INDY Week Feb. 7, 2024

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Endorsements & Voter Guide!

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill February 7, 2024

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Prosecutorial Discretion Satana Deberry became Durham’s DA on promises to bring progressive policies to criminal justice. Her bid for the Democratic attorney general nomination tests how far that can take her.

By Lena Geller & Michael Hewlett, p. 8

Raleigh 2 Durham 2 Chapel Hill VOL. 41 NO. 3

CONTENTS NEWS 5

VOTE! 8

NC Sen. Mike Woodard and his primary challenger Sophia Chitlik discuss their visions for NC Senate District 22. BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW Satana Deberry became Durham's DA on promises to bring progressive policies to criminal justice. Her bid for the Democratic attorney general nomination tests how far that can take her. BY LENA GELLER AND MICHAEL HEWLETT

13 With County Board of Commissioners races on Wake voters' ballots this spring, the county could see its political winds shift this year. BY JASMINE GALLUP

VOT E!

FEATURE 15 INDY's 2024 Primary Election Endorsements BY INDY STAFF

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IND E ndor Y 2 0 2 4 CULTURE s E L E emen CT I O ts

I N DY Elections 2024

I N DY Elections 2024

26 Fellows with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle are teaching elementary school students about the magic of classical music. BY JASMINE GALLUP

Amira Abu-Salha, whose daughters Yusor and Razan Abu-Salha were murdered in Chapel Hill in 2015. A new documentary, 36 Seconds: Portrait of a Hate Crime, tells the story of that crime. (See story, page 29.) PHOTO COURTESY OF THE FILMMAKERS

E M A D E T H IS I N D YW 2 0 24 E n d o rsPUBLISHER

BY GLENN MCDONALD Copy Editor e m Iza Wojciechowska John Hurlde n t s 29 A wrenching new documentary sheds light on the 2015 murder of three local E L E C T Interns I O N EDITORIALS Muslim American students. BY SARAH EDWARDS Mariana Fabian Editor-in-Chief Hannah Kaufman 30 Chatting with UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus DéLana R. A. Dameron about her I N Jane Porter DY CREATIVE NS

28 Incoming Movies: Road Trip Capers, German Parables, and Bob Marley.

Endorse Culture Editor mEdwards ents Sarah 32 Chatting with Hillsborough author Jill McCorkle about her new collection of debut novel. BY KATIE MGONGOLWA

short stories. BY SHELBI POLK

THE REGULARS 4

34 Culture calendar

Backtalk

COVER SATANA DEBERRY PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

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Staff Writers Jasmine Gallup Lena Geller 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

Creative Director Nicole Pajor Moore Graphic Designer Ann Salman Staff Photographer Angelica Edwards ADVERTISING Publisher John Hurld Director of Revenue Mathias Marchington Director of Operations Chelsey Koch

C I RC UL AT I O N Berry Media Group MEMBERSHIP/SUBSCRIPTIONS John Hurld

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BACK TA L K

Durham County Board of Elections

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been reporting on the pay dispute between Durham Public Schools and the district’s educators and staff, including its classified staff who were told that salary increases they had been promised and already paid would not continue. As a result, DPS has closed schools twice in the past two weeks as educators and their supporters have protested the pay situation and lobbied for more transparency. We received the following email from HANNAH POSNER, a student at Riverside High School, who attended the rally last Wednesday at the Fuller Building in Downtown Durham.

It’s hard to get people to pace around a building in windy 40 degree weather for 2-plus hours, especially when they have no obligation to be there.

Teachers, students and parents had no incentive to show up at Wednesday’s protest. Teachers’ paychecks were unaffected by the pay dispute, and students could have spent the day off relaxing at home. Yet, they turned out to show their support for classified staff.

Many of the people who showed up had already been protesting in the rain all morning, and had returned from a lunch break to continue their efforts.

Passersby were very supportive of the cause. The DPS employees inside the building put signs of support up on their windows. Cars and school buses drove by and honked, and some students in the buses rolled down the windows to clap.

The amount of support for classified staff gave me hope for DPS. Although its leadership has made a serious mistake, the staff, faculty, students and parents have a strong sense of what they want and are united in their cause. The school board seems committed to reinstating at least some of the raise for classified staff because they see the value in the work that they do to keep our schools running.

Teachers and students know the classified staff personally, while the higher-up people in DPS most likely do not. We see how the front office staff manage everyone who comes in and out of the building, and how the custodians clean up our messes. We see how many people rely on our bus drivers for transportation to school.

I have faith that people who care about this cause will remain willing to sacrifice their time and energy like they did on Wednesday, and DPS will have no choice but to listen.

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February 7, 2024

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Tuesday, March 5, 2024

The Primary and Election for Durham County will be held in Durham County, NC on Tuesday March 5th. All Durham County precincts will be open from 6:30 am until 7:30 pm.

17-year-old Durham County voters who are registered and will be 18 years old on or before Nov. 5, 2024, may vote in the Primary election 17-year-olds are not permitted to vote in School Board elections as they are final.

Party primaries will be open to voters registered with their respective party. Unaffiliated voters may vote a non-partisan ballot that will only include the School Board Election OR choose to participate in any participating party’s primary election. Green Party and No Labels registrants will receive a non-partisan ballot as there is no primary ballot available for those parties.

The following contests will be on the Durham County ballots*: • • • • • •

US President US Congress NC Council of State NC General Assembly Durham County Board of Commissioners Durham County Board of Education (Final Election)

*Offices will only appear on your ballot if you are eligible to vote for the respective contest.

DURHAM COUNTY EARLY VOTING LOCATIONS South Regional Library 4505 S. Alston Ave., Durham

North Regional Library 221 Milton Rd., Durham

East Regional Library 211 Lick Creek Lane., Durham

Duke University – Karsh Alumni Center 2080 Duke University Road, Durham

Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship 4907 Garrett Rd., Durham

Durham County Main Library 300 N Roxboro St., Durham

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NCCU Law School 640 Nelson St., Durham

Early voting schedule: Thursday, February 15, 2024 – Saturday, March 2, 2024 Hours are consistent at all four early voting sites.

• • • •

Weekdays: 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Saturdays (February 17th and 24th): 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Saturday (March 2nd): 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Sundays: 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE: The voter registration deadline for the Primary and Election is Friday, February 9, 2024 (25 days prior). Voters that miss the registration deadline may register and vote during the Early Voting period. Voters who are currently registered need not re-register. Registered voters who have moved or changed other information since the last election should notify the Board of Elections of that change by February 9th. Party changes are not permitted after the voter registration deadline.

SAME DAY REGISTRATION: Voters are allowed to register and vote during early voting. It is quicker and easier to register in advance, but if you have not registered you can do so during Early Voting with proper identification. This same day registration is not allowed at polling places on Election Day. For more details on the requirements associated with Same-Day Registration during Early Voting, visit our website at https://www.dcovotes.com/voters/voting/early-voting.

Information regarding registration, polling locations, absentee voting, or other election matters may be obtained by contacting the Board of Elections.

Website: www.dcovotes.com Phone: 919-560-0700

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NOTICE OF DURHAM COUNTY PRIMARY AND ELECTION

Email: elections@dconc.gov Fax: 919-560-0688

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Durham County

Senate Showdown The INDY sat down with with longtime state Sen. Mike Woodard, who represents District 22 covering Durham, and his primary opponent Sophia Chitlik.

BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW jlaidlaw@indyweek.com

A

fter going unchallenged in a democratic primary since he was first elected to the General Assembly in 2012, North Carolina state senator Mike Woodard, who represents Durham as part of District 22, has an opponent this cycle in political newcomer Sophia Chitlik.

Woodard, who has lived in Durham since the 1980s after graduating from Duke, has deep roots in the community. Before his time in the legislature, Woodard served on the Durham City Council from 2005 to 2013. He mounted an unsuccessful bid for Durham mayor last fall.

Woodard’s record of working with Republicans on legislation is a hallmark of his time in office. Supporters view him as pragmatic and realistic in a legislature where the GOP has held majorities in the state house and senate since 2010. Detractors say he is not willing to stand firm on progressive values.

Chitlik, his opponent, moved to Durham in 2017. She is a first-time candidate for a seat in the NC General Assembly and has never held elected office.

Chitlik worked as a political organizer for the Obama campaign in 2008 and later for the Obama administration as a strategist at the U.S. Department of Labor.

She primarily works as an impact investor and philanthropist, supporting women-led businesses in the health and wellness sector.

Both candidates spoke with the INDY about why they’re running and what issues motivate them the most.

The primary election is March 5.

SOPHIA CHITLIK INDY: Why are you running for the NC Senate District 22 seat?

We need someone representing this district who is aligned with our values and priorities. We need new energy. People are policy. When you put a working mom in office, somebody who cares deeply about women’s health, about maternal health equity, who’s been building a career in this field, who’s been an advocate, those policies change. We just lost 155,000 childcare [spots]. We have a cliff that just happened January 1. I represent policies that prioritize working families. I’m running on a platform of care for our communities, our children, and our caregivers.

I want to be able to bring resources to our community. I built my career in public-private partnerships, philanthropy, and investing in the nonprofit sector. I have a lot of cross-sector expertise and I’ve made a career working with people who are very different from me. I believe in coalition politics and that the best policy comes directly from community members. I have deep expertise in maternal health and in education, but I don’t know everything. But we’re really lucky to live in a community that holds all the answers.

Your opponent has decades of service representing Durham residents, as a city council member and state legislator. Why do you think the district needs new leadership?

NC Senate District 22 candidate Sophia Chitlik PHOTO BY CORNELL WATSON

NC Sen. Mike Woodard

You look at progressive legislators who are voting something like 40 percent against the Republican Party, but then you look at somebody like Senator Woodard who’s voting against Republicans 30 percent of the time. There’s only maybe two other Democrats who are voting at that kind of rate.

That just doesn’t feel like it’s a full match with our community. Why are we voting like somebody who’s living in a tight swing district? That doesn’t make sense to me.

When I see advancing the charter school omnibus bill that reauthorizes chronically low-performing charter schools that disproportionately trap Black and brown kids, or sponsoring a farm bill that strips 2.5 million acres of wetlands from protection, I don’t think those kinds of votes are in line with what we’re trying to do here.

Young people are our greatest resource, and Durham has this in spades.

Another through line of my career is just how important it is to work to build intergenerational teams that are diverse in age and race and ethnicity, and often in ideology, but connected in shared values.

I studied social movement theory and network theory, social movements in America, the civil rights movement, and then tried to apply some of those principles to the rest of my career. I went on to work at the U.S. Department of Labor during the economic crisis and at the White House in priority placement, trying to hold the most diverse administration in history. There, I learned about the barriers to talent and tried to tackle some of those barriers head-on.

The bulk of my career has been in education, working with nonprofits to try to put resources into our public schools, building volunteer programs, creating the infrastructure for DREAM directors, or donating to organizations that are making that possible for young people. My big thing is connecting more young people with caring adults. The more caring adults a young person can have in their life, the better.

We have to trust and believe young people. And it can be really validating to have another adult do that.

What is your experience in politics?

How has that motivated your decision to run for office?

I came of age during this incredible, hopeful time in American politics where I learned how to be an organizer. I learned that first of all, young people can do anything. You will see that as a through line in my whole career. We need to trust them and support them to find their passion, their purpose, their power, because it is right there.

PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

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You’ve lived in Durham for seven years.

What work in the community has helped you build the coalition necessary to be successful as a campaigner and as a legislator, should you be elected?

I’ve been on a deep learning journey to try to understand social finance and reparative capital, and learning about Black Wall Streets all over the country, including here in Durham. I’ve been working on investing in early-stage women’s health companies and other women entrepreneurs and people of color. How can I use my skills and my resources and put them where my values are? I’m proud to invest in different amazing social entrepreneurs. Durham has an unbelievable network, right? People like Joy Spencer at Equity Before Birth or Camryn Smith at Communities in Partnership or Jill Madsen at Jewish for Good, all doing really amazing things.

My biggest project here in Durham has been working with Tina Braimah to build Aya Birth and Community Wellness, which will be North Carolina’s first Black-owned birth center. We’re trying to build that into a scalable network that can build community wealth and community health. Tina is an incredible entrepreneur and incredible midwife. Trying to partner with her to build Aya has been an incredible privilege.

The birth center model of care, and the expansion of midwifery generally, has the power to absolutely transform our crisis.

We have spent three years studying this.

Why do we have a maternal health care crisis? Why does it impact Black and brown families at three to five times the rate [of white families]? Why is that happening here? What can we do about it? We actually have a lot of answers to those questions. We just need to listen to the people in the community who already have those answers. If you asked Camryn and Tina, they can tell you exactly what to do. So I want to take that advice and implement it into real policy. We’ve reached the point where only the government can scale some of these solutions. There are real policy challenges standing in the way of communities like ours here in Durham from being able to implement their own solutions.

