is Made history
By Brian Howe, p.14
The historically Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro look to their past to shape their future with the Marian Cheek Jackson Center
Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill
Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill
VOL.
42 NO. 12
4 Since 2017 the City of Durham has added 25 miles of bike lanes. Still, commuting by bike feels like a game of Frogger. BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW
6 The Trump administration's freeze on refugee resettlement didn't just stop the flow of newcomers. It pulled the floor out from under those already here— including in North Carolina. BY HOPE ZHU
9 Talking with the organizer behind the Engaged Durhamites for Democracy newsletter. BY AMANDA ABRAMS
10 With several queer spaces closing, Raleigh's LGBTQ community is findng new ways to come together, during Pride Month and beyond. BY JASMINE
CULTURE
GALLUP
12 Every month, the Nasher Museum of Art offers special tours to individuals with dementia and their caregivers. These tours reinforce the power of art to connect. BY ANDREA RICHARDS
14 At the Marian Cheek Jackson Center in Chapel Hill, an ongoing oral history project in historical Black neighborhoods helps build a living archive. BY BRIAN HOWE
16 A legendary craft cocktail bar exands to Raleigh. BY NATION HAHN
18 Lunch Money: A jar of markers and a $10 shrimp and gumbo lunch combo at a Chapel Hill student staple. BY LENA GELLER
19 Gawker's former "editor of the internet" goes analog with a new coffee and book shop in Raleigh. BY JANE PORTER
22 Wilmington musician Mad Gallica brings her fever dream symphonies to the stage. BY LENA GELLER
3 Backtalk 24 Culture calendar
COVER Photos from the Marian Cheek Jackson Center on Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in Chapel Hill. The center works to preserve and amplify the history of historically Black communities of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. PHOTOS BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
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VINTAGE
Happens the students, commencement they (most, Sunday!! they supposed ing, and ly if they busy time? just plain do with households thrift stores away to could, and I fear they’d
From Instagram
Ha ha, story. Something is also a From Bluesky
I can much every likely belonged student/professor. angle’s does boggle ple chuck my labor.
From reader I loved finds and you felt in the garbage stand your this article. this immense items that there is W E M A D E T H I S
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WANT
Chloe Cassidy walks offstage after performing during a drag show at Legends Nightclub on Saturday, May 31, 2025, in Raleigh (see story, p. 10). PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS.
B A C K TA L K
Last month, Lena Geller wrote about salvaging $6,000 in clothes, furniture, and more left by departing Duke students—and the complicated feelings that came with her haul. The story has more than 40,000 views online and prompted a New York Times story featuring Lena. Readers had a lot to say:
From Instagram user RAINBOW. VINTAGE:
Happens in my town, too. In defense of the students, they have finals week, then commencement is that Saturday, and then they (most, anyway) have to be out on Sunday!! By noon in some cases. How are they supposed to organize packing, sorting, and donating all their stuff—especially if they don’t have a car—in that brief, busy time? And I’ve talked to many who just plain don’t know what they COULD do with it (which tells me they come from households that don’t routinely donate to thrift stores or food pantries or give things away to their community.) IMO the schools could, and should, take the lead on this, but I fear they’d have to be forced.
From Instagram user ICEKRM_:
Ha ha, this is a great alt-weekly kind of story. Something odd and interesting that is also a part of normal local life.
From Bluesky user JBSHEAR:
I can say with confidence that pretty much every nice piece of clothing I own likely belonged at some point to a Duke student/professor. Being a part of the Triangle’s scavenger class ain’t so bad, but it does boggle the mind how frequently people chuck stuff worth more than a week of my labor.
From reader ALI HUBER-DISLA by email:
I loved your article about the salvaged finds and the very heavy, mixed emotions you felt in getting those items and sorting in the garbage room to find them. I understand your feelings and really appreciate this article. I often feel, even at thrift stores, this immense mix of emotion of these nice items that people are getting rid of and that there is ALWAYS new stuff there. There is
this constant movement of people getting and getting rid of stuff. SO MUCH STUFF. Add onto that, that in your case, people weren’t even taking the time to donate it but just literally throwing it away.
I am going to sit with your article for a little bit and let that overwhelming frustration be present for a bit about so much stuff being just tossed away. But in the meantime I want to say, good for you! Good for you for going and getting the stuff. Good for you for sitting with those emotions and sharing them. And especially good for you for being a kick butt local journalist!!
Lena also recently wrote about Chapel Hill High School students staging a walkout to protest the war in Gaza. Students took their protest off school grounds after administrators cautioned them about using the word “genocide.” Readers shared their reactions:
From reader SUNNY OSMENT by email:
I just wanted to write to send a small token of gratitude for your excellent and fair reporting about the Chapel Hill High School walkout for Gaza. I am a Chapel Hill High School alumnus (I actually was on our school paper), and I am grateful that student voices are getting uplifted by the INDY. Your reporting thoughtfully engaged all the perspectives with curiosity and facts.
In a time where most mainstream, well-funded media and journalists in the United States have succumbed to the pressure of both-sidesism regarding the U.S.-funded genocidal annihilation of Palestinians, it’s more imperative than ever that journalists stop manufacturing the public’s consent to war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is so refreshing to have journalists of integrity—especially in our own cities!—who ask follow up questions when critics dismiss protests by invoking tropes that are simply not relevant equiva-
lents rather than regurgitating all perspectives for the sake of covering “all sides.” You modeled that in this piece. Thank you.
From reader AMY BURRIS by email:
While I was pleased to see the action of CH students to speak about the current situation in Gaza, I found the tone of the piece by Geller to be derailed by the fact that Geller chose to conclude the article with this quote [from counter-protesters]:
“‘… There are going to be consequences for these students.’
“‘It is absurd to support what Hamas is doing,’ the other counter-protester said.”
This action of measured, non-violent free speech is in no way indicative of supporting Hamas. While I realize these are not the author’s words, to leave this as the way to close the piece has the effect of placing unmistakable emphasis on this opinion. My experience as a reader, therefore, was to sense a bias being not so subtly communicated. I object to this.
From reader ELIN O’HARA SLAVICK by email:
I am so proud of the brave and empathetic Chapel Hill high school students who walked into the woods in protest of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, most of which is being carried out with U.S. weaponry and financing. The students are smarter than the school’s administration that attempted to censor them. Having taught at UNC Chapel Hill for 27 years, this relationship between students and an institution is typical and unfortunate. The administration should serve the students, listen to them, and always create spaces for more speech and the possibility for peace.
From Bluesky user JOYBELLA:
Saturn has finally ingressed Aries on May 25th. Expect more youth holding feet to fire.
Stay In Your Lane
As a bike commuter, I set out to understand Durham’s rules around bike lanes, how they get installed, and how they improve safety for everyone on the road.
BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW jlaidlaw@indyweek.com
I
’ve been a full-time bike commuter since 2014, when I sold the only car I’ve ever owned, a beat-up 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and fully embraced life on two wheels. “Cyclist” was not my identity. Bikes were just how I got from point A to point B.
But the streets of Durham radicalized me.
Bike commuting is like a game of Mario Kart where everyone has blue shells and gold stars except you.
Last September, after 11 years of cycling on the streets of Durham, I was T-boned by a driver in the traffic circle at Hope Valley Road and University Drive. The driver never yielded before entering the circle. Did they think they had more time before I got around? Did they expect me to yield because I was on a bike and they were in a car? I’ll never know the answer; the driver didn’t stick around long enough for me to ask.
I walked away from my brush with death without serious injury, but that’s never a given when bikes and cars clash.
Even my regular commute between Lakewood and the INDY office in downtown Durham is rife with obstacles. At the risk of making too many video game comparisons, each trip is a game of Frogger, weaving in and out of the bike lane to avoid neighbors who park on the street instead of their driveway, and gym rats at the Lakewood YMCA who use the nearby bike lane as overflow parking, and customers at the Lakewood Cocoa Cinnamon who park in front of the shop instead of in either of the adjoining parking lots or the massive sea of parking across the street, and the maintenance crews who park their work trucks in the protected bike lane next to Bell West End. And that’s just the half of my two-mile route that has bike lanes.
So, on the heels of National Bike Month, I decided to look into what the rules actually are when it comes to the Bull City’s bike lanes, what goes into implementing them, and what the data says about bike safety in Durham.
BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
The rules of the road
Section 66-310 of the City of Durham’s Code of Ordinances says, “Whenever a lane of traffic on any roadway is indicated by pavement marking or by a sign as being assigned as a bike lane, it is unlawful for the driver of a motorized vehicle, except electric assisted bicycles, electric scooters, or other types of micromobility devices, to occupy such lane for moving or parking, except that a driver may cross such lane to make a lawful turning movement, yielding the right-of-way to riders of bicycles, electric assisted bicycles, electric scooters, or other types of micromobility devices occupying such lane.”
Johnathan Bell, a Durham police officer with the Traffic and Crash Team (TACT), which investigates serious and fatal motor vehicle crashes, puts it in simpler terms.
“The bike lane is for bikes,” Bell says. “It’s not designed for vehicles to park in. It’s not designed for vehicles to pass and turn on the right. It’s not designed to stop there and run into a place and get a meal and all of these other things.”
In 2017, the city adopted the Bike+Walk Implementation Plan, a set of guidelines to help steer the development of bike lanes, sidewalks, and multiuse paths around the city. Erin Convery, a transportation planning manager with the City of Durham, says that the Bike+Walk Plan is shaped by community feedback and informs much of the design and prioritization of new transit infrastructure. The City of Durham and Durham County are currently updating the plan.
“We’re really focused on engagement and outreach, because that’s what informs the next several years worth of bike projects,” Convery says.
Educating residents on new bike lanes and other infrastructure starts long before the rubber meets the road. During the early planning phase for a new bike lane, the transportation department sends out teams to events, local businesses, and community gatherings to get input from residents about what projects they want the city to prioritize. These touchpoints often coincide with the location of the future project.
The city’s outreach efforts also serve as early educational opportunities for folks unfamiliar with how the new infrastructure works and how it will affect their neighborhood. In addition to in-person events, the transportation department sends mailers to residents and property owners within the proposed project area to share information about what’s to come.
TACT works in tandem with the city transportation department to analyze crash sites and design ways to prevent future incidents using what Bell calls the three Es: edu-
Bike Durham gathers at city hall during the annual Ride of Silence on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Durham.
PHOTO
cation, engineering, and enforcement. Bell also presents at driver’s education classes and says that he provides an entire section on bike and pedestrian safety, including how to navigate bike lanes.
Good design protects against bad behavior
Education and awareness can fall short, though, no matter how much outreach is performed. Transportation staff have to take into account human error or deliberate malfeasance. The design phase is where engineers can mitigate the potential for accidents and crashes by building in preventative features like vertical flex posts to “provide a visual cue and some level of barrier between vehicles to act as a deterrent for cars to enter the bike lane,” Convery says. For future projects, the city is looking to provide more vertical delineators, including concrete separation between vehicle and bike lanes, to reinforce protection for folks traveling in the bike lane.
