Open B ks
A year-long journey through the Triangle's libraries begins with the story of Stanford L. Warren Library, a resilient community linchpin in Durham's Hayti neighborhood.
By
Sarah Edwards, p. 12
Hill
Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill
VOL. 42 NO. 1
CONTENTS
6 Some parents and civil rights advocates say the presence of school resource officers in Wake County schools harms students. BY STOREY WERTHEIMER
9 Following years of organizing, Amazon workers filed for a union election at the RDU1 warehouse in Garner. BY LENA GELLER
CULTURE
11 Durham artist Gabriel Eng-Goetz's greatest muse is the community around him. BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR
12 The INDY's library series: Exploring Durham's Stanford L. Warren Library. BY SARAH EDWARDS
17 Incoming! An ambitious adaptation of The Nickel Boys, Adrian Brody in an old-school narrative epic, and more movies coming to local theaters. BY GLENN MCDONALD
19 Talking with The Shot actress Sharon Lawrence about the new PlayMaker's production on the life of former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. BY SARAH EDWARDS
THE REGULARS
4 Backtalk 5 Op-ed 22 INDY Selects 23 Culture calendar
COVER Adult Services Librarian Carter Cue searches for a novel in his personal collection of books. PHOTO BY BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
Publisher John Hurld
Editorial
Editor-in-Chief
Jane Porter
Culture Editor
Sarah Edwards
Staff Writers
Lena Geller
Justin Laidlaw
Chase Pellegrini de Paur
Report For America Corps Reporter
Chloe Courtney Bohl
Contributors
Mariana Fabian, Jasmine Gallup, Desmera Gatewood, Spencer Griffith, Carr Harkrader, Matt Hartman, Tasso Hartzog, Brian Howe, Kyesha Jennings, Jordan Lawrence, Elim Lee, Glenn McDonald, Nick McGregor, Gabi Mendick, Cy Neff, Sam Overton, Shelbi Polk, Byron Woods, Barry Yeoman
Wojciechowska
John Hurld
Marchington
Koch Account Representative Andrew Whiteley
Circulation Berry Media Group
Membership/ subscriptions
John Hurld
Mathias Marchington
Gabriel Eng-Goetz installs acrylic panels at the Stanford L. Warren Branch Library (See story, page 11.) PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
From NATALIE MINOTT , via email:
I just wanted to say that I was completely captivated by Lena’s journey from start to finish. I loved how the narrative not only took us on a fun Rachel Ray–inspired adventure but also supported and highlighted local businesses along the way!
Shout out to Lena for her incredible writing—her vivid descriptions, like “with broccoli florets threatening to tumble onto the counter,” gave me warm fuzzies.
Please, more adventures like this one!
From reader DAVID STEIN:
Not only is the writing great but it made me really hungry and willing to follow in your footsteps. But I can’t believe you didn’t squeeze Banh’s in there somehow!
From reader ANNA WALKER:
Quick note to say I loved your $40/ day article and its takeaways. Great idea and execution, right down to the side part. So cool you were able to find the archival IndyWeek issue, too. Thanks for keeping local journalism fun & educational!
From reader BLAIR POLLOCK:
Nice job — I wish I were more partial to food trucks and eating on the car trunk table.
Also you found food truck & window food more affordable than I have generally in our area / I’ve found both quality & quantity lacking at most food trucks and prices not much below sit down places.
Nicely written & I enjoyed the trip w you & Angelica.
Ps : there’s a new little hole in the wall food hut at the corner of Mt Moriah & Erwin that a guy’s been trying to make happen.
Also before the holidays, Chloe Courtney-Bohl reported on Raleigh’s new Union Station bus depot and broke news that Greyhound is no longer part of the plans for the station when it opens in 2025. Readers had thoughts.
From reader JACOB MORSE:
Nobody can argue with the fact that it would be more convenient as a connection hub to have the Greyhound center at RUS. That is evident and worth noting.
surrounding the current Greyhound Center as “inhospitable” is out of touch and wrong. Some of Raleigh’s finest homegrown retail spots are right there (union special and miso Ramen to name a couple) and that location is far easier to access for folks coming in off 64 or coming from North Raleigh who need to catch the bus and who would spend more time, energy, and money having to traverse Downtown.
From reader MICHAEL SCHAUL:
You described Greyhound as being in “an inhospitable landscape of strip malls, concrete, and highway.” You also emphasized the poverty of the people using the Greyhound. You left out what is near the terminal. It is adjacent to the Food Bank and across the street from the Salvation Army. These seem more likely to be able to provide needed services to such people than the “new creative class vision”, whatever that is.
PS I’ve seen that area actually improve since the Food Bank was an IBM office building where I worked when I arrived in Raleigh.
From reader HELEN TART:
One thing your article about the Greyhound station failed to include is that the current Greyhound station is on the #1 Capital Blvd frequent bus route. Thus making that location more convenient for the Greyhound bus riders than downtown. With a short walk they can board a bus that arrives every 15 minutes, taking them to several cheap motels around the 440 interchange. They can get to downtown Raleigh on the same route, however they do have to cross Capital Blvd to do so, never an easy task. Still from a practical point of view, the current Greyhound location makes more sense for both bus and private vehicle riders. Before
However, characterizing the area
Greyhound out of Raleigh’s right Ramen location is coming in Raleigh who and Downtown.
SCHAUL: being strip You the left It is across Army. able such class actually was an worked the include station bus more ridwalk every several interdowntown however Blvd to from current sense riders.
Community Solutions
If we’re in this together at Durham Public Schools, we need to act like it.
BY JENNY JONES COLDREN backtalk@indyweek.com
When given the choice between an administration with a literal public school teacher in leadership and Trump’s radical vision for public education laid out in Project 2025, Durham overwhelmingly chose public schools. When given the choice between a governor who has been a tireless advocate for public schools and their employees and someone who wants to get rid of public schools as we know them, Durham overwhelmingly chose public schools. And when given the choice between a longtime public servant dedicated to improving public school outcomes and a homeschool mom who wanted to abolish public schools, Durham overwhelmingly chose public schools.
On November 5, Durham stood united that here in the
Bull City, we believe in public education as an institution. But if you go on just about any social media platform and tune into the locals, attend a school board meeting, or even just talk about public education with your friends, family, and neighbors, “united” isn’t exactly the word that comes to mind. “Divisive,” “messy,” “disrespectful,” and perhaps a few four-letter words as well. As a mother who ended up in the principal’s office fighting for my children to be treated fairly twice in the last week, I’m sure I’ve embodied these words at times too. But I’m reminded of the motto of the Durham Association of Educators, “In this together.” We should be. From a raw electoral numbers standpoint, if any community in North Carolina is able to fight together
instead of with each other, it’s the place I’ve called home my entire adult life. But do we? Lately, it doesn’t feel like it. When my child called me from school in tears last month because a teacher was bullying them, my first reaction wasn’t “unity.” As I shot off an angry email, cc’ing the principal supervisor, “support” wasn’t top of mind. When I had to tell a client I couldn’t meet before 9:15 due to a lack of consistent bussing for my high schooler, I certainly wasn’t feeling “togetherness.” Believe me when I say that I am angry, just like many other Durham parents who feel like their children are not getting what they need—what they deserve. But anger, however righteous, isn’t going to get the job done. And the really frustrating thing is that while we bicker here at home, we have actual enemies making plans: plans to suffocate our schools with a lack of federal funding and possible plans for a state takeover, and even though we “broke the supermajority,” I feel confident that there is trickery afoot that could further starve our students of the resources they need to thrive. Instead of supporting our shared vision for thriving public schools, we’re cannibalizing our own through manifestos, raised voices, and angry social media posts, not proudly carrying the mantra “In this together.”
