Less than 65 years before I was born, teaching a slave to read was punishable by flogging, jail or death in most Southern states. Even after emancipation, little was done to encourage the children of the former slaves to go to school. And despite various more recent efforts to address the achievement gap, the legacy… Read more: Bad News, Good News

It’s no news that Asheville’s lack of affordable housing is only getting worse, and meanwhile, the mayor and City Council are teaming up with Buncombe County to hire another consultant to study Asheville’s homelessness crisis. Although these are separate issues, they’re related — and both have already been studied to death with no real solutions… Read more: Want Affordable Housing? Get Real

Somewhere in the late ’60s or early ’70s an African American gentleman named Arthur Edington expressed an interest in joining the Toastmasters Club that I was involved in. I was pleased to be one of his sponsors, and while I knew it was customary in these times that local civic clubs were white male only,… Read more: Overcoming Obstacles

World War II actually started with a bang for the United States when the Japanese attacked our fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1941. The hot winds of war were propelling us down the path of mobilization at warp speed. The war became pervasive in our lives. When the men were called to war, our steadfast… Read more: A Victory Celebration Like No Other

Back in February, Black History Month reprised the good, the bad and the ugly concerning a whole race of people who were brought here in chains and have somehow survived more than four centuries of unbelievable persecution. But that story didn’t suddenly end on March 1: What follows is my personal version of Black history.… Read more: From Bigotry to Advocacy

As some of you already know, my speedometer rolled over to 90 on Dec. 7. It was the most exciting birthday I ever had — except for the first one, of course, but I was too young to have any memory of that. This time around, people showered me with cards, letters and well-wishes; I’m… Read more: How Much Has Asheville Really Changed?

As I write this, Asheville is poised to destroy the Vance Monument. The heavy granite stones may soon come crashing down onto Pack Square, leaving us all feeling emotionally relieved (or not). Those of us with white guilt will now be absolved. The rightfully angry Black community can feel that “Vengeance is mine,” and many… Read more: Casting the First Stone

Recently a friend said to me, “Why don’t you write about this damn ‘kneeling’?” Of course he was talking about the protest movement started by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to protest racial injustice. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an issue that… Read more: Patriotism or Bigotry?

ANGER, OUTRAGE, FEAR, PAIN, SATISFACTION, HOPE. I’ve been suffering from emotional whiplash ever since the first time I saw video of the brutal murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis. And when citizens took to the streets in protest, I thought to myself, “Haven’t I seen this movie before?” The Martin Luther King… Read more: This Time it’s Different?

As I sit in voluntary house arrest due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I can’t believe how dramatically our lives have changed in the last few weeks. I’m reminded of Dec. 7, 1941, my 11th birthday, when my dad took me and my friends to the Isis Theater in West Asheville to see Dr. Jekyll and… Read more: Rising to the Occasion

I’m beginning to wonder if we, the people of Asheville and Buncombe County, are a bunch of dumbass incompetents. We seem to be mesmerized by the adage that an “expert” is a person with a briefcase who comes from more than 50 miles away. We have several well-qualified headhunter firms right here in Asheville, but… Read more: Expert Idiocy

In social discussions about “climate change,” I often hear people say that the world has had catastrophic weather events for thousands of years. They view weather scientists as pointy-headed, liberal, socialist ideologues. These people resent what former Vice President Al Gore called “an inconvenient truth”: that our climate is headed for disaster if we don’t… Read more: It’s No Longer a Throwaway World

I was shocked and dismayed by the optics when, while watching the Michael Cohen congressional hearing, Mark Meadows, our own 11th District representative, paraded an African-American lady before the assemblage like a life-size cardboard cutout. The woman in question, Lynne Patton, stood silently before the House of Representatives as Meadows asserted, on her behalf, that… Read more: Parsing the R-Word

The timing of the city’s proposed moratorium on building hotels in our city comes at a good time of the year. No problem if we have an overflow of tourists for this holiday season; these wayfaring strangers from lands far away can sleep in the manger. If the city permits it, we might start a… Read more: No Room for the Inn

Forgive me if I can’t hear the “huzzahs” and the “hoorays” for the news that our Mission Health will be sold to HCA Healthcare. I am grateful and proud of the many folks who have served voluntarily on the hospital board and given so much of their time, money and effort. They have developed one… Read more: Healthcare Debacle

When it comes to addressing Asheville’s affordable housing problem, the wage issue is a particularly sticky wicket. A meaningful minimum wage increase would have to come from the federal or state governments, which don’t seem disposed to attack this issue anytime soon. The serious labor shortage during our current boom has produced some wage improvement.… Read more: Asheville Affordable Housing Part II

Let’s talk about affordable housing. Wait! Wait! We can’t even mention those forbidden words. I found that out through my work with Pisgah Legal Services committees that are trying to relieve our housing problems and through my interactions with elected officials and staffers at the city and county. This 17-letter phrase, it seems, immediately conjures… Read more: Asheville Affordable Housing Part I

And the trains came. Like steely steeds clacking their iron hooves almost in military cadence, and their shrill whistles blowing constantly like bugles sounding the charge, they pulled the war wagons to and from the battle. It seemed that the whole world was at war, and the tiny river kingdom of Asheville was neither exempt… Read more: Kingdom at War

There are defining moments in life that are rare but so meaningful that they’re seriously enhanced by being shared with others. For this reason, I am interrupting my river series to tell you about an amazing odyssey I was honored to be part of recently. I was a guest participant in a very special program… Read more: Honor Flight