“This puts the onus less on users of the facilities to know all the rules, and through design, helps people understand where they should be in the mix,” Convery says.
Transportation infrastructure is constantly evolving. In the past decade, there’s a good chance your regular commute has been altered by a new traffic circle, stop sign, stop light, crosswalk, speed bump, bike box, bus stop, or bike lane.
Since the last Bike+Walk Plan was adopted in 2017, the city has added 25 miles of bike lanes: enough miles to get you from
downtown Durham to downtown Raleigh (by car). Durham also added seven miles of neighborhood bike routes, also known as bike boulevards—streets with less traffic that the city has designated as alternatives to main thoroughfares for cyclists. Convery says the city has an additional 11 miles of new neighborhood bike routes in the design pipeline, as well as 4.5 miles of new vertical protection on existing bike lanes and three miles of new on-street bike lanes through the Downtown Durham Bike Lanes Project.
That’s a lot of new infrastructure, no matter your preferred mode of transportation.
Adjusting to a new reality on the road that includes something called a bike box takes time and patience, for drivers and cyclists alike. After installing new transit features, the transportation department relies on assistance from other groups like the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC), the city’s communications department, and nonprofits like Bike Durham to educate residents on how to use the facilities safely.
Not everyone is thrilled about the spot in front of their house that they’ve always parked in becoming a bike lane. But installing bike lanes often means additional traffic-calming measures like narrowing the travel lane for vehicles, which slows down vehicle speeds—a welcome byproduct of the new lanes even for folks who don’t plan on using them.
“That doesn’t resonate with every single person, but there are a lot of folks who are interested in slower vehicle speeds, even on their neighborhood streets,” Convery says. “So I think that being able to talk through the benefits beyond just for those who are
in the bike lane, while there are obviously clear benefits for those folks too, often helps people think about the bigger picture.”
Rejoice, drivers. Convery says the goal is not to eliminate all on-street parking. She says street parking can actually serve as “visual and physical friction” that makes people want to drive slower in some cases, and can be used as a buffer between the vehicle travel lane and the bike lane. Just make sure you check your blind spots before getting out of the car.
Safety first
Traffic violence in Durham has seen an uptick in recent years. From 2019 to 2023, Durham residents suffered 278 serious injuries from crashes, and 121 fatalities in the same time frame, according to Lauren Grove, Vision Zero coordinator with the City of Durham, who presented recommendations for how the city could curb traffic violence during a March city council work session.
At last week’s city budget public hearing, BPAC chair Mary Rose Fontana, who lives in South Durham, said that the lack of bike infrastructure in her neighborhood makes her commute dangerous. She praised the city council for investing in expansion of the city’s transit network.
“Every time I leave my house or watch my husband ride his bike to work, I worry about whether we will survive the half-mile distance to Fayetteville Street, a half mile of road where we have frequently been verbally threatened by drivers for merely existing on the road we live on,” Fontana said.
“People shouldn’t have to worry each day about whether their loved ones will make it home safely.”
In this year’s proposed city budget, city manager Bo Ferguson recommended $500,000 for Vision Zero initiatives and $1.2 million from the city’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) to continue moving forward on a possible two-way conversion of Roxboro and Mangum Streets.
The Durham Police Department is also investing resources into its fleet of bicycle officers. Officers who are exposed to the same bike infrastructure, and the same interactions with drivers, as other cyclists could be well positioned to make recommendations for how to improve public safety.
“Trust me, we definitely want to keep bicyclists safe, just the same as anyone else,” Bell says.
Folks who encounter traffic infractions can submit reports to the police department, but Bell also encourages residents to use Durham One Call, a portal for submitting non-emergency service requests like repainting a bike lane, filling a pothole, or towing a car that’s parked illegally.
Bell’s three Es (education, engineering, and enforcement) are about one central idea: safety. Each of us is responsible for educating ourselves on how our preferred mode of transportation fits into the bigger picture, and reeducating when new infrastructure changes that picture so that we can be good stewards of the road while coexisting with others.
“We just want to make sure that we’re being cautious,” Bell said, “because even if we’re right, we could still get hurt.” W
Above: Allison Simpson, 42, of Durham, has a black-and-red armband tied around her arm at CCB Plaza to symbolize and honor the lives lost and people injured while riding a bicycle on public roadways. Right: the annual Ride of Silence through downtown Durham. PHOTOS BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
The Welcome That Wasn’t
Durham, Greensboro and other communities across North Carolina prepared to greet refugees. Then the door slammed shut.
BY HOPE ZHU backtalk@indyweek.com
Two days after Christmas 2024, Mangar arrived in Greensboro’s Piedmont Triad International Airport in pouring rain. With him were his pregnant wife, their six children, and four suitcases packed with the weight of 13 years in Kenya’s refugee camps.
He had never seen North Carolina. His only glimpse came from a pamphlet handed to him by the International Organization for Migration. It mentioned a museum, a coliseum, and some mountains. “This is an old city where people have lived a long time,” he remembered thinking.
Born in 1989 during Sudan’s civil war—a conflict that killed more than 2 million—Mangar is Dinka, part of a Christian minority that bore the brunt of the fighting. The Assembly is withholding his last name due to security concerns. At 14, he was placed on a Red Cross flight to Lokichokio in northwest Kenya, then to Kakuma refugee camp, and later was relocated to Dadaab, another settlement in the eastern part of the country.
He waited nearly two decades for a call from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It
finally came when he was 36.
“I knew when a time like that would come, and I’ll just feel prepared in every situation,” he said.
While Mangar folded thick jackets for a winter he’d never known, Stephanie Chandler made calls. She works as a housing program manager at Church World Service Greensboro, helping newly arrived refugee families to find a roof to live under. She found them a three-bedroom unit tucked into a wooded part of central Greensboro, paid the deposit, and covered the first month’s rent.
She knew she was racing the clock. The country was about to install a president who had already once halted refugee resettlement—and promised to do it again.
An Impossible Task
For the staff and volunteers helping refugees rebuild their lives in the U.S., each arrival marked the end of a years-long journey through one of the world’s most inten-
sive vetting systems.
Federal law defines a refugee as someone who cannot return home due to persecution or a well-founded fear of it, based on “race, religion, nationality, social group, or political opinion.” Unlike asylum seekers, who must already be in the U.S. or at a port of entry to request protection, refugees are vetted abroad and mostly referred by UNHCR, U.S. embassies, or non-governmental organizations. For years, the resettlement program stood on rare bipartisan ground. But as displacement surged, that consensus cracked. Unfounded fears associating refugees with terrorism and economic strain crept in.
Still, for many Americans, especially evangelical Christians, the work has always been more than politics. Resettlement is a moral calling, rooted in faith and a duty to shelter those in need.
The economic argument, too, has gained strength. From 1990 to 2022, refugees added a net positive fiscal impact of $123.8 billion. They open businesses and join the workforce, sometimes at rates higher than native-born citizens despite greater barriers.
Nearly 20,000 refugees have arrived in North Carolina over the past decade. In Durham and Greensboro, their presence is woven into streetscapes: Vietnamese sandwich shops squeeze between laundromats; trays of pistachio-studded baklava gleam behind glass; and on Sundays, gospel in Swahili, French, and English spills out of modest storefront churches.
“Even though refugee resettlement is a humanitarian program—and I wish that was enough for most people—it isn’t always enough,” said Adam Clark, director of World Relief Durham. “The positive economic impact is becoming more and more part of our talking points. Refugees are just a very small slice of the total immigrant population, but even that small group brings over $8 billion to the U.S. each year.”
Church World Service (CWS) and World Relief are two of 10 nationwide organizations that hold a federal contract to support refugees with housing, education, and workforce preparation that can span years. As a second Trump term loomed, the end of those services sounded less like a possibility and more like a countdown.
The past holds a reminder. In 2018, the Trump administration slashed the annual refugee cap to 45,000—the lowest since 1980. By May that year, 134 resettlement offices nationwide had shut down or been barred from taking new cases.
The president alone sets the refugee cap, and with it, a lifeline. All North Carolina offices run by national resettlement agencies depend on the State Department’s ref-
Mangar at his apartment in Greensboro. PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY FOR THE ASSEMBLY
ugee bureau and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement for roughly 80 percent of their budget. Without that money, they can’t pay staff, secure apartments, or walk families through their first weeks.
This year, with Trump pledging more cuts on immigration programs, including ending the CBP One app for asylum seekers and rolling back Temporary Protected Status for several nationals, including Haitians and Venezuelans, resettlement agencies rushed to act.
Between September and December 2024, caseworkers and volunteers across North Carolina scrambled to place 924 newcomers, according to the State Department’s data. They secured housing, arranged medical care, and set up job interviews, knowing that the refugee admissions again teetered on suspension in a sweeping rollback of immigration policy.
“Soon, the gates will close—at least temporarily—to refugees and others seeking safety, as they did for our ancestors,” Marian Abernathy, a leader of Durham-based Judea Reform Congregation’s refugee resettlement and immigrant justice project, warned her congregation and immigrant supporters in a newsletter in November.
On January 20, 2025, the U.S. State Department froze refugee resettlement for a 90-day review. By May, the freeze still held, except for fifty-nine white South Africans who landed in Virginia and were fast-tracked through an expedited program. Meanwhile, ten thousand refugees already cleared for arrival remained barred from entry. At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on May 21, senators pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the freeze and the racial prioritization, to which Rubio responded: “The United States has the right to pick and choose who they allow in.”
The freeze didn’t just stop the flow of newcomers—it pulled the floor out from under those already here. The order halted the Reception and Placement program, a
lifeline for a refugee’s first 90 days in the U.S. Chaos unfolded over February as those who arrived most recently became the most vulnerable. World Relief Triad said the freeze stripped support from 99 recent arrivals and cut off assistance to 300 others. Church World Service of Durham announced that it was furloughing two-thirds of its staff who kept new arrivals housed and fed. Lutheran Services Carolinas in Salisbury halted its aid to recent refugees. The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Falling Apart
Mangar loves the news. While in the refugee camp, he scavenged every broadcast, magazine, and website. His first week in the U.S., he watched the inauguration on every screen. He’d heard the talk on immigration. He wasn’t worried.
“My arrival in the U.S. wasn’t by chance,” he said. “It was something that was given to me in a legal way, and I came here when the government knew that I was coming.”
As his family moved into the apartment Chandler secured after three weeks in the Extended Stay hotel, Mangar’s familiar itch to check the latest updates turned sour: the resettlement office was shrinking. The caseworker for Mangar’s family was furloughed. Most questions his family had now went to the volunteers, Lorrie and Len Nyland, who drove his wife to her prenatal check at nearby Cone Health Hospital and helped open the couple’s first bank account.
On February 5, Chandler logged into the blog she’s run since 2017 and wrote, “Our refugee resettlement office of 63 staff is now down to 18.”
She was among the 45 furloughed employees at Church World Service’s Greensboro office, joining hundreds of resettlement workers who were let go in a single sweep in cities and towns across the country.