I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m not sure how to fix all of the problems we have in our public schools, especially at this exact moment in time. But I also think that performative calls for blanket resignations, middle fingers at school board meetings, and perhaps rightfully earned I-told-you-sos aren’t helpful. We’re in a bussing crisis. We’re in an EC crisis. We’re in an racial opportunity gap crisis. It’s easy to get angry and blame others, and it’s a lot harder to figure out how to support each other. So do you have a flexible work schedule that allows you to take a Zoom meeting from the carpool line? And could you pick up a couple other neighborhood kids while you’re at it? Do you have the resources to privately supplement your child’s educational needs while DPS struggles to fully staff its EC Department? I’m not saying these actions are easy, and I certainly know they’re not convenient. But these are Durham’s children—these are our children. I believe that community problems have community solutions, and if any community can do that for each other, it’s the Bull City. W
Jenny Jones Coldren is a lifelong North Carolinian, mom of three DPS students, and former DPS educator, education advocate, and political operative who has worked on multiple local campaigns and competitive Democratic campaigns across the state. Follow her on social media at @jennyjonescoldren.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANN SALMAN
N E W S Wake County
Disorderly Conduct
Wake County employs school resource officers in 80 of its public schools. But some parents and civil rights advocates say their presence harms and criminalizes students.
BY STOREY WERTHEIMER backtalk@indyweek.com
Each morning, Andreana Allen sent her 14-year-old son on the school bus to East Garner Magnet Middle School and drove to work. Then she braced for the phone call from the school.
“Eighth grade was a horror story,” she says. “He went to school only to get suspended.”
Since the age of 12, her son has been repeatedly suspended for charges such as “disruptive behavior.” In his eighth-grade year, he was suspended for 30 days and spent an additional 33 days in a stabilization room, a secluded space away from peers where he was to complete his schoolwork alone, according to a February complaint filed on his behalf by Legal Aid of North Carolina.
Allen says school resource officers (SROs), the law enforcement officers deployed in his school, have been called to intervene when he is accused of disruption. On one occasion, he was searched, handcuffed, and thrown to the ground by an SRO who claimed to have mistaken him for another individual, according to the legal brief.
A spokesperson for the Wake County Public School System declined to comment, saying the school system is legally prohibited from commenting on Allen’s case.
Allen’s son has an individualized education program (IEP) to address his mental health needs. His diagnoses, which include oppositional defiant behavior, can lead him to escalate conflict when confronted by authority, according to his mother.
Because his disability is not visible, however, Allen worries that people don’t understand his condition.
“You don’t know what a person with a
January 8, 2025 INDYweek.com
disability looks like,” she says. “You can’t know what a person suffers from. It’s like he’s a monster or a maniac or a menace. But then you see him cry and ball up into a fetal position …. It hurts.”
Allen’s son is one of many North Carolina students who regularly encounters SROs. A 2021 Duke University study found that 79 percent of schools serving 84 percent of students across the state have assigned officers. Nationally, North Carolina ranks among states with the highest police presence in schools but among the worst in overall school funding.
In the Wake County Public School System, 80 schools currently employ SROs— including in some elementary schools, every middle school, and nearly every high school.
District representatives argue that the officers enhance student safety. Parents like Allen, though, worry that students of color and those with disabilities are disproportionately funneled into the criminal justice system. SRO critics are pushing for an alternative: unarmed, trained professionals in Wake County schools.
A safe and welcoming environment
Nearly 200 guns were reported on school campuses statewide in the 2022–23 school year. Statistics like that, and broader concerns about mass shootings, have prompted school districts to employ armed officers. Since 2016, North Carolina has spent over $100 million on SRO salaries and training.
However, some studies suggest that officers don’t necessarily make a difference when shootings occur.
A 2021 study reviewing nearly 40 years of mass school shootings concluded that “armed guards were not associated with a significant reduction in rates of injuries.”
A 2023 study found that while SROs effectively reduce some forms of violence, they do not prevent gun-related incidents.
The study concluded that the officers’ presence also increases suspensions, police referrals, and arrests, particularly for Black students and students with disabilities.
SROs operate under a memorandum of understanding, an agreement between the board of education and law enforcement that outlines goals and principles.
“The ultimate goal of the SRO Program is to provide a safe, inclusive and positive learning environment for all students and educators,” the document reads.
Capt. Rebe Mosley-Bobbitt, who served as an SRO in Wake County for 12 years, says the officers aim to deter crime, reduce emergency response times, and provide parents with peace of mind. She says that often, the officers can de-escalate disciplinary situations, encouraging students to sit down for respectful conversations with administration.
“I had a very positive relationship with the students,” she says. “Until we live in a world where we can guarantee that no one will come on a campus to harm our
students, we’ll continue to be armed for their protection.”
But not all students and parents feel safer in an officer’s presence.
In 2020, 54,531 Wake County parents, students, school staff, and community members completed a survey assessing whether SROs made students feel safe, treated students appropriately, and were important for school security.
A majority of respondents—75 percent of parents and 52 percent of students— responded that SROs created a welcoming environment. But for Asian and Black students, the rates were lower. Less than half of those students—48 percent and 47 percent, respectively—felt that SROs created a welcoming space.
The school-to-prison pipeline
Civil rights advocates worry that SROs may push students into the justice system for minor disciplinary infractions, fueling what they call the “school-to-prison pipeline.” The NC Department of Public Instruction refutes this notion, and its website states, “Carefully selected, specially trained school resource officers … do not arrest students for disciplinary issues that would be handled by teachers and/or administrators if the SROs were not there.”
South Garner High School. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
The Brookings Institute, however, found that in the United States, school arrests increased by 52 percent following the introduction of a new SRO.
A North Carolina statute known as the “disorderly conduct” law makes it a crime to “disrupt, disturb, or interfere with teaching” or “disturb the peace” at any school. As a result, SROs are sometimes summoned when students skip class, argue with teachers, or refuse to participate in activities.
Elizabeth Simpson, an attorney with Emancipate NC, a criminal justice nonprofit, worries that a harsh punitive environment doesn’t cater to students’ individual needs.
“Not everyone can sit still for eight hours a day as a child,” she says. “But if they can’t do that, they’re going to be routed into incarceration.”
Jake Sussman, chief counsel for the Justice System Reform project in North Carolina, also believes that students in the state should feel supported in schools. “Yet, we see students being disturbingly manhandled and detained for things that are basic school disciplinary matters.”
Criminalization of youth disproportionately affects lower-income communities, Sussman says. “You see criminal prosecutions for behaviors that are handled internally in private schools or schools predominantly populated by white students in wealthier ZIP codes.”
An ACLU report found that between 2017 and 2023 in North Carolina, Black
students received disorderly conduct referrals at four times the rate of white students.
Students with disabilities were also referred to law enforcement at a rate of 2.5 times that of students without disabilities.
Clinton Robinson, chief of staff and strategic planning for Wake County Public Schools, acknowledged concerns about these rates in an email statement to the INDY
“The data showing that Black and Brown students face higher rates of ticketing, suspension, and interactions with SROs compared to their white peers is deeply concerning,” he wrote. “This disparity reflects broader systemic issues that we need to address proactively if we are committed to equity in education.”
He said the district’s annual School Resource Officer Summit, where district leaders and law enforcement collaborate on best practices, focuses on topics such as implicit bias, accountability, and equity.
Trust, and the lack thereof
Captain Mosley-Bobbitt hopes that SROs can foster trust between law enforcement and students. She says that sometimes, she runs into students from the schools she served. “They hug me and they thank me for what I did for them when they were in middle school,” she says.
But Sussman worries that the officers can have the opposite effect, dismantling
trust in law enforcement. “You create an adversarial dynamic where matters of discipline and safety are handled with a badge or taser or handcuffs,” he says.
Kerwin Pittman, a 37-year-old Raleigh native, served 11.5 years in North Carolina prisons. Since his release, he has become an activist, founding a nonprofit organization focused on reducing recidivism.
Pittman says his relationship with law enforcement was tainted from the time he was six years old. There were SROs present in his Wake County elementary, middle, and high schools.
