the paperwork. I’m only relaying what they’re saying,” the officer said. “If they don’t get the kids by four o’clock, you’re going to face kidnapping charges.”

Samantha was livid. “These kids are in good care,” she said sharply in a cell phone video she later posted to social media. “I’m their grandmother, and y’all want to snatch them out of my arms and put them in somebody’s house that they don’t even know?”

The officer and a social worker beside him looked down and didn’t respond. The video footage cuts to Prince and Zion strapped into car seats in the back of an SUV, their faces blank and bewildered as Samantha prayed loudly for Jesus’s protection.

The camera pans to 22-year-old Alexis, her petite body curled in a ball beside the car, heaving as she silently sobbed.

“Come on, sweetie,” an officer said. He extended his

hand, but Alexis ignored it. He gently grabbed her arms and pulled her away from the vehicle. She didn’t resist.

“Look what they’re doing to my daughter, y’all,” Samantha said. “Look what they’re doing to my daughter.”

Prince and Zion were among 90 children who entered Division of Social Services (DSS) custody in Durham in the 2019–20 fiscal year, and among 4,600 taken into care throughout the state, according to a database maintained by the UNC-Chapel Hill’s Jordan Institute for Families.

About 11,000 North Carolina children, including 285 in Durham County, were in DSS custody at the end of September. On average, they’ll be in the state’s care for one to two years—and even longer in Durham, which maintains custody for an average of 875 days, the second longest time frame in the state, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. And despite federal and state laws requiring “reasonable efforts” to reunify families, most will never go home.

Their parents are disproportionately Black and overwhelmingly poor, and often lack the resources to battle a powerful system that operates with little scrutiny.

This side of the child welfare story—what happens to mothers like Alexis after their children enter the system— is seldom seen. It plays out in courtrooms where records are sealed, journalists’ notes are seized, and observers can be ejected on a judge’s whim—even as families are ripped apart.

There’s no question that some children live in dangerous environments, and it’s in their best interest to be removed from their homes. At least 45 kids died of abuse or neglect in North Carolina in 2021, according to the

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. When that happens, social services officials come under fire. But there are few consequences for wrongly removing children from their homes.

“There are a lot of mantras in the child welfare system,” says Matt Anderson, a former executive of the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, which runs the state’s largest foster-care placement program. “One is ‘better safe than sorry.’”

Of the more than 43,000 cases of child “maltreatment” the state recorded in 2020 and 2021, only about 10 percent involved victims of physical or sexual abuse. The vast majority—over 95 percent—suffered from “neglect,” a term that experts say is often synonymous with poverty.

That was the charge leveled against Alexis Wynn.

Her story, like those of many parents entangled in the child welfare system, is complicated, and laws designed to protect children’s privacy obscure vital details. But one thing is clear: no one had accused Alexis of hurting her children. Instead, she was a domestic violence survivor who lacked resources middle-class families take for granted— and for that, she nearly lost her boys forever.

“I was trying to get help to protect me and my children,” Alexis said in an interview earlier this month. “You’re supposed to help families, but instead, you’re tearing them apart. You’re destroying them.”

This article is the first in a three-part investigation by The Assembly and WBTV looking at Durham County’s child welfare system. Durham has become a hub of parental rights activism in recent years, helping bring to light cases that would have otherwise been obscured by laws designed to INDYweek.com November 29, 2023

7

protect children’s privacy. But experts and advocates say the issues raised in this series are not unique to Durham.

Each installment explores the case of a parent who spent years fighting to regain custody of their children. The first chronicles what happens when a parent is accused of neglect. The second and third parts will dive into the system’s secretive legal apparatus and reforms that advocates argue would make the system fairer.

Together, they show a system that sometimes fails to live up to the state’s goal of “preventing [the] breakup of the family” where “desirable and possible.”

Injurious environment The Durham County DSS obtained legal custody of Prince and Zion Wynn on December 30, 2019, after alleging that their mother “was exposing her children to an injurious environment” that had “human fecal [matter] on the beds, floors, and other surfaces.”

Alexis had “threatened to kill herself and the children” before she “disappeared,” the petition continued. She was “homeless” and “might suffer from some undiagnosed mental health disorder.”

Alexis says that’s not what happened.

A month earlier, she left the home she shared with the boys’ father, who court records indicate was jailed following charges of domestic violence. Alexis says a Durham crisis center referred her to a domestic violence shelter in Onslow County—the place the DSS petition alleged was so contaminated with human fecal matter that it was negli-

gent to have children there.

She says the shelter’s staff told her that, at 21, she was too young to be a parent and scolded her for bringing her children to a shelter, and one staff member offered to adopt her babies. Alexis says that after she left, the shelter reported her to Child Protective Services (CPS).

She denies being homeless; instead, she says she and her sons lived with her mother while she tried to get back on her feet. She also denies threatening to harm herself or her children.

However, according to Amanda Wallace, a former CPS investigator and activist who wrote a report on Alexis’s behalf, Alexis did leave her mother’s house following an argument on December 19, 2019, and her mother was concerned enough to call law enforcement. Police found her in a Waffle House in Orange County.

“When they did find Alexis and the kids in Orange County, they were safe and fine,” Wallace says. The police “actually transported Alexis back to her mom’s house because they could see that it was just a family issue.”

Eleven days later, Durham County’s DSS petitioned for custody of Prince and Zion. Alexis says a social worker told her to sign papers that put the boys in her mother’s care or she would go to jail. The alternative, the social worker said, was foster care—and because Durham didn’t have enough foster homes, Prince and Zion would be split up.

“I was so scared, so I just signed it,” Alexis said. “It was hard to process everything that was going on in that moment.”

Prince and Zion could stay at her mom’s house, but Alexis had to leave—an odd outcome considering that the DSS petition faulted her for being homeless.

Hopeless District Court Judge Shamieka Rhinehart imposed a series of requirements for Alexis to get her children back.

She had to find a job and housing. She eventually went to live with her twin sister and, like the boys’ father, was permitted only supervised visits with Prince and Zion.

She was also ordered to attend parenting classes and therapy (court records indicate that she was diagnosed with anxiety), take drug tests (she faced no allegations related to substance use), undergo multiple mental health assessments, and meet weekly with a case manager.

“You feel hopeless,” Alexis said. “You feel very stressed out, and it’s hard to function day-by-day because they have you go through all these hoops just to get your kids back.”

If she missed class because of work, the court might hold it against her. If she skipped work to attend class and got fired, the court might hold that against her, too. If she was late to visit her kids because DSS officials scheduled visitation right after her therapy, the court might take that as a sign of disinterest.

Court records show that in September 2020, Judge Rhinehart declared that Prince and Zion had been neglected—the family court equivalent of convicting Alexis. In May 2021, Rhinehart said Alexis couldn’t regain custody because she “does not have stable housing”—despite living with her sister—and hadn’t finished her court-ordered classes.