MIKE WOODARD INDY: Why did you choose to run for reelection?

There’s still a lot of things that I’ve worked on over my 12 years that I’d like to see through on transportation, environment, 6

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and economic policy.

2024 is going to be a crazy election.

There’s just no doubt about that. Realistically, you’re gonna have six or seven brandnew people in the Council of State. Who knows what January 2025 is going to look like. For me, in representing Durham and thinking about the region and the state, it needs an experienced leader who knows a lot of the players already in the cabinet and the Council of State level down into the departments.

How have you adapted your approach to policy making over time in the state Senate?

This place runs on seniority, just like [U.S.] Congress and many other places. So it helps to build your knowledge and those relationships in the legislature and the departments you work with. Now, I am able to pick up the phone and call secretaries and often have them pick up the call right away. I can think of three or four secretaries who I talk to a few times a month on policy matters.

When I first got here, Gov. [Pat] McCrory was the Republican governor, he had his cabinet secretaries. Although I knew some of them, I had to build relationships with them and actually got to work with some of them even though they were difficult to work with because of their policies.

Political polarization has increased across the country, including in North Carolina. How have you managed to get legislation passed in a polarized environment?

A progressive group asked, “How do you get progressive things into legislation?” There’s no science to it. It’s an art. But it starts with that personal relationship. I’m the third most senior Democrat and the eighth most senior senator in the whole chamber.

I work with somebody very closely in the Republican caucus. He has family members who live in Durham and I know his family.

So we start there on that personal level.

And this is a guy I disagree with vehemently on some issues. And we have fought in committee famously. There’s videotapes of us going at it. At the same time, he and I have written five or six bills that have been really good bills. Some of them are really important: COVID funding, energy, life sciences, revenue bills. But on some of his other policies, like LGBTQ issues and education, we’re not even close. So, what I’ve learned over time and how I’ve evolved is agree when you can, work together when you can, and when you can’t, be able to look that person in the eye and say, “We

just won’t be able to work on this.”

One of the bills that the INDY criticized me for [in its endorsements for Durham mayor last fall] is one of those bills. I was asked to work on a bill with a guy down the hall. He came to present it to me and said, “Hey, I’m working on this bill. We’d like you to be a Democratic cosponsor,” and I looked at the bill and said I can’t do it. It’s not a bill I can support. But because I had a relationship with him, when the House version of the bill came over, I sat down with [Republican state senator] Steve [Jarvis] and negotiated with him on that bill at the request of the Sustainable Energy Association and the Environmental Defense Fund. They asked me to help negotiate the schedule of the implementation. We got it down from a three-to-five-year implementation to a mandate that they had to take up one section of this bill in a year and three months. That was a huge win for us. So, that’s an example of, because I have a relationship with Jarvis, I told him what I can do and what I can’t do and we negotiated.

You’ve been criticized for overriding Gov. Cooper’s veto and cosponsoring Republican-led legislation. How would you respond to constituents who believe you aren’t representing progressive values?

When we’re in a superminority, as we’ve been these last couple of years, bills are going to pass. Yeah, it would’ve been easier to sit on the sidelines and just push the no button.

But when you’re approached, as I often am, by groups who say, “Do you mind helping us negotiate this?”—the Center for Responsible Lending and the Justice Center both came and sat right here [in my office] and asked me to go negotiate that bill. We negotiated for a year. We couldn’t get it done in a short session. So we spent a year negotiating that bill. And I got exactly what they wanted. Not a great bill. But we all agreed, held hands, and sang kumbaya. You know, oftentimes, a lot of this job is making bad legislation less bad. But how do you explain that on a bumper sticker or a mailer or in the People’s Alliance questionnaire? It’s a lot easier for a critic or a political opponent to say, “He overrode the governor’s veto. That’s why I’m running against him.” It’s not that simple. It’s a lot more nuanced.

What piece of legislation are you particularly proud of putting forward?

An early bill that I worked on that I’m particularly proud of the outcome was when we had the coal ash spill in 2014. When we started working on the bill, we had a bipar-

tisan group figuring out how we were going to handle the coal ash cleanup. Republican leadership pulled the Republicans off of our bipartisan committee and went to write their own bill. So we had two versions: a Republican version and a Democratic version. They were 60–70 percent the same.

Ultimately, I worked with my caucus to support the Republican bill, being that we were in the superminority in 2014. Would I have liked more? Absolutely. The crazy thing about that was in the final negotiation, which took a few years, Michael Regan, our [U.S.] EPA administrator, then our DEQ secretary, called me on New Year’s Day 2018. He had been negotiating all through the holiday. They were sending out a press release on January 2, that in their final negotiation with Duke [Energy], they had gotten probably 90 percent of what was in our first Democratic bill.

How will your approach in the General Assembly change with the turnover in leadership after this year’s elections?

Let’s start with the Council of State. I’m scared to death thinking about the kinds of people that [Republican gubernatorial candidate] Mark Robinson would appoint to those boards. We could turn back years of good policy and progress that we made just like that. Now, what is interesting is that this session, we passed a couple of bills that take away some of the governor’s power to appoint those boards. We flipped the DOT boards. The General Assembly currently appoints six seats, the governor gets 14. They flipped that so now the General Assembly gets 14, the Governor gets six.

That still scares me a lot. Who’s going to be sitting there making the final decisions on what projects get approved?

What did you learn from your experience running in last year’s Durham mayoral race?

I always represented Durham. So the question “Oh, you’re coming home?”—I’m like, I never left. My job has just been in Raleigh.

It’s a lot of the same constituents, just the parts of the county that I represented in the legislature were not obviously part of the city election, and I ran in parts of the city that were [state senator Natalie] Murdock’s district. But those are the neighborhoods where my wife pastors a church in Southeast Durham near [NC] Central campus. That was not in my Senate district.

But I know those neighborhoods and I’ve represented a lot of those folks. It’s all the same people and organizations and issues. W

INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

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Durham

Prosecutorial Discretion Satana Deberry became Durham’s DA on promises to bring progressive policies to criminal justice. Her bid for the Democratic attorney general nomination tests how far that can take her.

BY LENA GELLER AND MICHAEL HEWLETT backtalk@indyweekcom

W

hen Satana Deberry was cut open for an emergency C-section, she felt the searing hole where the air of the operating room came right up against her insides.

The regional anesthetic failed, so she still had full sensation in her abdomen.

“You’re laying down on the table,” Deberry recalls. “It’s almost like you’ve been crucified.”

She’s talking about the moment nearly 20 years later from her office in the Durham County Courthouse. Her voice has dropped to a whisper. Her eyes, typically locked in contact, are somewhere else.

Memoir is a strong suit of Deberry’s. The 54-year-old district attorney secured her seat in 2018 and held on to it four years later in large part by baring her soul to voters, delivering calls for prosecutorial reform and racial justice alongside her own stories about vomiting after being pulled over by the police and clerking at overwhelmingly white law firms where the partners didn’t speak to her.

Now, as she runs for the Democratic nomination for North Carolina attorney general, her lived experience has come back into play. In a state that ranks poorly on reproductive rights and health care costs, in a country where maternal and infant mortality rates are horrifically high for Black women, Deberry wants you to know that she knows the stakes. She fought for her and her baby’s life in the operating room. In the attorney general’s office, she says she’ll fight for yours.

Her primary opponent, U.S. representative Jeff Jackson, wants you to know that he, too, knows the stakes—he fought in Afghanistan, after all—and while Deberry’s anecdote is being quietly conferred to a reporter who will write about it two months later, Jackson’s is being spliced with 8

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boxing ring footage and disseminated instantaneously to 3.5 million TikTok followers who already want him to run for president.

As far as name recognition goes, Jackson is about as formidable a candidate as one could encounter in a state primary.

He ran for U.S. Senate in 2022, so voters stateDurham District Attorney Satana Deberry PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS wide have already seen his name on a ballot. As part of that campaign, he did a 100-county tour—so many have met him, too. And over the past few years, the tives have endorsed him, as well as a handful of prominent 41-year-old has amassed a staggering social media follow- labor unions and PACs. The most recent campaign filings ing by posting videos about what’s going on in politics, show that Jackson has received upward of $2 million in effectively captivating a zoomer generation bereft of insti- contributions total and has $1.8 million on hand. tutional trust.

Deberry, who is Black and queer, has the support of the “He is, if nothing else, a master communicator,” says Chris Durham PACs Committee on the Affairs of Black PeoCooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina ple and People’s Alliance, but outside county lines, she’s University. “And elections are really about communication.” only been endorsed by Orange County–based state senator Deberry and Jackson are running to succeed Josh Stein, Graig Meyer, the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, and a handful of who’s making a gubernatorial bid. The winner will likely go on other progressive political groups. She was trailing Jackson to face U.S. representative Dan Bishop, an attorney and Free- dramatically in campaign contributions at the end of Janudom Caucus member best known for authoring the so-called ary, reporting $43,000 raised and $30,000 on hand. Also bathroom bill during his time in the North Carolina House. running in the Democratic primary is Tim Dunn, a former The Democratic establishment has thrown its support U.S. Marine Corps prosecutor who now practices law in behind Jackson. The entire Democratic North Carolina con- Fayetteville. Dunn has raised just over $11,000 but is in gressional delegation and more than 30 state representa- the hole by $21.

~~ Looking for Answers?

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Both Jackson and Deberry have credentials. Jackson worked as an assistant district attorney in Gaston County and spent eight years as a state senator. He’s also a major in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, the legal branch of the U.S. Army. Deberry is in her sixth year as district attorney and has a legal background that includes working as a criminal defense attorney, serving as general counsel for the state health department, and leading a statewide coalition that fights for affordable housing.

“They both have the kind of résumé where it makes sense to run,” says Cooper.

But elections are about more than résumés, money, and name recognition, he says. Voters cast ballots for people they identify with. And Black voters make up 43 percent of registered Democrats in North Carolina, more than any other demographic. There are more women than men in the state, too.

North Carolina has never had an attorney general who isn’t white and male.

D

eberry was born in Hamlet, North Carolina, a railroad town in the Sandhills.

Her parents were college-educated teachers. When she was 16, she spent a summer at North Carolina Governor’s School, a residential program for gifted students, where she met a Princeton admissions officer who encouraged her to apply. She landed not only an acceptance but a robust financial aid package.

After Princeton, Deberry went on to Duke Law School.

Then she returned to her hometown to open a criminal defense practice.

Deberry was raised during a local economic crisis—Sea-

board, the railroad line that Hamlet was built on, had consolidated and left half the town unemployed—and when she returned to practice law, she saw the fallout. Most of her clients were people she’d grown up around. She knew how tenuous their upbringings had been, and representing them rocked her perception of what it meant for someone to be a “quote-unquote criminal,” she says.

“It made it really clear to me how all these systems had failed them. The explosion of the carceral state in the ’90s just put so many of them at risk,” she says. “These were folks who didn’t have the educational means to get out of town, or who had mental health issues, or substance abuse issues, or families who were really poor.”

After a few years, she became demoralized.

“I was only pushing them back a little bit from the precipice,” Deberry says. “Their lives were so challenging. They were going to be back, as a defendant or as a victim. There wasn’t much I could do.”

She left Hamlet for Durham in 2000 and spent the next phase of her career in positions that straddled law and housing, including a stint as general counsel for the state Department of Health and Human Services. She also raised three daughters on her own and earned an MBA in health sector management from Duke.

In 2017, while working as executive director for the North Carolina Housing Coalition, she was approached by Nia Wilson, the executive director of the Black women–led Durham nonprofit SpiritHouse, who wanted her to run for DA. “I thought it was a horrible idea,” Deberry says. “I had not had great experiences with prosecutors. They never seemed to care about the challenges my clients were facing. I did not want to become that person.”

Wilson told her to open her eyes. Around the country, self-described “progressive prosecutors” who campaigned on criminal justice reform were getting elected left and right. In Chicago, Kim Foxx had been voted into the top prosecutor’s seat after advocating for police accountability and reduced incarceration. In Philadelphia, Larry Krasner, who also has a criminal defense background, was on the brink of winning the DA’s seat after calling for an end to marijuana possession charges and cash bail.

Deberry decided to give it a go, launching a campaign that framed reform as the route to a safer Durham. The DA’s office has limited resources, she told voters. Instead of squandering those resources on low-level convictions, Deberry said, let’s use them to fight violent crime. (During her candidacy, Deberry was accused of plagiarizing from Krasner’s website on her campaign website; she denied copying and pasting but acknowledged borrowing heavily from Krasner, citing him as a model for progressive prosecutors, and later updated her website with changes.)