“The presence of officers in my school never made me feel safe. It made me feel like I was going into the lion’s den,” he says.
Pittman says that when he was in middle school, an incident with the school principal led to him being tackled by an SRO and suspended from school. Throughout his schooling, Pittman says he watched the officers arrest many of his peers.
“None of the members of my community trust law enforcement because we’ve never seen them as models that protected us,” he says. “We’ve seen them as people we had to be protected from.”
Making peace
When Candace Robinson’s 13-year-old son was being severely physically and emotionally harassed by another student at Rolesville Middle School last school year,
she says she relentlessly urged her school’s administration to take action. Feeling that her demands were being neglected, Robinson says she appealed her concerns to the district superintendent and the mayor, who then referred her to the sheriff’s office.
Robinson provided security camera evidence of the physical abuse to the sheriff. She says the sheriff explained that she could involve an SRO and the boy bullying Robinson’s son could face a misdemeanor charge and, if the abuse continued, a possible felony.
Robinson says she was taken aback by the suggestion.
“I was looking at the phone like, ‘Wait, wait. What did she just say?’ The boy is in eighth grade,” she says.
Robinson says she told the sheriff she was disappointed that involving law enforcement was a proposed solution. The boy bullying her son was also Black and also had behavioral issues. Although she desperately wanted redress for her own child, she could not reconcile saddling another mother’s son with a criminal record.
“That could cost his future,” she says. “As a parent, I could take a pen to paper and charge him with something that could follow him for life.”
Robinson decided against engaging law enforcement. “But if I was a different type of parent, I would’ve signed it off,” she says. Representatives of Rolesville Middle School and the Wake County school system say they’re legally prohibited from commenting on the incident.
Wake County sheriff Willie Rowe told the INDY in a statement that he does not take reports of bullying lightly.
“That could cost his future. As a parent, I could take pen to paper and charge him with something that would follow him for life.”
“The Wake County Sheriff’s Office is committed to ensuring that every child feels safe and supported at school, and we take all reports of bullying very seriously,” Rowe said. He added that in September of 2023, the SRO at Rolesville Middle School received a report of bullying and that “a decision was made to seek resolution through alternative means” after discussions with the student’s parent.
“Our office was then informed that the chosen program was completed, and no further action was required or requested of our agency,” Rowe continued. “We encourage students and parents to report any instances of bullying. Together, we can create a safer, more positive environment for all students.”
But Allen wonders why schools rush to invoke law enforcement. “Why have we gotten away from just having a conversation?” she asks.
Fights and disputes are inevitable in
Andreana Allen PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
schools, Sussman says. But SROs aren’t the only possible response, in his view.
“Nonuniformed, trained professionals can help diffuse tensions without the binary choice of ‘Change your behavior or I’m gonna put you in handcuffs and take you to jail,’” Sussman says.
Emancipate NC’s Simpson points to HEART (Holistic Empathetic Assistive Response Team) in Durham as a successful community-centered alternative to policing.
Miguel “Mike” Figueras, a parent organizer with the Education Justice Alliance (EJA), a student justice nonprofit, agrees. “Police officers are trained to enforce laws …. They are not experts in adolescent development, restorative practices, mental health support,” the group’s proposal says.
EJA is aiming to launch a Peacebuilders pilot program, where trained, unarmed professionals de-escalate conflict.
The program would need to be paired with a robust network of school psychologists, mental health therapists, and nurses, Figueras explains. The National Association of School Psychologists recommends a ratio of 500 students per school psychologist. Currently in North Carolina, one school psychologist serves 2,970 students. Sussman believes that reimagining the system won’t be easy, nor will it be perfect. “I’m not suggesting this is a panacea and you solve all the problems on the first day. But it’s a commitment to change,” he says. “And on the rare occasion that none of the nonviolent interventions work, you have law enforcement who’s available. But that’s a very different scenario than having police officers just walk the halls.”
The district’s stance
District leaders have discussed the merits of a Peacebuilders program.
At a Wake County schools work session on September 3, some school board members expressed support for a Peacebuilders program to complement the existing SRO system.
“We know that officers have to do their job and their duty,” said board member Toshiba Rice, “but sometimes in some communities, having an officer there itself invokes a certain level of anxiety and stress and fear.”
Monika Johnson-Hostler, the former school board chair who was elected to the state legislature in November, said she hopes the district launches a Peacebuilders program for young students. “If we normalize Peacebuilders programs in elementary schools … by the time they get to high school, they know that this is
the system of accountability and support.”
Clinton Robinson echoed the district’s willingness to consider employing unarmed professionals.
“I think it’s important to remain open to all ideas that can contribute to creating a safe and supportive school environment,” he wrote in a statement to the INDY. “Programs like Peacebuilders, as well as trained social workers and counselors, can certainly play a valuable role in addressing the social and emotional needs of students and fostering a positive school climate.
“While the role of school resource officers has traditionally been one part of that strategy, it’s equally important to evaluate how non-policing options like those mentioned can complement or even enhance our current efforts. As with any initiative, we’d need to carefully assess these alternatives to ensure they align with the unique needs of our schools and communities.”
At the September 3 meeting, Robinson urged community members to fill out an SRO complaint form when they have concerns about the SRO program. “I implore people to let us know,” he said, “because that’s how we’ll know when we need to take action.”
“I don’t feel like my son was vindicated”
Last school year, Allen’s son transitioned to South Garner High School, where, according to the Legal Aid brief, he was suspended on his second day. He was then reassigned to the Garner Evening alternative learning program, typically for students expelled from daytime school. His difficulties have taken a toll on Allen, a single mother. “I had to quit one job just so I could keep going back and forth, because by the time I got to work, I was getting a phone call,” she says. “I got behind on my mortgage. I got behind on my bills. I had to play catch-up.”
In February, Allen filed a claim against the Wake school system, alleging that it failed to accommodate her son’s behavioral disabilities. She and the district participated in a mediation to discuss the issue. But in her eyes, the damage has already been done. “I don’t feel like my son was vindicated,” she says. “This will have a longterm effect on him.”
During the mediation, Allen says she met another woman whose experiences paralleled her own. “It’s like nobody understands until you go to these meetings and meet parents who are just like you,” she says. “She cried for me and I cried for her because our stories were so similar.” W
support.” the disemploying remain open to creating a environment,” INDY. “Pro as trained can certain addressing the students climate. resource offi part of that to evaluate those men enhance initiative, these alterna the unique communities.” Robinson fill out an have con “I implore “because we need to son was son transiHigh School, Aid brief, second day. He Garner Evening typically for school. a toll on quit one back and to work, I says. “I got behind on claim against alleging that it behaviordistrict particithe issue. has already son was vinhave a longsays she experiences nobody undermeetings and you,” she cried for her similar.” W
“It’s Time”
Following years of organizing, Amazon workers filed for a union election at the RDU1 warehouse in Garner.
BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com
Amazon workers at RDU1 warehouse in Garner filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last month, seeking to become the second unionized Amazon facility in the United States.
The filing on December 23 followed a three-year organizing campaign by Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, or C.A.U.S.E. C.A.U.S.E. ramped up efforts this fall with a push to collect union authorization cards.
At least 30 percent of current RDU1 workers must have signed cards to trigger a union election. While Amazon keeps RDU1’s head count under wraps—estimates range from 2,000 to 6,000 workers—organizers say they believe they’ve collected well beyond the number of signatures needed.
The NLRB will now review Amazon’s employee list against the signed cards to verify whether an election can proceed. The process typically takes several months.
“Nothing moves without us,” Mary Hill, an RDU1 worker and cofounder of C.A.U.S.E., said in a press release. “We’re
going to win the election. It’s time.”
In an email to the INDY, Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards wrote that Amazon is “very skeptical” that C.A.U.S.E. “has a sufficient number of legitimate signatures to support a petition for election.”
“The fact is,” Hards wrote, “Amazon already offers what many unions are requesting: Safe, inclusive workplaces, competitive pay, industry-leading benefits—including health care on day one, pre-paid college tuition, and a 401k with company match—opportunities for career growth, and more.”