As the trains laboriously churned though the economic canyon of the 1930s, hardly anyone could see the fiscal peaks above. The kingdom was broke, and the only new infrastructure installed in the river basin was an unregulated dump on Riverside Drive where the realm disposed of garbage, industrial waste and other rubbish. Extending north from… Read more: Cataclysmic Change

The black population suffered the most: Their educational level was minimal, and ever since their emancipation, they’d been the last ones hired and the first ones fired. Only the women could really find jobs: low-paying but at least steady work taking care of the white man’s houses and children. The men, meanwhile, were reduced to… Read more: Hard Times and Cheap Thrills

King Coal powered a rapidly expanding industrial empire that depended on steam to drive the flywheels, belts and drive shafts that ran the machinery. Here, raw materials delivered mostly by trains became finished products that were hauled throughout the country and to ports to be sold to the world. New industries were springing up in… Read more: The Ballad of King Coal

We have to know where we’ve been before we can know where we’re going. City Council is considering rezoning the Asheville riverfront, starting with what they call the River Arts District, but it’s their obvious intention to rezone the entire stretch of riverfront from the northern city limits at the Woodfin line near Broadway to… Read more: Birth of Asheville’s Riverfront

Poker is a game in which luck definitely plays an important part. Let me tell you about my luckiest poker game ever. In my last column, I wrote that in the early ’70s, Alvin Ledford ran a poker house on Merrimon Avenue, near where The Fresh Market is now. On Sunday nights he held his… Read more: Luck of the Draw

When we last saw Sheriff Lawrence Brown, high noon was approaching in the range war between Brown and the members of the Asheville Junior Chamber of Commerce, who were incensed by the sheriff’s raid of their statewide annual powwow that resulted in the embarrassing arrest of several out-of-town guests. That plus the juniors’ concern about… Read more: The Long Arm of the Law

The Buncombe County sheriffs in my lifetime have truly been an eclectic bunch. The most powerful officials in the county, they were responsible for keeping law and order — and (along with the clergy, of course) for protecting us from our sinful ways. Most of our sheriffs were very personable guys, but some suffered from… Read more: The Shot Heard ‘Round Buncombe County

And it came to pass that the population of the pristine, pious pueblo of Asheville became pitifully parched following the 1919 ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol for consumption. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, states were given the option of legalizing alcohol, but… Read more: Moonshine Memories

If Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep in the pristine little village of Asheville back in the 1930s and woken up today, he’d have to take a Stanback, a Goody’s and a BC powder, smoke a cigarette and wash the whole thing down with a shot of white lightning just to settle his nerves… Read more: Sin City

I received an email article from a couple of my right-wing friends who are constantly trying to validate their extreme positions especially on racial issues and hatred of President Obama. The author of the article “Socially Confused Lawyer” is a public defender in a Southern metropolitan are who admits he is a Liberal and is totally confused… Read more: Confessions of a Recovering Racist

A recent Mountain Xpress article (“Realizing the Full Value of Our Rivers and Greenspaces,” Sept. 26) by my good friend Karen Cragnolin, the brilliant visionary and advocate who can proudly take credit for the unbelievable renaissance in the River District and who is a newly minted grandmother of the most beautiful grandchild in the world, cries out… Read more: Rebutting Riverlink

In the early ’90s, Asheville was in an economic malaise. Many stores were boarded up, and if you fired a cannon downtown after 6 p.m., the only person you might hit was a hooker or a drunk falling out of a beer joint on Lexington. The Asheville Mall had sucked the oxygen out of center… Read more: Fighting City Hall

A few thousand years from now when archeologist sifting through the remains of the ancient town of Asheville will determine that the Langren hotel was sited on the bank of the French broad river. The reason is, that is where we put it. The story begins in 1964. My partner Jack Doloboff and I were… Read more: Gospel Langren Hotel

Art is in the eye of the beholder. Still, I’m shocked that so many people seem to think graffiti is an art form and that these young people are merely “expressing” themselves. I have to assume that a lot of those apologists are the same folks who get apoplectic over the BB&T Building, Staples and… Read more: Graffiti

In the wake of Martin Nesbitt’s recent passing, there will be many columns and articles about our great and honorable friend’s extraordinary contributions. His loss will leave a huge void in the lives of so many friends and constituents. Still, I felt that giving a bit of my personal history with my dear friend Martin… Read more: Martin Nesbitt

Where the hell are all these “bad” teachers that our governor and Republican legislators want to purge from our city and county schools? Are we talking about those naive and dedicated young people who with great effort, often working while in college, incurred backbreaking student loan debt in order to get a teaching degree and… Read more: Education Frustration

Jeremy Goldstein, the chair of Asheville’s Planning and Zoning Commission, recently had the stones to say what no one else has publicly admitted: The NIMBY emperor is standing out in the backyard, nekkid. Well actually, what he said was, “I’m hearing that the city wants us to increase density, especially in this area. Then I’m… Read more: Asheville Sprawl

Ladies and gentlemen!!!! From the producers of “Murdock Madness,” “Kimberly KonKrete Kar Krushers” and “Macon Mayhem” now comes their final (we hope) chapter: “Charlotte Street Constipation,” featuring “multimodal” (which sounds like a laxative but, when combined with reducing Charlotte Street to three lanes, is actually the perfect recipe for gridlock). This exciting scenario is part… Read more: Charlotte Street Jam