Rhinehart said the best “permanent plan” would be for their grandmother Samantha to become the boys’ legal guardian. But two months later, Durham police took them

“You’re supposed to help families, but instead, you’re tearing them apart.

You’re destroying them.”

— Alexis Wynn

Family photos of Alexis Wynn and her children. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE WYNN FAMILY 8

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“If we’re concerned about the safety and well-being of kids, how can we demonstrate that by how we care for the well-being of their parents?”

— Matt Anderson, former executive of the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina

Alexis Wynn PHOTO BY HARRISON BRINK FOR THE ASSEMBLY

into foster care in the encounter captured on her porch.

Social services officials later explained in court filings that they suspected—but couldn’t “verify”—that Samantha had allowed the boys’ father unsupervised visits. They also chafed at a perceived lack of cooperation: Samantha demanded that social workers show proof of COVID vaccinations before entering her home, insisted on reviewing the county’s policy on unannounced visits, and asked them not to photograph the boys.

Alexis worried about how Prince and Zion were being treated in foster care. During supervised visits, she says she noticed that they had bruises, black eyes, and busted lips. (Wallace’s report contains photos that appear to show these injuries.) But Alexis says DSS caseworkers ignored her concerns and threatened to end her visits.

“I had to sit through all that,” Alexis said, “and the caseworker would come up and look at my children and be like, ‘Stop telling your mom lies.’”

Any means necessary Alexis thought the system was moving inexorably toward terminating her parental rights and putting her sons up for adoption. That began to change after Amanda Wallace saw the footage of social workers taking Prince and Zion.

Wallace spent a decade working for CPS in Lincoln, Buncombe, and Wake Counties. At first, she believed she was helping families. But her cases started to challenge her preconceptions. She recalls a time when she removed a 10

November 29, 2023

INDYweek.com

child she knew was safe, and neither her colleagues nor the judge questioned her.

“It really weighed on me morally,” Wallace says. “I’m like, how did that happen?” She came to believe that the system “did not care about anything. It makes a decision, and then it’s just going to run with it.”

In April 2021, Wallace founded Operation Stop CPS to advocate for parents battling the system. A month later, Wake County’s DSS fired her, she says. (Earlier this year, a Wake County grand jury charged her with illegally accessing a government computer just before she left, though the indictment provides scant details. Wallace declined to comment on the pending charge.)

Operation Stop CPS began protesting for Alexis in June 2022. Wallace’s hardball approach won her few friends inside the system.

In August 2022, Durham County’s DSS obtained a restraining order against Wallace, alleging that she and her supporters had harassed employees by “shouting defamatory statements” outside the department’s office. The petition also said that Wallace had gone to the home of the department’s director and yelled into a bullhorn that he was a “racist” and a “kidnapper.”

Wallace appealed—with support from the ACLU of North Carolina—pointing out that she never threatened anyone and arguing that her right to free speech outweighs DSS employees’ concerns about her “inflammatory rhetoric” and “moral judgments.”

The Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in June but has not released a decision.

Wallace got under Rhinehart’s skin, too. The judge

imposed a protective order on July 1, 2022, forbidding parties in Alexis’s case from speaking with the media or outside organizations, “including but not limited to Operation Stop CPS.” But Wallace didn’t stop. Operation Stop CPS supporters besieged Rhinehart’s social media with comments alleging that she “destroys black families”—Rhinehart is Black—and texted and called the judge’s cell phone, asking, “Why are the Wynn children not returned home?”

Less than a month later, Rhinehart recused herself from the case. “The Court is now deeply concerned about her physical and personal safety,” Rhinehart wrote in a July 27, 2022, order.

Alexis believed Rhinehart uncritically deferred to DSS lawyers—a common complaint about judges in these cases—and thought her attorney didn’t fight hard enough on her behalf. Wallace’s intervention solved both those problems. The new judge, Nancy Gordon, appointed what Alexis viewed as a more aggressive lawyer, and Wallace says that the DSS’s opposition faded on Gordon’s watch.

Rhinehart—whom Gov. Roy Cooper appointed to the superior court in February—did not respond to a request for comment. The Durham DSS said it could not comment on specific cases.

“I can state that it remains the agency’s mandate and goal to provide services to families and children to ensure their safety and well-being with reunification being the primary focus,” Durham DSS director Maggie Cveticanin said in an email.

On August 4, 2023—1,313 days after DSS officials took

custody of Prince and Zion—Alexis officially got them back.

In her order, Gordon wrote that “the children are bonded to their mother and desire to be reunified.”

Alexis quickly left North Carolina. She asked that this article not reveal her current location.

“I won, and they didn’t want me to,” Alexis said. “They didn’t come up with a plan to help me and my children stay together and be somewhere safe. They failed at that.”

Reporters met with her in an apartment rented for this interview. Prince and Zion ate pizza, wrestled rambunctiously in the living room, and staged a dance competition to Toosii’s “Favorite Song,” which is, it seems, their favorite song.

To Wallace, who looked on from the kitchen, this scene justified her brass-knuckle tactics.

“The kids are here,” she said, smiling.

A safe place Critics say Alexis’s story illustrates an inherent flaw of the child welfare system: it punishes poverty. While investigators believed Alexis was homeless, they made her prove her worth as a mother instead of helping her find housing.

But blaming judges and individual social workers misses the point, says Matt Anderson, the former Children’s Home Society executive.

“The child welfare system is not the problem,” he says.

“The child welfare system is a symptom of broader social justice issues. We still have a large group of families that are underresourced, underserved, and then oversurveilled, overpoliced, and overinvestigated. If we’re con-

cerned about the safety and well-being of kids, how can we demonstrate that by how we care for the well-being of their parents?”

Last year, announcing that “my values weren’t aligned with my work,” Anderson left his job to found Proximity Design Studio, a production and consulting firm that works to keep families together. His goal is to change perceptions.

“The narrative is that if you’re caught up in the child welfare system, you’re a bad parent who’s perpetuating harm against your child,” he says. He wants to promote the counternarrative that “these are parents who love their children, are doing the best for their children, and are dealing with very easy-to-solve economic, social-support issues. And if we were to invest in meeting those needs, families would be just fine.”

The state Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees local social services agencies, points out that under state law, poverty does not necessarily equal neglect.

“A lack of resources may be a contributing factor, but it is one of many factors that caseworkers consider in assessing an allegation of neglect,” says spokesperson Kelly Haight Conner. “Families facing economic difficulties may struggle to provide proper care, supervision, or a safe and nurturing environment for their child.”

Haight Conner says the department is focused on social and environmental factors—including poverty, housing, and food insecurity—associated with child maltreatment. The state budget and recent Medicaid expansion fund programs to address those needs.

“Ultimately, the highest priority is to protect the safety and well-being of all children and families,” Haight Conner says.