The election filing comes amid mounting tensions at RDU1. Earlier this month, Amazon fired C.A.U.S.E. president Ryan Brown, citing violations of the company’s antiharassment policy—a move that organizers view as retaliation for union activities. Days later, Garner police arrested three C.A.U.S.E. supporters who were collecting union cards outside the warehouse during a shift change.
The filing also comes at a moment of heightened labor activity at Amazon facilities nationwide. On December 20,
C.A.U.S.E. members at a recent rally.
PHOTO BY SUMMER STEENBERG
thousands of Amazon delivery drivers launched a six-day strike during peak holiday shipping week, demanding higher pay and better working conditions.
Only one Amazon facility has successfully unionized— JFK8 in Staten Island. Other warehouses have managed to trigger elections but failed to secure enough votes, struggling against aggressive corporate opposition and challenges posed by Amazon’s notoriously high turnover rates.
The timeline for the election at RDU1 could face additional uncertainty given the upcoming presidential transition. During Donald Trump’s previous presidency, companies like Amazon had more favorable conditions for challenging union election results. Even after a successful vote, employers can file objections—as Amazon did at JFK8, where it submitted 25 challenges to the union victory, and at a facility in Bessemer, Alabama, where its objections led to a rerun election and ultimately a failed unionization attempt. With Trump’s NLRB potentially more receptive to such challenges, any postelection disputes at RDU1 could face delays or increased scrutiny. W
A RT
Color Studies
For the prolific Durham artist Gabriel EngGoetz, his greatest muse is the community around him.
BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR chase@indyweek.com
You may not have knowingly seen Gabriel Eng-Goetz’s artwork. But it has probably seen you.
His viscera-textured eagle surveys departures and arrivals at downtown Durham’s bus station. His foreboding goddess Athena dispassionately surveys the world from a Chapel Hill parking deck. His reddened steelworker at Raleigh Iron Works tells passersby the industrial history of the site.
Eng-Goetz’s work is everywhere. On murals around the Triangle, yes, but also on album art, coffee bags, on the jerseys of the Durham Bulls several times, and, perhaps most iconically, on the Runaway clothing brand that defines its own era of Durham streetwear.
The brand, responsible for the “DURM” trademark, hasn’t been operating since 2019. But once you know what to look for—organic lines, the colors of Durham’s flag, or a silhouetted logo of a boy with a bindle and a rabbit—you won’t be able to walk down Main Street without thinking of Eng-Goetz.
The Durham native is a proud 2004 Jordan High School graduate. He went north for a degree in fine arts, graduating from Syracuse University in 2008, and tried a few other jobs before coming back to Durham and diving into community art in all forms. Professionally, Eng-Goetz came of age as Durham hit its mid-aughts
independent arts stride, an era that he jokingly calls the city’s “golden age,” referencing the DIY spirit that may be at odds with the cookie-cutter apartments and finance-bro quarter-zips throughout downtown today.
His most recent project, an installation at Hayti’s Stanford L. Warren Library, is a rainbow window treatment that looks like stained glass. Like all of Eng-Goetz’s work, it’s both public and personal.
“The whole design is based on a Fitzgerald brick,” he explains. “The great-uncle of Pauli Murray had a brick factory that was super successful, and he’d imprint all these bricks with this bull’s-eye, concentric-circle design. We can still see a lot of these bricks around town telling the story of Black entrepreneurism back in the era of Black Wall Street in Durham.”
But in the center of the window’s “bricks” he’s replaced the circle with other meaningful symbols. The iconography serves as a mini-tour of Hayti and Durham history as he points out the different centerpieces of each rainbow “brick”: The logo of the Lincoln Community Health Center (“which Stanford L. Warren, who the library is named after, helped get off the ground”), the finial atop the steeple of the Hayti Heritage Center (“which is a Haitian voodoo symbol”), the letter X, for Malcolm X’s civil rights legacy. And at the base of all the bricks, a baobab tree that
reaches upward—a nod to library staff members, who wanted the tree displayed as a symbol of African culture.
As we talk, he offhandedly mentions “the muse of community.” It’s an idea that’s easy to identify across all of EngGoetz’s work.
“Before I even put pen to paper, I’m going in and talking to the community, talking to staff, talking to residents who are associated with this library, and figuring out what they want,” he says. Ultimately, it’s his job to try to tell the story of a community and how they want to see themselves represented. This approach, he says, has been heavily influenced by his mother, a public health professional at UNC who was a pioneer in community-based participatory research—a method that involves finding solutions with, rather than just for, communities.
Still, in an era when identity is being recognized as an important part of how we interact with the world, it isn’t lost on Eng-Goetz that much of his work is for communities that he’s not a part of. He often prefers it that way.
“I would rather tell the story of somebody else—try and uplift stories that haven’t been heard for whatever reason, and represent others through art,” he says.
As a half-Chinese, half-white kid growing up in Durham, Eng-Goetz says he often struggled to find his “own place.”
And while he might have plenty of personal stories to draw upon for a gallery introspective, that’s not where his interest lies.
The Runaway brand didn’t involve such a formal community engagement process as his public work does, but he says the whole brand was about “representing the culturally special things” and “the people we thought made Durham unique.”
“Yeah, [we were] selling clothing, but that was really just a way for us to make money to host art shows and have a space around town—have listening parties, throw concerts and local musicals, showcase local artists,” Eng-Goetz says.
His window project at the Stanford L. Warren Library is something of a homecoming, marking his first public art project in Durham in a few years. After he shuttered Runaway in 2019, he left the Triangle, and the country, for a while, staying in Nicaragua through the pandemic. When he returned, he worked on projects across the state. And while he’s considered moving to an art metropolis like New York City or Los Angeles, he knows he can have a larger impact in his hometown.
At the end of our interview, he hinted that the best is yet to come.
“I do have a project that will bring me back closer to Durham’s community in the near future,” he says with a smile. “I just can’t speak on it yet.” W
Gabriel Eng-Goetz installs acrylic panels at the Stanford L. Warren Branch Library. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
Library Series
Our public library system increasingly feels like a miracle. The ability to walk in, find a book, check it out, and bring it home—for free, on an honor system—offers a glimpse of a society in which collective knowledge and well-being are valued above profit.
Anyone can check out a book. Anyone can enjoy air-conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. Anyone can use the bathroom, sit on a soft chair, or log onto the internet. Everyone’s library card looks the same. Children can
encounter new worlds, and elders can find community. There’s no red tape.
Also: Public libraries fly in the face of our increasingly oligarchical, anti-intellectual, individualized culture and are currently threatened from about a thousand different directions. They’re threatened existentially by cuts to the humanities and the rapacious rise of artificial intelligence, and they’re threatened quite tangibly by book bans and Elon Musk, who is pursuing sweeping privatization and austerity
measures, with public services—PBS and NPR among them—first on the administration’s chopping block.
This next year, I want to spend some time with our libraries—the ones that inspire us and reinforce our reputation as the Research Triangle. Of North Carolina’s 411 libraries, 23 are located in Wake County, seven are in Durham County, and two are in Orange County—and that’s not to mention university libraries, through the public UNC system and beyond, that residents have access to.
As part of a yearlong series, the INDY will run one feature a month exploring the story of a Triangle library through different lenses: their history, programming, patrons, and people behind the scenes. This is a way to draw attention to the resources of our treasured third places—and a nice way to focus on something positive. For January, Durham’s Stanford L. Warren Library, which has a rich history as Durham’s first library accessible to the Black community, feels like a great place to start.
I like how the novelist Anne Lamott puts it: “When people don’t have free access to books, then communities are like radios without batteries. You cut people off from essential sources of information—mythical, practical, linguistic, political—and you break them. You render them helpless in the face of political oppression.”
Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll join us on this journey.
Have story suggestions or sources for this library series? Email sedwards@indyweek.com.