Chandler described the first three days of furlough as “traumatic, foggy, confusing, and heartbreaking.” One moment, she cried. The next time, she was furious. “This is not just a terrible way to lose a job,” she added, “it’s painful because the CWS team was the best.”
Chandler is 55 and has lived in Greensboro for more than 30 years. Resettling refugees is what she calls her dream job, though it often feels like a scramble. Families, ranging from the size of one to a dozen, sometimes arrive with just days to find housing in a city where options are slim.
“I couldn’t place them in fancy places,” Chandler said. “But they were decent and safe.”
CWS now works with eight housing providers across Greensboro, a step up from the past when refugees were often placed in blighted neighborhoods. In 2018, a fire at the Summit-Cone apartment claimed the lives of five Congolese children. A 2021 North Carolina Health News investigation revealed that such housing challenges are typical among refugee placements, with families frequently placed in substandard conditions due to agency haste and limited options.
As resettlement agencies are laying off staff, refugees began knocking on the door of the community resource center serving immigrants, such as the Center for New North Carolinians, seeking better homes. “One guy came to me,” recalled Allyson Crickenberger, program director at the center. “He’d been followed home and beaten up. Five people are still living in that apartment.” She also saw a visible uptick in the number of clients asking for help to find jobs.
Filling the Gap
One evening in March, as soft dusk settled over Durham, Abernathy stood behind a small table inside the first floor of the two-story synagogue. Beside her stood Bethany Showalter, interim director of the CWS Durham office, her expression caught between hope and apology.
Above: Church World Service office in Greensboro. PHOTO
BY CAROLYN DE BERRY FOR THE ASSEMBLY Right: Church World Service at a protest outside the office of Sen. Thom Tillis in February 2025. PHOTO COURTESY OF STEPHANIE CHANDLER
In the auditorium, students from the Duke Chorale tuned their voices for a concert supporting the emergency fund to stabilize new arrivals.
Showalter, in a black blazer and a brittle smile, would soon face a crowd of retirees, many of whom had once personally sponsored refugees. Until just weeks earlier, they had all believed that new families were still on their way.
“Our program has been built over the years, and we’ve tried to continue to make it better, make it more holistic. Seeing it being dismantled right now is incredibly disheartening,” she told the audience, voice strained. “Being a welcoming presence, being a friend, goes a really long way. That cannot be taken away.”
She asked for any job leads for the nearly 200 refugees who arrived since October—the employment team at CWS, once eight strong, had been cut down to three. As she stepped down, Duke Chorale swelled into song: “An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind. And how deep that darkness, and the light is nowhere to be found.”
Abernathy didn’t just sit and listen. That same afternoon, she and her team walked into the office of an aide to Sen. Thom Tillis, pressing for the resumption of refugee admission.
“I wish we were furnishing homes,” she said, “Meeting families at the airport. Buying groceries. Walking them through social services. Doing what we’re supposed to do.”
At January’s end, she had sent Tillis a letter urging the same. He answered that he was “sympathetic to the plight of refugees, many of whom are escaping persecution or civil war,” but insisted immigration policy “must continue to prioritize the needs of Americans.” He added the President could raise admissions “at any time for an emergency situation.” The Assembly asked for further comments but received none before publication.
Judea Reform Congregation’s team has worked in resettlement since 2016, bolstering often underfunded agencies through the Syrian refugee crisis, Trump-era crackdowns, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Afghan influx after Kabul’s fall.
In December, bracing for a refugee program shutdown, Abernathy helped set up two welcome teams—part of a 2023 State Department effort to let Americans sponsor new arrivals. Homes were secured. Volunteers mapped grocery runs across the city. All of it came to a halt. Abernathy had seen refugee resettlement ebb and flow throughout the years, but nothing like this. “It’s worse than 2016,” she said, “The new arrivals stopped then, but there wasn’t an order saying to stop services for those who are already here.”
The resettlement agency has filed multiple lawsuits against the administration. As of May 6, the U.S. government asked the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals to narrow or clarify its ruling in Pacito v. Trump, in which the court required that a select group of 160 refugees continue to be processed and supported. The court also called for post-arrival services and benefits cut off in February to be restored.
By May 22, the administration confirmed it was working with agencies to help the same 160 refugees who were supposed to travel within two weeks of January 20. But it made no mention of others who had already arrived in the country, many just days before the freeze, and who were still waiting for the services they’d been promised. JRC helped welcome at least 50 people in January. They’d
stocked groceries for 87 in December. Some families were finding work. Others were still figuring out rent.
What came next would require razor-sharp coordination and the fierce dedication of a reserve army of volunteers—and, often, last-minute improvisation. Refugees were thrust into a safety net that had been slapped together. Whether it would sustain them—or buckle under strain—was anyone’s guess.
“The quality control for client services is what I’m more concerned about,” Clark of World Relief Durham said.
He doesn’t question the volunteers’ intentions. Quite the opposite. “Most are compassionate, driven people,” he said. But good intentions don’t always translate into effective service.
In Clark’s view, volunteers are being asked to fill shoes that were never theirs to wear. In the absence of a professional safety net, well-meaning people try to help, but the stakes are too high to rely on goodwill alone.
Still, Clark said, the local response made a difference.
“Thanks to the generosity of our community and many churches, we were able to keep our clients housed and meet their basic needs—food, medicine—for those first 90 days. That’s tremendous,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the case in every community where refugees have been.”
A Murky Future
In May, while the newcomers are still feeling their way through life in America, some of their helpers never came back.
Chandler received her official layoff notice on April 11. Some furloughed staff—mostly caseworkers, from what she could tell—had already been called back, including Mangar’s. The human resource office told her the reason was budget constraints. But some volunteers, including the Nylands, suspected that with no new arrivals, her
job of placing families in housing was no longer needed.
“It’s like, well, bummer,” Chandler said. “But I knew it was coming.”
The newcomers have help, and they’re moving forward, but there’s still plenty they don’t know.
Members of one JRC team helped organize a plan for a Syrian family they are helping. The mother is learning English through the Orange County Literacy Council. The children will attend two weeks of YMCA summer camp free to refugee families in their first year in the country.
Mangar landed an interview at a German manufacturing plant in Winston-Salem in late February. CWS, though stretched thin, had helped revise his résumé and passed it along to an employment partner.
His decent English gave him an edge. By March, he was assembling rotors and stators on a line for eight hours a day. The hourly wage, $18, was enough to cover the $1,600 rent, but not much else.
The family cut back to two meals a day. Sometimes his wife baked Kisra, the thin Sudanese flatbread, and simmered a broth that stretched across both lunch and dinner. Mangar picked up a night shift that ran from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m., so he could be home in the mornings.
Most weekdays, he carpooled home past midnight. His wife kept a light on. The children were often still awake for a late dinner. Mangar got them ready for school the next day.
Their weekends were noisier. The children tore down the hallway, flipping through cartoons and streaming apps set up by volunteers. When a clip of South Sudanese dancers filled the screen, they all paused, silent, eyes fixed on the screen. Mangar watched them and remembered: They used to dance like that at Sunday church in the camp. Even now, in a place where nothing was familiar, the sound of home found its opening. W
This story originally published online in The Assembly.
Above: Bethany Showalter, the interim director of Church World Service in Durham, speaks at a March 2025 concert. PHOTO BY HOPE ZHU FOR THE ASSEMBLY
Right: Mangar at his apartment in Greensboro.
PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY FOR THE ASSEMBLY
“We Are Powerful”
Does local activism make a difference? Kathryn Pollak, who organizes weekly protests and pens the Engaged Durhamites for Democracy newsletter, says yes.
BY AMANDA ABRAMS backtalk@indyweek.com
Are “regular people” increasingly drawn to activism under the Trump administration? Durham resident Kathryn Pollak thinks so. After all, she’s one of them. The Duke social psychologist and researcher had always canvassed for the Democratic Party before elections, but that was the extent of her political activism. Then came Trump’s second electoral victory.
Six months later, Pollak’s life has radically changed. In early February, she began sending out a daily Substack newsletter, Engaged Durhamites for Democracy, to a handful of people, offering upbeat news and upcoming activism opportunities. She uses the newsletter, which now has around 850 subscribers, to help galvanize people who otherwise might feel overwhelmed by everything going on. Pollak also spends time every day phoning her Washington, D.C., representatives, spreading the word to North Carolinians through calls and door-knocking, and
leading several weekly protests.
Pollak talked to the INDY about empowering people, the magic of 3.5 percent, and whether protesting makes a difference.
INDY: How did all of this start for you?
POLLACK: This last time canvassing, for Kamala, felt different. I was having a much harder time getting folks to vote. I was getting things like “You only show up every four years. You don’t care, you only want my vote.” That kind of came together for me: I can’t just go every four years. It is disingenuous. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I started emailing my friends, like 15 people, saying, “We should get together and talk about doing something, not just at election time.” But I didn’t know that I was going to be doing all this. It’s been very organic.
Do you have a particular angle?
My goal was to get people who have never been politically active to do stuff. We are powerful. We’re giving these people—politicians—our power, and if they don’t do what we need them to do, we will take our power and we will give it to somebody else. That’s how it works. But people don’t always think of themselves that way.
In your Substack, you wrote about a woman you encountered at a car inspection site. You thought she was probably a Trump supporter but asked her anyway how she thought things were going in this country. And she surprised you by saying “Things are crazy!”
Yeah, it shocked me. I almost didn’t do it. My voice was almost trembling when I was talking to her. But when she said it’s “crazy,” that was when I said, “Well, do you want to get more involved?” And she goes, “Yeah, I do.”
I appreciate how you emphasize listening and respect in these interactions.
Positivity is contagious, you know? We need to have compassion for the people who voted for this person. Why would they ever join us if we’re like, “You’re stupid” or “Get over yourself”? Compassion and kindness in the face of animosity is a powerful tool.
Do you have a goal of talking to a certain number of people every day?
No. But I talk to almost everybody if I’m in any kind of situation where there’s enough time to have a conversation. I played tennis today and got two players to sign up for the Substack. We need to grow this movement. I’ve heard it from so many different places: if you get 3.5 percent of the population resisting consistently, the regime topples. We need 11 million people.
You write about protests in the area. Do you organize the protests at the Raleigh Tesla dealership?
Yes. I was terrified at first—I’d never organized a protest in my life. Usually we get around 100 people. We’re there every Friday now. And then we do our Tuesday morning protest on the bridge [over the Durham Freeway]. And now Avelo [at the airport, protesting the airline’s deportation flights]. Eighteen people are signed up for tomorrow, at seven in the morning!
on page 11
ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE
Pollak continues
Finding a Place for Pride
Long-standing queer spaces have experienced a shakeup in Raleigh recently, but as Out! Raleigh Pride and the LGBTQ community grow bigger than ever, queer residents are finding new ways to come together.
BY JASMINE GALLUP backtalk@indyweek.com
I
n the early 2000s, West Hargett Street in downtown Raleigh’s Warehouse District was the center of the gay scene, says drag queen Chloe Cassidy, born and raised in Raleigh.