Alexis says her family would have been better off if the system had never gotten involved. Her boys are four and six now, and to a stranger’s eyes, they seem unfazed. But their mother sees the remnants of trauma in moments when they shut down and worries that her absence during those formative years will continue to affect them.

“They’re starting to be better, day by day,” Alexis said.

“They’re starting to open up more. The moments where I see them start to be like Zion and Prince again, it makes me happy. Everything’s not going to heal overnight.”

Then there’s her own trauma, which Alexis—whose story will be featured in the New Yorker documentary To Be Invisible next year—admits she’s still trying to put it behind her.

“When I look back, I just think about all the obstacles that I had to go through to get to this moment,” she said.

“I just know that my kids are safe with me now.” W Part 2 of this series goes inside Durham’s abuse, neglect, and dependency courtroom.

Jeffrey Billman reports on politics and the law for The Assembly. He is the former editor-in-chief of the INDY. Whitney Clegg is an investigative producer at WBTV. She has previously reported for Reveal, ProPublica, and CNN’s investigative unit, as well as for books on Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and Turning Point USA. Nick Ochsner is executive producer and chief investigative reporter for WBTV. He is also coauthor of the book The Vote Collectors.

“It really weighed on me morally … It makes a decision, and then it’s just going to run with it.”

— Amanda Wallace, former CPS employee

Alexis Wynn and Amanda Wallace with Prince and Zion. PHOTO BY HARRISON BRINK FOR THE ASSEMBLY INDYweek.com November 29, 2023

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Bestof theBest of the

Triangle

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For the first time ever, the INDY’s Best of the Triangle Reader’s Poll has pitted County winner versus County winner. The results to crown the BEST OF THE BEST ACROSS THE TRIANGLE will be released as a special pull-out section in the 12/13 issue. Grab your copy to shop and support all your favorite local businesses year-round!

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N E WS

Chapel Hill The St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Chapel Hill PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

It Takes a Village In a rare move that looks to be pleasing people on both sides of the growth debate, the historic St. Paul A.M.E. Church will build a residential village replete with affordable housing in the traditionally Black Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood.

BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR chase@indyweek.com

S

ince the Civil War era, St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church has stood proudly at the junction between Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The church has watched the towns around it grow and change. It saw the post-Reconstruction solidification of the white supremacist state, the Great Migration, and the Jim Crow era. In the past decade, it saw the saga of gentrification play out in the Greenbridge condos, the foreclosed modern towers of straight lines and glass panes just across the street.

As the towns around it have grown and changed, so has the building of the church itself. The original wooden structure has been renovated and expanded into a redbrick building with stained-glass windows and a steeple that watches over traffic flowing between Franklin and Main Streets.

Looking to the future, St. Paul has emphasized that the congregation isn’t going anywhere and has declined offers from developers who continue to eye its prime location

between the two downtowns.

But it is time for the church to grow—just on a separate plot of land. This autumn, the members of the oldest Black church in Chapel Hill gained the town council’s approval to build an entire community anchored by 350 apartments.

“We attempted to develop a vision that would encompass not just the needs of the community but the church itself, and that would project as well into the future,” says Burnis Hackney, a board member of the St. Paul Neighborhood Improvement Development Association (NIDA), a nonprofit run by church members. In the 1960s, Hackney was one of the first Black students to integrate Chapel Hill High School.

Construction is set to begin on the St. Paul Village in the summer of 2024 and will take around two years to complete. With around 90 affordable units and 100 for seniors, the village will be built on faith, ambition, and roughly 20 acres in the historically Black Rogers-Eubanks

neighborhood. The development will also include a recreation facility, a community center, space for retail, and a sanctuary to be used for Sunday services and other events.

Back in October, the Chapel Hill Town Council approved the St. Paul Village in a process that looked different from the usual tense ordeal in town hall. The developers, associated with the church, walked the precarious balance between the concerns of Chapel Hill’s pro-growth and slow-growth political factions and gained unanimous support from commentators, council, and candidates.

That support was far from incidental—the church, and individuals like Hackney, banked the goodwill they had earned through a long history of service in Chapel Hill.

Before St. Paul was founded in 1864, enslaved people “worshiped in segregated sections of Chapel of the Cross, University Baptist Church, and other churches run by white residents,” according to the website of the Marian Cheek Jackson Center, a local nonprofit dedicated to preserving Black neighborhoods and advocating for civil rights.

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“But Black church-goers quickly moved to found their own congregations where they could worship independently as soon as possible,” the Jackson Center website states.

In the early 2000s, St. Paul started seriously considering expansion of the existing church. But plans to build its existing building up or out wouldn’t have provided enough space for one of the biggest drives behind the project: community service.

Looking beyond Franklin Street, the church bought several parcels of land on Rogers road for around $900,000, including interest on loans. Around the time of the housing crisis and financial crash in 2008, St. Paul realized that affordable housing was one of the greatest needs for a community like Chapel Hill.

In 2012, NIDA gained council approval for a development of 87 units with around 15 affordable. But the timing wasn’t quite right. The town hadn’t yet expanded water and sewage services to that area.

“Anything we built was going to be dependent on a septic system, and that’s a huge cost,” says Dr. Rose Snipes, a NIDA board member who presented the plan to the council. Snipes and Hackney raised money to pay off the mortgage on the land by 2016. Like the rest of the project, says Snipes, “we never got any funding from anybody.

This is all self-funded.”

Snipes and Hackney raised most of the money from the congregation itself.

The project had a few other small bumps after the 2012 plan was approved. The architect and engineer both died before construction began. And then the world shut down in a pandemic. Suddenly it had been a decade since the

approval, and Chapel Hill had changed, with a council and a public more comfortable with larger developments.

NIDA came back to the council this year with the new plan for 350 units. That jump from 87 units was not just about making a larger impact in the community; it was also a matter of “fiscal viability,” says Hackney. Large developments are generally less expensive to finance on a perunit basis.

Right now, the site is a mostly empty field that used to be a small plantation—some descendants of slaves from that farm still live in Chapel Hill. But once construction ends, St. Paul Village hopes to be a “A Place for Everyone.”

“It supports a diverse community, it has a walkable community, it’s built with a pedestrian-oriented mixed use, it focuses on small businesses, as well as maintaining the culture and well-being of the local community,” said Snipes to the council in September.

In 2012, NIDA had been waiting for water and sewage to be extended to the neighborhood. Some residents of the neighborhood had been waiting since the 1970s, when the Orange County Landfill was built on Rogers Road with enough promises to fill a county dump truck: “Nearly 40 years ago, people living in the Rogers-Eubanks community agreed to allow the county to build a landfill in their neighborhood. They believed that in return they would receive basic necessities such as water and sewer hookup, storm drains, curbs, gutters, streetlights, sidewalks, a recreation center and green space,” the INDY reported in 2014.

