THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406180237
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940618 LENGTH: PLYMOUTH
The SCLC has called for a boycott of local businesses by blacks if the group and the town's leaders do not reach an agreement by Monday.
{REST} Plymouth Mayor Jarahnee Bailey said the dispute is just a misunderstanding between a largely inexperienced town council and the community's black residents. She said she hopes to hold private talks with small groups of local activists to try to smooth out the situation.
``It's a matter of the City Council learning to work together to work out our differences,'' Bailey said in an interview Thursday night. ``We're working on that, but it's taking longer than I had hoped.''
Meanwhile, business leaders hope the boycott can be avoided.
Tom Harrison, head of the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday that he was concerned about the effects of a boycott on businesses and he hoped that city leaders and the SCLC could reach an agreement.
``It's something that we certainly would like to see avoided,'' he said. ``I hope the parties involved can reach a peaceful solution without stirring the ashes of racism.''
The dispute centers on the mostly white town council's treatment of its 39-year-old black town Manager Wanda Jones, a native of Plymouth, according to local activists.
Jones had worked as the town's zoning administrator for about five years before being named town manager in May 1993 by a town council that was predominantly black.
Plymouth sits on the banks of the Roanoke River in Washington County just a short distance from the area's largest employer, Weyerhaeuser Co., which operates a pulp and paper mill just over the county line in Martin County.
The current conflict began in this town of about 4,253 people last November, its residents and community leaders say, when the town's voters elected a new mayor and all newcomers to its six-member town council after all of the board's incumbents chose not to seek re-election.
About 53 percent of the community's residents are black. While blacks controlled a majority of the seats on the previous town board, the new town council was elected last November, and the black-to-white ratio was reversed.
Currently four of the town council's members are white and two are black.
Black leaders, including Jones, say the town's majority white governing board has harassed the town manager because she is black. But Plymouth's mayor says those charges have been overstated.
``I do feel unwanted by some of them,'' Jones said in an interview Thursday from the town business office.
The SCLC joined the fray about a month ago. The group plans to lead a rally at 2 p.m. today on Fourth Street, followed by a march through Plymouth, circling the mayor's home and the courthouse and ending at the town's business office.
``We don't know any other way to get our message across,'' said Bennie Rountree, president of the SCLC's North Carolina chapter, in an interview from his office in Greenville. ``Black people are not going to take it any more.
``We believe that once you're elected for office, you should be elected for all the people,'' he said.
Besides the alleged mistreatment of the town manager by the town council, the SCLC has charged the town board with skirting its bylaws and conducting town business in violation of the state's open meetings laws.
The group has also charged the county with improperly dismissing some of its black employees. The group wants the town council to let the town manager do her job and stop making racist remarks at town council meetings, Rountree said.
One black member of the Plymouth Town Council has said the mayor, who is white, should resign.
Bailey said any mistakes the town council has made were the result of inexperience, not racism.
She said meetings with SCLC leaders have not been fruitful. She said she has offered to meet privately with small groups of local residents to address their concerns and hold a public meeting in July for residents to meet with the board.
In the meantime, the City Council has asked residents to place their comments into comment boxes.
``It hurts both races. Instead of creating actions, we should create harmony,'' Bailey said. ``If we can get small groups working together. . . .we can arrive at a conclusion.''
``I see no reason why we can't do that,'' she said.
While no talks have been scheduled before the boycott is scheduled to begin, most Plymouth residents hope such a move can be avoided.
``Hopefully it won't go on,'' Jones said. ``It could be economic disaster, because most of the citizens are black.''
Retail store owners and managers of shoe stores, furniture stores and grocery stores Thursday were reluctant to comment on the possible effects of a boycott. ``It's sad,'' said one store manager. ``I don't think any of us ought to comment.''
by CNB