“You had CC’s [nightclub], you had Flex down the street, you had Legends, you had the White Rabbit, Our Place,” she says. “It was a sacred space. It was our street. It was just our little gayborhood.”
Cassidy, like many who grew up in the area, vividly remembers the first time she stepped into Legends, the iconic LGBTQ nightclub, around 2010. At age 18, it wasn’t just her first time in a bar but also one of the first times she felt deeply seen and accepted.
“I saw my first drag show there, and I just fell in love with the art form. I just was enamored with the costumes, the makeup, the lip-syncing,” Cassidy says. “It was electrifying. It was pretty much our version of Broadway, just for ourselves. I really miss those good old days.”
But as Legends moves out of its sprawling longtime home this summer, the last remnants of the “gayborhood” may be fading. Now, half the businesses Cassidy rattles off have vanished, leaving behind only a scattered collection of nostalgic stories, dead URLs, and “permanently closed” banners on Google Maps. White Rabbit Books and Things shut down in 2010. CC Nightclub, later known as 313, closed in 2013. And The Borough, which Cassidy describes as “an iconic restaurant,” closed in 2016. As anti-trans sentiment ramps up in North Carolina and the Trump administra-
tion continues to attack queer people, preserving safe spaces is crucial for the LGBTQ community and its allies.
While Wake County’s population growth has made the area more liberal than ever— with generally increasing numbers of residents voting blue in the last five presidential elections—higher lease rates, lower post-pandemic foot traffic, and an uncertain economic climate have created new challenges for small businesses, including historically queer LGBTQ spaces. And this year, as in the early 2000s, there’s been a major shake-up.
Preserving LGBTQ spaces
In mid-March, longtime LGBTQ business The Green Monkey closed its doors after 12 years downtown, prompting an outpouring of fond remembrances on social media. Much of the support came too late, however, says Rusty Sutton, who owned the unique gift and bottle shop with his husband, Drew Temple.
“Don’t come to us when we’re going out. You got to keep us from that point,” Sutton says. “You need to support your queerowned spaces, or they’re going to be gone. And most of the time, we don’t miss it until it’s gone.”
Sutton is proud of the business’s long run, and says he and Temple were ready to retire. But even as Raleigh becomes more accepting, he remains concerned about preserving queer spaces.
“When we closed the Monkey down, I had
people come up to me and say, ‘You were my home. You made us feel safe. You helped me come out to my children. You helped me come out to my parents,’” Sutton says. “That’s what you lost. And that’s what you lose with a lot of your safe spaces.”
In early May, nightclub Ruby Deluxe also shut down after prolonged financial troubles. The club has faced criticism in recent years, with several performers and employees accusing the owner of mismanagement. Still, for a long time, Ruby Deluxe was a vibrant gathering place.
“It was like the Studio 54 of Raleigh in its heyday,” says Breniecia Reuben, aka DJ Luxe Posh. “Packed to the gills, all sorts of people.”
A longtime local DJ, Reuben says she’s noticed a decline in bar and club goers over the years, especially since the COVID pandemic. She thinks young people are drinking less, which, though part of a larger healthfirst movement, drives less traffic to bars and clubs. As a result, there’s been a significant decentralization of the queer community, as well as a decrease in LGBTQ+ nightlife. For drag queens like Cassidy, that means fewer places to perform.
“Back in the day, Raleigh used to be the place where you could go club-hopping and go to four or five different places to have those really cool, fun queer experiences,”
Reuben says. “But it doesn’t exist anymore.” On the other hand, “queer folks aren’t primarily just going to gay bars anymore,” Reuben adds. “They’re going all over the place if it has a market for them.”
When Legends first opened in the early 1990s, the warehouse district was an isolated haven for people who were ostracized by the broader community. Now, there are drag brunches in businesses across town, rainbow flags in coffee shop windows, and much more widespread acceptance and celebration of queer people.
“I like to see us represented in all the quarters of the city,” Sutton says. “We don’t have a gay district, and that’s fine, because we want to show everybody that we are just like them. We’re your neighbors, we’re your doctors, we’re your attorneys, we’re your entrepreneurs.”
Looking toward the future, Reuben says she thinks the LGBTQ community is “strong and connected” but in need of more “third places” to congregate during the day. Some of those places are already popping up, like Blackbird Books and Coffee, an LGBTQ-inclusive business that opened in 2023 in City Market. But new or old, the continued existence of these businesses depends on people showing up.
“If people want to still have these safe spaces, they need to come out and sup-
Chloe Cassidy hosts a drag show at Legends Nightclub in Raleigh PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
port them,” says Trevor Keller, manager and booking director of Legends. “We love to go to these fancy new places … but these are the minority bars that have always been there for [LGBTQ] people. It’s really just getting people out and still being in those spaces that are for them.”
Creating joyful spaces
Even as many brick-and-mortar businesses struggle, Raleigh’s annual Pride Month celebration is expected to be bigger and better than ever this year, says Kori Hennessey, executive director of the LGBT Center of Raleigh.
“We definitely have a bigger footprint than we did eight years ago, when I first got involved,” Hennessey says. “It’s an opportunity to come together and really feel part of the community, feel that belonging.”
Launched in 2011, Out! Raleigh Pride has since become a major event in the city. Attendance numbers have spiked notably since 2022, says Hennessey, when about 75,000 people gathered on Fayetteville Street to create a rainbow of color. In 2023, that number rose to about 90,000, and last year the festival hit a major milestone with 100,000 attendees.
Before and after the COVID pandemic, organizers have also managed to secure major headliners from the reality series RuPaul’s Drag Race, making Raleigh a destination for drag performers and fans. At this year’s Out! Raleigh Pride festival, the lineup of performers includes season 16 winner Nymphia Wind and season 15 winner Sasha Colby.
Are people becoming more engaged, or less?
I’m seeing more energy. When Senator Tillis wouldn’t meet with us [for a town hall event], we found out that he was
having a luncheon with his donors at a country club. Within two days, we had 100 people there, protesting outside of the country club.
But will any of this make a difference, ultimately?
At Legends, season 16 contestant Xunami Muse and season 15 contestants Sugar and Spice will be performing alongside local talent, making the nightclub’s last Pride on Hargett Street one to remember, says Keller. As Cassidy gears up to take the stage, she’s looking forward to “a chance to escape this crazy, crazy world,” she says. And if she can help audience members escape the oppressive political climate and troubles of daily life too, all the better.
“[Drag] is definitely a creative outlet for me. It’s like being on another planet …. I just drown everything out and perform to the music,” Cassidy says. “If I can take stress away from you for an hour or two, I feel great about that.”
Several major Pride events are also being organized by GAG! Raleigh, the LGBTQ+ event series cofounded in 2022 by Reuben and Trey Roberts, a Raleigh Pride cofounder and driving force behind the annual event. More than 1,000 tickets have already been sold for GAG! Queen, a night of dancing and drag at The Ritz, says Reuben.
“To me, dance floors have always been important,” she adds. “I’ve DJed through so many periods of time where it just felt really bleak. Just finding joy on the dance floor is a form of resistance. It is building an environment for people to feel free.”
In that way, there are always opportunities to create safe and inclusive spaces for LGBTQ+ people, says Reuben.
“Spaces come and go, but you can put glitter on the walls anywhere,” she says. “And with the right team and the right people coming to your event, it can be magical.” W
It’s already making a difference. Tillis voted against Ed Martin [for U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.]. That was huge, and the president withdrew [Martin’s] name. I feel like our calls to Tillis are working: he knows we’re paying attention. The more our elected officials realize that we are not happy and the lower the president’s ratings go, the safer they feel to separate from him and speak against him. And for the folks who already agree with us, the more they see us, the more they feel supported and emboldened to take steps.
There’s another big protest coming up soon—are you part of that?
Yes, I’m part of the planning committee. It’s June 14. A lot of the nation is doing a “No Kings” theme, but [in Durham] we don’t want the attention to be on him; we want it to be on our rights. So “Liberty and Justice for All,” that’s our theme. W
Kathryn Pollak PHOTO COURTESY OF DUKE UNIVERSITY
Pollak continued from page 9
Chloe Cassidy puts on makeup before the next drag show at Legends Nightclub
PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
REFLECTIONS PROGRAM
The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University | Second Tuesday of every month, 2 p.m | nasher.duke.edu/programs/reflections-alzheimers-program
ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE
Art Is Connection
Every month, the Nasher Museum of Art offers Reflections tours for individuals with dementia and their caregivers. For me, these afternoons are a sanctuary and a space to connect.
BY ANDREA RICHARDS arts@indyweek.com
My 86-year-old father and I are cutting up, causing a commotion at the end of a long table where we are creating a piece of art, alongside a group of other Nasher Museum of Art visitors.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and we are moving small pieces of plastic—broken CD cases, six-pack lids, discarded toys— so that they fit into a stencil in the shape of the United States. Our process is inspired by an artwork we saw earlier on our museum tour: artist Tony Cragg’s “Real Plastic Love,” a piece where the artist uses reclaimed bits of plastic to create two dynamic, dancing figures. Finding googly eyes, my dad holds them to his face. He’s already got a plastic pink bow (I think it once belonged to a Minnie Mouse) fashioned around the collar of his shirt
like a bow tie. His goofing off is encouraged by our collaborators—other visitors and museum docents, who laugh along with us.
My dad has always had charisma: a career military chaplain and former minister, he’s had a lifetime of practice in the art of shaking hands while cracking jokes. In the last few years, though, he’s slowed down, becoming less social due to dementia. As his Alzheimer’s progresses, it’s becoming harder to find places where he feels comfortable. Restaurants and stores are loud and unfamiliar, movies and sports too hard to follow, and the outdoors a physical challenge (like many folks his age, he uses a rollator).
That’s why the Nasher’s Reflections tours—which are offered monthly to the public and designed specifically for
individuals with dementia and Alzheimer’s and their caregivers—are so helpful. Reflections offers individuals with dementia an opportunity to interact with people and art. Due to the nature of the disease, which can be isolating and make individuals self-conscious in social situations, such an opportunity is important. While studies show artsbased activities may help slow cognitive deterioration, two more tangible benefits of the Reflections program happen immediately: the chance to engage in community and in art.
“One of the wonderful things about using visual art is that the object is right there in front of our visitors—they don’t need linear thinking,” says Ruth Caccavale, a museum educator who has worked on the Reflections program since its inception more than a decade ago. “They don’t need to remember what was just said or the historical context of the work—they can keep referring to what they see right in front of them.”
Each monthly Reflections program begins with what the museum calls a “radical welcome” in the main hall, where participants are met enthusiastically, offered name tags (important when you have memory issues), and introduced to the program’s facilitators, who also wear name tags. Another “radical” part of the welcome is that, since the program requires an RSVP, staff know whom to expect and are positioned in the parking lot to help with access to the museum, offering a golf cart for those with mobility issues. This is a thoughtful touch, especially given the construction and confusing nature of parking on Duke’s campus.