799 Books
After a three-year renovation, Durham’s Stanford L. Warren Library recently reopened. Its deep community legacy began with one formative donation.
BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com
Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is set in Michigan but begins with a reference to Durham: “The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o’clock.”
You can find that oft-banned novel on the shelves of the Stanford L. Warren Library, a beloved branch in Durham’s Hayti neighborhood that reopened this past December after a three-year renovation. It is a library that contains many books you’re unlikely to find elsewhere.
Designed in 1940 by local architect Robert R. Markley, the building is a neoclassical jewel that’s just had its shine dull over the years. Its closure, for water damage in August 2021, was supposed to be temporary; upon meeting with community members for visioning sessions, however, the county allocated an additional $1.9 million to the library for more intensive renovations. The investment looks to have paid off: Airy new shelving, modern amenities, and structural reinforcement give the space a newly polished feel.
But while the branch may have a fresher feel, its legacy is still at the fore. And like many institutions, its history doubles as the story of the community around it—Hayti, Black Wall Street, Durham, and beyond.
Stanford L. Warren traces its origins to Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore, one of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company’s seven founders. The insurance company was founded in 1898; 15 years later, in 1913, Moore donated 799 books to the basement of White Rock Baptist Church. At the time, although Black Durhamites paid county taxes, they had no access to the public librar-
Above: Children read inside the Durham Colored Library (1918). Below: Children exiting the Stanford L. Warren Library (undated) IMAGES
“When you walk in, it feels like church. We wanted to keep the historical signifigance of this library intact. ”
ies that their taxes helped fund. Moore’s makeshift library changed this.
Today, those books—rare volumes on African-American culture and history— comprise the Selena Warren Wheeler Special Collection. The collection has evolved and seen a lot over 110-plus years: multiple moves, including to its current regal Fayetteville Street location; both world wars, urban renewal and the destruction of Hayti; the civil rights movement; integration into the country library system; more wars; the liquidation of NC Mutual; generations and generations of patrons.
The historic collection is one of the library’s distinguishing features and today helms a desk with a crisp-looking typewriter—details that give the space a distinct persona.
“The great thing about our library system is that it has its own uniqueness. North Regional is our rural library, and it has a uniqueness to it as well—you’ll see all the trees, the forestry. With this one, when you walk in, it feels like church,” says Larry Daniels, the branch manager at Stanford L. Warren. “We wanted to keep the historical significance of this library intact.”
Daniels, 39, is no stranger to Stanford L. Warren: He grew up in Hayti, a few streets from the library. Tall and energetic, Daniels loved basketball as a kid and wanted to be a sports journalist but—after interning in a Winston-Salem newsroom full of
empty cubicles—decided librarianship was the more promising path.
He’s now been working at Durham Public Libraries for eight years. Journalism or librarianship—what he really loves, he emphasizes, is storytelling.
“When you come in the library and see books, it encourages people, like, ‘Hey, I can write a book, too,’” Daniels says.
The library’s upgrades include a 3-D printer, hall space for a community art gallery, and a small room for podcasting— places where people can experiment with storytelling.
“Now, there are different forms of storytelling—you can do it through music, you do it through podcasts,” Daniels continues. “What we’re interested in is allowing people to tell that story.”
It makes sense that Toni Morrison’s insurance man, searching for sovereignty and ascension in Song of Solomon, would be connected to Durham—a city that was, for so long, a wellspring of Black self-determination. NC Mutual Life Insurance anchored that autonomy.
This was expressed not just through the company’s success—it was the world’s largest Black-owned and -operated business for years—but by its investment in institutions for the Black community, including the library, Lincoln Hospital, and Mechanics & Farmers’ Bank, all
located in or near Hayti. In 1916, Moore and his colleague John Merrick moved the church basement books to a more formalized service location on Fayetteville Street—the second library in the state available to Black North Carolinians.
Hayti’s Durham Colored Library, as the space was called, received some funding from the city and county. It was the surrounding community, though, that truly kept the doors open.
C. Eileen Watts Welch, Moore’s great-granddaughter, is on the board of the Durham Colored Library, which has evolved into a nonprofit. She describes Hayti as a “magnet, drawing people in who wanted a better life.”
Like Daniels, she grew up in the neighborhood.
“The levels of commitment in the families for the education of the children was very strong among the residents of Hayti,” says Watts Welch.
Over the next two decades, the library— largely thanks to its pioneering first librarian, Hattie B. Wooten—outgrew its small space. A $40,000 loan from NC Mutual alongside donations from community members—notably, library namesake Stanford L. Warren, whose daughter, Selena Warren Wheeler, became library director in 1934—was enough for a new building.
In January 1940, the Stanford L. Warren Library officially opened.
From the beginning, the space was about more than just books. It hosted regular community meetings and talks featuring prominent intellectuals like John Hope Franklin, Horace Mann Bond, and Pauli Murray (who grew up visiting Stanford L. Warren as a child). It expanded outreach, operating a bookmobile that traveled to rural parts of the county.
Between 1954 and 1961 it opened three branches in Durham’s Black communities, one of which, the Bragtown branch, operates today. In 1966, these Black libraries merged into the county system.
But as the library saw steady engagement, the neighborhood around it was beginning to suffer. As manufacturing and the tobacco industry dropped off in the postwar years, the Durham City Council began to see the Hayti neighborhood as an obstacle to city growth.
The years-long construction of NC Highway 147, completed in 1970, tore up the neighborhood, displaced thousands of families, and drew a crevasse between downtown and Hayti. Residents were never compensated for the loss of their homes and businesses, and the neighborhood never fully recovered, a structural inequity reflected today in Hayti’s high rates of poverty and eviction.
“Many of that generation saw their world destroyed by the demolition that occurred in 1967—this was my junior year
The Stanford L. Warren Branch Library PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
at Spelman,” Watts Welch says. “I remember that spring break coming home and seeing all of the cranes up in the air.”
These demolitions all came under the federal umbrella of urban renewal, though Watts Welch has another name for the program: “urban removal.”
“A lot of what I knew growing up is no longer there—and that was systemic,” Watts Welch says. “All of the planning had to do with taking properties where people were underserved and not able to defend themselves. It took away my grandparents’ house, my great-grandparents’ house, it took away my great-grandparents’ church.”
It is significant, then, that the Stanford L. Warren branch remained standing as the institutions around it have disappeared—alongside the community buildings demolished decades ago, NC Mutual Life was liquidated in 2022 .
By the 1970s the building was worn down and the 1980 opening of the nearby Main branch led to a drop in circulation, leading to heightened concern about closure.
Nevertheless, Stanford L. Warren continued to serve an essential role. Carter Cue, the branch’s longtime adult services librarian, remembers the library as the heart of the neighborhood.
“We had a lot of latchkey kids,” Cue recalls. “Everybody had a working mother. There was nobody, no nanny, nobody
to take the kids—so the library was that place, usually after school. If your parents are working, someone’s going to stay in this building until however late, until mom or someone gets off work.”
Decades later, Daniels affirms, Hayti still has that same tight-knit spirit. (It’s also a quality he embodies: When I pop by the library, one afternoon after Christmas, I spot him across the street with a black trash bag—he’s scooping up litter and chatting with neighbors.)
“It’s still the same as it was before when [my mother] was coming up, when I was coming up,” Daniels says “It’s an actual community. We still have Lincoln Community Health Center down the street, which is a recreation center, this library—you don’t see too many neighborhoods that have all these things.”
As Daniels tells it, the library’s approach is simply a reflection of the community it exists in.
“Everybody pretty much sticks together,” he continues. “What we do is we try to be a part of that—to exemplify what’s going on on the outside.”
In mid-December, community members filed into the new space and down the stairs, past a stairwell mural by local artist Gabriel Eng-Goetz (see page 11), and into the library basement for an opening-day ceremony. Aside from a few small
children, the crowd was mostly older Black Hayti residents—people who have seen that the library’s doors stayed open over the years.