There was also a promise to eventually turn the landfill into a park. But in 2023, it’s still a landfill, with toxins

leaking into the ground, water, and air.

That history of broken promises was emphasized by members of Orange County Justice United (OCJU), an organization of faith groups, who showed up to the council meeting to push for approval.

“The project is led by community members whose families are among those who have been historically affected, in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, by long-standing and entrenched discriminatory practices,” OCJU member Kathy Kauffmann told the council. “St. Paul Village is an important step in the right direction.”

“This is God-sent,” added member Robert Campbell.

In October, several council members were embroiled in an election cycle full of local drama. The project, though, was unanimously approved. Emails of support came from residents who are typically skeptical of large developments, including then candidates for council Breckany Eckhardt and David Adams as well as CHALT (Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town) cofounder Julie McClintock.

And when the proposal was approved, most of the audience members stood to applaud and hug one another.

Many of them were older, Black residents who have been hearing about the project for decades.

“Thank you,” council member Paris Miller-Foushee said to representatives and supporters of the project. “Thank you for imagining, thank you for dreaming, thank you for being persistent.”

“Go forth and conquer, we’re so excited,” added Mayor Pam Hemminger.

“If only they could all end that way,” said one council member, off-mic. W

The St. Paul A.M.E. Church window PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

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M U SIC

NANCE: EVERYDAYDREAM

Self-released | September 23

Different Dreams Raleigh rapper Nance’s first release after five years is a sensitive meditation on “making it.”

BY KYESHA JENNINGS music@indyweek.com

Nance PHOTO BY LINUS JOHNSON

V

ulnerability is to hip-hop what a well-crafted sample is to beat-making—an essential element that provides depth, emotion, and authenticity to the final composition.

After a five-year hiatus, rapper Nance, 32, injects more personal elements into his rap lyrics. On latest project Everydaydream, his conversational style—one which makes listeners feel as if they are listening in on a therapy session—allows him to demonstrate a genuine connection with his audience.

Everydaydream begins with lead single “Just a Dream in Itself,” an introspective track that functions as the perfect opener, as it traces the Raleigh native’s struggle with chasing a specific rap dream: accolades, fame, and fortune. Nance then delves into the conflict between seeking artistic recognition and finding a broader purpose in life, rapping, “I’ve learned the hardest thing is recognizing that I’mma be fine if you don’t recognize me for my artistry / Part of me can’t let go of the fact that my therapist said there’s more to life than my raps / so I took a step back.”

In the past, Nance has faced criticism for trying to emulate Drake and occasionally falling short of the mark in the process.

With Everydaydream, there are still shades 16

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of Drake and even hints of Big Sean (as in Nance’s “Hope in Time”), but it feels more apt to position this project within the realm of the early 2010s blog era as a whole, making it feel at times both nostalgic and outdated.

Some of the project’s highlights include features from Skizzy Mars, 3amsound, and Azul, artists who shine so brightly at times that they momentarily steal the spotlight.

But Nance’s decision to incorporate more singing into his music works well, and soothing tones create a captivating atmosphere that compel listeners to sing along.

What stands out most in Everydaydream is Nance’s reflectiveness. We witness the concept of “making it” in rap evolving for him. On November 10, the Raleigh-based rapper celebrated the release of the album with a headlining show at the Pour House, with support from longtime collaborators Brian Kidd (engineer/DJ) and Alex Thompson (pianist). The live rendition of the album, in front of an audience of several hundred, brought the album to its live zenith, thanks to Nance’s stage presence and control of the crowd. He effortlessly demonstrates a level of stardom that few new artists can match.

The INDY caught up with Nance to discuss his hiatus, the inspiration behind

Everydaydream, his thoughts about success, and more.

INDY: It’s been five years—can you

talk about the space between your last project and this one?

NANCE: The space between my last project and this one wasn’t intentional at all. It was due to various life changes. I released my last album in the spring of 2018. A few months later, I had the idea for this album and started working on songs for it.

However, in early 2019, my grandmother passed away, and I was going through significant life changes. It didn’t feel right to continue making the type of music I had been creating, so I decided to scrap the songs I had and start fresh. Later, in 2019, my dad passed away. And then 2020 came around, and we all felt it. The pandemic just prolonged everything. The studio that I’m most comfortable recording in, the owner has an autoimmune to disease, so we had to be super careful. There would be months in between my recording sessions. And then I wanted to really take my time figuring out my visuals and how I wanted to present everything. I did continue to put out singles inbetween to hold everybody over.

Since I’ve become familiar with you and your work, I’ve always been impressed by your marketing.

Can you talk about the inspiration behind how you have marketed this project?

Marketing this project involved a lot of experimentation and creativity. For example, when I announced my release date, Drake’s album was also scheduled for the same day. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I decided to play into the situation and created funny skits inspired by TV shows like Dave and Atlanta.

It’s not like everybody on the planet is gonna just stop for Drake. I mean, most people will, but it was one of those situations where if I play into it, the people that support me could find it funny. I also thought that if I hid the fact that the biggest rapper out right now is dropping on the same day as me that could be kind of a bad thing. So I just thought of funny skits.

That would have been super dope, if Drake would have come across it, you know?

I’m definitely, like, dreaming big when it comes to him actually seeing something

like that and understanding it. But yeah, I just thought it was funny.

audience while using metrics as a guide for growth.

How has the shift from making fun rap songs to more serious music been for you?

How did you build your following?

The idea of putting out the music is definitely uncomfortable. There’s a lot of songs on the album that I’ve actually had for years.

One song in particular (“Hope in Time”), I’m singing on it, and I’ve always been nervous about the song. But one day at the studio, Pat Junior heard the song and he was like, “Dude, what are you doing? This is what you need to be putting out.” He kind of put that battery in my back to lean more into, you know, being open about that side of

I kind of look at it more as, like, relationship building. Ever since the beginning, I try to respond to every single comment and DM and actually have a conversation.

I ask how people are doing and they tell me what songs they like. I thank them and just start actual conversation. I think that goes a lot further. And you know, it’s way more fun because then when people come to the show, it’s like, oh, I know these people. And you can actually talk about stuff.

Many artists who are doing it at a high level have these niche fan bases. It’s more like a

“I used to stress so much about ‘making it.’ I would always want to reach the next big thing. And I would always be frustrated.” me, which was pretty difficult because I was looking at the music industry as a whole and what are people gravitating toward. For the most part, popular music doesn’t dive that deep, and for me personally, I was also thinking, “Who’s really gonna care about my story? I just need to do something to get people’s attention like rap well.”

Now that I’ve put the project out there, I’m getting some of the best messages I’ve ever received. All the people closest to me were excited about it, but I was extremely nervous about sharing this project with others.

Do you pay attention to metrics?

Metrics are interesting, because it does go up and down. I do pay attention to metrics, but I’ve learned to strike a balance.