After the welcome, docents lead a 45-minute tour that explores two or three works of art—chairs are provided in front of each work of art, prioritizing visitor comfort. The docents, many of whom have worked in the program for years, facilitate a free-flow discussion, asking questions and taking in every comment, frequently calling visitors by their names and encouraging dialogue.
“It’s not an art history class,” Caccavale says. “It’s a conversation.”
After the tour, the program alternates between a 45-minute art-making activity (like our collage-making one) or a music program, featuring professional musicians playing right in the galleries. When Reflections first began the program, Caccavale recounts, staff initially planned to host
the program on Monday, the day the museum is closed to the public. They switched gears when they realized that attendees wanted access to the café. And for one more important reason: “The other benefit to that is it’s another opportunity to normalize dementia for the rest of our staff,” Caccavale says.
Normalizing dementia is necessary for many reasons. The disease is becoming much more common: According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 210,500 North Carolinians over age 65 have Alzheimer’s (that’s 11.6 percent of the population over 65), assisted by the 373,000 caregivers helping them through it. And just as it is in the rest of the nation, Alzheimer’s is a growing public health crisis in our state. Enhancing the quality of life for these families matters, and making arts and cultural resources more accessible to this growing population is one way to help.
“The challenge of this program,” says Caccavale, “is that we want to keep it small—a tour for 50 is not the same as a tour for 14 [the number that caps a Reflections group].” Reflections works because the small group size allows for intimacy and individualized attention and care. As Reflections program coordinator Laura Tuson attests, the small size is a big plus: “One of the caregivers
commented that her mom loves music but could no longer go to the symphony—the huge crowds were too much. Being in a smaller group and having the musician 10 feet away was really appealing.”
Caccavale describes the constraints of the group size as a “balancing act,” as her staff works to make the Nasher’s program more accessible to diverse communities within Durham. Along with leading multiple, regular tours for the Duke Dementia Family Support Program, the museum offers the public program (sign up online to get on the mailing list for RSVPs) and a virtual Zoom one once a month as well for folks who can’t get to the museum. They also work with assisted living communities and other community organizations to arrange tours.
For Caccavale, expansion holds meaning beyond having more people with dementia come to the Nasher: “What we want is for everyone in the community to be on board creating programs for folks with dementia— the Lemur Center, Duke Chapel, DPAC, the Carolina Theatre, the ballpark,” she says.
This vision—and the possibilities for additional social connection and arts engagement it holds—is exciting for those of us navigating life with a loved one who has the disease. What if funding existed for a plethora of cultural activities created specifically
for people with dementia? While research shows the cognitive benefits of art and social activity—specifically for individuals with dementia but also for all of us—there’s one thing studies can’t show: the deep-hearted delight of connecting with a person you love but sometimes feel unable to access. This is the ongoing gift of the Reflections program for me—its tours provide time and space for me to connect, via art and art-related activities, to my father. And to do so
OTHER RESOURCES
in a community of other people who are also affected by dementia helps us all feel less alone. Along the way, there are unanticipated events, like my father goofing off with the art supplies or another patron describing a painting as “giving off a lot of heat,” that occur, quiet—and not so quiet— moments of real connection between people and paintings, people and art supplies, people and people, and in my case, a father and his daughter. W
Another local option for North Carolinians living with dementia is the Dementia Alliance of North Carolina’s Music and Memory at Home program, which supports the important role music plays in well-being. Like Reflections, the program is free of charge. The program provides a personalized playlist of music and easyto-use equipment for listening to it to people with dementia—there’s even “music detectives” who help individuals draft their playlists over Zoom. Then, a fully loaded digital music player is shipped to the individual, with all their favorite songs, along with headphones, a Bluetooth speaker, and an easy-to-follow written guide. (I can attest, the process and equipment are as close to foolproof as is humanly possible!)
While there is less IRL socialization in this program, it offers a vital arts-based therapy that can be used daily—and easily. Like the group art making we did at Reflections, the Music and Memory at Home kit brings my family some shared joy—and that is a beautiful thing.
Library Series
History Is Made
The historically Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro look to their past to shape their future with the Marian Cheek Jackson Center.
BY BRIAN HOWE arts@indyweek.com
Alibrary can be a place to borrow the latest best seller or use the internet, but it can also be a living archive—a place where a people remembers itself. In this sense, a very special one is growing in a little brick house with white lacework columns on the Rosemary Street boundary between downtown and Northside.
The Marian Cheek Jackson Center, a nonprofit, works in many advocacy areas. They’re all connected by From the Rock Wall, a website containing hundreds of interviews and counting with residents of Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin Top—three historically Black neighborhoods in Chapel Hill and Carrboro just west of UNC-Chapel Hill, whose fates have been shaped by the university’s fortunes.
“These aren’t neighborhoods that are of the past or dissolving in front of us,” says Kathryn Wall, the center’s co-director of public history alongside Anna Spencer. “They’re always growing and changing, and we hope to continue to record oral histories that amplify new kinds of stories.”
In 2007, Della Pollock, a UNC professor, and Troy Harrison, then the pastor of St. Joseph C.M.E. Church, partnered to record oral histories of the Northside neighborhood. Marian Cheek Jackson was the church’s historian and had lived in Pine Knolls all her life. Her father helped form the first janitorial association at UNC. With her deep roots in the community, the church, and the college, Jackson gave interviews that helped shape the vision for a documentary
THE MARIAN CHEEK
JACKSON CENTER
512 W. ROSEMARY ST. CHAPEL HILL
JACKSONCENTER.INFO FROMTHEROCKWALL.ORG
effort led and owned by the community, not spirited away to academia. Thus she became the center’s namesake and the source of its motto: “Without the past, you have no future.”
The Marian Cheek Jackson Center, a nonprofit, was officially established in 2009, upstairs at St. Joseph, and now rents the church’s former parsonage as its office. After more than a decade of gathering interviews, it launched From the Rock Wall in 2021, forming a community review board in the process.
“Everything was done in collaboration with the community, from the colors of the interface to how it works,” Wall says. “You don’t interact with it like a finding aid for an academic library. When you click on somebody’s name, the first thing you see is a photograph and their own words, not somebody else telling their story.”
William Gattis, born in Tin Top in 1946, is a community review board member. When he steps outside of the Jackson Center, he sees the remnants of an older world, especially in historic churches that have withstood more than a century of torrential change.
But in his mind’s eye, he can still see a self-reliant city that’s still just a lick away from country. “Right down from the house, we had a spring where we’d go get water, and Grandpa must have had some pigs and cows there too,” he
The Freedom Fighters Gateway outside St. Joseph C.M.E. Church. The monument features photographs and quotes from civil rights activists from the Northside neighborhood.
PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
says, recalling the Chapel Hill of his youth. He also sees the Midway, the Black business district that bloomed around Rosemary and Graham in the mid-20th century. He sees Charlie Mason’s grocery, the Hollywood Theater, and the Lincoln Car Center, where he used to check out his reflection in the big picture window as he walked by.
“We had the culture right here in the community, and that’s what I miss now,” he says. “To grow up where you have your own house, your own businesses, you have sheroes and heroes. You could imagine who you wanted to be like, you see. We get to remind people of once upon a time—but not necessarily in a storybook, but real life and real people and real possibilities.”
Northside’s Black population has been heavily displaced by student rental properties, dropping by almost half from 1989 to 2010 before beginning to regrow in 2017, according to an interactive timeline on the center’s website. This attrition has been driven by property taxes that are too high for fixed incomes and values that bring pressure from outside developers.
“If you walk through the neighborhood, you’ll see big twoand three-story houses with nine cars parked out back,
right next to a single-family home that somebody’s lived in for 60 years,” Wall says. “A story was related to me of a student living in one of these rental houses asking why there were so many older Black people living in a student neighborhood.”
Raising this awareness is part of the Gateways Project, a collaboration with the Northside Neighborhood Initiative. The Freedom Fighters Gateway has stood before St. Joseph since 2017: a low wall with the pictures and words of local civil rights heroes on black granite slabs in Chatham stone.
Building is a prominent thread in From the Rock Wall, and a second gateway for builders is currently being planned. Enslaved people laid campus fixtures like Old East, Gerrard Hall, and the stone walls lining the paths, and “after emancipation, many of them took the skills that they had learned and turned them into their own entrepreneurial pursuits,” Wall says. “So there’s a huge tradition of building and masonry in the community.” Gateways for educators and faith leaders in historically Black neighborhoods are envisioned for the future.
These projects just scratch the surface of the Jackson Center’s activity. Other programs with separate staff work
to promote affordable housing and curtail development more directly, educate the youth through programs like the summer Freedom School, or engage UNC students—who are not, after all, the enemy.
“Students don’t know the history of the house they’re renting, but when we reach out to them about it, they’re fascinated by it, and very often they want to get to know their neighbors,” says Wall, who throws transcribing parties with pizza for big groups of students. “We hear a lot, ‘That was fascinating; can you give me more clips by that person?’ It’s become a great way to get students involved.”
The idea of From the Rock Wall as a library resonates with William Gattis because, in the 1970s, he was the bookmobile librarian for the Chapel Hill Public Library, and he believes in the power of stories that Wall’s example demonstrates—not just to preserve the past but also to shape the future.
“If I can whet your imagination, as this history does, then you can soar like Jonathan Seagull,” he says. “You can soar as high as you want to and be as sharp with your eyesight as an eagle, because my hope is that you will be able to see further than me and accomplish more than me.” W
Clockwise from top left: William Gattis, 79, of Carrboro, recites a poem by Mavis B. Mixon entitled “I Am a Negro,” during an oral history interview; (from left) Anna Spencer and Kathryn Wall, co-directors of public history; (from left) Kathryn Wall, co-director of public history, and Pat Jackson, a board member and the daughter-in-law of Marian Cheek Jackson, interview William Gattis; a banner depicting Marian Cheek Jackson.
PHOTOS BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
Good Spirits
With a third location of his legendary craft cocktail bar open in Raleigh, Gary Crunkleton’s third act takes shape. This new spot has a modern feel.
BY NATION HAHN food@indyweek.com
“There is a scene from the movie The Deer Hunter that I love. It has inspired me in many ways as a barman,” says Gary Crunkleton.
You might be surprised to hear a 1978 war drama touted as inspirational material by a well-known bartender and entrepreneur. If you are, you may not have spent enough time with this particular bartender.
I first met Crunkleton in 2007 when he was behind the bar at Town Hall Grill. Back then, he was already known by regulars for his warm hospitality and wide-ranging knowledge of cocktail history. From the start, I considered him a friend. At the time, I was working on a political campaign, and he provided me with a morale boost alongside each drink order. He was even kind enough to toss political debates up on the Chapel Hill restaurant’s television to the dismay of everyone else in the room.
Crunkleton brought an even-keeled approach to his hospitality. On some evenings, you could see the teacher he
had once been when he taught you something about the origin of a certain cocktail. On other evenings, you could see the lawyer he had once planned to be, as he debated the merits of a certain drink.
What I would not have predicted, at the time, is that he would become one of the faces of the bourbon and cocktail boom upon launching The Crunkleton in 2008.
