EP. 3 Pt. 2 The Rochester Heights Community - The Way It Is

Rochester Heights Community members, environmental activist, and business owner discuss the impact of the environmental issues involving Walnut Creek wetlands and real estate development.

Transcript

Wading Deep Podcast 

Rochester Heights – Second Segment 

SPEAKERS: 6 

Speaker 1 - Reverend Jemonde Taylor, Rector – St. Ambrose Episcopal Church 

Speaker 2 - Ajuba Joy, Rochester Heights Resident, Elementary School Teacher, Community Organizer 

Speaker 3 - Julia Daniels, Long-Term Rochester Heights Resident, Preschool Teacher, US Army (Retired) 

Speaker 4 - Carolyn Winters, Co-Founder and Current Treasurer of Partners For Environmental Justice (PEJ) 

Speaker 5 - Reverend Don Singletary, Minister of Mount Peace Baptist Church, Community Engagement Coordinatorof Partners For Environmental Justice (PEJ), Owner of Singletary Barber Shop 

Speaker 6 - Carmen Cauthen, Local Historian / Business Consultant and Founder of Research and Resource 

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Speaker 1 

0:07 

This is Wading Deep, a podcast that explores the connection between environmental justice and race. 

I'm your host, Reverend Jemonde Taylor Rector at St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Raleigh, North Carolina, a congregation with a long history of challenging environmental racism. 

I am honored today to welcome as guest local community activists and residents of Rochester Heights. We welcome Sister Ajuba Joy, Rochester Heights resident / elementary school teacher and / community activist; Miss Julia Daniels, a long term Rochester Heights resident / preschool teacher, US Army officer (retired) / community organizer; Miss Carolyn Winters, one of the founders and current Treasurer of Partners For Environmental Justice (PEJ); Miss Carmen Cauthen, local historian / researcher / Founder of Success, and Reverend Don Singletary, Minister at Mount Peace Baptist Church / Outstanding barber / Community Engagement Coordinator for Partners For Environmental Justice. 

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We're talking about environmental racism. We're talking about Rochester Heights historically black neighborhood in Raleigh. Miss Cauthen is a local historian. Can you talk a little bit about the history of Rochester Heights and maybe the history of the black presence in that part of Raleigh in general? 

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Speaker 6- Carmen Cauthen 

1:57 

Thank you, um, I want to actually go further than Rochester Heights. So, I want to go back to days after slavery reconstruction, when plantations or the estates left from plantations didn't have any money, land would have to be sold. And so, the land that was sold for freed people, formerly enslaved people, was either sold or leased, but it was cut. First of all, it's very small lots. But one of the things I'm going to read this to you, so Raleigh's boundaries were established in a one-mile radius, and Raleigh was crisscrossed by creeks and watersheds. And as a result, the high hills, long ridges and deep bottoms, characterized Raleigh's terrain, antebellum residents, for reasons of health and esthetics chose the higher sites for their homes. The low-lying areas were for industrial development or lay vacant. So, during… during the times of slavery, the areas where black people ended up living were vacant, or they were industrial, or that's where the cemetery were replaced. That's where the water flows downhill. And that was deliberate… that was deliberate on the part of the white people who owned the land at the time. And then that was what they sold when they were getting rid of the land. So, whether they sold it to somebody white to develop it, or whether they sold it to somebody black, it was the downhill land where the water was going to go and cause flooding because that's not where they wanted to live. Now, one of the other interesting things that I found out, and I'm sure several of you already know, good or if you're part of the podcast, but Rochester Heights was built on the farmland that Calvin Lightner owned. Calvin Lightner was the father of our only black mayor Clarence Lightner. But he owned about 400 acres of land. And that is the land where Rochester heights today as that land was sold from the estate, it became what we know this Rochester Heights, which is considered…well has been a National Historic Register development because it is one of the few post World War II settlements for black people. So, we have three of those National Historic Register neighborhoods in the city of Raleigh, Rochester Heights was the first one. It's the oldest and…and, you know, there's so much history in… in Rochester heights. And I don't think people, particularly in our city know the history and the… the blessing that it was for black families to have Rochester Heights built. In a lot of areas, because after World War II, a lot of black men had gone into the service. When they came home, they weren’t eligible for the same loans that the white service people were eligible for. And so many of the folks who bought land and had homes built in Rochester Heights, were not able to get those kinds of loans. It took struggle, it took savings. It took perseverance as Reverend Singletary has talked about in order to have funds to put it in a home. And when you buy a home when you build a home, you don't expect it to be in flood land. So yeah, there might be a little creek or a little tributary or something coming there, but you don't expect that to overrun its boundaries. And cause what you have worked hard to be damaged or ruined or bought out by the city with instructions that that land can't ever be sold again. So, the historic piece of it is amazing. But when you go back and you know, we talked about systemic racism, this is 