Metrics are essential for any artist looking to make music a full-time career. They provide insights into audience engagement and help in planning promotional strategies. However, it’s important not to be overly critical or obsessed with numbers.

It can be challenging, as there’s always room for improvement, but I’ve learned to appreciate the journey, even if the numbers aren’t perfect. I aim to find joy in creating music and connecting with my

family experience, and everybody feels like they’re a part of this thing. And that’s how I’ve always wanted my music career to go as well.

Do you have specific rap dreams?

I used to stress so much about “making it.” I would always want to reach the next big thing. And I would always be frustrated. And at times, I wouldn’t even be happy about what I was doing. I took a step back, and the first song on the album has a line in it at the end, where it says chasing dreams is just a dream in itself.

Meaning, like, my ability to do what I’m doing—that that is the dream. The fact that I’m able to rap. That’s a dream. The fact that I’m able to put out these songs and anybody listens to it. Like even if it’s just my mom, like that’s a dream. Somebody was able to listen to my music. I’m appreciating whatever level I’m on and enjoying it for what it is. I’m also continuing to push forward, but not being so hard on myself. The definition of what my dream is has changed so much. I think nowadays, more than ever, it is just being able to do this and kind of find my community of people in the world that will support it and resonate with the music. W INDYweek.com November 29, 2023

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E TC. (From left) Due South hosts Leoneda Inge and Jeff Tiberii at WUNC. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

show. At a station of this size, in an area of this caliber, with so many universities and so much growth, being the political state that it is, being the culturally rich place that it is—we have to have a daily show.

I think both Leoneda and I would agree that we work for our listeners. That’s the guiding star for us. And our listeners haven’t had a show for years. So I’m very excited that it’s finally here. There are lots of stories and segments and conversations that we want to get to.

Both of you have been WUNC reporters for a long time. How does your past experience inform Due South? I’m curious whether this show feels like a culmination of your previous work, or an entirely new venture, or a little of both.

JEFF: It’s a little bit of both. There’s nothing new about sitting down across from someone important, or someone who has a level of familiarity with our audience, and chatting with them. But it’s a new endeavor in that a lot more people are listening to it now. Also, my reflexive nature is to go to elected officials to get answers to questions, but with Leoneda, there’s a difference—Leoneda holds court.

Wherever she goes, it just happens organically. Leoneda knows everyone.

Signal Up Talking with Jeff Tiberii and Leoneda Inge, the hosts of WUNC’s new daily program, Due South, about the show’s inception and path forward.

BY LENA GELLER arts@indyweek.com

I

n the month since Due South debuted on WUNC, episodes of the new radio program have included an interview with NC Senate leader Phil Berger, a segment on Halloween confections at area bakeries, and a discussion about a local effort to center Indigenous stories in college courses. This should tell you something about the capaciousness of the show—and the breadth of experience of the people behind it.

Co-hosted by veteran WUNC reporters Jeff Tiberii and Leoneda Inge, Due South provides the sort of regional radio coverage that has been absent from the station since 2020, when The State of Things, a daily program that covered North Carolina topics for more than a decade, was discontinued.

But Due South isn’t a dupe of its predecessor. For one thing, the show, which airs daily at 10 a.m., isn’t live; segments are recorded days or sometimes even months in advance, making for more deep dives and less spur-of-themoment coverage. And as the name suggests, Due South 18

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isn’t confined to the state of North Carolina. The show offers expansive coverage from across the American South and affords as much attention to culture as it does politics.

As co-hosts, Inge, who has reported on race and southern culture at WUNC since 2002, and Tiberii, who spent eight years as the capitol bureau chief for North Carolina Public Radio, play to their strengths. The end result is a broadcast that’s both curated and colloquial, niche and contextualized. It has that great NPR quality where you can tune in at any point and almost immediately catch on to what’s being discussed.

During Due South’s third week on the air, the INDY sat down with Tiberii and Inge to discuss the show’s inception and trajectory.

INDY: How did Due South come to be?

JEFF TIBERII: After The State of Things was gone, I said to the bosses, “What’s the plan?” We’ve got to have a daily

LEONEDA INGE: Some radio hosts are just talking-head hosts: people prepare everything for them, and they present it. As reporters, we never had that luxury. We’ve had to meet as many people as possible. So we have a repertoire of people in every corner.

My experience working for a local publication has been that even though our focus is the Triangle, there are sometimes really glaring national or international news items that it feels like we need to cover in some way. Where does Due South fall on that? Do you have any interest—or any feeling of obligation—to cover broader news topics through a Southern lens?

JEFF: I would say yes. We’re trying to zag a little bit, and we want people to zig. For one thing, we know that if there’s something playing out in the national or international news ecosystem—like, if the president is impeached—it’s gonna be on WUNC’s airwaves throughout the day. We know that our listeners are going to be covered. So then it becomes this question of, do we address certain topics? And if we do, how do we go about it in a way that isn’t repetitive?

How do we address them with a local tilt, a local slant?

Obviously, the biggest one right now is this awful calamity in the Middle East, which we have not spent a whole lot of time on yet. I think it’s something that we’ll touch on in the Friday news roundups. The roundups are by no means a

catchall, but they are a place where we can drop things in—be it the Israel-Hamas war, or something environmental, something economic—in a two- or three-minute window. Whereas other days of the week, our segment lengths are 12 minutes, 20 minutes, and 17 minutes. Sometimes the time windows are limiting in the sense of, like, “Oh, there’s this big thing going on. How are we going to talk about that for 12 minutes without it feeling out of place?”

LEONEDA: We’ve heard that people welcome a different take on content at the time of day that Due South airs. At that point in the morning, listeners have been getting it hard from the BBC. They’ve been hearing them talk about war for an hour.

Our goal is to discuss things you didn’t even know you wanted to hear. Even something like a simple interview about having the fall leaves turn: “Have they turned in your area yet, or is it too late?” People plan their weddings around those leaves. Those leaves can be a big economic boost for communities. Stories like that you don’t usually hear.

The first Due South episode I heard was the “What’s at stake in the municipal elections?” one, which, topic-wise, was sort of what I expected to hear when I turned on NPR in the morning—then, two days later, I turned the radio on again and heard y’all doing a wide-ranging interview with Paula Poundstone. I’m not used to hearing a daily radio show that has so much variety. The show reminds me of the INDY in some ways, in that you give equal weight to politics and culture.

JEFF: One of the ways I’ve thought about the show is reliable, not predictable. News fatigue is real. We want people to learn. We want people to laugh. When I listen to the show, there’s moments where I will smile, and that’s OK. You’re not breaking the rules by smiling if you’re listening to the radio or if you’re listening to news. News is by no means myopic. We’re trying to cover a large range of topics, and the through line is the South. The through line is interesting people and things you might not know about, or might not know enough about.