Looking back, Crunkleton says his vision was simple: “The cocktail renaissance was happening in New York, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. We wanted to capture the drink-making style that celebrated the cocktail renaissance in those big cities and offer it to North Carolina.”
What seems commonplace now felt a bit bolder 17 years ago.
“It seems hard to believe, but at that time, no one in the South was doing a bar program driven by classic cocktails from the 1870s to the 1950s,” he says.
By keeping a focus trained on this vision, Crunkleton cre-
ated not just a bar but a well-earned national reputation. Magazine features and profiles followed, and you could count on finding Crunkleton featured in what seemed like every third book published on bourbon during the 2010s.
In 2018, The Crunkleton opened its doors in Charlotte. Crunkleton partnered with 1957 Hospitality, a management/ownership group, to expand the bar’s offerings to include food. The partnership also extended its ambitions as a fuller team came together: chef Greg Balch brought a vision to the kitchen, Hannah Smith developed the front-of-house approach, and Ryan Hart brought creative direction and vision.
One differentiator: The Crunkleton in Charlotte chose live wood fire as its main cooking format.
Hart, one of the owners and a creative director at 1957 Hospitality, emphasizes that the main aspect of the move meant that the core identity needed to remain intact: “While The Crunkleton Charlotte added food, we still look at ourselves as a great neighborhood bar.”
This successful formula would become the blueprint for The Crunkleton’s next stop: Raleigh’s Smoky Hollow development.
A vision that wouldn’t die
The path to opening in Raleigh was not short. Announced several years ago, the project faced hurdles that led some to question whether it would open at all.
“The Crunkleton at Smoky Hollow in Raleigh struggled with raising adequate funding to start the construction. This happened after we had already signed the lease,” Crunkleton says. The combination of skyrocketing costs during the pandemic, market uncertainty, and broader economic headwinds caused significant swirl.
But the team kept pushing, and during a time that saw many restaurants pivoting, the Crunkleton team doubled down on their vision. The decision to persist wasn’t just business; it was personal to the ownership group: “Raleigh is where Hannah, Greg, and I grew up, so opening a concept in Raleigh is a dream come true,” says Hart.
Their resolve found crucial support from their development partners.
“Kane Realty, our landlords, were tremendously support-
The Crunkleton PHOTO BY CURTIS GROLL
ive,” Crunkleton says. “They considered us one of the premier establishments within the Smoky Hollow development. They worked with us to reach the finish line and get the restaurant opened.”
The location itself was part of the draw.
After touring six different developments throughout Raleigh, Crunkleton says the Smoky Hollow development checked “every box and then some” from the moment they first saw it. The development’s modern buildings and industrial character created the perfect backdrop for the new spot, according to Crunkleton. Hart adds that being “centrally located inside the Beltline and right off Capital Boulevard was extremely attractive,” positioning them to serve the downtown market while remaining accessible to folks across the Triangle.
The contemporary design of the Raleigh Crunkleton represents a deliberate evolution for the brand, and when you walk in, you will immediately sense that this location has its own identity. While the space feels more modern than its Chapel Hill and Charlotte predecessors, the team hopes to maintain the brand’s approachable essence and neighborhood feel.
Hart says he’s excited about what the new space can provide as the team grows into it.
“Raleigh has a lot of bells and whistles in the kitchen that Charlotte does not have the space for, so we are excited to see how the menu develops in this new space,” Hart says. “That will be where the concept evolves over time.”
Fire is the heart of the kitchen.
“Cooking on a live wood fire passes the test of time,” Crunkleton says. “When I pitched the live wood fire cooking idea to my business partners, I mentioned the old wagon trains that explored moving west and how they cooked on campfires.”
This foundational element touches every menu item that Chef Balch has dreamt up, from the absurdly delicious Seventh Street corn (a surprising standout) to the dry-rubbed, charred wings accompanied by Alabama white sauce that steal the show, despite the fact that I do not necessarily love wings. The Wagyu burger achieves a perfect balance of decadence and comfort, with aged cheddar and truffle aioli complementing caramelized onions. Market fish, hearth-roasted shishito peppers, and the impressive tomahawk steak round out a menu that manages to be both ambitious and approachable, depending on the day.
I also highly recommend saving room for the pecan pie with homemade ice cream. I’ve been trying to be mindful of my choices when eating out, but this is one you can’t skip. The warmth of the pecan pie combined with the salted caramel ice cream will bring a smile to your face.
The cocktails remain key. A perfectly executed Painkiller and the unique mai tai prove ideal companions for the warm evenings we find ourselves in now, while the Bourbon Bramble and Penicillin offer refreshing spins on classic cocktails.
The drink menu will always play the hits, as Crunkleton shares: “The classics
have passed the test of time. We may add an ingredient that is symbolic to a particular region, like pawpaws in North Carolina, but the drink is still a derivation from the classics.”
Crunkleton’s expertise with bourbon shines through the classic bourbon drinks the bar offers, although the antique bourbon collection will take time to build, due to North Carolina’s ABC regulations. During my earlier visits, I saw several folks coming in hoping to find the rare bourbons they had seen on the shelves in Chapel Hill or Charlotte without much luck. Over the next few months, the bourbon list will grow.
A philosophy of hospitality
“I have always considered The Crunkleton as a destination,” Crunkleton reflects. “I figured if we create a place that is wonderful, then people will want to come. We all want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, so why not The Crunkleton?”
This vision is perhaps best captured in Crunkleton’s unexpected cinematic inspiration, The Deer Hunter, that I referenced earlier: “The movie ends with the friends remembering the bonds created from their friendships and how that will endure. This ending scene captures the beauty of what is important in life and the value of friendships and community. The fact that all this happens in a bar is what inspires me.”
For Crunkleton and his team, quality food and drinks are merely a foundation. When
pressed about what truly sets them apart in a competitive market, he points to their approach to hospitality. This “secret sauce,” as he calls it, centers on creating genuine connections and memorable experiences through service they hope will feel both professional and warmly personal.
As downtown Raleigh continues to evolve, The Crunkleton hopes to stand as a testament to the staying power of quality and authenticity in a trend-driven industry.
“We look to reverse engineer what makes a 100-year-old restaurant successful,” Hart explains. “While trends come and go, we try to stay focused on deliciousness and delivering quality and valuation when you visit. Using the best ingredients we can and serving portion sizes that leave you feeling happy about the money you spent matters more to us than chasing fads.”
After multiple visits, I can tell you that they’ve succeeded in my mind. Whether you’re stopping in for happy hour drinks after a long day at the General Assembly, meeting friends for dinner, or celebrating a special occasion with a crowd, The Crunkleton delivers an experience that can feel equal parts comfortable and special occasion. In bringing together craft cocktails, wood-fired cuisine, and Crunkleton’s approach to hospitality, they’ve created something worth the twists and turns.
Like the great neighborhood bars it aspires to one day become, The Crunkleton feels less like a business and more like a natural gathering place—exactly as Gary Crunkleton always intended. W
The Crunkleton PHOTOS BY CURTIS GROLL
FOOD & DRINK
Po’Boys and Pleasant Chaos at Imbibe
A jar of markers and a $10 shrimp and gumbo lunch combo at the Chapel Hill student staple.
BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com
This story is part of a new column, Lunch Money, in which staff writer Lena Geller visits restaurants in the Triangle in an attempt to dine out for less than $15.
Before I even set foot inside Imbibe, my restaurant experience is off to an endearing, slightly chaotic start: while trying to preview the menu on their website, I click a link that inexplicably opens the FaceTime app on my laptop.
Imbibe is located just off Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. The restaurant has been through some identity shifts since opening in 2016: At some point, it started incorporating “Rougarou”—“werewolf” in Cajun French—into its name. It’s sometimes referenced as Rougarou (Imbibe), sometimes as Imbibe/Rougarou, and at other times just one or the other of the two. In a recent Instagram post, the restaurant refers to itself as “Rougarou/Imbibe/whatever you wanna call it.”
Imbibe (my chosen moniker, for the purposes of this story) sits below Zog’s, a quirky pool bar popular with UNC students. Both establishments are owned by Mandey Brown, a New Orleans native whose roots are evident in the decor and offerings at each space.
Walking into the restaurant on a Thursday afternoon, it’s dark and still, the ceiling fans motionless overhead. The Louisiana influence is unmistakable: Mardi Gras beads are draped from the ceiling, and Saints football memorabilia and “House of Voodoo” signs compete for wall space
with assorted mirrors, paintings, photographs, and clocks. Known for live music, the restaurant has a front section designated for musicians, complete with a piano and organ, though it’s quiet when I come in. The lunch menu is printed on paper and scattered across the tables (one long communal table and four elevated booths).
It offers plenty of options within my budget: there’s a $10 lunch combo where you choose a main (eight varieties of po’ boy topped with “bitchy pickles,” a rye grilled “cheez,” chicken tenders), a side (hush puppies, Zapp’s Voodoo chips, Cajun fries, gumbo, a rotating “dessert du jour”), and a drink (fountain drinks, hot tea, iced coffee), as well as a $10 shrimp and grits meal. There’s also an instruction: “Please order at the bar! It’s nothing personal; we’re just not staffed for table service .” I pepper the bartender with questions. Why is “cheez” spelled like that on the menu? “Just a fun way to spell cheese,” he shrugs. What are bitchy pickles? “Pickles in a spicy brine,” he says, adding that the pickles are not fried, an emphasis that suggests this must be a common point of confusion. What’s the dessert du jour? “Coconut and limoncello cake, but we’re out. The owner’s mom is dropping off more later today.” What would he recommend for a first-timer? “You like shrimp?” I nod. “Shrimp po’ boy.”
After I order the lunch combo with a blackened shrimp po’ boy, a cup of gumbo, and a fountain drink, the bartender has questions for me, too: Cheese or scallions on the gumbo? Both, I tell him. What kind of soda? He lists off generic options—cola, diet cola—and I stop him when he gets to lemon-lime.
My total rings up to $10.75 with tax. The receipt has checkboxes with 18, 20, and 25 percent tip options. This is the first spot I’ve been to for Lunch Money where I didn’t have to figure out what 20 percent was myself. I check the 20 percent box.
My food arrives quickly, delivered by a woman who turns out to be Mandey Brown, the owner. “Everything’s on the table for you,” she says, gesturing broadly. I survey what’s available: a Café du Monde coffee and chicory tin repurposed as a silverware holder, bottles of ketchup and sriracha, and a white-and-blue ceramic jar stuffed with markers.
“What are the markers for?” I ask.
Brown explains that there used to be paper covering the tables, but her dad, who’s supposed to be in charge of that task, hasn’t been keeping up with replacing it. Now people use the markers for whatever they want.
“Some people use them to destroy the menus,” Brown says. “One person
Lunch Money continues on page 20
The lunch combo at Imbibe PHOTO BY LENA GELLER
PA G E
A Different Kind of Traffic
Neetzan Zimmern, former Gawker “editor of the internet,” goes analog with The Newsagent’s, a cultural hub in Raleigh that he is opening with his wife, Yulia Shamis.