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systemic environmental racism, because white people knew what they were doing. And so, we have to go back to the beginning of all the systems and look at them. We can't just fix what we see today. We got to go back and figure out why did this happen? And how do we dig up the roots and keep it 

from happening again. And I was actually out in Rochester Heights, today. I'm speaking to some students tomorrow, about gentrification… not just the gentrification, that's has come to Rochester Heights, but I was looking, I got fussed out because I was on the highway, I was on 440, had put pulled my car over to the side of the road, I stopped and took pictures from the bridge of the wall, 

behind the houses on Calloway drive. Because there's such a difference in how we have been treated over the years, when they brought the highway through. They put a piece of a bridge, but somewhat of a wall. But it's not the same kind of wall that you go on North Raleigh, North Raleigh has nice brick walls. And they plan more space between the backs of houses in North Raleigh, and where the highway goes than they did in South Raleigh. In fact, there are some places in South Hollywood, there's no bridge at all. And so, I've heard people talk about trash being thrown over into the back of their yards, drove down, had never done this had never driven down by… by Singletary Barbershop. But I did that today and took pictures of the creek. Because I want the students that I'm going to talk to tomorrow who are predominantly white, they don't have to come to south Raleigh. So, in a lot of neighborhoods, and I think this is true across the country, if you don't have to go where there are environmental problems, you don't see them because they don't affect you. And so, I want these students tomorrow when I talk to them to see there's a big difference in what you see on North Raleigh, and what you see in South Raleigh. And some of that was deliberate, some of that was planned. And I just I think it's important for us to know all of our histories - because my history is our history. And so, I… I have been very interested in delving into the history of the neighborhoods in Raleigh, and Rochester Heights is one of them. It has amazing history. And I having grown up and born in Raleigh and grown up in Raleigh. I have no many, many people who were in Raleigh. And I don't think people understand also, that environmental racism also affects our health. And so, if you're continually flooding, the wood is rotting, the bricks are getting are growing mold and mildew, and it affects your ability to breath. When we talked about Mrs. Ford, she and her husband were customers of my father's drugstore. So, I you know, I know that there were health issues. And now you know, we think back and we look back and we go, oh, that could have been because the house flooded so often, water came in, or you know, something else happened. But that's as a result of what I said earlier. They sold the land in the dank bottoms to those people who could least afford it. And that's where our South Side Raleigh has grown up. 

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Speaker 2-Ajuba Joy 

10:20 

And that was by design. Definitely by design. It was a situation where you will go down there and buy a house. But this… this community is gentrifying and gentrifying very quickly I get you know, solicitations you know, interested in they even got my… my mobile phone now. They're calling me on the phone. You know, not… not sure if this is the right number, but you know, and then they are calling. So, the community this is prime property. It's on the bus line near downtown. It's everything is, you know, right nearby you could walk to and I want to say something really quickly. This is Miss Joy. I want to just say that Mr. Singletary…Reverend Singletary. He has been a real consistent 

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institution in this community. And people who had have a chance to know him really begin to understand you know his business. With such a place that people commune, and it's yeah, it's I'm just very grateful that… that his presence precedes and people who know him, and we'll get to know him, will understand the benefit that he brings and brought to this community. 4 

Speaker 4-Carolyn Winters 

12:12 

Ajuba, I think that's wonderful. We are working to work with the community. But I wanted to go on record and say something in regards to Carmen, that we forgot to mention Carmen, that Walnut Creek was actually…what do I call it? It was a dump…the raw sewage from the City of Raleigh way back when, and we had to deal with that. But you know, recently we had another episode of that. So, we're still not out of the woods, yet. It's still being dumped on. 