The message was received well in Durham, a city known for both its progressive values and its gun violence epidemic. Deberry edged out Democratic incumbent Roger Echols by eight points in the primary and sailed through the general. After being sworn in, she petitioned the court to waive unpaid traffic fines and fees for residents who’d lost their licenses years earlier, enabling thousands to become legal drivers again. She declined to prosecute nonviolent drug felonies and misdemeanors. With some exceptions, she stopped seeking cash bail. And she resurrected a pretrial release policy that, by the time she was up for reelection, had reduced Durham’s jail population by 12 percent.

Deberry also locked people up. Between 2019 and 2022,

“I was only pushing them back a little bit from the precipice.

Their lives were so challenging. They were going to be back as a defendant or a victim.”

Durham County Justice Center PHOTO VIA WIKIPEDIA 10

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U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson PHOTO FROM JEFFJACKSONNC.COM

her office cleared Durham’s rape kit backlog and brought closure to several cases that had gone unresolved for years.

(Last month, her office received a $1.15 million federal grant from the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative to continue the work.) Deberry’s office also closed 75 percent of homicide cases with a conviction, including the high-profile murders of three Muslim UNC-Chapel Hill students. In line with her campaign promise of not pursuing capital punishment, Deberry did not seek the death penalty in the UNC case (her predecessor had initially made it a capital case) but sent the confessed killer to prison for life without parole.

Of everything she’s done in office, Deberry says one of her proudest accomplishments has been expanding support for victims and their families. She’s done that in part by simply validating their experiences. For instance, the families of the UNC students who were killed viewed the triple homicide as a hate crime, and while, to their dismay, federal authorities refused to make that designation, Deberry described it that way, telling courtroom observers the defendant was “a white man who society had taught that his views were the only ones that mattered.”

She’s also tried to support victims by way of transparency, she says. After being reelected in 2022, she partnered with the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke for a yearlong study on plea negotiations meant to explain how and why prosecutors strike deals with defendants.

And Deberry has amped up the use of restorative justice programs, which seek to reduce recidivism in offenders and offer catharsis to victims by bringing the two parties together to discuss the harm that was caused. Deberry made history in using restorative justice in a homicide case, the first in North Carolina. The case involved a Durham man charged with murdering his father. After a

year, Donald Fields Jr. and his family made a “repair” agreement. As part of that agreement, he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was released from custody in June 2022 with time served. If he violates any part of the repair agreement, he could face up to 10 years in prison.

“Victims really just want to know: Why did you pick me?”

Deberry says. “And why did you do what you did?”

But more than a few victims have posed those same questions to Deberry.

Deberry has come under fire for what critics describe as a soft-on-crime approach that not only makes Durham less safe but retraumatizes victims and their families. In 2022, The News & Observer reported that Deberry’s office had failed to notify victims before greenlighting the prison sentence reductions of two convicted rapists and a convicted murderer.

One of those victims was unaware that her rapist had been released until the N&O approached her about it. She told the reporter she felt as though she’d been “raped by the Durham DA’s office.”

Deberry issued a public apology and said she would investigate the oversight. But critics say there’s a larger issue at play. Deberry’s office has approved motions for appropriate relief—requests filed to correct errors that occurred during legal proceedings, and the mechanism by which prison sentences are often reduced—at a higher rate than her predecessor’s. Some have argued that this reflects leniency in letting offenders walk free. Deberry says it’s an indicator of her office’s rigor.

“Some of the cases that we’re resentencing are from times in which we know there was prosecutorial misconduct,” Deberry says. “This job is not about convicting peo-

ple. It’s about getting to the truth.”

Deberry has also been criticized for the way her office goes about plea negotiations.

Eugene Watt, whose 26-year-old brother Daniel was killed by a drunk driver in 2021, says that the DA “revictimized” his family by going behind their backs to offer the defendant, Gregory Allen Coley, a plea deal with a drastically reduced charge: felony death by motor vehicle rather than second-degree murder.

Coley was driving 143 miles per hour and had twice the legal alcohol limit when he crashed into a Lyft that Daniel was riding in. A judge refused to entertain the plea deal in June 2023, so the case is still pending. If the plea deal is accepted, Coley’s projected sentence—originally 15 to 20 years—will drop to around five. A court date for the ruling has not yet been set.

“Nothing can bring my brother back,” Watt says. “But there’s a number of years where at least it would feel like justice has been served.”

Watt isn’t opposed to criminal justice reform and says he appreciates the philosophy that Deberry promotes. But “if there were ever a case to be tough on,” it’s this one, he says.

“My family is Black. My brother was Black. We are fully aware of how the American justice judicial system has treated Black men in America,” Watt says. “A part of me wants to sympathize with the DA for making sure that the punishment fits the crime that’s being committed. Like, should someone go to jail for a long time for a little bit of marijuana? Probably not. But this isn’t that.”

In a statement to the INDY, the DA’s office expressed sympathy for the Watt family and wrote that the DA has to “make difficult decisions every day that unfortunately do INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

11

not always match the understandable emotions surrounding a case.” The office wrote that Deberry and an assistant DA have communicated about plea terms with the Watt family on several occasions but did not go into great detail.

W

hile some victims and their families have specific issues with Deberry, most of her critics are those who think her progressive policies are leading to an increase in violent crime.

Durham’s violent crime rate has fluctuated over the past two decades. It was highest in 2006 at 937 felony cases per 100,000 people. Seven years later, it had dropped to 683.

The year before Deberry took office, the violent crime rate was 726. The rate stayed almost exactly the same at 727 in her first year, but the city saw a spike in 2020, as did most U.S. cities during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. It fell back to 728 in 2021, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Data from the DA’s office suggests there’s no correlation between felony convictions and violent crime rates. In some years, Durham has seen higher violent crime rates with twice as many felony convictions.

Under Deberry’s tenure, the number of felony convictions in Durham has gone down. She attributes the decrease to her office’s prioritization of serious offenses over low-level crimes.

“We prosecute what needs to be prosecuted,” Deberry says. “Violence is not a Durham issue, it’s an American issue. It’s disingenuous for us to pretend that one person is responsible for all these things.”

A study published two years ago backs that up, finding no correlation between progressive prosecutors and increased crime rates. Researchers at the University of Toronto analyzed crime data from 65 cities—some with progressive prosecutors, some without—and found that between 2015 and 2019, homicides increased in 68 percent of cities with traditional prosecutors compared to just 56 percent under progressives.

The stigma persists, though. Progressive prosecutors across the country have faced backlash, including a successful recall election to oust San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin.

These days, Deberry isn’t even using the progressive prosecutor moniker because it “has become almost a slur,” she says. Others in her cohort have dropped it, too. Change from Within—a 2022 book that contains testimonials from 12 reform-minded prosecutors, including Deberry— denounces the title as “a misnomer that suggests a political label of progressive instead of the more apt focus on progress: the essence of reform.”

Nationally, progressive prosecutors have been successful in getting elected to local office, says Carissa Hessick, a law professor who directs the Prosecutors and Politics Project at UNC-CH. Reform-minded candidates even have a higher success rate than conventional ones. But Hessick doesn’t know whether that translates to statewide office, especially in a purple state like North Carolina.

It’s also not clear how Deberry’s criminal justice reforms will work on the state level.

Attorneys general have different duties depending on which state you’re in. In North Carolina, the office plays a large role in criminal appeals. For example, if a murder conviction is appealed to the court of appeals or the state supreme court, the AG is tasked with defending it. The AG 12

February 7, 2024

INDYweek.com

also represents district attorneys from around the state in appeals, including allegations of wrongful convictions or jury discrimination, and in some cases, the AG defends legislation the General Assembly has passed—voter ID laws, say, or redistricting maps—in constitutional challenges.

Dawn Blagrove, the executive director of the nonprofit organization Emancipate NC, has high hopes for a Deberry-led AG office. She believes Deberry would stand firmer in the position than Stein, who has at times defended the state in criminal appeals that run counter to his stated beliefs. In the case of Russell William Tucker, a Forsyth County man on death row who claimed prosecutors used a “cheat sheet” to strike every Black person from the jury pool, Stein’s prosecutors argued this was not evidence of racial discrimination and sought to uphold the conviction.

The state supreme court agreed.

North Carolina was one of the last states in the country in which an appellate court found that prosecutors had illegally used race to strike a Black person. With the Tucker decision, the state is retreating from recent progress, Blagrove said.

“We are now back at the bottom of the heap,” Blagrove

“We prosecute what needs to be prosecuted. Violence is not a Durham issue, it’s an American issue.

It’s disingenuous for us to pretend that one person is responsible.” says. “And a lot of that has to do with politics and the political will of elected officials. With someone like [Deberry] in a position as important as the attorney general, we will get an opportunity to see what it looks like when a politician’s rhetoric matches their actions.”

Graig Meyer, the lone state senator who has endorsed Deberry, says he expects North Carolina to legalize cannabis in the next four years and views Deberry as the right person to lead the state through that transition.

“We’re going to need an attorney general who helps us figure out what the next step in drug enforcement looks like,” Meyer says, particularly as it also affects taxation, health care, transportation, and other sectors.

Meyer’s and Blagrove’s ideas of how Deberry’s policies might translate statewide are more specific than what she is currently willing to share. She declined to discuss specific policies but shared a broader vision for her role in the office.

“As AG, I would do the same thing that I do here, which is—the law matters,” Deberry says. “We review every case.

We look to see if the law is followed. North Carolina

deserves an AG who’s really taking a look at: What does the law require? How does the law protect the most vulnerable people in our community, whether those people are victims of crime or victims of poor policy?”

Deberry’s approach to the office would be “proactive and not reactive,” she says. As far as defending conviction appeals goes, she would “try to be fair.”

D

eberry’s office is set up like the well of a courtroom.

Her desk faces a love seat flanked by flagpoles, seating guests the way a counsel squares up to the judge’s bench. An armchair is stationed near where a witness stand might be.

As such, sitting in the armchair comes with the risk of being questioned, even when you’re the one doing the interview.

What’s the extent of her courtroom experience?

“Why would anyone assume I don’t have courtroom experience?” she says.

She waits for a response (“It’s just something we haven’t touched on yet”) and then lowers her guard. She has spent time in the courtroom as a defense attorney, she says. And as DA, she’s been the lead prosecutor on several large cases. She also argued cases in person during the first year of the pandemic while her assistant DAs were quarantined.

The primary against Jackson is an uphill battle against someone with more name recognition and more money.

Why did she want to take this on?

“Let me ask you a question,” Deberry says. “Why do you think it’s an uphill battle?”

She sees the framing as problematic, she says.

“The fact that the media is setting this up as a horse race between those two guys means that it’s interested in the horse race. [The media] isn’t interested in what this will actually mean for the lives of everyday regular North Carolinians.”

And neither is her primary opponent, she says.

The AG’s office has often been a launchpad for aspiring governors, including Stein, Roy Cooper, and Mike Easley.

Because Republican redistricting made it unlikely that he would win reelection, Deberry feels that Jackson’s candidacy comes more from a desire to stay in office and climb the political ladder than from a vocation for the role of AG. Jackson’s campaign declined an interview but wrote in a statement that he has “tried hundreds of cases as a prosecutor, passed substantive criminal justice reform, and stood up for voting and abortion rights.” Jackson “has great respect for DA Deberry and will continue running a positive primary,” the statement added.

She doesn’t comment on what she thinks her chances are in the primary.

“Why is it always a few white guys who get to decide what happens to the rest of us?” she says, opening her palms into a shrug with such force that she knocks an arm off of her desk chair.

She laughs and bends down to pick it up. When she had her C-section, she says, reaching under her desk, she and her daughter Zora made it off of the operating table alive because she had a Black obstetrician who believed her when she said she was in pain.

She’s not going to leave voters without an option for representation.

“At the end of the day,” she says, “if it’s Jeff Jackson versus Dan Bishop, we’re not going to be talking about any of this stuff.” W

N E WS

Wake County

Another County Heard From With county Board of Commissioners elections on the ballot this primary, and more in the fall, Wake County is likely to experience some political shifts this year.

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

DaQuanta Copeland (L) and Tara Waters (R)

P

olicy changes may lie ahead for the Wake County Board of Commissioners as three of the board’s seven members face elections this year.

While Democratic incumbent Susan Evans, the board’s vice chair, is running unopposed, that doesn’t mean we won’t see political shifts. In District 5, community activist DaQuanta Copeland is challenging recent appointee Tara Waters. Since both candidates are Democrats, the winner of the seat will be decided during the March 5 primary.

In November, Republican Jacob Arthur will face current board chair Shinica Thomas in District 6. Another Republican, Darren Eustance, unexpectedly dropped out of the primary race on January 26, leaving Arthur without competition for the GOP nomination.