BY JANE PORTER jporter@indyweek.com
I n another timeline, journalist Neetzan Zimmerman was in charge of creating clickable stories that would drive millions of monthly page views to news websites such as Gawker, The Messenger, and The Hill
Now, Zimmerman and his wife, Yulia Shamis, a biomedical scientist with a doctoral degree, have plans to chase a different kind of traffic: foot traffic on downtown Raleigh’s newly reemerging Fayetteville Street.
This summer, the couple will open The Newsagent’s, a cultural hub located in the historic Mahler building in the heart of the City of Oaks. Part bookshop, part coffee shop, part event space, The Newsagent’s will be, in Zimmerman’s telling, a museum of the common, “a place where people can come and appreciate all sorts of cultural artifacts from the past, things that maybe have been neglected or forgotten or set aside too early.”
Things like cassette and VHS tapes, vinyl records and
magazines, paperback novels and comic books, CDs and DVDs. Zimmerman and Shamis see The Newsagent’s as a place to both retreat from technology and build community in. Throughout the sprawling ground floor and up some stairs into a cozy mezzanine, the space’s coffee bar, music section, gaming area, and comic book space is sure to lure analog aficionados. Tables and chairs and comfy couches stationed throughout—plus repurposed newspaper boxes serving as little free libraries—will invite those visitors to stay awhile.
“I’m not breaking new ground,” Zimmerman says of his vision. “I’m just trying to recapture something we’ve lost and something I think we need to find again. It’s important for society that we have these spaces and the time to spend with these artifacts, because they’re what make us human. They’re what contributes to our humanity.”
Zimmerman and Shamis met as students in Boston and
lived up and down the East and West Coasts—New York City, then Los Angeles, then San Diego—before landing in Raleigh a little under three years ago. Like many transplants to the Triangle, they were drawn to Raleigh’s relatively lower cost of living and family-friendly lifestyle and to the opportunity to become homeowners and business owners. Since the move, Zimmerman has immersed himself in downtown Raleigh’s history and culture and wants to contribute to Fayetteville Street’s ongoing revitalization.
“I just want to bring that downtown feel back,” he says. “I saw photos from the ’50s of Fayetteville Street, bustling, just humming with activity. People falling out of stores. I want to see that again.”
With grants from the City of Raleigh and assistance from the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, the couple has poured their energy into upfitting the circa 1876 Romanesque revival–style Mahler building at 228 Fayetteville Street. Raleigh’s third oldest existing building, the Mahler originally belonged to Frederick Mahler, a silversmith who ran a general store and jewelry business. Most recently, it served as Rory Parnell’s Mahler Fine Art Gallery.
After leasing the ground floor of the building from Parnell and the Worthy family, local titans of commercial real estate, Alison Croop of Louis Cherry Architecture helped the couple see their vision for the space through. Zimmerman and Shamis befriended sisters-in-law Hannah and Bre Brunswick, who own Blackbird Books and Coffee in City Market, and who connected them with Silver Lake Construction Co. for the build-out.
It hasn’t been an easy journey. A fire code snag that the city is working to resolve is a current holdup, Shamis explains, and, beyond “summer 2025,” the timeline for opening isn’t clear—but, as soon as the custom-made bookshelves are delivered, the couple will be able to host more than 100 people at a time in the space, an ideal capacity for movie screenings, guest lectures, book clubs, and other community events.
“We really stuck by [the Mahler building] through all of these bureaucratic issues, because we just feel so strongly that this place matches our vision for this, for what we’re building,” Zimmerman says.
The Newsagent’s singular focus on secondhand physi-
(From left) Owners Neetzan Zimmerman and Yulia Shamis PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
cal media may seem like a pivot for someone whose job once was to capture the attention of the masses in the digital realm with endless new content. But Zimmerman says his earlier work informs the current vision, and it’s the antithesis of the gatekeeping of knowledge, culture, and information that we see throughout much of modern society.
“I saw myself, first and foremost, as a storyteller,” Zimmerman says of his time as a journalist. “I saw myself as bridging the gap between people and information. People need information. I saw myself as the conduit to that information, and I saw it as my responsibility to break down that information in a way that was accessible. Access remains the primary focus of my work.”
As an editor and blogger for digital websites, Zimmerman had a knack for “generating Internet traffic, increasing page views, and unleashing viral content,” according to an alumni profile from his alma mater, UMass Boston. While cat videos and other clickbait may not have inherent news value, that content, and the advertising revenue that comes with it via web traffic, supplemented sites like Gawker’s more heavyweight reporting.
It’s a lesson Zimmerman carries forward. The Newsagent’s will “treat every piece of culture that we curate for our store as
deserving, regardless of its provenance, of its history,” he says.
“We take books that some might consider lower on the food chain, so to speak,” he says. “But we still acknowledge that it has a sizable audience, and that audience enjoys it for what it is. So we never look down on any culture, never make you feel bad for liking bodice-rippers or young adult fiction. Whatever it is that gets you to spend time with a piece of culture, we are into, and we want to help facilitate that.”
For Zimmerman and Shamis, there’s also a desire to give back—to a city that’s given the couple and their young daughter a new home, and to the culture that shaped kids of the ’80s and ’90s before the internet and the “virtual pain box” of social media (as a recent post labeled “Manifesto” on The Newsagent’s Instagram page describes) stole our attention.
“I’ve seen the dark side of digital media and where it’s gotten us,” Zimmerman says. “And so for me, a way of giving back is returning to a time, maybe before digital media, before a lot of these so-called advancements, when we had real interpersonal relationships and human, face-to-face interaction. Hiding behind a screen leads almost exclusively to negative outcomes. So, we want to bring people out. We want people to see their neighbors.” W
Clockwise from top left: The Newsagent’s bookstore will open in the historic Mahler Building later this summer and sell vintage media PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS; A flyer advertising The Newsagent’s bookstore PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS; A rendering of the A/V room at The Newsagent’s IMAGE COURTESY OF LOUIS CHERRY ARCHITECTURE.
Lunch Money continued from page 18
used them to ruin a painting that I did.” She points to a small framed artwork on the wall next to my table. It’s a painting of a corked glass bottle labeled “Mürk.”
Toward the bottom of the canvas, someone has drawn a crooked green line. (I discover a few days later that Imbibe’s relationship with local art extends beyond wall space: for $5, you can purchase a piece through their online ordering form, which is accessible with no FaceTime incidents at the time of writing. It’s a “grab bag situation” where you choose one parameter—“inspirational (non-religious),” “a wooden block painted by a child,” “comic art a little risque,” and so on—and “get what you get.”)
The gumbo is served in a small square white mug, packed with shredded chicken, andouille sausage, tomatoes, celery, and rice. The cheese I requested reveals itself gradually, stretching like spider silk when I lift my spoon. It’s hearty and filling, though not particularly memorable.
The po’ boy is more successful. The shrimp are kissed with a proper char, and the pickles have a nice kick, as advertised. The bread is a bit stale, but the generous smear of remoulade gradually mellows the staleness with each bite. It’s exactly the right portion size for lunch, substantial enough to satisfy without leaving me sluggish.
As I finish eating, I can’t resist the markers. I draw a shrimp on a napkin and leave it on the table as I head out. W
Dishes and details at Imbibe PHOTOS BY LENA GELLER
June 19; 8 p.m. | Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh
Out of Body
Two years after leaving the Swedish heavy metal band Ghost, Wilmington “rock popera” musician Mad Gallica brings her fever dream symphonies to the stage.
BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com
During a three-year period of mysterious sickness that left her largely bedridden, Dylan Louise Linehan discovered something otherworldly.
“I would be lying awake, eyes open, totally aware of being in the present moment,” she says, “and I would hear these choirs and orchestrations just blaring in my ears as if I was in the orchestra pit.”
More than a decade later, Linehan—now recovered and performing as Mad Gallica— is preparing to bring her fever dream symphonies to life at Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre on June 19.
The Wilmington native launched her solo career in late 2023 after spending five years as a touring keyboardist and backing vocalist for Ghost, the Swedish heavy metal band that recently became the first hard rock act to top the Billboard albums chart since AC/DC’s Power Up in 2020.
Known for grandiose performances where a frontman with skull makeup is backed by masked musicians, Ghost provided Linehan with what she calls “a master class in performance and building a vision.” Originally, the band required absolute anonymity from its members, known as “Nameless Ghouls.” Those rules have loosened somewhat over the past several years, allowing former members like Linehan to discuss their involvement.
While on tour with Ghost, Linehan was cultivating a dynamic vision of her own.
Videos on her Mad Gallica YouTube channel include everything from a one-womanband cover of “Jolene”—where she cycles through multiple costumes and instruments, at one moment singing demonic harmonies from a theater box before cutting to headbanging on stage with a keytar—to a recorded livestream called “LIVE FROM THE INFINITE VOID!!” where she performs an eclectic set ranging from Etta James and Neil Young to the Appalachian murder ballad “Tom Dooley.”
Throughout her years with Ghost, she tested her solo material—which she generally categorizes as “rock popera”—at small venues and found a different kind of fulfillment in those personal performances.
“It’s such an exciting experience when you’re performing at that level, in front of thousands of people,” Linehan says, of her time with Ghost. “But it’s also a thrilling experience to be performing your own music in front of 100 people that are five feet away from you.”
She ultimately decided to transition from being a Nameless Ghoul to Mad Gallica, a name inspired by the “Gallica Rose Nebula”—a fantasy realm she had conceived during her illness.
The illness began while Linehan was in college in what initially seemed like a particularly rough bout with mono. As the condition stretched on, doctors found evidence of multiple viruses but couldn’t identify the
underlying cause, leaving Linehan in a prolonged state of being “in between worlds,” she says. Lying in bed during those months, she began composing what would eventually become a concept album about journeying through “the vortex of our mind.”
“When you’re still for a long amount of time, your mind wanders. I created this world I would slip away to,” Linehan says. “It was really important for me to try to bring this music to life in the way that I heard it in the fever dream state.”
The ambitious Enter the Vortex album follows a narrative of characters incarnating from the cosmic realm into the human experience. With dozens of songs written but limited resources, Linehan turned to fans for support. She has so far used crowdsourced funds to record five songs for her debut EP, Enter the Vortex: Act One, with a symphony in Prague.
The EP’s opening track is something of an overture, beginning with an angelic choral chant—“Come with us, conquer your death”—before breaking into a thunderous rock passage where Linehan belts with ferocity about “begging for feeling.” As the EP progresses, the narrative intensifies with questions of agency: “Are you the one who wields the dagger, or the one who lets the dagger wield your hand?” By the fifth track, the celestial protagonist is growing achingly human, wondering: “If life is so precious, how can I know this without dying?”
Linehan envisions her Enter the Vortex project expanding into an animated film someday. She’s already adapted it into an hour-long guided meditation video.
The Lincoln Theatre show will blend the ethereal sounds of Enter the Vortex: Act One with the debut of Act Two material, which Linehan forecasts as having a denser, “more earthly” sonic landscape.