“There were many, many people who expected that Stanford Warren would close,” Eddie Davis, a former teacher and Durham City Council member, told me. “But of course, it maintained its relevance and still does maintain that relevance.”
Watts Welch was on the morning’s program. Beyond her great-grandfather’s involvement in the library and in NC Mutual, he was also the first Black physician in Durham County, a legacy detailed in Blake Hill-Saya’s biography Aaron McDuffie Moore: An African American Physician, Educator, and Founder of Durham’s Black Wall Street.
“‘Give my people something to read,’” Watts Welch said, quoting her ancestor. “If you’re not educated, then you have a harder time with health care. An educated patient is going to have a better outcome.”
Watts Welch was also quick to thank the Durham County Board of Commissioners for its work with the library. The work is part of renewed attention, overdue many years, to Hayti: On December 16, Durham City Council approved $1.75 million in federal funds for the Hayti Promise Fayetteville Street Corridor Project. The money will go into revitalizing homes and commercial properties along Fayetteville.
After the closing remarks, attendees filtered through the building, exploring changes. There were takeaway seed packets—poppies, peppermint, impatiens—a nod both to new beginnings and the library’s expanding natural footprint.
In addition to the plots of seasonal native wildflowers that already wrap around the building, Daniels has plans to transform the empty lot behind the library into a community garden and is working on securing grants for the project. (Library staff are also busy planning a related symposium, slated for March 30: The African American Legacy in Gardening and Horticulture).
There’s plenty of beauty inside the library, too. Cue has always prioritized visual art for the library, writing on its website that he has curated the space so that “those persons who might not experience art or a museum/art gallery in the formal sense” can be inspired.
Besides Eng-Goetz’s stairwell mural, which resembles stained glass and features motifs of Hayti, oil portraits of Moore, Merrick, and Warren are back up in the space—the first thing you see when you walk in.
Lighting is another change, too: the space is noticeably brighter. With a lighter paint job and stacks intentionally lowered, light from arched windows floods in.
“We want people to be able to tell,” Daniels says, “that the library is open.” W
Adult Services Librarian Carter Cue opens a copy of The Negro in Art, by Alain Locke, one of many books in the Selena Warren Wheeler Collection, which features African-American authors and culture. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
Branch Manager Larry Daniels points out historical photographs on display. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
Incoming! Epic Dramas, Prestige Pictures, and Guaranteed Weepies
An ambitious adaptation of The Nickel Boys, Adrian Brody in an old-school narrative epic, and more movies coming to local theaters.
BY GLENN MCDONALD arts@indyweek.com
There’s every reason to be optimistic about the new year—if you’re moderately but not overly serious about movies. Last year was a very good one for emerging filmmakers, international imports, and independent films—the sort of thing we used to refer to as arthouse fare. We also got Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which was surprisingly awesome.
Here in the Triangle area, we’ve got a whole range of great options to begin the year. Many international films and prestige pictures from late 2024 are rotating into local theaters in January and February. Leading the pack: Nickel Boys is director RaMell Ross’s ambitious adaptation of the 2019 novel from Colson Whitehead, concerning two young Black men and their experience in a segregated Florida reform school circa 1962.
Nickel Boys technically opened in December and has already topped a lot of 2024 top 10 lists among critics and leading publications. Everyone is buzzing about director Ross’s decision to film the story in a kind of rolling first-person POV, with perspective regularly switching among the main characters.
The script is specifically structured to support this bold approach, which aims to fundamentally shift the storytelling experience. Ross wants to put us right behind the eyes of these characters. I love the idea and I can’t wait to see it.
Another late 2024 specimen opening
locally this month, The Room Next Door, is the feature-length English-language debut from Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, who is constitutionally incapable of making an uninteresting movie.
His latest, filmed in Madrid and New York City, stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as Martha and Ingrid, two recently reunited friends. When Ingrid learns that Martha has terminal cancer, the two old friends find a painful path forward.
Almodóvar is a master at elevating this kind of melodrama into beautiful and emotionally wrenching cinema. He’s got my number, frankly, and I always end up crying when I watch an Almodóvar drama. It’s like that Charlie Brown Christmas TV special or the scene where E.T. dies. Guaranteed weepies, as my mom used to call them, though at least with Almodóvar, it’s a more dignified, arthouse kind of breakdown.
For a third option in this month’s heavyweight division, The Brutalist is a period drama starring Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a Hungarian Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who emigrates to America after the war.
The Brutalist is old-school epic filmmaking, filled with big ideas, intense drama, and a narrative sweep that moves through decades. It’s also making or topping most of the 2024 critics’ lists. Interesting note: The movie was filmed in VistaVision, a wide-format film stock developed back in the 1950s. Director Brady Corbet has said
that the format is key to the film’s architectural compositions, 1950s setting, and overall aesthetic. Find this one in IMAX if you can.
QUICK PICKS
Keke Palmer and SZA headline the buddy comedy One of Them Days, concerning two broke best friends and their quest to raise the rent money … in one day. Didn’t see this one coming: Critics are extolling the performance of Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl, a drama set in the working-class showbiz circles of Las Vegas.
Winner of the 2024 Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize, the documentary Porcelain War follows a group of Ukrainian artists as they join the defense forces while still making art, under and versus duress. The indie comedy-drama The Black Sea is an American Bulgarian production starring Derrick B. Harden as Khalid, a Black Brooklynite who finds himself stranded in, yes, Bulgaria.
Following on 2017’s The Mummy and 2020’s The Invisible Man, Universal Pictures continues its sputtering effort to revive the Universal Monsters franchise with The Wolf Man, technically a remake of the 1941 original. W
Still from The Brutalist. PHOTO COURTESY OF A24
Still from Porcelain War. PHOTO COURTESY OF PICTUREHOUSE
Behind the Scenes Resilience
Talking with Sharon Lawrence about her role in The Shot, a new PlayMakers Repertory Company production about the life of Katharine Graham.
BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com
Katharine Graham had a hell of a story. This month, that story will be told at PlayMaker’s Theatre in The Shot, a one-woman play by Robin Gerber starring Emmy-nominated actress Sharon Lawrence. Graham was once the most powerful woman in media: the former owner and publisher of the Washington Post, a role that she took on when her husband, a troubled, charismatic journalist named Phillip Graham, died by suicide in 1963. Phillip Graham had inherited the newspaper from his wife’s father, Eugene Meyer.
Under the tenure of Katharine Graham (who also went by “Kay”), the Post grew from a regional to a national paper. Crucially, she also oversaw the paper’s bold decision to publish the Pentagon Papers documents revealing how the Lyndon B. Johnson administration had lied to the public about the origins of the Vietnam War— while facing active threats from the Nixon administration.
There are plenty of eerily salient themes in Graham’s story—freedom of the press, a Post at an inflection point (with an oligarch now at the helm); the impact of women in power. One aspect of her story that has seen less attention, though— through biographies and, following her 2001 death, the film The Post, starring Meryl Streep, is Graham’s marriage and the intimate partner violence that she experienced from her husband.
Lawrence is an alumna of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Ahead of The Shot’s run at PlayMakers Repertory Company, and on the heels of her off-Broadway run in Pen Pals, the INDY spoke with her about journalism, her path
to the stage, and how she transforms into the beloved media mogul.
INDY: Did you have female media figures that you looked up to, growing up?
SHARON LAWRENCE: Absolutely. I had a unique perspective, because my father was at WRAL TV at the time which was a CBS affiliate, and he had been at an affiliate in Charlotte. I grew up watching people in my own life on screen in that capacity, so it didn’t seem like a bridge too far—it was attainable. By the time we got to Raleigh, which was in the mid to late 70s, they were about to hire the first female anchor that they had ever had—a woman named Bobbie Battista, who went on to be the first female anchor at the nascent CNN.
