I was wondering where WHIG-TV was today during the Rocky Mount City Council meeting so I learned they were in Tarboro at the Tarboro Town Council Meeting.
I understand
that during Public Comments Monika Fleming historian of Edgecombe
County and her husband started out the conversation about the monument
on the Town Common.
I understand
Rev. Kenneth Parker, Marquetta Dickens and Alissa Ruffin to remove
monument.
Commissioner Viola Harris said she lives across the street
from the statue and she agreed with the Caucasians who support not
taking it down and the people need to vote on it. Harris said let the
people vote. Doris Stith interviewed young people and elderly and they
all wanted it to go.
Rev. J.O. Williams spoke about a cross being burned
in his yard. Quincy Robinson said need to write the wrong.
I understand there were several Caucasians who spoke in support of not removing the statue.
I understand the 3 Black council members were for removing the statue while the Caucasian members were all against.
I can’t wait
to see who all did speak especially to see how many that attended the
Sympathy Walk that spoke either in favor or against removing the
Confederate Monument.
I understand WHIG-TV videoed so the meeting so I look forward to watching the video.
Information was from some sources that attended the meeting.
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Thank You Great Grandfather
3. 1877. " In the meantime the fact that the
Negroes constituted such a great majority gave indications that radical
domination might continue. Especially this was true in regard to town
administration. This field of activity offered a greater opportunity in
exercising tact and ingenuity than that of county or state politics.
To meet this political emergency arose William Pippen. (William
Mayo, my great grandfather. He traveled to New York City after the War
in his Confederate uniform as that was all he possessed, asked a friend
of his father's if he would lend him money to start a mercantile shop in
Tarboro, which he did, and was so successful that he built the *William
Mayo Pippen House beside the library in 1870 while acquiring numerous
other lots. BT) He conceived a plan by which the whites could
control town affairs in Tarboro.
The old citizens will recall that prior
to 1875, there were no wards or districts in the town of Tarboro; in
fact, no such provision had been anticipated in the town charter. (1760)
A census of the city showed that the Negroes had the majority and
invariably elected all three commissioners. Mr. Pippen appeared before
the State Legislature and succeeded in having the charter amended,
dividing the town into three wards. The first and second wards
contained the majority of whites in the central part of town, while the
third ward included the suburbs, where the Negroes lived. This placed
the Negroes in a position to carry only one ward, and the whites the
remaining two wards, and Negro domination collapsed."