Arthur, who ran for school board in 2022, is campaigning on a platform of lowering taxes and spending, investing in law enforcement, and providing “accountability in public school funding.”

He calls for Wake County schools to “prioritize academics, discipline, and teacher retention” over “DEI initiatives and liberal policies,” which he says have hurt the school system. Wing Ng and Cheryl Caulfield, conservatives who sit on Wake County’s Board of Education, both endorsed Arthur. Ng and Caulfield support “parent’s rights,” a political movement that criticizes inclusive curricula related to race

and LGBTQ+ issues, as well as calls for increased oversight of teachers.

The Issues As the county’s population continues to grow rapidly, public schools have struggled to keep up with an equally fast-growing student population. Teacher pay, vacancies among support staff, and aging school buildings have all been topics of conversation in local government meetings.

Last year, the school board requested a $55.8 million budget increase from the Board of Commissioners, which they approved over the county manager’s protests. The request included nearly $26 million for employee raises—a “bold ask” that Waters, then a school board member, said educators deserved.

Housing also remains top of mind for many voters this year as the real estate crunch continues. Property revaluations released in January show that many homes across Wake County have more than doubled in value since 2020, inciting fear among residents that property taxes will continue to shoot up. Buying a home is also still challenging as demand rises and supply falls.

In District 5, which includes East Raleigh, it’s a battle between two strong liberal candidates. Appointee Waters and community activist Copeland are equally qualified for

the job of commissioner, says Wake County Democratic Party chair Kevyn Creech, who had a hand in nominating Waters to the board in January.

Waters moved into her seat on the Board of Commissioners after two years on the Wake County school board, and has a background in education as a former employee of Wake Technical Community College.

Currently, she’s manager of the Volunteer Raleigh program, working to connect volunteers with city departments and local nonprofits.

“In addition to supporting the students, I’m now able to support their families, their neighborhoods, their communities as a whole,” Waters says. “It’s a more holistic ability to make impact.”

Copeland, meanwhile, has more than 20 years of community service under her belt, along with a year-long gig as the county’s first-ever Community Engagement Coordinator for the housing department. “[The job is] very intentional on connecting with the community, getting community feedback, and designing things with community in mind,” she says. “I’m the bridge with the crosswalk. Sometimes we get a bridge, sometimes we get a crosswalk, but it’s not often we get both—I get to be both.”

Copeland has also served on the county’s Board of Health and Human Services, and currently runs 2B’s Brains and Broth-

ers, a nonprofit that “supports and empowers youth in reaching their full potential,” according to social media.

Investment in Education Waters and Copeland have similar platforms, but different priorities. Waters, who has a strong focus on education, says she hopes to demonstrate the need for more funding to state legislators by connecting them with teachers, students, and parents on the ground.

“Build[ing] stronger relationships with members of the General Assembly to bring awareness to the growing needs that our schools have is a top priority,” she says. “It’s one thing to make decisions when you are in an office, but once you have a chance to hear the stories of what our educators are facing, those shortfalls … tremendous investment is needed.”

Waters also hopes to reduce some of the racial disparities she sees in her district, in housing and healthcare, for example.

She mentions caring for the area’s growing senior population, as well as “wraparound services” for renters and homeowners, to prevent eviction for people who are at risk of losing their homes.

Waters supports the county’s current approach to housing, which invests in a range of resources including homeless shelters, supportive housing, restoration INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

13

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and repair programs, and protecting existing affordable housing. But she says she’d like to take a closer look at how funding from various federal programs and grants is being spent.

As a commissioner, Waters wants to “triage the needs of our community members, to make sure that we are not leaving anyone behind,” she says. She also wants to “give voice to the unspoken needs” of people who may not feel empowered to attend a commissioners’ meeting, she adds.

Regardless of who wins, the new commissioner will bring a Black woman’s perspective to the board. Both candidates touched on the importance of reducing maternal and infant mortality rates for Black families.

In North Carolina, the Black maternal mortality rate was 52.8 per 100,00 live births between 2016 and 2020 according to data that America’s Health Rankings broke down from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For white mothers, that rate was 17.3.

A Community-First Approach

Republican Representation

Copeland is taking another shot at public office this year after running for Raleigh mayor in 2022. Copeland came in third to incumbent Mary-Ann Baldwin and fellow challenger Terrance Ruth, earning about 10.2 percent of the vote. But her community-first platform is still inspiring residents. Whether it’s solving the housing crisis or tackling other big issues in Wake County, “the engagement portion is major,” Copeland says.

“Actually speaking to the people we’re advocating for, so that we can understand what their barriers are [is key],” Copeland says. “Once you know the barriers, then you can create around the barriers. But if you don’t live that life or that’s not your struggle … then it’s hard to understand what the need is today.”

As someone who is in daily contact with community members, Copeland says the biggest need is undoubtedly housing. With thousands of people experiencing homelessness, the county simply needs more places to live. For those on the brink of homelessness, timely access to resources and public programs is also a concern, Copeland says.

“Our businesses, our faith-based community, and our local nonprofits … they are the real first responders in every situation,” Copeland says. “Because when someone is experiencing economic disparities, social disparities, financial disparities, they go to the churches, they go to the community leaders, they go to businesses looking for help.

“If we can put them in place to be a part of the solution as a first responder, then the pipeline doesn’t have to be so strenuous or even more traumatizing.”

On education, Copeland is critical of the state’s private school voucher program, saying public schools have to stay competitive, becoming just as appealing as private schools. That definitely takes funding, she adds, and while the state has tied commissioners’ hands to some degree, they can help give local businesses, churches, and nonprofits the capacity to contribute.

In District 6—which covers northwest Wake County up to Wake Forest and Falls Lake—voters are also facing a choice in November. If Republican Arthur beats Democrat Thomas, it would be the first time a member of the GOP has sat on the Board of Commissioners since 2014, says Gerry Cohen, a member of the Wake County Board of Elections.

“Over the last 20 years, Wake County has moved from a sort of purplish to red county to one of the most blue counties in the state, if you’re looking at statewide and federal election results,” Cohen says. “So there’s been a significant change, especially the last 15 years.”

Arthur has certainly highlighted that point in his campaign, attacking the current all-Democratic board.

“Almost a decade of single-party rule on the Board has resulted in taxes consistently rising, public safety worsening, and public schools declining,” Arthur wrote on his website. “To avoid the perpetual decline seen in many counties in the country, Wake County needs a new voice for common sense policies. It is time for a change.”

Republicans will likely have an edge this election cycle due to a new law (HB 99) that Republican Rep. Erin Paré introduced in 2023. Under the law, which goes into effect this year, Wake County commissioners will be elected in a district-wide vote as opposed to the former county-wide vote.

That means Republicans may have a stronger chance of getting elected in districts on the rural outskirts of the county, outside the liberal stronghold of Raleigh.

In District 6, for example, about 49 percent of residents voted for Thomas’s Republican opponent in 2020. Thomas won by a much closer margin in District 6 than in the countywide contest, which she won with about 60 percent of the vote.

Cohen declined to make predictions about the races currently on the ballot but says that under the new plan, he “suspects … it’s likely that one or two of the districts probably will elect Republican members.” W

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INDY's 2024 Primary Election Endorsements

BY INDY STAFF backtalk@indyweek.com

Early voting begins next week for Durham, Orange, and Wake Counties’ March 5 primary elections, and several local races are on voters’ ballots.

In Durham, voters will select five county commissioners from a field of 11 candidates. Commissioner Heidi Carter isn’t running for reelection, but the four other incumbents are all running to keep their seats. Durham Public Schools has one competitive at-large race and three candidates running unopposed, whose names will also appear on the ballot.

In Orange County, one county commissioner is running to keep her seat against two challengers in the Democratic primary, while three school board seats are up for election. These candidates include three incumbents and four newcomers.

I N DY Elections 2024

Primary Election Info At-a-Glance Important Dates Early Voting: FEB 15 - MAR 2

Endors

ELEC

Early Voting You can vote early at ANY Early Voting site in your county. Find your county’s early voting sites at https://vt.ncsbe.gov/EVSite/

IN

Endors

Same-day Registration

And in Wake County, there’s one Democratic primary for the county board of commissioners between Tara Waters and DaQuanta Copeland. Races for four district court judges’ seats are also competitive.

Finally, across the Triangle, a handful of state House and Senate races have Democratic primaries.

Election Day

Read our endorsements in these pages and refer to our handy clip-out guide on p. 16 when you head to the polls. And if you want even more information, check out online candidate questionnaires that will be available on our website by next Wednesday, February 14.

I N DY

Primary Election Day: TUES, MAR 5

You can REGISTER TO VOTE during Early Voting at any Early Voting site.

You must provide an accepted ID document to an election official at an Early Voting location to verify your name and address. Note! If you use this process to register, you cannot change your party affiliation.

Our team of four writers and one editor met to make endorsements in these races last week. We considered a variety of factors including individual skill sets, past experience in governing and civic life, volunteer experience, and other publicly available information. We also used much of our own reporting over the past year to inform our decisions.

E

All polling places are open from

6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m On Election Day, voters must vote in their assigned polling place, and anyone in line at 7:30 p.m., when polls close, will be allowed to cast their ballot.

Don’t Forget Your Photo ID! North Carolina voters will be asked to show photo ID when they check in to vote.

INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

15

INDY's 2024 Primary Election

VOTE!

Voter Guide

Durham County

Orange County

Wake County

Durham County Board of Commissioners

Orange County Board of Commissioners

Wake County District Court Judges

This is a partisan primary. Voters elect five candidates at-large.

This is a partisan primary. Voters elect one candidate in District 2.

Nida Allam

Phyllis Portie-Ascott

This is a nonpartisan election. Voters elect judges in Districts 10 A, Seat 3; 10 C, Seat 3; 10 D, Seat 5; and 10 E, Seat 3.

I N DY 2 0

Endorsem e E L E C T I O nts Wendy Jacobs Michael Lee

Stephen Valentine

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NS

Orange County Board of Education This is a nonpartisan election. Voters elect three candidates at-large.

Carrie Doyle

Michelle Burton

TE!

Jennifer Moore

Durham Public Schools Board of Education

Wendy Padilla

2024

NC Senate District 14

s t n e m e

DISTRICT 3 Jessica Carda-Auten

TIONS

AT-LARGE Joy Harrell

NC Senate District 22 This is the only competitive state legislative primary for Durham County voters this cycle.

Mike Woodard

Wake County Board of Commissioners

NC House District 33

!

E T O V

tio endors emen ns ts

Dan Blue

This is a partisan primary. Voters elect candidates in the District 5 Democratic primary and the District 6 Republican primary. We are not making endorsements in District 6, and Darren Eustance, who will appear on the ballot in that race, says he has suspended his campaign.

Tara Waters

INDYweek.com

INDY

Wake County

VO

!

E T

This is a Democratic primary.

Monika Johnson-Hostler

NC House District 35 This is a Republican primary. The candidates are James Norman and Mike Schietzelt. The INDY is not making an endorsement in this race.

2

s t en

4 2 0

IN

Endors

NC Senate District 13

2024 This is a Democratic primary. elec

I N DY

ELEC

This is a Republican primary. The candidates are Vicki Harry and Scott Lassiter. The INDY is not making an endorsement in this race.

DISTRICT B Millicent Rogers

E

Endors

10 C, SEAT 3 Renee Jordan

10 E, SEAT 3 Crystal Grimes

DISTRICT A Wendell Tabb

February 7, 2024

10 A , SEAT 3 No endorsement

10 D, SEAT 5 Kevin Boxberger

This is a nonpartisan election. Voters elect one candidate in District A, District B, District 3, and at-large. The only competitive race is for the at-large seat.

16

I N DY Elections 2024

INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

17

Durham County

!

E T VO

Durham County Board of Commissioners

Y 2

4 2 0

Board of Education from 2014 to 2022, serving as the board chair from 2016 to 2020 and vice chair in 2015 and 2021. During his tenure, he oversaw the development of the DPS Office of Equity Affairs. Lee also has over 20 years of business experience, and holds an MBA and doctorate in business administration. Lee’s blend of privateand public-sector experience would bring valuable skills to the board as it tackles major challenges such as procuring affordable housing and funding public education.

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February 7, 2024

INDYweek.com

!

MICHAEL “MIKE” LEE served as a member of the DPS

TE

Michael Lee

MICHELLE BURTON built her career advocating for public education. She served as the president of the Durham Association of Educators from 2019 to 2023, and has worked as a public school librarian for over 20 years.