As fate would have it, my father was also an actor in local theaters, had gone to Northwestern to get his degree, and had done a lot on their college stage. That was part of my life, too, seeing him onstage and pursuing it as an avocation rather than a vocation. It was in my hardware because I did get his extrovert nature and my mother’s voice. So I did it at Carolina, and that’s where I first had a chance to be in a professional environment because of the PlayMakers Rep. And that did shift me because, for the first time, I transformed into someone else. The magic of that, the collaborative energy, the loop, the feedback from a live audience—it’s something that, if you are attracted to and have an aptitude for, it’s very hard to resist. THE SHOT
When you first heard about the material—it must have been thrilling to have it integrate so many worlds.
When the woman who wrote the play first approached me, it was at a Women in Film event. I was very involved with Women in Film, the international organization that’s been around for 50 years now, advocating for women in the entertainment business, particularly in film.
I met a writer at one of our events who approached me and said that she had written a play about Katharine Graham, and asked if I knew who that was. Because I had studied journalism, I said, yes. We immediately had that understanding that this was a conversation worth having. She asked me to read her play. Women in Film taught me to say “yes” to women at every stage of their creative endeavors.
To readers who are new to her, how would you describe Katharine Graham?
She was a woman who was privileged in that she was born into both wealth and inherent intellect, but came from a background where her father was an immigrant and so she also understood being an outsider. She also understood the pressures
of being a woman who had such drive— because she was born at a time, and so was her mother, at a time that frustrated, that drive.
Her leadership qualities that were obvious—not because she was seeking it, but because it was inherent in her—had to take a back seat to the mores and social constructs of the day, meaning marriage and motherhood, at a time when she had the capacity to be a leader of a media company. Her father, who owned the Post, would never have given a paper to a daughter. Her introvert nature made her an observer, and that, I think, was one of her superpowers. Her marriage was passionate and filled with love but also filled with struggle.
I’m curious to learn more about her marriage.
First and foremost, it’s important to know that it was certainly documented and very public—Phil Graham’s bipolar disorder. That’s where the crux of the challenge in the marriage comes from. He was a very charismatic man and they loved each other.
But that illness is so, so difficult to treat, and it changes people, and it makes people versions of themselves that are not within their control. So we look at that difficulty in his psychic makeup, as well as how
Sharon Lawrence as Katharine Graham in The Shot IMAGE COURTESY OF PLAYMAKERS REPERTORY THEATRE
that affected the woman who loved him the most and the woman that he loved the most. It’s documented that he had affairs. It’s documented that men in that time did hold on to power. Power over women was the norm. We are telling a story that is universal. A lot of it hasn’t changed.
How did you prepare for the role?
It was important to me to find the look for her, because I don’t look anything like her, I don’t sound anything like her, so I have to transform—and that’s why it’s fun for me to come back to PlayMakers, where I first transformed my physical look to play Electra in the Greeks, and now that’s what I do for Kay. I found a great vintage 70s shirtwaist dress that is very iconic for Kay when she was at the Post. I have a wig and my flat sort of Papa Gallo-type shoes—she was really tall, so she wore flats all the time. And I put the helmet on of her hairstyle, which is pretty iconic. It was a helmet and she needed that armor. She needed that collar that gives the male suiting and a very sensible, easy-to-manage wardrobe that would allow her to still stay feminine, not even feminine. Just look at the way men expected a woman to look, but also the flexibility to move quickly in the world, because that’s what the media requires. I spent time listening to her. Her accent is very interesting. It’s what they call a mid-Atlantic and there is no such thing as a mid-Atlantic place, but it’s a mix of what women like her—who grew up watching films with women like Katharine Hepburn [in them], who were taught to speak
in a way that had an influence from Britain. There’s a formality to it that sounds almost ostentatious, but it’s not intended to be that way. It’s just how those women were influenced. And there’s a formality. And, I believe, a weight that makes you listen to them and understand they mean business.
The Washington Post is at another inflection point. We’re entering another Trump administration. I’m curious what you feel is the resonance of this performance in this very specific moment that we’re in right now.
Newspapers were so much more ubiquitous [then]. We’re losing them at such an alarming rate and that is because the media landscape has become not just polarized, but weaponized—which, they always have been, any kind of of media can be weaponized.
Yet what one would hope is that in this era, Kay’s era, the common person had a bit more media literacy. Their attention spans were greater. They had a choice to read and compare and to understand who the owner of the paper was really speaking for and about. Now we think we know, but what are the shadows at play? When moguls own these media companies, they are beholden in a way. Kay talks about the fact that it’s very difficult and frightening to stand up to the government. We talk about that because she did, and I just hope that the men who are in power of great media companies now are as brave, and courageous, and have the integrity that she did W
Sharon Lawrence as Katharine Graham in The Shot
PHOTO COURTESY OF PLAYMAKERS REPERTORY THEATRE
INDY SELECTS
Upcoming things to do, hear, and see, handpicked by the INDY team.
TO HEAR DUNUMS
January 10, 7 p.m. | The Pinhook, Durham
a match at Durham’s Common Market, which also has lower-tenor activities throughout this week, like “tipsy trivia”—see the market’s Instagram for more. —SE
DUNUMS released one of the INDY’s favorite albums of 2024, and it just feels right that the sprawling musical collective kicks off the year at the Pinhook. Led by Palestinian American musician Sijal Nasralla, last year’s roiling I wasn’t that thought release explored parenthood, diasporic identity, loss, love, and political change. Proceeds from this concert will go toward mutual aid for displaced Palestinians. DUNUMS is joined by performances from two other INDY favorites, musician Tre. Charles and band Meltdown Rodeo. Altogether, this is a lineup that promises to contend candidly with our political reality—and to keep singing anyway. —Sarah Edwards
TO DO
Giant Robot Fight Club
January 11, 7 p.m. | The Common Market, Durham
Perhaps your New Year’s resolutions have something to do with robots, fighting, crafting, and public spectacle. (Mine don’t, but maybe yours do?). Per the Durham Sports Commission website, the club is “exactly what it sounds like. People dress up in created robot costumes and fight for honor and the cheers of the audience (And a cash prize.)” Permitted DIY costume list materials include cardboard, duct tape, and foam-based materials like pool noodles and sponges. The club kicks off the year with
TO ATTEND
Maria Bamford
January 11, 7 p.m. | The Carolina Theatre, Durham
There are comedians that break barriers, and then there is Maria Bamford. Anxiety, depression, OCD, intrusive thoughts, the fear of being unlovable, bouts in psychiatric units—nothing in Bamford’s own psychology seems off-limits to the comedian, who performs her daring, bizarre, brainy comedy wide-eyed and in a slightly quavering voice. This approach has proven wildly successful, with Bamford starring in a Netflix show, Lady Dynamite, and three stand-up specials. But it’s no wonder why the material lands: Everyone is neurotic, to some extent, and it’s a relief to see it spelled out so candidly, and hilariously, onstage, by someone committed equally to doing the work and to doing bits. —SE
Truffles and Trash: A Panel on Food Waste in NC and Beyond
January 14, 6 p.m. | Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill
Food writer and UNC-Chapel Hill professor Kelly Alexander, Root Cellar Café and Catering chef Sera Cuni, and the organizers behind Durham Community Fridges each have a unique perspective on food insecurity and food waste. Alexander studied food waste solutions in Brussels, Belgium, for her new book, Truffles and Trash:
Recirculating Food in a Social Welfare State. Cuni founded Feed-Well Fridges in 2023 to place unsold food from local restaurants and grocery stores into free community fridges around Chatham County. In Durham, the Durham Community Fridges project uses a mutual aid model to make free food available to the Durham community. In this panel discussion, they’ll delve into how global problems of waste, hunger, and inequality manifest here in North Carolina—where about 10 percent of the population is food insecure—and what we can do about it. —Chloe Courtney Bohl
TO SEE
Screening: The Strike
January 11, 1 p.m. | Durham County Main Library, Durham
Looking to explore new third spaces in the new year? The Durham County Library offers a surprisingly eclectic selection of activities, ranging from story time for kids to mah-jongg meetups.