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LEONEDA: I’m a real stickler about that. I don’t want a topic to have been heard too many times on other programs at all. There is no way to run out of stories. There is no way to run out of people to talk to. I want to be even more of a stickler— JEFF: She’s a stickler, if you can’t tell.

LEONEDA: No, I mean, I’m just saying I want it to be so clear and passionate that people in New York are jealous. I brought up the model of Garden & Gun magazine.

When Garden & Gun first started, they were trying to be a Southern literary magazine to challenge The New Yorker. But then it just built into its own big phenom. They cover the South hard. The New Yorker is probably now sometimes scared to do some stories or interview some people because Garden & Gun has so clearly owned the Southern region.

So that’s kind of how I see our show.

We’re one of the biggest stations in the whole South, period. So we should just hold that and own it. Own where you are. W This interview was edited for length and clarity.

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James Patterson & Mike Lupica, 12 Months to Live

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In conversation with Sarah Grunder Ruiz

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The WUNC offices and recording studios at the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

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E TC.

Narrative Momentum With new programming, WUNC is expanding its portfolio—and mainstream narratives about the American South.

BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW jlaidlaw@indyweek.com

(From left) The Broadside podcast host Anisa Khalifa and producer Charlie Shelton-Ormond outside WUNC at the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

A

t the 1995 Source Awards, Outkast, an unknown hiphop duo from Atlanta, won the Best New Group award.

For years, the rap industry had been dominated by the coastal powerhouses in New York and Los Angeles. But André Benjamin, a.k.a. André 3000, stepped confidently onstage to accept the award and deliver a clear message to haters: “The South got something to say.”

That statement has never been more true than now, almost 20 years later, as aspects of Southern culture have migrated into the mainstream, shaping our politics, music, and more. And with new WUNC podcast The Broadside, host Anisa Khalifa is setting out to examine how those stories at the heart of the American South reflect the communities who live here and the impact those stories have everywhere.

“A lot of stuff that happens across the country, it often starts in the South,” Khalifa says. “Whether that’s something rooted in Southern culture like language, food, social movements, or environmental justice, all of those things are in some way concentrated here first. I don’t think the South gets the recognition it deserves.”

Khalifa started working at WUNC in the fall of 2021 as a host and producer on the podcast Tested, which originally covered COVID-19 updates before evolving into a show tackling challenges facing North Carolina and the South.

Then, in September, WUNC launched The Broadside, a continuation of the storytelling Khalifa and her colleague, producer Charlie Shelton-Ormond, had done while working together on Tested.

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“We both really wanted to continue that work,” Khalifa says. “We felt it was important, and no one else was really doing it.”

Shelton-Ormond, who worked for several years as an audio producer at WUNC, including on The State of Things before the show was canceled in 2020 after 24 years, says the new show aims to build on WUNC’s legacy of featuring and spotlighting powerful storytelling across North Carolina and the South. He has helped lead WUNC’s growing on-demand podcast portfolio, which currently features nine shows, including Criminal and Me & My Muslim Friends, a podcast Khalifa also helps produce.

“Having this podcast feed has been a priority, especially for us as podcast producers within WUNC,” Shelton-Ormond says. “It’s been really satisfying to be able to showcase stories and reporting through a method of podcasting that has different shapes and colors.”

The first eight episodes of The Broadside inspect topics ranging from the exportation of the Southern colloquialism “y’all” to why dollar stores are a ubiquitous fixture in Southern retail. Of all the programs the pair has worked on so far, Khalisa—who is Muslim and moved to the South from Canada when she was 11—says that the episode “Asian American Studies Has Arrived” is closest to her heart.

“I come from a background of fighting for Asian American studies when I was a student [at Duke], and it has been interesting for me to see how the movement has really taken off. Why is it happening here?” Khalisa says.

“Why is it suddenly being successful? I wanted to talk about that. Asian American stories don’t get told that often, because that’s not really part of our narrative about the South even though Asian Americans have been here for, you know, hundreds of years.” Topics may be weighty but, at 20 to 25 minutes, the breezy episode length sits comfortably between a broadcast news segment and an episode of The Ezra Klein Show.

“Being able to have this home where we can invite reporters or storytellers who are embedded in different communities both in North Carolina but more specifically across the whole region, and not be confined necessarily to any radio signal,” Shelton-Ormond says, “gives us creative confidence and freedom to expand, which is really exciting.”

A

t the end of October, WUNC also launched the station’s new daily broadcast, Due South, which brings renewed energy to the void left by The State of Things, the show’s spiritual predecessor.

Paul Hunton, the president and general manager at WUNC, says Due South, a broadcast radio show, and The Broadside, an on-demand podcast, are emblematic of the station’s strategy of applying a modern approach to storytelling throughout its programming.

“There’s always going to be some crossover, but we know digital audiences are different from broadcast audiences,” Hunton says. “So how do you tell stories across the WUNC ecosystem where you create a story for broadcast that can go on Due South or be part of

one of our news features, but then our Broadside team could take that story and expand on it and do something deeper that reflects more of what digital audiences are looking for?”

Since the onset of serialized podcasting in the mid-2010s, media companies have attempted to crack the code on how to maintain an aging audience accustomed to catching the news on the radio during their morning commute while also leveraging new media platforms like podcasts and social media to attract younger, more diverse listeners. Hunton believes this is a natural evolution for public radio stations like WUNC, and that their mission is platform-agnostic.

“One of the things we have really tried to focus on is hammering down into who we are and what we do through the journalism and the stories we tell,” Hunton says. “When you align the focus of trying to reach different audiences, knowing that you’re gonna tell those stories differently but have the same vision for what stories to tell, you allow for collaboration more freely, and you can reach all the different audiences in North Carolina that we serve where they’re at.”

Legacy media organizations, even ones that have fully adopted podcasting, are struggling to adapt to a new landscape where social media continues to fracture audiences and siphon ad revenue. WNYC, which is operated by New York Public Radio, cut around 12 percent of its workforce in September. Hunton says WUNC is not immune to those same challenges, but he is confident that his team has the right approach to remain successful.

“I would love to say we saw the writing on the wall, but we also were aiming this way regardless, because we see this strategically as the way forward for public radio and audio storytellers.”

In the face of challenges across the industry, WUNC scored a big win in October when Embodied, a live radio show about sex, intimacy, and identity, announced a national distribution partnership with public media organization PRX. Anita Rao, the show’s host, was also recognized as a “rising star in public media” by news organization Current.

Whether WUNC shows are covering the taboos of sex or intersectionality in the South, audiences and storytellers alike have an appetite for a space to hold these conversations, Khalifa says.

“There’s a long history of things happening in the South and people often working on them in obscurity,” Khalifa says. “It’s been exciting to give people a place to talk about their work.” W INDYweek.com November 29, 2023

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C U LT U R E CA L E NDA R

WED 11/29

THURS 11/30

LIKE TO PLAN AHEAD?