Burton has a thorough understanding of the challenges students, parents, and teachers face in the classroom and offers decades of experience building coalitions to solve them. At a time when educators and staff need a strong voice for them on the board, and as someone who has a good working relationship with what is in effect Durham’s teachers’ union, we think Burton will bring a valuable perspective.

VO

to increase funding to DPS, championed the 2022 public education bond, and worked to ensure families in the county have access to high-quality pre-K. With priorities for affordable housing and the UDO rewrite, plus implementation of the new county transit plan, on the agenda for the next term, we think Jacobs has the institutional knowledge that’s needed to carry the county forward.

Michelle Burton

4 ts 2 n 0 e 2 S m N Y D se I O IN r T do L E C En E

s n o i done a reliably good job of collaborating with colctand s staff, making herself accessible and e leagues l e maccountable enandt county to constituents, and navigating controversies e carefully and with a level head. A Durham Public Schools s r (DPS) parent and former teacher, Jacobs has advocated WENDY JACOBS has served on the board since 2012

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s t n e D m N I e S s N r o IO T d En E L E C

The first Muslim woman elected to public office in North Carolina, NIDA ALLAM has proven herself to be a dedicated public servant and progressive voice for Durham. On the board of commissioners, Allam played a crucial role in raising wages for county employees and securing tax relief for low-income families. She’s also a staunch advocate for women, women’s health care, and reproductive freedoms as a Planned Parenthood board member and chair of the Durham Mayor’s Council for Women. We endorse Allam for another term.

Wendy Jacobs

service. He served in the U.S. Army for nearly two decades before attending law school at NC Central University, where he worked as an associate professor in the department of social work before becoming director of NCCU’s Veterans Law Clinic. Valentine would draw on years of building private-public partnerships to improve access to education for students and economic opportunities and health services for Durham residents. Valentine also has served on Durham’s Planning Commission since 2022, giving him a deeper level of understanding for how Durham should approach development and growth.

V OT

Nida Allam

STEPHEN VALENTINE has a long history of public

ns io ts ct n le e DY 4 e em IN 2 rs 20 do en

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E T VO

This is a partisan primary. Voters elect five candidates at-large.

Stephen Valentine

Other candidates: NIMASHEENA BURNS (I), BRENDA HOWERTON (I), FREDRICK A. DAVIS, JOVONIA LEWIS, DARYL PAYTON, RENEE VAUGHAN

Durham Public Schools Board of Education

This is a nonpartisan election. Voters elect one candidate in District A, District B, District 3, and one at-large.

D IST R ICT A

Wendell Tabb As director of Hillside High School’s award-winning drama department for 35 years, WENDELL TABB has had a profound impact on hundreds, maybe thousands, of DPS students’ lives and futures. When he retired in 2022, a former student of Tabb’s told the INDY that Tabb “wasn’t just a teacher” but devoted his “time, soul, and money” to his students. He’s also pushed the district to live up to its stated commitment to equity for all students. Tabb is running unopposed and he has our endorsement.

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I N DY Elections 2024

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19

Durham County DI STR I CT B

Millicent Rogers A Durham native, DPS alumna, and PTA volunteer, MILLICENT ROGERS is a reliable advocate for students, parents, and school staff. Working to foster family engagement, recruiting and retaining staff, and creating welcoming, inclusive learning environments are the cornerstones of Rogers’s work on the school board. Though Rogers is running unopposed, we endorse her for another term.

DI STR I CT 3

Jessica Carda-Auten JESSICA CARDA-AUTEN was appointed to the school

board in March 2023 following the resignation of former board member Matt Sears. She is an active member of the DPS elementary school that her two oldest children attend.

Carda-Auten currently works at UNC-Chapel Hill as a public health practitioner and researcher. She’s running unopposed and we support her bid for election to a full term.

AT-LA R G E

Joy Harrell An NCCU alumna and former public-school music teacher with 13 years of classroom experience, JOY HARRELL has dedicated her two-decades-long career to working with young people as an educator and artist.

Currently, Harrell is the executive director of BUMP: The Triangle, a nonprofit that builds artistic proficiency and social-emotional wellness in youth through visual and performing arts.

Harrell’s opponent, ATRAYUS GOODE, is president and CEO of the Youth Mentoring Collaborative, which provides mentoring, training, resources, and advocacy to Black and brown youth in the Triangle, and Goode has worked in mentoring since graduating from UNC-CH in 2007. Last month, during his school board campaign, Goode was publicly accused of sexually harassing an 18-year-old coworker in 2013. Goode was terminated from his job that year, following the allegation. The INDY reported on the allegation and other public records.

We think Harrell will bring a creative, student-first approach to the school board. Harrell is the clear choice in this race and she has our endorsement.

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NC Senate District 22

I N DY Elections 2024

This is the only competitive state legislative primary for Durham County voters this cycle.

Mike Woodard Do we like that he supported a bill promoting charter schools? No. Do we approve of him voting to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto? Also no. But when state senator MIKE WOODARD talks about having to work with Republicans in the legislature who have gerrymandered themselves into a supermajority for what looks like the rest of time, he makes a good point: a Democrat has to be able to work with the other side to make truly appalling pieces of legislation less bad and stand by those efforts.

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Endors

Woodard has represented Durham in the state Senate since 2012, and this is the first time he’s drawn a primary challenger in political (and Triangle) newcomer SOPHIA CHITLIK . A former organizer for President Obama’s 2008 campaign and later a strategist in his administration’s Department of Labor, Chitlik, a California native, now works as an impact investor and philanthropist supporting women-led businesses in the health and wellness sector, namely birthing centers. She’s a true progressive, her credentials and talking points suggest—but with the GOP stranglehold in Raleigh, could she get anything done?

While moderate, Woodard is certainly a Democrat. On the important civil and social issues—voting rights, the abortion ban, the so-called Parents’ Bill of Rights—his constituents can trust Woodard to vote the right way. He champions his work on the state’s clean energy bill, a rare piece of actually-good legislation to emerge from Raleigh in the past decade.

The reality is, while he didn’t earn our endorsement to lead the state’s bluest city, the legislature is a different animal entirely. Woodard has years of experience and existing relationships in the General Assembly that make him an effective leader. He also has deep relationships with Durham residents.

We don’t always agree with Woodard’s decisions, but we think his absence from the senate would be a loss. We’re endorsing Woodard for another term.

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E T O V

Orange County Orange County Board of Commissioners

Jennifer Moore

This is a partisan primary. Voters elect one candidate in District 2.

Phyllis Portie-Ascott PHYLLIS PORTIE-ASCOTT is a realtor and former

vice chair of the Orange County Democratic Party. Last February, Portie-Ascott’s six elected colleagues on the board of commissioners unanimously appointed her to the District 2 seat following former commissioner Renee Price’s election to the NC House, and Portie-Ascott will serve in that seat through the rest of this year.

VOTE!

INDY 202 endo4 electio nsuseful on the board, but rsem Beeman’s experience in planning and zoning would be e nhousing, with a platform focused on securing affordable ts workforce development, and strengthening mental health services, we’d like to see what Portie-Ascott Portie-Ascott’s opponents in the primary are ADAM J. BEEMAN , a business owner and seven-year member and current chair of Orange County’s planning board and member of the county’s board of adjustments, and HORACE JOHNSON JR. , a retired Duke Health worker who applied for Price’s open seat last year.

will do with a full term.

Orange County Board of Education

VO

With experience in education in Durham, Wayne, and Orange Counties, JENNIFER MOORE has proven herself to be a strong progressive presence on the board. Moore has stood out particularly because of her clear stance on equity. Any candidate can allude to the issue without actually addressing it—by highlighting differential education, as well as the differences between equity and equality, Moore has acted on a clearheaded view of how the district can best support students and families. We endorse Moore for another term.

ns o i t Y c IND24 ele ments 20 dorse en

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o d En E L

Wendy Padilla

VOT E!

WENDY PADILLA stands out for her strong statement

against Senate Bill 49 (the “Don’t Say Gay” bill or “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” depending on who you ask), a law that she called too restrictive. In her past role, in the administrative office of a public school, she provided support for Spanishspeaking students and families, a growing demographic in OCS. Padilla has emphasized the need to meet communities where they are by making sure they are aware of assistance available to them instead of expecting them to find help on their own. We would be pleased to see Padilla as a newcomer on the board.

IND

Endo Y 2 0 2 4 r s e m ELE C T I O ents

This is a nonpartisan election. Voters elect three candidates at-large.

Other candidates include KEVIN ALSTON JR. , a behavior interventionist, who stood out among the pack for his empathetic views and, as a relatively recent OCS graduate, his sheer proximity to the issues that impact students today. We look forward to seeing his future work in the community.

NS

We appreciate incumbent BONNIE HAUSER’S attention to detail, but don’t believe she, CINDY SHRINER , or MICHAEL JOHNSON share the commitment to equity that the other candidates do.

Carrie Doyle A high school science teacher in DPS and the mother of three students in Orange County Schools (OCS), CARRIE DOYLE is a reliably progressive vote. During her first term on the board, Doyle has championed inclusive opportunities for students, including those who speak Spanish or one of the 40 languages other than English that are spoken in the school district. And during a tumultuous time that saw the departure of the district’s former superintendent, Doyle maintained good working relationships with her colleagues on the board as well as school administrators. For her commitment to equity and academic excellence, we endorse Doyle for another term.

I N DY Elections 2024 INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

E 21

Wake County Wake County Board of Commissioners

10 C, SEAT 3

Renee Jordan

This is a partisan primary. Voters elect candidates in the District 5 Democratic primary and the District 6 Republican primary. We are not making endorsements in District 6, and Darren Eustance, who will appear on the ballot in that race, says he has suspended his campaign.

VOT

In a courtroom that is often dominated by the same judges year after year, longtime defense attorney RENEE JORDAN promises to bring a new perspective to the bench. Jordan, who has spent much of her career as a public defender, is dedicated to helping poor and minority residents who, in her words, “get pushed through the justice system without getting the help that they need.” Many judges are historically recruited from the prosecutor’s office; as someone who works on the other side of the system, Jordan’s pledge to listen compassionately to everyone who appears before her feels authentic.

IN 20 DY en 2 do 4 e rs lec em ti That’s o ANNA ELENA WORLEY doesn’t have a good en not ntos sayhasincumbent record.

Worley done solid work in family court and as an advocate for children. t But s in a court that often feels stagnant, we’re in favor of change.

Tara Waters

Democrats will be making a good choice this year whether they vote for former school board member TARA WATERS or community activist DAQUANTA COPELAND , but we ultimately came down in favor of Waters as the recipient of our endorsement. Appointed to the board of commissioners in January to fill the vacant seat of longtime commissioner James West, who died in November, Waters deserves more than a few months to bring her education experience and dedication to reducing racial disparities to service for the residents of Wake County.

10 D, SEAT 5

E!

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TE En I !

N do D Y E r LE s 2 C em0 2 TI 4 O e N n S ts

Kevin Boxberger

As a former school board member, Waters is committed to netting more funding for public schools, an issue that deserves more attention this year in the midst of the housing crisis. She’s also passionate about lifting up the voices of underrepresented people in her district, which includes historically underserved communities in Southeast Raleigh.

In the race for retiring judge Debra Ann Sasser’s seat, KEVIN BOXBERGER is the clear choice. Boxberger, a young defense attorney, spent a little more than 10 years representing impoverished clients in District Court, some of whom struggled with mental health issues or substance use disorder. Currently, he oversees the public defender’s office for seven counties, including Wake.

Wake County District Court Judges

Like fellow candidate Jordan, Boxberger has pledged to treat everyone who comes through the courtroom “with fairness, dignity, and respect,” regardless of their circumstances. He supports exploring treatment and other diversion programs before resorting to incarceration. Finally, Boxberger’s recent criminal defense experience gives him an advantage over his opponent BLAIR WILLIAMS , an estate and civil attorney, who currently serves as Wake County Clerk of Superior Court.

This is a nonpartisan election. Voters elect judges in Districts 10 A, Seat 3; 10 C, Seat 3; 10 D, Seat 5; and 10 E, Seat 3.

10 A, SE AT 3

No endorsement While this is an important race, we don’t feel confident making an endorsement for either candidate.

Incumbent CINDY KENNEY , whom Gov. Cooper appointed to the bench just two years ago, was a former prosecutor. While she may deserve a chance to continue to serve as a judge, she ran unopposed in her last election.

DOUGLAS BROWN , on the other hand, doesn’t have any particular qualifica-

tions that inspire an endorsement over incumbent Kenney. Brown also worked as a Wake County prosecutor for several years before moving on to private practice and criminal defense work. We don’t have a great sense of what he’ll bring to the bench.