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Speaker 1-Reverend Jemonde Taylor 

12:30 

I want to thank you Miss Winters for… for reminding us. Yeah, it was in 1887 that the city of Raleigh first began pulling its freshwater supply from Walnut Creek, and the same year started dumping the sewage into Walnut Creek. The convention at the time was that it only took 50 feet of running water, for sewage to be potable. Which sounds crazy to us today. Because if you dump sewage in a river, and then walk 50 feet and dip a cup, it's not drinkable. But the books during that day in 1887, said 50 feet of running water will make water potable. And so, for 70 years, the city of Raleigh dumped raw sewage into Walnut Creek and it was a de facto dumping ground. And we know last year 2020, that the News and Observer ran several articles, where the Terry Sanford Federal Building had been had illicit discharge into Rochester Heights Walnut Creek from 1965 until June of 2020. And after investigation for DEQ, it was determined that there was a confusion of pipes that the engineers and construction people thought they were connecting the fresh water line to the sewer line, but those lines were crossed. What's tragic is that Terry Sanford builder became aware of this quote unquote, mistake in 2012. And did absolutely nothing until June of 2020. So, when I when I give the history of St. Ambrose and Rochester Heights and Walnut Creek, I used to say that the city of Raleigh dumped raw sewage for 70 years, I have to revamp and say that for 133 years, the city has been dumping sewage into this community. 

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Speaker 6- Carmen Cauthen 

14:52 

It is terrible. I want to um, we talked about gentrification. And a lot of people know what gentrification is, but I thought about the etymology of that word this morning. That's God told me to look up. So, it comes from the word gentry, which is, “means nobility of rank or birth”. Phi, means “to make into”, so gentrification is actually trying to - is when you're making something into something that's high born or noble. So, I don't know that we think of it and that's, you know, that's racist. To me, that means you're coming into an area and tried to make it more than what you consider it to be. So, you don't respect what's already there. I don't know that people recognize the… the history of the word in terms of the mindset that goes along with it. And I think when people move 

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in, they don't respect the history of the neighborhood. And so, they aren't concerned about, um, they don't…they don’t respect the good or the bad history. They just want it to be better for them at a cheaper price. And so, I think we need to make sure that people begin to understand exactly what we are talking about when we say gentrification of a neighborhood. Because they, what I hear, and what I seen in neighborhoods is also that the people aren't respected. People are looked at who've been there for years, like why are you here? You know, or treated poorly? When somebody else has moved into the area. 

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Speaker 4 – Carolyn Winters 

16:45 

And I don't think they understand that Rochester Heights was a planned community. It was planned for the well to do blacks in Raleigh. It's a planned community. We don't think of a planned community today's time, as it was back then. But it was a planned community. 3 

Speaker 3-Julia Daniels 

17:07 

Well, what else I, I told my husband, I because I'm like Ajuba, I get letters all the time and phone calls about selling my house, we just got one yesterday. And I told my husband and I said, you know, there's gentrification going on. If, if this neighborhood, even though it sits where it sits. And even though it's in South East Raleigh, if this neighborhood was not historic, and those people could come in, and buy up every bit of this land, they would build it up, they would buy it, they will build it up to make it what they want it to make it. Because let me tell you, where this sits, like my husband says, it's a prime piece of property. Because you can get to anywhere you want to go. Practically in Wake County, within 15 to 30 minutes from where I'm sitting, you can get to Durham, you can get the Cary you can get to Knightdale, you can get the Apex, you can get the Garner, you can get to Zebulon, you can get to Clayton, you could get the Durham, you could get to Chapel Hill, literally, it is so prime and it's down right here, downtown. It's right here at downtown and ever you can get to anything you want to get to pretty much from here within 30 minutes. And now with traffic, it could be a little longer, but it… it definitely, if they could come in and do what they really want to do. It would be top of the line property for somebody for… for investor, they will come in and… and knock everything down. Especially with the land the size of the lot. They don't have lots like this anywhere else. Now when you build a home, they build them right on top of each other, you can reach out the window and touch your neighbors house, literally, and so it's you know, it's just, it makes me so angry, that's why I get angry about gentrification, not necessarily about bringing in people that are not like me, because I don't mind people living amongst people that are not like me. But what I do mind is that when people that are not like me want to come in and take over and make it what they want to make it, but while we're here, they do not want to make it or improve it to - what to make it better. That's why they do the dumping. That's why they do the all of the property tax crap and stuff like that. That really angers me because they don't do the same thing in other parts of the city. 