For the show, Linehan has assembled a four-piece band in which each member adopts their own “vortex” identity—guitarist Joe Sprunt becomes “Blue Magnolia,” bassist Eric LeRay is “Thorne,” drummer Phil Mulligan becomes “Lotus,” and music director and vocalist Matt Goinz is “Calyx.” Their costumes feature bioluminescent elements.
Linehan says the show will be a “fullon experience where the audience participates.” She envisions something comparable to a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, with interactive elements and a call for audience members to embrace their own personas.
“I really want the audience to, before they come to the show, think about who they are in their most grand, superhero, fantastical form, and come to the show as that,” Linehan says. “What makes you feel empowered, makes you feel excited, makes you feel intergalactic or interdimensional—I hope to cultivate that kind of culture. We get to be weird and wild and explore our madness together.” W
Mad Gallica artwork PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN RAY NORRIS
CULTURE CALENDAR
WED 6/11
MUSIC
Cults w/ zzzahara 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Duke Arts After Party! 9 p.m. Pinhook, Durham. Hello Mary, Lip Critic 7 p.m. Kings, Raleigh.
Less Than Jake 6 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
Material Objects 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Meltdown Rodeo & Lavender Country Tribute ft. Adeem the Artist 7 p.m. Duke University’s East Campus, Durham.
STAGE
The Mansion of Many Apartments June 11-29, various times. Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh. Peter and the Starcatcher June 11-22, various times. Theatre Raleigh, Raleigh.
THUR 6/12
MUSIC
Adeem the Artist, John Rodney and the 3 Dollar Bills 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Buzzard Company, Blab School, Larry. 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Dex Fest 2025: Boogie Reverie, Henri Cash and Seth Carolina’s Tribute to Dex, Reigning Sound 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
Emerson Bruno and the Undercurrents, Satellite Dog 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
JPEGMAFIA 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
STAGE
American Dance Festival 2025 Season June 12-26, various times, various venues, Durham.
The Color Purple June 6-29, various times. Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh.
An Evening with Vince Gill 7:30 p.m. DPAC, Durham.
TheatreFEST presents “Blithe Spirit” by Noël Coward June 12-22, various times. Titmus Theatre at Frank Thompson Hall, Raleigh.
Will Shea, Won’t Shea? June 12-13, various times. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.
PAGE
A Special Night with Georgann Eubanks 6 p.m. Golden Fig Books, Carrboro.
FRI 6/13
MUSIC
Freight Train Blues Concert Series 6:30 p.m. Carrboro Town Commons, Carrboro.
High + Tight: A Lifetime of Soul, Funk, and Disco 8 p.m. Wolfe & Porter, Raleigh.
Promiscuous: A 2000’s Club Bangers Throwbacks Party 8:30 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
The Shoaldiggers, Charles Latham and the Borrowed Band, Teeth of England 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
Theo Kandel, Katie Lynne Sharbaugh, Matty Frank 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
THRIO 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
STAGE
Parade the Musical June 13-29, various times. North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre, Raleigh.
SCREEN
Museum Movie Night: Shrek 5:30 p.m. North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh.
Summerfest: The Music of Jimmy Buffett & More 8 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Durham. Toni Romiti 8 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
STAGE
2025 Shakespeare In The Parks: Othello June 14-15, various times. Sertoma Amphitheatre, Cary.
“Drag” 10:30 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
Pocket Nightmare Productions Presents: Dealer’s Choice Burlesque 8 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
SAT 6/14
MUSIC
Elizabeth Moen, Nathan Bowles 7:30 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.
Kai Lance Group 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
The Lemon Twigs, Chris Stamey 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
Okkervil River & The Antlers 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
LIKE TO PLAN AHEAD?
SUN 6/15
MUSIC
Alejandro Escovedo, Mitch Easter, Doug Davis, Rob Ladd, Robert Sledge, Caitlin 7 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
Bluegrass JamCary, & Tonya Lamm Sundays at 4 p.m. Bond Brothers Eastside, Cary.
Gumhead, Applefield, Soup Dreams 7 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
Lil Baby 7 p.m. Lenovo Center, Raleigh. Static-X, Gwar, Dope 5:30 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
TUES 6/17
MUSIC
Agriculture, Crooked Cult 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
High School Showcase 7 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
James & Joel: Great American Songwriters 7:30 p.m. Theatre Raleigh, Raleigh.
Luke Schneider, Pure Waves, Mike Grigoni 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Softcult, She’s Green 7 p.m. Local 506
STAGE
Some Like It Hot June 17-22, various times. DPAC, Durham.
PAGE
Lucas Schaefer: The Slip 6:30 p.m. Letters Community Bookshop, Durham.
WED 6/18
MUSIC
Anjimile, Speed Stick 7 p.m. Duke University’s East Campus, Durham.
Duke Arts After Party: Lonnie Holley, Lee Bains 9 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
THUR 6/19
MUSIC
Al Strong Presents: Jazz on the Roof 7 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.
Dead Sea Sparrow, MEGABITCH, Kial, The MuseZac 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Heart Attack Man, The Dirty Nil, Carpool, Dear Seattle 6 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
JPEGMAFIA performs at The Ritz on Thursday, June 12.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE VENUE.
Check out Elizabeth Moen’s blend of American folk music and indie-rock at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro on June 14. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE VENUE.
FIND OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR AT INDYWEEK.COM/CALENDAR
Kassi Valazza, Abigail Dowd 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Mad Gallica Presents: A Night In The Vortex – The Debut Show 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Superintendo, Quit Everything, Sound System
Seven 8 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
STAGE
Forgive Us, Gustavito June 19-29, various times. Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh.
FRI 6/20
MUSIC
Aimee Mann: 22 1/2 Lost In Space Anniversary Tour with Jonathan Coulton 8 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Brandon Mitchell Quartet 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
Femme Friday: Third Friday Dance Parties! 9:30 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham.
High + Tight: A Lifetime of Soul, Funk, and Disco 8 p.m. Wolfe & Porter, Raleigh.
Now That’s What I Call A Rave 8:30 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Solstice Session 10 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
TUNNELS: A Groundbreaking Dance Party 10 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
STAGE
The Cookout Comedy Show 2025 8 p.m. Theatre Raleigh Studios, Raleigh.
TheatreFEST presents SUCCESSFUL EXIT: An episodic audio drama 7:30 p.m. Kennedy-McIlwee Studio Theatre, Raleigh.
SAT 6/21
MUSIC
GAG, Queen 6:30 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
James Bangura, Hush Hush, Ebony Red 8:30 p.m. PS37, Durham.
Jody Wisternoff 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Jut Thomas Band, Brodie Cormack Band 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
PAGE
Cities of Literature
10 a.m. Kenan Conference Center, Chapel Hill.
SUN 6/22
MUSIC
Bluegrass Jam Sundays at 4 p.m. Bond Brothers Eastside, Cary.
Julia Wolf, Worry Club, Ellis 6 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Preoccupations, Goon
7 p.m. Kings, Raleigh.
The Sewing Club 8 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
Keith Ganz Quartet, Steve Cardenas 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
Meg Elsier & Liz Cooper 7:30 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
Mozart by Moonlight at Summerfest 8 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Durham.
Saturday Night Dance Party 9:30 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham.
The Wildwoods 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
STAGE
Deal With It 3 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
PAGE
Victoria Redel: Paradise
3 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.
MON 6/23
MUSIC
This Will Destroy You, Jesse Beaman 7 p.m. Kings, Raleigh.
Vanny Preem, Militia2six, Backwash!, C.I.A. 8 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
PAGE
Loretta J. Ross: Calling In 6 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.
TUES 6/24
MUSIC
Adrian Younge 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
The Bug Club, Omni 7 p.m. Kings, Raleigh.
Open Mic with a Band at Slim’s 9 p.m. Slim’s Downtown, Raleigh. North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
FLORRY / Tombstone Poetry 7:30 p.m. Pinhook, Durham.
FRI 6/13
Orange County Juneteenth Celebration 2025: Where Freedom Gathers, We Rise 10 a.m. River Park & Farmers’ Market Pavilion, Hillsborough.
SAT 6/14
Cult Your Nights Presents: Wild Frontier Culture Nigh 7 p.m. Congress, Durham.
THUR 6/19
Juneteenth at Marbles and Moore Square 10 a.m. Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh.
Party in the Park: Juneteenth Edition 12 p.m. Hub RTP, Durham.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Juneteenth Celebration 4 p.m. Carrboro Town Commons, Carrboro.
Songs of the Freedom Bound: A Juneteenth Celebration and Poetry Reading 6:30 p.m. Burwell School Historic Site, Hillsborough.
FRI 6/20
Kindred Spirits: A Convergence of African American Quilters: Space and Time Quilting: Afrofuturism 6 p.m. Downtown Durham Marriott Hotel, Durham.
Country Soul Songbook: Juneteenth Jamboree 7 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.
The Sewing Club, hailing from Nashville, is performing their “grungy pop” at the Pinhook on Sunday, June 22. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE VENUE.
CROSSWORD
Los Angeles Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Patti Varol
| DO | KU
© 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.
Senior Software
Senior Software
Risk Solutions w/ other technical to finalize requirements. of detailed of complex of Bachelor’s Computer Information offered or rltd reports to in Raleigh, location within send resume
Ref job code: Software Developers Software Developers Durham, NC. professionals: Aura, SOAP, & HTML. Req. to unanticipated travel. Send Emperor BLVD,
Sr Programmer/Analyst Laboratory (Labcorp) in Analyst to in collaboration managers, quality assurance Hybrid schedule. send resume #250529A.
C L A S S I F I E D S
EMPLOYMENT
Senior Software Engineer II
Senior Software Engineer II sought by LexisNexis Risk Solutions FL Inc. in Raleigh, NC to interface w/ other technical personnel/team members to finalize requirements. Write/review portions of detailed specifications for development of complex system components. Minimum of Bachelor’s degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems or rltd + 5 yrs exp in job offered or rltd occupations required. Employee reports to LexisNexis Risk Solutions FL Inc office in Raleigh, NC but may telecommute from any location within US. Interested candidates should send resume to ResumesICT@RELX.com. Ref job code: R96299
Software Developers
Software Developers – Multiple OpeningsDurham, NC. Analyte IT Services LLC needs professionals: Work on Apex, Java, SQL, LWC, Aura, SOAP, WSDL, XML, Rest API, CI/CD, Jenkins & HTML. Req. - Master + 1 yr. Comp. sal. Relocate to unanticipated sites. No National/International travel. Send resume to Ref: President, 4819 Emperor BLVD, Ste 418E, Durham, NC, 27703.
Sr Programmer/Analyst
Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (Labcorp) in Durham, NC seeks a Sr Programmer/ Analyst to develop intuitive, easy-to-use software in collaboration with development team, project managers, business analysts, UX designers, quality assurance & users across the organization. Hybrid schedule. Reqs MS+2yrs exp.; To apply, send resume to: Labcorphold@labcorp.com ; Ref #250529A.