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23

Elections 2024

Wake County

Elections 2024

I N DY 2 0 2 4

Endorsements ELECTIONS I N DY

1 0 E , SE AT 3

Crystal Grimes It was a tough call in District 10 E, where another defense attorney, CRYSTAL GRIMES , is challenging incumbent ERIC CRAIG CHASSE . Chasse touts his experience, arguing that institutional knowledge helps make court operations more efficient. He’s also passionate about reform, working to expunge criminal records, “reunite families in crisis,” and help people with substance abuse disorder avoid incarceration.

But in a court where progressive perspectives are desperately needed, Grimes is a breath of fresh air. Grimes has spent her entire 17-year career as a public defender, demonstrating a true commitment to public service. She says she has seen the system not work for her clients and pledges to examine how race and poverty impact defendants. Grimes wants to make a difference as a district court judge, intervening at the lowest level of the justice system to, ideally, keep people out of it for good.

NC Senate District 13 This is a Republican primary. The candidates are VICKI HARRY and SCOTT LASSITER . The INDY is not making an endorsement in this race.

NC House District 33

Endorsements

This is a Democratic primary.

Monika Johnson-Hostler Following a solid decade of service on Wake County Public Schools Board of Education where she has been a successful advocate for staff salary increases and student achievement beyond test scores, we think MONIKA JOHNSONHOSTLER will continue to serve Wake County well in a state legislative role. Johnson-Hostler, who runs a local nonprofit that works to prevent sexual assault and support victims and survivors, offers an education policy expert’s breadth of knowledge coupled with a passion for public schools. With a Republican-majority legislature, that’s a type that we can never have too many of in the state House chambers.

Johnson-Hostler’s main opponent in this race, ANTOINE G. MARSHALL , is a former attorney for Legal Aid and now owns his own law practice, where he is a community economic development attorney. With a platform focus on housing, justice, and fair wages, we think Marshall is a strong candidate. But JohnsonHostler’s years of service and experience give her the edge.

A third candidate, retired state employee DEBRA DUNSTON , is also running in this primary.

NC House District 35 NC Senate District 14

This is a Republican primary. The candidates are JAMES NORMAN and MIKE SCHIETZELT. The INDY is not making an endorsement in this race.

This is a Democratic primary.

Dan Blue Now the NC Senate minority leader, Raleigh attorney DAN BLUE has served in the General Assembly, on and off, since 1981. Accordingly, Blue has a strong legislative record to fall back on, including, this past session, sponsoring bills to codify Roe v. Wade in North Carolina and provide capital project funding for NCCU and Wake County. We can’t find much information about Blue’s opponent, TERRY PASSIONE. Regardless, we think Blue has earned another term.

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I N DY Elections 2024

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M U SIC Jose Olea Vico, a 25-year-old violinist in the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle Durham Fellowship program, performs at Southwest Elementary School.

PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

Music Lessons Fellows with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle are embedded in local elementary schools, teaching the magic of classical music.

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

I

t’s a little before the busy rush of lunch at Southwest Elementary School in Durham, but when the familiar strains of the Harry Potter theme float quietly over a chattering crowd of third graders, a magical hush falls over the assembly.

All of a sudden, a sterile school gym is transformed into a luxurious music hall. The echoing chords of the cello create a sense of highbrow culture, like you’re sitting in a velvet-draped box. But of course, just by being here, the four musicians at the front of the gym are showing eightand nine-year-olds that anyone can enter the enchanting world of music.

“The school visits really pulled me in, because that was something that helped me explore music when I was a kid,” says violinist Jose Olea Vico. “It’s always super-rewarding when you see the sparkles in their eyes when they recognize Harry Potter or Star Wars.”

Vico is one of four fellows who was hired this year by the 26

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Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle (COT). He’s a Durham local, but the other fellows come from various professional gigs across North and South America, from Chicago to Venezuela. The fellowship, which started in early September, is designed to support the careers of young Black and Latinx musicians, as well as connect local schoolchildren with orchestral music.

“There was this huge need for live music in schools,” says Niccoló Muti, principal conductor and executive director of COT. “And considering the diversity of the region, both racially and ethnically, we knew that whatever we wanted to do, we wanted to address that. If you look at American orchestras in general, there’s a huge underrepresentation of minorities.”

Just the presence of the Durham fellows in schools can help show students that a career in classical music “is possible for people from all walks of life, and from all cultures and ethnicities,” says Muti. “And some of these kids might

have a cousin or a brother or a sister who is around the age of the fellows, so it makes it much more personal and real for them.”

Vico—along with violinist Timothy Parham, viola player Julius Adams, and cello player Beideth Briceno—have been visiting schools in Orange and Durham Counties regularly throughout the year. Their January visit to Southwest Elementary School was their second, and students eagerly welcomed them back by shouting out the names of instruments and the meaning of some musical terms.

To the students at participating schools, “forte” means waving their hands around like crazy, making “loud” (but silent) movements. Likewise, “piano” is a subdued, curledup motion they do when the volume of the music drops to a whisper. The interactive performance helps students remember and understand musical concepts, says music teacher Markiss Barnes.

“It creates an extension of what we learn in our classroom,” Barnes says, “a lot of times we’re able to talk about string instruments but not actually have them in front of the kids to experience them.”

The fellows’ presentations, to small classrooms and large assemblies, will culminate in a concert in March, when students will be bused to the Carolina Theatre of Durham to hear full versions of the musical snippets they’ve been learning about. That March education concert isn’t open to the public, but the Durham fellows are joining the orchestra for various performances through May, including “MOZART” on Feb. 17 and 18 at the Durham Arts Council and “In the Classical Style” on March 17 at the Carolina Theatre of Durham. (Check the calendar on COT’s website for more information.)

For their part, thanks to the fellows, when students sit in the Carolina Theatre’s expansive concert hall, they’ will recognize Strauss and the way it tells a story.

“This is the big part of our quartet, where our characters get into a fight,” viola player Adams explained to the students earlier this month.

“At the top of the page it says ‘climax,’ that’s where we are in the music. While we play, I want you to draw what you think your characters are doing …. [And] when you come to see us at the Carolina Theatre in March, I want you to remember how music can inspire your imagination.” W

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INCOMING! INCOMING!

Road Trip Capers, German Parables, and Bob Marley Suggestions and potential options for a night out at the movies in February.

BY GLENN MCDONALD arts@indyweek.com

Drive-Away Dolls. IMAGE COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES

For those who still like to leave the house to see a movie, Incoming! is a monthly feature spotlighting interesting films coming to local theaters. All the movies below are slated to play locally, but bookings change all the time, so check your online listings.

T

he Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, have a pretty sterling pedigree when it comes to filmmaking—Blood Simple, Fargo, Barton Fink. As such, fans were nervous when the brothers announced in 2019 that they were going to start making their films separately. Would the movies still be good?

Half as good?

The happy news: Joel’s 2021 film The Tragedy of Macbeth was a massive critical success, and now comes Drive-Away Dolls, the first narrative feature film from brother Ethan. Billed as a queer road-trip movie, Dolls stars Margaret Qualley as Jamie, a free spirit who decides to recover from her most recent breakup with a trip to Tallahassee. As one does. Things get weird when Jamie and her bestie Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) tangle with some wildly incompetent criminals.

Several clues suggest that Dolls will be a good time at the movies. The story is based on a screenplay that Ethan wrote 20 years ago with longtime partner Tricia Cooke, who was editor on many of the brothers’ best movies. Ethan has described the new 28

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film as “filthy fun” in the spirit of previous Coen comedies like The Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona. The supporting cast includes Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, and Matt Damon. And the first official trailer, online now, is fantastic.

For a calmer movie-night-out option, the German drama The Teachers’ Lounge is finally making it to local theaters. A big deal last year in Europe, it’s up for an Oscar this year in the international feature film category. The reviews on this one have been intriguing. The plot doesn’t sound like much at first blush: an idealistic sixth-grade teacher tries to solve a string of thefts at her school. But the script also operates on an allegorical level to explore themes of ethics, racism, indoctrination, misinformation, and our brave new world of relentless digital surveillance. It’s the classroom as microcosm—a societal parable dressed up as a psychological mystery.

For dramatic renewal of purpose, you may want to make a date for Bob Marley: One Love, the new musical biopic based on the life of the reggae legend. The film is framed around the creation of Marley’s 1977 Exodus album but also doubles back to his upbringing in Jamaica and rise to international stardom.

British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir has the title role and Bob’s son Ziggy Marley is on board as a producer. The director is Reinaldo Marcus Green, who made a great film

in 2019 about Venus and Serena and their dad, with King Richard.

QUICK PICKS

Historical epic The Promised Land stars perpetually intense Mads Mikkelsen as a homesteader fighting corrupt 18th-century Danish plutocrats. Everybody hates corrupt 18th-century Danish plutocrats.

Superstar screenwriter Diablo Cody (Jennifer’s Body) is back with Lisa Frankenstein, a “coming-of-rage” horror-comedy based on Mary Shelley’s famous novel.

1980s goth girls! Victorian corpses! Jokes

about The Cure!

In honor of Michigan’s recent college football champions, consider the Ann Arbor Film Festival Traveling Tour, an evening of avant-garde films presented by Duke’s Screen/Society series, February 22 at the Rubenstein Arts Center.

On February 24, the NC Museum of Art Cinema series presents the documentary Invisible Beauty, chronicling the work of pioneering Black fashion model and activist Bethann Hardison.

Heads up, nerds: The strike-delayed scifi sequel Dune: Part Two is now scheduled to open on March 1. W

Lisa Frankenstein. IMAGE COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES

SC R E E N

36 SECONDS: PORTRAIT OF A HATE CRIME

Feb. 12, 7 p.m., Carolina Theater, Durham | Feb. 13, 6:30 p.m., The Cary Theater, Cary | Feb. 19, 6:30 p.m., Witherspoon Student Center, Raleigh

Pursuing Justice A new documentary tells the story of the 2015 murders of three Muslim American students in Chapel Hill. It has eerie relevance today.

BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com

Deah Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, were murdered in February of 2015. PHOTO COURTESY OF TAREK ALBABA

O

n February 10, 2015, Chapel Hill resident Craig Hicks knocked on the condominium door belonging to his neighbors Deah Shaddy Barakat and Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, who were eating an early dinner with Yusor’s sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. Using a .357-caliber gun, Hicks opened fire, killing Barakat with a spray of bullets and murdering the Abu-Salha sisters execution style.

For months, Hicks had been harassing the three students—Barakat, 23, was in dentistry school at UNC-Chapel Hill; Yusor, 21, was a prospective dental school student at NC State University; and Razan, 19, was an NCSU undergraduate—who were all observant Muslims. Soon after the crime occurred, Chapel Hill police issued a statement declaring the triple homicide the result of a parking lot dispute.

This massacre, and the fight to charge Hicks with a felony hate crime, is the subject of a wrenching new documentary, 36 Seconds: Portrait of a Hate Crime, from director Tarek Albaba and executive producers Sean Dash and Omar Altalib. The documentary will screen in the Triangle three times this month; a February 12 screening in Durham includes a panel discussion with Durham County Board of Commissioners chair Nida Allam and Durham district attorney Satana Deberry.

Albaba, who is Palestinian American and grew up in Charlotte, worked on 36 Seconds for eight years. It was a big project, one of its more haunting aspects being how much

archival material Albaba had to work with: in abundant photos and videos, it is evident how beloved the three victims were, how happily normal the lives they’d built were, brimming with basketball and sweet tea, purpose and success. Deah and Yusor were newlyweds, and joyful footage from their December wedding was still fresh when the massacre took place. Yusor, in fact, had recorded a StoryCorps interview just months before: “Growing up in America has been such a blessing. And although in some ways I do stand out, such as the hijab I wear on my head … there are still so many ways that I feel so embedded in the fabric that is, you know, our culture.”

“That’s the beautiful thing here,” she concluded, “it doesn’t matter where you come from.”

During a year where xenophobia, Islamophobia, and racism are spiking, 36 Seconds is particularly illuminating when contextualized in the language of the present moment. In reports about the genocide in Gaza, the media often employs passive double-speak: they describe Palestinians who are killed as having “died,” for instance, while Israeli attacks are “explosions,” as if massacres are wrung from thin air.

“Right now, it doesn’t feel like we qualify as human. We’re seeing insane hate crime violence—I mean, a six-year-old stabbed to death, three Palestinian students being shot at point-blank range,” Albaba tells the INDY. “I hoped it would get better. I was idealistic. You look at the crime in 2015 and

you see these patterns and you see how it intersects with the parallel of the election cycle, and we have a tumultuous election cycle ahead of us. We’re seeing that spike in hate crimes again, as Arab Americans, and that feeling post-9/11.”