FRI 12/1

SAT 12/2

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

PAGE

MUSIC

STAGE

Blue Cactus / She Returns from War $12+. 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Below Decks: Made of Oak with Lex Nell, Future Residents, the facesblur, B2B, and Treee City $10.

8 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Darren Criss: A Very Darren Crissmas $46.40+.

8 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Becoming a New Saint: A Book Talk featuring Lama Rod Owens in Conversation with adrienne maree brown 7 p.m. Hayti Heritage Center, Durham.

Duke Chinese Music Ensemble 5 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

Cary Ballet Company Presents The Nutcracker $20. 11 a.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Home Free Vocal Band: Home for the Holidays $47+. 8 p.m. Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh.

Manic Daze Tour Featuring Boogie T.Rio and Manic Focus $25+. 8 p.m Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox $39.50+. 8 p.m.

DPAC, Durham.

Shaun Cassidy $46.50+.

7 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Wind Ensemble Holiday Concert $5+. 7:30 p.m. NC State Talley Student Union, Raleigh.

STAGE Much Ado about Nothing $25. Nov. 26–Dec. 3, various times. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill.

The Great Reset 10 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.

Denty Westlake Featuring Kobie Watkins $20+. 8 p.m.

Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Jazz Orchestra Concert $5+.

7:30 p.m. NC State Talley Student Union, Raleigh.

Duke Jazz Ensemble $10.

8 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

Kelsey Waldon $18. 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Three Body Problem Record Release Party with Maple Stave and Horizontal Hold 8 p.m.

Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

Live Jazz with Mark Puricelli and Friends 7 p.m.

Imbibe, Durham.

Patrick Droney $25+. 7 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

The Radical Audio Visual Experience Presented by LSDREAM $40. 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Wynona Judd $29+.

7:30 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

STAGE The Bipeds Present Shadowbox Session #17 8 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

Elf the Musical, Jr. $15.

8 p.m. Garner Performing Arts Center, Garner.

Moonlight by Harold Pinter $5+. Nov. 30–Dec. 17, 7 p.m. Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh.

PAGE OCHRC Community Book Read 7 p.m. Bonnie B. Davis Environment and Agricultural Center, Hillsborough.

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STAGE Comedian Hasan Minhaj $49.50+. 7 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

The Harry Show $15.

10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

Hush Hush: Comedy Based on Secrets from the Audience $8. 9 p.m.

Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

Let It Show: A Holiday Comedy Special $15+.

Dec. 1-15, 7:30 p.m.

Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

Open Mic Standup Comedy with Ashley and Ebony 8 p.m. Durty Bull Brewing Co., Durham.

Legends and Lattes Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club 6 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

The Durham Symphony Presents Holiday Pops Concert $10+. 7 p.m. The Armory, Durham.

Eric Sommer and the Fabulous Piedmonts $20.

7 p.m. The New Arts Center, Carrboro.

Feels on Hicks St. 4 p.m.

Durty Bull Brewing Co, Durham.

Kobie Watkins Grouptet $25. 8 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Larry & Joe $4+. 11 a.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

No Falkes Given Album Release Show 7 p.m. The Night Rider, Raleigh.

Sayless 6:30 p.m. Tin Roof, Raleigh.

Comedian Nurse Blake $90+. 8 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

The ComedyWorx Show Matinee $9. 4 p.m.

ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

The Hip Hop Nutcracker $39+. 7:30 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

Primetime at ComedyWorx $15. 8 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

PAGE A Wing and Prayer: Author Talk and Book Signing 11 a.m. Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham.

By Hands Now Known: Community Read and Author Talk 2 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

C U LT U R E CA L E NDA R

FIND OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR AT INDYWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

MON 12/4

SUN 12/3

TUES 12/5

WED 12/6

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

STAGE

MUSIC

SCREEN

Chamber Music Program Concerts 3 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

Dead Gowns / h. pruz / Jesse Wooten $10.

8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

A. Savage / Sluice $18. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas $33.50+.

Dec. 5–10, various times.

DPAC, Durham.

Duke Symphony Orchestra with Siyeon Kim, Soprano 7:30 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

The Persian Version $6.

7 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

PAGE

Keep Flying $15, 7:30 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Neal Francis: Francis Comes Alive with The Psychedelics $35. 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Monadi $10. 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Sydney Sprague $15.

7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Jeremy “Bean” Clemons Jazz Trio $8. 9 p.m.

Kingfisher, Durham.

Lydia Loveless $24, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Real Friends / Knuckle Puck $30. 7 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh

Cory Doctorow Presents The Lost Cause 5 p.m.

Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Yard Act $22. 8 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Blue Cactus perform at the Pinhook on Wednesday, Nov. 29.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINHOOK

The Moss $19. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

STAGE Disney on Ice Presents Magic in the Stars $20+.

Dec. 6-10, various times.

PNC Arena, Raleigh.

The Red Shoes $7+.

2 p.m. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.

The Stones and Brian Jones $6. 2 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation $20.

6:30 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse, Raleigh.

Disney on Ice Presents Magic in the Stars performs on Wednesday, Dec. 7, at PNC Arena. PHOTO COURTESY OF PNC ARENA INDYweek.com November 29, 2023

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C U LT U R E CA L E NDA R

THURS 12/7

LIKE TO PLAN AHEAD?

FRI 12/8

MUSIC

STAGE

MUSIC

Heart Beats and Lost Souls: A Dance Party 7 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Comedian Eric Neumann $27+. 8 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Boom Unit Brass Band Holiday Party $12+. 8 p.m.

Motorco, Durham.

SCREEN

Chromeo / Bexxie / Marshall Jones $30. 9 p.m.

The Fruit, Durham.

Heavy Denim / Phil Venable $5. 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Deconstructing the Beatles: Abbey Road–Side Two $6.

2 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

The King’s Singers $55.

7:30 p.m. Duke Chapel, Durham.

We Are Scientists $20.

8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Waitress: The Musical $16, Dec. 7-10, various times. The Cary Theater, Cary.

ART Feedback Collage $10+.

8 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Concert for a Cause $50.

7 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

H.C. McEntire $18. 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Juan Alamo and Marimjazzia: Tribute to Tito Puente with Ramon Vazquez $25. 8 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

SAT 12/9

La Vida Es Musica: The Latin Jazz of Brazil, Argentina, and Beyond $25.

8 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

Majid Jordan $42. 7 p.m.

The Ritz, Raleigh.

Megayacht / Erie Choir / Blab School $10, 8 p.m.

Local 506, Chapel Hill.

North Carolina Symphony: Holiday Pops $41+.

Dec. 8-9, various times.

Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Sunsquabi / Jason Leech $20. 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

STAGE

MUSIC

A Christmas Carol Presented by Theatre in the Park $35+. Dec. 8-10, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Black Nativity in Concert $5. Dec. 9-10, various times.

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.

Comedian Pat House $20.