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Speaker 2-Ajuba Joy 

20:14 

They value the other parts of the city, differently. And the people who live in those - you know other places and that's not new behavior. 

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Speaker 1-Reverend Jemonde Taylor 

20:24 

Sister Joy and Miss Daniels, I want y'all to know that you are not alone in receiving solicitation. I've gotten more than one letter to my office address to me that says…Dear minister…your church is at a beautiful location. I would love to buy your church, tear it down and build a park. So, it’s just not people's houses, but houses of God. 

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Speaker 3-Julia Daniels 

20:51 

Yeah, yeah. Build the park for the changing community. That is what I am saying, they just want to come in and clear it out and clear it up. They want to clear out the entire area. 1 

Speaker 1-Reverend Jemonde Taylor 

21:15 

There you go. There you go. Reverend Singletary, do you have something Reverend Don? 5 

Speaker 5-Reverend Singletary 

21:18 

Oh, no, I was just gonna chime in and say a minute. Just a little bit about… about you know, when she's talking about how his prime real estate is convenient to the downtown area in downtown is just growing rapidly. The area of I mean, Raleigh is just growing people are coming from all over North, South, East and West. You have investors from overseas looking for land here in America. And they don't know about the history of Rochester Heights, nor do I think they care about it, they just want to purchase land here and develop. And that's, that's the key, they don't care about environmental justice and what will be the end result by putting up, you know, whatever structures they would like to put up, they… they don't care about that it's all about economy. So, they don't care about, you know, disenfranchising people and… and… and where they're going to live and how they're going to be forced out. They don't care anything about that, you know, it was it was funny what I…what I was…what I forgot to mention, was how it will flood over there, in that area on Garner Road. And we will do what we have to do to clean up and tried to, you know, keep going and survive from the floods. But there will be no news crews out there, you know, to report on the people in that area, you will see news happening everywhere else about floods and stuff like that, but nothing over in the Biltmore Hills in Rochester area, Rochester Heights area, you, you will never see someone having to evacuate their homes or anything like that, as if, you know, things never happened. So, you talked about systemic environmental racism. That's, I mean, we got that on the news when we …when, you know, when floods happen. So, it's, it's a tough situation, I think, and I'm glad that we, you know, are 

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awakening to be able to do more and be more effective for change. It's time…it's time for change. And it's time that you know, this, this is our time for us to be able to educate, you know, and help, you know, impact people so that they can be able to go out and, you know, mobilize them so they can go ahead and make changes happen. This is the time. 

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Speaker 1-Jemonde Taylor 

24:01 

Absolutely you… you hit it right on the head, Reverend Singletary. I want to close by inviting each one of you to respond to the question quite gives you hope. We've been talking about a lot of heavy material for this session of the podcast. And I'm just curious, what gives you hope? And I just invite each person when you feel led to speak. 