At the time of the Chapel Hill massacre, Craig Hicks, an unemployed former auto parts salesman, had a reputation for expressing both neighborly antagonism and a passionate antireligious stance. The victims had tried to appease Hicks, in the preceding months, and the night of the murders, when Hicks staked them out—walking into his apartment to get his gun, maneuvering through Deah and Yusor’s gate, knocking on their door—their cars were parked in the condominium-approved spots.

Nevertheless, when Hicks turned himself in that night—footage of Hicks speaking cozily with police during those hours is particularly chilling—a parking lot dispute is the explanation he offered police. They accepted it and that narrative took root.

The local tragedy immediately made waves: Vigils were held around the globe; President Barack Obama issued a statement (“No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship”); New Yorker writer Margaret Talbot reported a long-form story on it; and prominent figures like comedian Hasan Minhaj raised awareness. (Both Talbot and Minhaj participate in 36 Seconds.)

And the Barakat and Abu-Salha families—

in particular, Deah’s older sister, Suzanne Barakat, who also features prominently in the documentary—doggedly, and with great dignity, pursued justice, speaking up for the memory of Deah, Yusor, and Razan.

“We need to be honest about what happened,” Albaba says, speaking to the difficulties of securing a hate crime charge, particularly in North Carolina, where hate crime laws are particularly weak and are only classified as a misdemeanor. “How are you ever going to wrap your hands around a problem if you don’t know it exists? It needs to be on record.”

In the end, Hicks was sentenced to life in prison and the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to pursue felony hate crime charges, with local U.S. attorney Ripley Rand stating that there was “no additional punishment [Hicks] could have gotten that would have meant anything.”

Of course, though, that is a version of justice that puts Hicks at center. To the families of the victims, a hate crime charge would have meant a great deal. Even years later, that initial debasing explanation, hastily slapped onto a triple homicide, has left a mark, the culturally atomized word “dispute” forming an impression, faint but just distinct enough, of petty mutual responsibility. A dispute takes place between two aggrieved parties. A hate crime is systemic; it indicts a perpetrator and implicates the culture that shaped that perpetrator. It’s only becoming clearer that this culture has thrown its full weight behind that hateful shape. W INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

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DÉLANA R. A. DAMERON: REDWOOD COURT | Feb. 8, 5:30 p.m. (free)

Flyleaf Bookstore, Chapel Hill

Southern Snapshot Talking with DéLana R. A. Dameron about her debut novel, a coming-of-age story about a Black South Carolina family in the 90s.

BY KATIE MGONGOLWA arts@indyweek.com

S

outh Carolina poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel, Redwood Court, begins with the voice of a grandmother to her youngest granddaughter: “You have all these stories inside you: all the stories everyone in our family knows and all the stories everyone in our family tells. You write ’em in your books and show everyone who we are.” And so starts the powerful and tender exploration of Mika Tabor’s childhood and her Black, working-class family that parallels, in many ways, Dameron’s own childhood in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1990s.

Dameron, a 2007 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, is a homegrown storyteller with two acclaimed poetry collections. Her first novel’s powerful prose is a new gift altogether, crafting unforgettable, complex characters and anchored by a granddaughter intent on remembering and celebrating her family’s life and community.

Redwood Court, released February 6, has already received praise from the likes of Jacqueline Woodson, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Ann Napolitano, among others. Ahead of her mostly Southern tour, which will include a local reading at Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Bookstore, Dameron spoke with the INDY about what it means to write about family, Blackness, and the South.

INDY: Redwood Court is inspired

by your own childhood. Why did you choose to tell your family’s story through fiction rather than memoir?

DÉLANA R. A. DAMERON: I watch a lot of narrative dramas, and I don’t see what I’m doing as very different: taking real people, a real timeline, and to quote Tracy Chapman, filling in “the fiction in the space between.”

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Yes, the characters are very close to people in my family and my neighborhoods where I grew up, but I also filled in a lot of fiction in the space between what I know and what I imagined. In that way, they become different stories for me. I’m interested in telling a truthful story about ordinary Black Southern folks in a very specific time frame (the ’90s) in a very specific place (Columbia, South Carolina). I didn’t want accuracy to get in the way of that truth telling.

Are there any stories you heard from family members that contradicted your own memories?

Many people who the characters are based off of are no longer living. And since it’s not an accurate accounting of anyone’s life—even my own—but a fiction project, I felt I was given liberties to explore the truths I wanted to tell about growing up Black and Southern and suburban and all of the beautiful loving hardships that come with that territory.

What was your process for crafting this story?

As with all of my writing, I hand-wrote my brainstorms, my drafts, etc., so I have this collection of six Moleskine [notebooks] that make up Redwood Court—even character bios and the overall synopsis, notes from my editor and agent. I wrote anywhere I had a moment to sit and dream and remember and imagine.

I had started writing the project while I was still living in Brooklyn. I moved back to Columbia, South Carolina, at the end of 2019, and part of my reorientation became remembering. And writing. I returned to

Author DéLana R. A. Dameron. PHOTO BY COURTNEY D. GARVIN

an almost-empty homeland; by then, my father had passed. Both of my grandparents are long gone. My mother was unable to speak or move as a result of a severe stroke years before that. Writing Redwood Court comforted me. I could no longer physically go to my grandparents’ house, but I could write a world where it—and she, and for a while my grandfather—existed.

Why is now the right time for Redwood Court?

The time for books like Redwood Court is long overdue. I’m talking books by Black (for me, Southern) writers that aren’t necessarily about overcoming trauma or extreme hardship. The characters don’t have to be extraordinary or endowed with special powers. That they exist is enough. There are messages within the pages, sure. Some politics. But those aren’t the drivers of the narrative. They get to speak and live and be full-bodied in their navigation of the America with which they find themselves.

What writers and artists have inspired your own writing and craft?

Zora Neale Hurston’s attention to rural Southern Black folks and being true to how she represents them is a North Star for me. Toni Morrison’s Sula is a book I

return to again and again. James Baldwin’s collection of short stories Going to Meet the Man. The artist Kerry James Marshall had a huge exhibit up at the Met at the start of the year I began Redwood Court (2017), and I love this question because it’s all making sense now how it came together. I loved seeing floor-to-ceiling depictions of Black folks in everyday situations depicted by Marshall … in an especially white institution. There was no question about whom he focused his attention on.

I took that as the greatest permission I’ve ever been granted to explore as an artist.

You chose to title the book after the location Redwood Court. Tell us about what this setting means to you, and what is it like publishing a story about Black Southerners?

I thought a lot about place while writing this book. Specifically, about how the Black experience in contemporary culture is often a story of dichotomy: urban vs. rural.

Resourced vs. underresourced. Known geographical locations vs. fictional locations.

It was important to me to locate Redwood Court in a real, existing place. It was also important to acknowledge that while Columbia is (now) known for a few things, the city still doesn’t have a cultural identity in the way that some larger metropolitan

areas in its orbit do. This erasure of the city undoubtedly suggests the erasure of its inhabitants—and the utter invisibility of the Black folks who populate it.

But Columbia, South Carolina, is a real place. Within it, a real street: Redwood Court. Growing up in the 1990s, the people who loved me made that street feel like a small town. And because of the ways infrastructure ruled the movement of Black life, the neighborhood in which the court was located did operate like a small town—a collection of safe spaces to gather, do business, etc.

What are you working on now?

The project I’m hoping will come after Redwood Court is a novel about Black Southern horsemen in South Carolina. I’m currently calling it “Fairfield County,” and I’m so excited that I get to write my lived experience as a Black, Southern horsewoman into a book.

We don’t have many stories of Black horsemen written by Black people.

The project after that I hope is a novelin-verse about a Black military family in the middle of the 20th century. I believe my project as a writer who is also Black and Southern is to document the experience of Black, Southern folks across multiple generations. As a storyteller with multiple forms in my arsenal, I aspire to explore African American life across generations, and centuries, and genres—world-building for audiences though a Black Southern Centuries Cycle. W

Raleigh's Community Bookstore

EVENTS IN-STORE

John O’Connor: The Secret History of Bigfoot THUR 2.8 7:00 PM

IN-STORE

Stephanie Clare Smith: Everywhere the Undrowned TUES 2.13 7:00 PM

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

MEREDITH COLLEGE JONES CHAPEL

Alan Gratz: Heroes SUN 2.18 2:00 PM

Get tickets to these events and others at www.quailridgebooks.com www.quailridgebooks.com 919.828.1588 • North Hills 4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road, Raleigh, NC 27609 INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

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JILL MCCORKLE: OLD CRIMES: AND OTHER STORIES

Algonquin Books; January 2024

In Miniature Talking with Hillsborough writer Jill McCorkle about big secrets, small towns, and her new short story collection.

BY SHELBI POLK arts@indyweek.com

Jill McCorkle at her home in Hillsborough. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

T

he title of Jill McCorkle’s latest book, a short story collection called Old Crimes, hints at dramatic secrets. Some of the regrets embedded in those secrets are painful: In “The Lineman,” the second story in the collection, a man ruminates on his regret at cheating on his high school sweetheart but considers the great gift of his daughter from his second, rocky marriage. In the closing story, “Sparrow,” a town gratuitously discusses a woman’s murder-suicide, only later wondering if the story isn’t quite what it seems.

Many of the stories contain regrets over things left undone. In the title story, a woman thinks back to a neglected child she met on a rather listless vacation with her boyfriend. In “The Last Station,” a woman finally expresses her regret at all the years she spent placing her family, who don’t even remember her birthday, above herself.

The collection is largely set in an anonymous small town in the South, and a few have nearly recognizable North Carolina landmarks. They feel like they could be drawn from one community but also that they could take place anywhere—which is exactly what McCorkle wanted. The unifying themes—regret, selfishness, honesty— emerged as McCorkle was writing, coalescing into a collection that encompasses stories she wrote decades ago as well as some sparked by work on her last book, 2020’s Hieroglyphics. This retrospective attitude is 32

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one of McCorkle’s favorites to write. Since her first novels in the 1980s, McCorkle has written characters looking back over their lives.

McCorkle has been writing in and about the South for decades, with a few discursions to the Northeast. Originally from Lumberton, the Dos Passos Prize winner has spent years teaching at several universities, including UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and Harvard. Now based in Hillsborough, McCorkle recently retired from teaching creative writing at NC State University but says she plans to continue taking students at workshops and touring with Old Crimes this year. On the heels of the release, INDY sat down with McCorkle to discuss small-town mythologies, building believable towns, and why it’s so important to look back over your life.

INDY: Many of the stories in this

collection interact, and many take place in the same town. How did you balance this consistency of voice with how unique all these characters are?

JILL MCCORKLE: Oh, thank you for that.

I really wanted that effect of how every microcosm is similar in a lot of ways, that you could have a very similar experience in a different place and being a very different human. I wanted to paint portraits

of fully developed people but then show them interacting in ways and in places that have more of a universal feel. I kept coming back to something like the story “Sparrow,” where you’ve got parents gathered at a ball game. Though they may all look alike on the surface, they’re not. They’re bringing different stories and a lot of disagreements but still fitting under the umbrella of one place and the history of that place.

I used to do this prompt often with my classes, writing that kind of lore, the myths of a town, the stories that get told. And so often when that kind of conversation comes up, people refer to the child something happened to or abduction stories.

Those are definitely the kind of stories that paralyze a town and then become something much bigger.

I read in another interview that you were thinking about fairy tales with this collection, which surprised me because it’s definitely more on the realism side. But those stories of the kid wandering off into the forest—is that how you were thinking about fairy tales with this collection?

Absolutely. I grew up reading the real fairy tales. They were meant to be moral lessons, some more extreme than others and scary as a result. But there were lessons

in the stories, and I very much see the way these children are almost turned into saints in that regard. I love the threat of fairy tales in that way, the menace. Some end happily ever after, but not as often as you would think.

Oh, that’s great. I was also really curious about the title, Old Crimes. Many of these stories deal with regret, but many of the main crimes were by omission rather than commission. I think growing up Protestant, I forget that’s really a thing, you know? Can you dig into that a little bit more?

Yes, I think there are times when silence is pretty dangerous. And I think that a lot of our regrets in life probably do fall under that category of those times when you don’t speak, don’t act. Given where we are in the world, I think we’re in such a place.

It just bothers me any time life is made so simple that it’s this easy either/or, right/ wrong label for a person. I find that really threatening, because humans are a lot more complicated than that. It’s too easy to do away with many things in that way. I mean, I’m thinking in particular of the way one person can have had a positive influence in one way and have done something really terrible in life. Some of the characters there felt that way, and it was interest-

ing to me to do that because I don’t think any human is pure.

Not to immediately drop back to fairy tales, but those simplistic narratives about who is safe are often worse for us.

Yes, and we’re very often wrong when we form those quick judgments and first impressions.