Dec. 8-9, 8 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club Room 861, Raleigh.

Comedian Sommore $38+.

Dec. 8-10, various times.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Gothic Nights: A Burlesque Show of the Dark and Mysterious $18+. 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

SCREEN The Rocky Horror Picture Show $10. 11:55 p.m. The Rialto, Raleigh.

COMMUNITY Camp Bliss Onesie Ball $20. 8 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Winter Lantern Walk at NC Museum of Art on Saturday, Dec. 9. PHOTO COURTESY OF NCMA 24

November 29, 2023

INDYweek.com

The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle Presents: The Durham Fellows 7:30 p.m.

Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

The HIRS Collective / Sister, Brother $15. 7 p.m.

The Pinhook, Durham.

Joe Chambers Quartet $35. 8 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Southern Culture on the Skids $18. 8 p.m., Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Stephen Sanchez / Stephen Day $25. 8 p.m., Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Unis / Astrocat / Jest / Newspaper Taxis $12.

8 p.m., Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Viano Quartet $35.

8 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

C U LT U R E CA L E NDA R

FIND OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR AT INDYWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

SUN 12/10

MON 12/11

TUES 12/12

WED 12/13

STAGE

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

STAGE

Comedy Night with Mary Gallagher and Jordan Scott Huggins $10+. 8 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

The Origin’s TSO Tribute and Zach’s Toy Chest Benefit Show $20+.

7:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Lynn Blakey Christmas Show $15. 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra $25.

8 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Candlelight: Holiday Special Featuring The Nutcracker and More $43.

9 p.m. Hayti Heritage Center, Durham.

A Christmas Carol Presented by Theatre in the Park $28.50. 7:30 p.m.

Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham.

Girl Named Tom $78+.

7 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Dorrance Dance: Nutcracker Suite $27.95.

7:30 p.m. Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill.

House of Coxx Drag Show $15. 10 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

North Carolina Theatre: Elf the Musical $60+. Dec. 9-17, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Triangle Youth Ballet: The Nutcracker $35. 2 p.m.

7 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.

North Carolina Master Chorale: Joy of the Season $16+. 7:30 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Pod Meets World Live: The Kids Wanna Jump!

Tour $42. 7:30 p.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

School of Rock Chapel Hill’s End of Season Showcase $10, 12 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

PAGE Brian Wasson: Seven Minutes in Candyland 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Sharif Mekawy $20.

7 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

ART

SCREEN

NCMA Winter Lantern Walk 4:30p.m. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.

A Christmas Story $10.

5:30 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra: The Ghosts of Christmas Eve: The Best of TSO and More $83+. 7 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.

PAGE Renee Ahdieh: The Ruined 4 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

COMMUNITY Holiday Artist Market 11 a.m. Theatre Raleigh Arts Center, Raleigh.

Holiday Pop-Up 12 p.m.

Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, Hillsborough.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra performs on Wednesday, Dec. 13, at PNC Arena.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PNC ARENA

INDYweek.com November 29, 2023

25

P U Z Z L ES If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages” at the bottom of our webpage.

www.regulatorbookshop.com 720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705 Open Every Day 10-6

su | do | ku

this week’s puzzle level:

© Puzzles by Pappocom

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key and previous puzzles at indyweek.com/puzzles-page.

Best of luck, and have fun!

11.29.23

26

November 29, 2023

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INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com

C L AS S I F I E D S HEALTH & WELL BEING

EMPLOYMENT

Senior Systems Engineer SAS Institute, Inc. seeks a Senior Systems Engineer, Government Sales in Cary, NC to provide tech assistance for software pre-sale & post-sale activities. Reqs: BS in Comp Sci, Bus, Info Sys, Telecomm, or reltd field + 8 yrs exp. May work remotely pursuant to SAS’ Flexible Work Program. For full reqs & to apply visit: sas.com/careers and reference Job # 2023-34457.

919-416-0675

www.harmonygate.com SERVICES

Service Project Mngr Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. seeks Service Project Mngr. in Cary, NC. Meet respective project goals in terms of time, cost & quality. Reqs: Bach deg or foreign equiv in Bus., Logistics, Supply Chain Mngmt. or rel fld & 5 yrs of rel exp. Req. 10% travel int’l. Mail resume to: Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc c/o Jeanelle League, 221 Gregson Dr, Cary, NC 27511. Ref. #: 393519 Salesforce Engineer 2 GRAIL, LLC. seeks Salesforce Engineer 2 (4620376) in Durham, NC (Telecommuting is permissible). Duties: Build Salesforce custom applications & maintain custom objects/formulas/ validation rules/workflows flows/ approvals/assignment rules. Send resume to grailjobs@grailbio.com, must refer to job title and job code.

Software Development Engineer SAS Institute Inc. seeks Software Development Engineer in Test in Cary, NC to create & maintain high quality of test automation using modern development techniques & provide key data points to support metric-based decision making. Reqs: BS in Comp Sci, Engrng (any field), or related quant field + 3 yrs exp. May work remotely pursuant to SAS’ Flexible Work Prgm. For full reqs & to apply visit www.sas.com/careers and reference Job # 2023-34444.

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Buyer Logistics and Transportation Buyer, Logistics and Transportation Category, bioMerieux, Inc., Durham, NC. May teleco up to 2 days/wk. Collab w/category, purchasing & spply chain mgrs in diff countries to implmnt logistics, transprt, & warehouse source strtgs. Reqs Bach/Mast in Int'l Commerce, Bus Admin, Spply Chain Mgmt/ rel / equiv. Reqs if Bach 5 yrs / if Master's 3 yrs purchase / spply chain exp incl (5 yrs w/ Bach /3 yrs w/ Master's): purchase processes; cntrct terms, conditns & price/rates negotiatns; cntrct mgmt; int'l commerce; Spply Chain process; Logistics (Local & Int'l); Supplier Relationship Mgmt; MS Office (Word, Excel & PP). M-F, 8a-5p. Reqs 20% US & intl trvl. Apply: Send resume to: recruitment@biomerieux.com & ref job #111571.

LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

Editorial and Research Assistant Editorial and Research Assistant for book concerning Grand Teton National Park, Wyo. Part time, work from your home. Good computer skills and creativity mandatory. $40/hour. Start soon. Resume to: teton2021@gmail.com

RECYCLE THIS PAPER INDYweek.com November 29, 2023

27

g n i m Co n!

Soo

2024 INDY Summer Camp Guide Calling all camps: the 2024 Summer Camp Guide is around the corner!

The INDY’s Summer Camp Guide is an annual, comprehensive guide to camps around the Triangle and North Carolina for the upcoming summer. Listings are FREE OF CHARGE and must be submitted by January 17th.

Please use the QR code below or email sales@indyweek.com to provide your camp’s name, location(s), age range, and url.

Two issues Jan 24 th !

Mar 20 th&