One solid upcoming option: the Main Library is hosting a screening of the documentary The Strike. The film follows the story of a hunger strike at Pelican Bay prison in 2013 that rippled through California and led to statewide protests. Following the film, a panel discussion will examine the film’s themes and connect to the present-day challenges of a justice system for which the scale remains unbalanced. Public libraries, provocative art, and collective action aren’t things we can take for granted heading into 2025. Check out the screening—and if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get roped into a mah-jongg match afterward. —Justin Laidlaw
PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
PHOTO BY BRUCE SMITH
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE FILMMAKERS
WED 1/8
THURS 1/9 FRI 1/10
STAGE
A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical Jan. 7-12, various times. DPAC, Durham.
The Shot Jan. 7-12, various times. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill. PAGE
Ira David Wood III: The Bittersweet Voyage of the Golden Ship Hatteras 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.
MUSIC
The Monologue Bombs / Sun Studies / Violet Saint Joan 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
MUSIC
An Evening with Don Dixon 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Denty/Westlake 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
DUNUMS Record Release Party with Tre Charles and Meltdown Rodeo 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Dvořák Violin Concerto Jan. 10-11, 8 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
Fatale Frequencies 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Misil Sterio 9 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Monadi / Madisinn / Johnny Sunrise 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Tell Me Lies 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
STAGE
The ComedyWorx Show Fridays at 8 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
The Harry Show Fridays at 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
1/11 SUN 1/12
MUSIC
Donna the Buffalo 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.
Inoculation 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Joseph Foglia Quintet 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
Money Shot / Dad Bod 8:30 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Mush, Puppy! / blankstate / Zamloch 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
STAGE
Maria Bamford 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
SCREEN
NCMA Cinema: Babes 2 p.m. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.
The Strike 1 p.m. Durham County Main Library, Durham.
MUSIC
Certain Seas / The Wormdogs 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Subliminal Doubt 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
PAGE
Flyleaf Second Sunday Poetry Series: Colin Dekeersgieter and Ashley Lumpkin 2:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.
The Joseph Foglia Quintet performs at Sharp 9 Gallery on Saturday, January 11.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SHARP 9 GALLERY
MON 1/13 TUES 1/14
MUSIC
Destroy Lonely 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
Kill Dyll / Warlord Colossus / Pranav.wav 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
PAGE
Ryan Emanuel: On the Swamp 6 p.m. D. H. Hill Jr. Library, Raleigh.
MUSIC
Jeremy “Bean” Clemons Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Kingfisher, Durham.
Moscow Puzzles / Hex Files / Savage Nights 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Tycho / Bad Turner / Action Group 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.
PAGE
Truffles and Trash: A Panel on Food Waste in NC and Beyond 6 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.
WED 1/15
MUSIC
Koffin Kats / The Rumours / Lightnin’ Luke 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Lazer Dim 700 / Slimesito 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
PAGE
Jenni L. Walsh: Ace, Marvel, Spy 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.
THURS 1/16
MUSIC
Ravine / Yairms / Dead Sea Sparrow 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
STAGE
Andrew Santino: Freeze Peach Tour 7:30 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
PAGE
Kurt Gray: Outraged 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.
SCREEN
Indies by the Decade: Office Space 7:30 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.
FRI 1/17
MUSIC
An Evening with Maritzaida 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
Into the Fog / Lua Flora 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
The Music of Paul Simon, James Taylor, and Neil Diamond Jan. 17-18, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
Umphrey’s McGee 8:30 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.
STAGE
The ComedyWorx Show Fridays at 8 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
The Harry Show Fridays at 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
Joe Gatto 7 p.m. DPAC, Durham.
SCREEN
MLK Dreamfest: Farming
While Black Jan. 17-18, various times. The Cary Theater, Cary.
SAT 1/18
MUSIC
Kill the Buddha / Ins Kino / Heartscape Landbreak 6:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
LaVern 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Liz Brydge Quartet 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
Magic City Hippies 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
Mon Rovîa / Paige Fish 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
RIBS / Patois Counselors / Mean Habit 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Tonality: America Will Be 7:30 p.m. Duke Chapel, Durham.
The Unsustainables / Sound System Seven / Plastic Flamingos / Ruler 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
STAGE
Bored Teachers: The Struggle is Real! Comedy Tour 5 p.m. DPAC, Durham.
Kumail Nanjiani: Doing This Again 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Catch instrumental rock band Moscow Puzzles at Local 506 on Tuesday, January 14.
SCREEN
Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life 11 a.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.
MLK Dreamfest: Summer of Soul Jan. 18-19, various times. The Cary Theater, Cary.
NCMA Cinema: Seven
Samurai 12 p.m. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.
MUSIC
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons 7:30 p.m. DPAC, Durham.
Geordie Greep / Nnamdi 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Letters from Wolfgang 3 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Live Music with Ed Kincade 12 p.m. Lanza’s Cafe, Carrboro.
MUSIC
2hollis / nate sib 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
Jeremie Albino / Benjamin Dakota Rogers 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Jeremy “Bean” Clemons Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Kingfisher, Durham.
Travis 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
X-Cops / Belushi Speedball / U.S. Bastards 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
STAGE
Triangle African American Theater Preview ’25 7 p.m. Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh.
Kill the Buddha headlines the Pinhook on Saturday, January 18, alongside Ins Kino and Heartscape Landbreak.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINHOOK
SU | DO | KU
© Puzzles by Pappocom
Difficulty level: MEDIUM
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’re stumped, find the answer keys for these puzzles and archives of previous puzzles (and their solutions) at indyweek.com/puzzles-page or scan this QR code for a link. Best of luck, and have fun!
Los Angeles Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Patti Varol
jour: special slip this!” pity!” name of with gram second Dunham series Horse-pulled cart search (to) understand appreciate a the Met? of FDR
EMPLOYMENT
Quality Engineer III
Teleflex Medical seeks a Quality Engineer III, Product Quality Assurance (PQ-AK) in Morrisville, NC w/ telecommuting permitted to support the Product QA team with analyzing post-market data & potential product quality issues for commercialized devices. Reqs BS+4 yrs exp. Email resume to tfxjobs@teleflex.com. Must ref job title & code.
Software Engineer III
Software Engineer III, F/T at Truist (Raleigh, NC) Deliver highly complex solutions w/ significant system linkages, dependencies, associated risk. Lead & perform dvlpmt efforts such as analysis, dsgn, coding/ creating, & testing. Oversee & participate in testing, implmtn, maintenance, & escalated support of Truist’s most complex solutions. Must have Bach’s deg in Comp Sci, Comp Engg, or related tech’l field. Must have 6 yrs of progressive exp in s/ware engg or IT consulting positions performing the following: applying in-depth knowl in info systems & understanding of key business processes & competitive strategies related to the IT function to identify, apply, & implmt IT best practices; applying broad banking domain functional knowl in reqmt gathering, analysis, dsgn, dvlpmt, testing, implmtn, & deployment & support of applications; planning, managing projects & solving complex problems & apply best practices, follow TDLC processes to meet regulatory reqmts; providing direction, mentoring & onboarding new teammates to Apigee platform & applications; & utilizing exp w/: APIGEE Edge; TIBCO SOA Suite of Products including BW5.x, EMS, Hawk; TIBCO BPM Suits of Products; TIBCO Business Rule Engine Products; Mule 4.X, Java, SQL & PostGres DB, Unix Scripting, JSP; Agile, Rally, & Jira; Cloud technologies, TerraForm & Microsoft efficiency tools; & GitLab, GitHub, Repository, Artifactory. Position may be eligible to work in a hybrid remote model & is based out of & reports to Truist offices in Raleigh, NC. Applicants must be able to work onsite at Truist offices in Raleigh at least 3 days/ wk. Apply online (https://careers.truist.com/) or email resume to: Paige.Whitesell@Truist.com. (Ref Job#R0097115).