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Speaker 4-Carolyn Winters 

24:30 

I can start by saying what gives me hope, Father Taylor is that but 25 years, I've been working with PEJ, Partners for Environmental Justice, trying to eliminate the flooding in that area. I know that's not something we might be able to do in our lifetime. However, I think that we are making an impact. Because for that amount of time, we have been having cleanups and we don't just get people from Rochester heights to help we get people from across the city, we get young people then they are being made aware of the situation. They're being made aware that Southeast Raleigh is different. There are so many things that we're doing through PEJ that's making other people aware is bringing over people to the Wetlands Center to show them what we have to offer. And Southeast Raleigh, we're not that much different. We may be people of color. But anyway, it gives me hope to see those people working with me to do those things. So, people giving us money to do the things that we're trying to do in the community. And they don't look like me. They are people that are mixed races. And there are some black and brown people as well. But I'm saying that we're coming together, it's a slow process, but I still have hope. 

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Speaker 5-Reverend Singletary 

25:51 

And what gives me hope is that you know, each day, being able to learn something new, something important, something, some… some something that is affecting everyone in the whole world. We …we see we see the President today talking about climate change, we… we see that you know, change, and this whole world is being affected by this pandemic. And people more and more are trying to see how can we, one be able to combat this pandemic, and then to all the other systemic problems that are in this world that we've been dealing with that so we may have been acting like we didn't see it, or we just kind of just been used to, used to it and just, you know, let it go. But I think today what… what's really given me hope is that now there's more of a conversation about what's been going on, and what we've been dealing with, and how we're not going to take it anymore. And so, it's not just people that look like you and I, it's like why Carolyn said, it's been people from all other races and backgrounds who've been standing up and saying that all lives matter. So now that we know that, there’s hope. 

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Speaker 2-Ajuba Joy 

27:16 

I would like to say, this is Ajuba, that the youth today are a different breed. They don't… they don't have the fear that we once had. But I want to say that I know in our very genes is power, knowledge, talent, hope, faith, I think all of that is something that we have to really begin to interact with. And remove the fear, I like to say, take out the fear and use what's left to listen to truth. And the truth of the matter is, we are people who sustain and we are people who build, we built this country. And it is important for us to really begin to look into planning… planning. I'm glad I came to the planet as I am I wouldn't change a thing. 

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Speaker 3-Julia Daniels 

28:01 

Me, either. Amen. Well, my hope is that we continue to push forward and make change and see it through. That's my hope. Claim it. 

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Speaker 6- Carmen Cauthen 

29:05 

Um, I think what gives me hope is knowing that the work of our ancestors is not going unfulfilled. I have pride in knowing that we can share it, and people will hear it today. People want to know our history today. And they want to know all of it. Now, I'm not saying that all of them do. But I think I have hope that my history is our history. And as long as we continue to share it, and especially to share it with our youth, they seem to be willing to pull up and do things as long as they know that there can be a difference. Because I think they're tired of what they seen over the last 50 or 60 or 70 years and they haven't, they feel like they haven't seen results in terms of what the elders fought for. And I think knowing the depth of the fight and knowing that they continue forward. Is that just gives me hope to know that it doesn't end with us. There are folks to carry it forward. 1 

Speaker 1-Jemonde Taylor 

30:39 

I want to thank our guests - Sister Ajuba Joy, Rochester Heights resident, an elementary school teacher and also a community activist; Miss Julia Daniels, a long term Rochester Heights resident, a preschool teacher, US Army officer and community organizer; Miss Carolyn Winters, one of the founders and current Treasurer of Partners For Environmental Justice(PEJ); Miss Carmen Cauthen, local historian / researcher Founder of Success, and Reverend Don Singletary, Minister at Mount Peace Baptist Church, business owner and outstanding barber, Community Engagement Coordinator for Partners For Environmental Justice (PEJ). 

Thank you each and every one of you for being on the call. 

GROUP 

And thank you for making this happen. Thank you 

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Speaker 1 

31:38 

The Wading Deep podcast comes to you from a place we af ectionately call The Brose, Saint Ambrose Episcopal Church, Raleigh, North Carolina. Follow us on Facebook, YouTube, The BroseNC on Twitter and TheBrose1868 on Instagram. 

I am your host, the Reverend Jemonde Taylor. God is going to trouble the water of environmental racism, resurrecting a river of life clear as crystal. 

Shalom, Salaam, Peace. 

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