I was struck by the different ways you looked at female characters wishing they had asserted their desires. These women who had sacrificed their whole lives and wished they’d been a little bit more selfish—I loved them.

I think that’s unfortunately a truth, right? I was in high school in the ’70s, with “We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” [a cigarette jingle] and Gloria Steinem. We had gone from the housewives on TV to Mary Tyler Moore, and things were looking up. They did not keep moving at that rate. In fact, there have been some giant steps backwards. I think that there are women, a little older than I am, especially, who really fell into that place. I think it could be true of a man as well, that you wake up one day and have that sudden realization that years have passed. And that’s a kind of regret, what you did not do or weren’t able to do, like the mother in “The Last Station,” out there with her cross. She’s letting it all out, the years of what she felt were sacrifices.

Another consistent theme was finding the right balance of honesty and selfishness. There’s a perfect amount of both that will keep a relationship functioning and also protect your personhood.

These balances are so specific, but you need them.

Right, you do. In my last novel, Hieroglyphics, there’s one character who was a dancer and taught dance, so she’s always talking about balance. And in her old age, she has decided, that’s the magic word: balance. I tend to agree with that. You could take a big swing in either direction, but I’m always thinking, Where’s the bridge between the two? Where is the cog that holds the pendulum?

Looking at both this book and your body of work, this posture of reflecting over the years seems like a place that you like to write from. Why is that a perspective you like so much?

You know, I just think I’m really interested in how we’re shaped by what has already happened, what happened early in life, oftentimes what happened to family members. As children, we hear the stories that are part of our family history, about things that happened before we were born. The best part about getting older is that you really can look behind you, and so many things are as clear as if there’s a map. And you begin to understand and recognize things that you could never have seen in the moment. There’s the wonderful opportunity to learn from ourselves that way, just by looking back and putting things in perspective.

Sometimes, I’ll look back and think about kids I was in school with, and it’ll suddenly occur to me, “Oh, wow. Their life was so much harder.” Or you learn one little detail about somebody you grew up with, their family or their situation, and suddenly, the light bulbs go off. And you sort of understand everything you thought you knew in a different way, you know?

There’s something very satisfying in that to me, that if you do live long enough, you do have the opportunity to make sense of it. Sadly, what everybody always says is “If only I could have this brain and that body.”

I think that’s the wish. But I told an audience recently that if I had to choose, I think I would take the mind over the body. It’s a tough choice some days.

You’ve mentioned before that you pull details from your life for your fiction. What is the process like of making those memories distant enough to fictionalize?

Usually, the characters and the situation are far removed, and what I use of mine are details or hobbies or interests that immediately make me feel close to those people. If I have a character remembering something in third grade, I can give them to my thirdgrade teacher or class.

I’m a big believer in the emotional truth, and that’s what we bring to the page. Flannery O’Connor, as controversial as she is these days and as mean as she could be, I’ve always really admired her whole thing about how you’ve sort of got all you need emotionally as a writer by the time you’re a teenager. I think that’s really true. We know what everything feels like. We know anger, we know love, we know grief. I’ve always encouraged my students to really reach back and reconnect with those primal emotions. When you first recognize and know all these things in their purest form, and then transpose that onto your character. W INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

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WED 2/7

THURS 2/8

FRI 2/9

LIKE TO PLAN AHEAD?

SAT 2/10

SUN 2/11

MON 2/12

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

SCREEN

Darren Kiely $20. 7 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

G. Love & Special Sauce 30th Anniversary Tour $40+. 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Crisis! The Music of Ornette Coleman $30.

7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

A Cappella South Quarterfinal $25+. 7 p.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Final Punishment $10+.

8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

36 Seconds: Portrait of a Hate Crime $13+. 7 p.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Purebred Mutts / Sugaree String Society / Chris Chism $10. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Let’s Groove Tonight: Motown Meets the Philly Sound – NC Symphony $55+. Feb. 9-10, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Wind Ensemble $35. 8 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Duke University, Durham.

The Hip Abduction $20+.

8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Eiriel $10+. 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Acha Debela: 35 Years of Service – Professor of Art Feb. 11-25. NC Central University Art Museum, Durham.

The Hotelier / Foxing $25. 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Until I Wake $17+.

7:30 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

STAGE STAGE Comedy Game Show $20+. 7:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

SCREEN A Raisin in the Sun $7.

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

Leah and Andrew Rudick $20+. Feb. 8-10, various times. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Ralph Barbosa $32+.

Feb. 8-10, various times.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

PAGE DéLana R. A. Dameron presents Redwood Court, with Katie Mgongolwa 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Niko Moon $30+. 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

ericdoa $22. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Rachel Baiman / Highland Reverie $15. 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Mali Valesques / Emma Geiger $15+. 8 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.

Winter Jam 2024 7 p.m.

PNC Arena, Raleigh.

Zenlarge $10+. 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Mega Colossus $12. 9 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Rebecca Kleinmann Quartet $20+. 7:30 p.m.

Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

ART

PAGE Poetry Series: Katherine Soniat and Eric Nelson 2:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

STAGE Step Afrika! $40+. 8 p.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

John O’Connor: The Secret History of Bigfoot $27.

7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Step Afrika! performs at the Carolina Theatre of Durham on Friday, February 9. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAROLINA THEATRE 34

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FIND OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR AT INDYWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

TUES 2/13

WED 2/14

THURS 2/15

MUSIC

PAGE

MUSIC

STAGE

MUSIC

STAGE

Boom Unit Brass Band $10+. 8 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.

Galentine’s Day Party 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill .

Andrea Bocelli $119+. 8 p.m.

PNC Arena, Raleigh.

Blackberry Smoke $35+.

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

Prohibition Comedy $27+.

7:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

LANY: a beautiful blur $40+. Feb. 13-14, 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Stephanie Clare Smith: Everywhere the Undrowned $20. 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Durham LoveRaiser $28+. 7:30 p.m. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham.

Drew and Ellie Holcomb: Feels Like Home Tour $37+.

Feb. 15-16, various times.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

PAGE

The Robert Cray Band: 50th Anniversary Tour $37+. 8 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.

STAGE Couples Therapy: A Comedy Show $22+. 8 p.m.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

SCREEN Plan C 6:30 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Squirrel Flower $18, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

TR in Concert: Sun Records Live $50+. Feb. 14-18, various times. Theatre Raleigh Arts Center, Raleigh.

Matt White $20+. 8:30 p.m.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Valentine’s Day with Mike Recine $25+. 8 p.m.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Rhymes and Reasons $15+.

7:30 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.

Saxsquatch Presents: Bigfoot Rave $15+. 8 p.m.

Motorco, Durham.

Hein de Haas presents How Migration Really Works: A Factful Guide to the Most Divisive Issue in Politics, with Kerilyn Schewel 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

The Stews $15+. Feb. 15-16, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

COMMUNITY Durham Mardi Gras Celebration 6 p.m. Motorco, Durham.

Matt White performs at Goodnights Comedy Club on Wednesday, February 14.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GOODNIGHTS COMEDY CLUB

UNC Faculty Jazz with Special Guest Sharel Cassity $20+. 7 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Saxsquatch performs at Motorco on Thursday, February 15. PHOTO COURTESY OF MOTORCO INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

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FRI 2/16

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SAT 2/17

MUSIC Beethoven Symphony No. 5 – NC Symphony $52+.

Feb. 16-17, 8 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

The Brook and the Bluff $22.50. 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Kenny Phelps-McKeown Trio $20+. 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Larry Fleet $39+. 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Nashville Songwriters $28+. 7:30 p.m. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham.

Contact Comfort $10+.

8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Katt Williams: The Dark Matter Tour $75+. 8 p.m.

PNC Arena, Raleigh.

STAGE

MUSIC

STAGE

SCREEN

Dianne McIntyre Group: In The Same Tongue $30+.

Feb. 16-17, 8 p.m. Reynolds Industries Theater, Duke University, Durham.

The Ciompi Quartet: Night Music 8 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Duke University, Durham.

Dancing with the Stars Live 2024 $69+. 4 and 8 p.m.

Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham.

The Gospel According to André $7. 2 p.m. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.

Dragmatic / Cage Bird Fancier / Secret Monkey Weekend $10. 8 pm. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Jorge Lozano H.: “Estado Civil: Ingobernable” $60+.

8:30 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

PAGE

Eric Rahill / Jack Bensinger $20+. Feb. 16-17, 8 p.m.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Faizon Love $27+. Feb. 16-18, various times.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

ART Past Forward: Native American Art from Gilcrease Museum Feb. 16–Apr. 28. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

Great Lake Swimmers $25.

8 p.m. Motorco, Durham.

Integrity Strings: Bach to Beyoncé $5+. 11 a.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Journey / TOTO $85.

7:30 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.

Soul AR: Afrofuturism Drag Show $10. 10 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.

Swan Lake $45+.

2 and 7 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Verity Den $10+. 8 p.m.

Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Dianne McIntyre Group performs In The Same Tongue at Reynolds Industries Theater on February 16-17.

Great Lake Swimmers performs at Motorco on Saturday, February 17.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DUKE ARTS

PHOTO COURTESY OF MOTORCO

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February 7, 2024

INDYweek.com

Alan Gratz: Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor 4 p.m.

Chapel Hill Public Library, Chapel Hill.

C U LT U R E CA L E NDA R

FIND OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR AT INDYWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

SUN 2/18

TUES 2/19

MON 2/20

MUSIC

MUSIC

MUSIC

5th Annual Cupid’s Jam $20. 12 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Nickel Creek / The Staves $45+. 8 p.m. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham.

Armand Hammer $20. 8 p.m. Motorco, Durham.

The Marian Consort $35.

4 p.m. Duke Chapel, Duke University, Durham.

Moving Boxes $10. 8 p.m.

Local 506, Chapel Hill.

STAGE Criminal Live $32+. 8 p.m.

Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Capstan $15. 8 p.m. Kings, Raleigh.

City of Caterpillar $18.

8 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.

Jazz Jam: The Music of Herbie Hancock $5+.

5:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

My Sister Maura / Step Friends / Annie Collette $10. 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

WED 2/21 MUSIC

STAGE

Sammy Rae and the Friends $25+. 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Blonde Redhead $30.

8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Triangle Youth Music $15+.

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

Tommy Prine $16. 8 p.m.

Pinhook, Durham.

Bianca Del Rio: Dead Inside Comedy Tour $39+. 8 p.m.

Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

STAGE

Matt Bellassai $27+. 8 p.m.

Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Solstice: A Winter Circus Experience $24+. 7 p.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham.

An Evening to Shine $18+.

7 p.m. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham.

PAGE Alan Gratz: Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor 2 p.m. Jones Chapel, Meredith College, Raleigh.

Capstan performs at Kings on Monday, February 20. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAT’S CRADLE INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

37

P U Z Z L ES CROSSWORD To download a pdf of this puzzle or view its solution, visit indyweek.com/puzzles-page

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720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705 10-6 Daily SU | DO | KU

Difficulty level: HARD

© 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’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!

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February 7, 2024

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INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com

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

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EMPLOYMENT Communications Coordinator If you’re passionate about American music and Southern culture, and ready to make a difference through powerful storytelling, this full-time position is for you. With almost 30 years of establishment, Music Maker Foundation is a nonprofit organization that seeks out carriers of America’s oldest roots music traditions, supporting marginalized musicians through grants, social services, and performance opportunities. Preserve and document American roots music while creating and managing editorial content, executing digital communication strategies, and contributing to outreach programs and events. Requirements include a Bachelor’s degree and 3-5 years of professional experience in communications or journalism. Visit https://musicmaker.org/communications-coordinator/ for the full posting.

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. $25/ hour. Start soon.

Resume to: teton2021@gmail.com IT Professionals Ent. Lvl to Sen. SW Automat. Test Engrs., SW Develop. In Test, Automat. Engrs, QA Anlysts, & Bus. Syst. Anlysts. are needed for our Durham, NC Office. Pls send resume, Cvr Ltr., & Sal. Req. to Perigon Infotech Inc at 4819 Emperor Blvd. #400, Durham, NC 27703

1/24/24 CROSSWORD SOLUTION

Sr. Analytics Software Tester SAS Institute Inc. seeks Sr. Analytics Software Tester in Cary, NC to apply expert skills in researching & numerically validating complicated algorithms using matrix programming or other complex software programming. Reqs: MS in Comp Sci, Elec Engrng, Math, Stats, or related field + 5 yrs exp or PhD in Comp Sci, Elec Engrng, Math, Stats, or related field + 2 yrs exp. May work remotely pursuant to SAS’ Flexible Work Prgm. For full reqs & to apply visit www.sas.com/careers and reference Job # 2024-35119.

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INDYweek.com February 7, 2024

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