Following the presence of Ku Klux Klan members in Hillsborough two weeks ago, the commissioners passed a resolution condemning the actions of hate groups and rejecting white supremacy.
Chair of the Board of Commissioners Penny Rich read the resolution she drafted with help from Caswell County commissioner Sterling Carter; the KKK group that came to Hillsborough is one of the largest and most active chapters in the country and is based in Pelham, which is in Caswell County.
“Now therefore be it resolved that we,” Rich said, “the Orange County Board of Commissioners, strongly oppose the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, reject white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups, and urge lawmakers in the state of North Carolina and the federal government to denounce threats posed by those groups.”
In response to the KKK’s demonstration, community members held a march against hate in downtown Hillsborough the following Saturday. Latarndra Strong was the main organizer of the event. She said the county’s communities of color are “terrified” after the events of the last few weeks. Before the commissioners’ vote, Strong commended the proclamation but urged the board to go further.
“I think you have a responsibility, as leaders of this community, to stop the nonsense about free speech [as a defense] when we have violent organizations recruiting in our community,” Strong said. “This is not about free speech.”
The board also passed a proclamation to acknowledge the 400-year anniversary of “unfree Africans” arriving in North America. Historical records from 1619 show the arrival of several Africans to the Virginia settlement and their sale, beginning the country’s history of slavery.
The proclamation commemorates the next 11 months as a year of remembrance and serves as a stamp of approval to events planned for honoring and examining the history of African Americans in the county.
Annette Moore, the county’s Human Rights and Relations director, spoke to the commissioners before their vote. She said the board’s acknowledgement would help educate people on what she called America’s greatest challenge.
“Slavery has been part of America much longer than it hasn’t,” said Moore. “A century and a half after slavery was made illegal, we still see the trauma of this infectious disease.”
President of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter of the NAACP Anna Richards also spoke to the commissioners. She said she believes the proclamation will support the idea of more dialogue about the country’s history and will serve as a sign against mentalities she described as “appalling.”
“We need to understand our history lest we repeat it,” Richards said. “Shockingly, to me, I see things today that I thought I would never see in my lifetime and things I thought my children would never have to.”
Both measures fall under the board’s self-imposed social justice goal of rejecting oppression and inequity. Both items passed unanimously.
Under Annette Moore’s leadership, the Jewish community was served up antisemitism. It’s outrageous that she and Deborah Stroman demonstrated a callous indifference to the Jewish community by extending an invitation to a notorious Antisemite, Linda Sarsour where she schooled Jews on antisemitism, Japanese “concentration camps” and blamed “white Jews” for Rep. Omar’s antisemitism. Annette Moore is typical of the toxic brand of identity politics that’s giving cover to Jew hate. Shame on all these leaders for their complicity in spreading antisemitism and treating the Jewish community like pariahs.