Local icon releases memoir

In a television interview before last week’s election, former Chapel Hill mayor and civil rights figure Howard Lee was asked if Barack Obama’s race would impede his chances of becoming president.

Lee said no.

“That’s something I could not have said 30 years ago,” he said.

When Lee was elected mayor of Chapel Hill in May 1969, he became the first black mayor in any predominantly white town in the South. The victory made international headlines.

His landmark campaign for mayor occurred a year after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He won in a town where only 10 percent of 12,500 residents were black.

Lee said that when he started his political career, he didn’t think he would see a black president elected in his lifetime. He said he experienced a “warm, fuzzy feeling” as election results came in Nov. 4.

“To me this completes the fabric of what America was meant to be,” he said. “It’s hard to believe we’ve made such a great leap forward.”

Lee spoke at the Hill Alumni Center on Wednesday as part of a tour promoting the release of his book, “The Courage to Lead: One Man’s Journey in Public Service.”

Laura Curtis, a UNC alumna, came to meet Lee in person, and to hear his story.

“What he’s meant to civil rights, to the state, to the country, is incredible,” she said.

Lee, a UNC graduate who has been politically active since the days of segregation, said today’s political environment is drastically different from that of his youth.

 He cited Obama, N.C. Governor-elect Bev Perdue and former Secretary of State Colin Powell as evidence of a new political era with fewer racial and gender-based tensions.

“Young people are free of much of the baggage older people bring forward at any given time,” he said.

Lee faced blatant racial discrimination when he first toured the South. He described being barred from speaking at country clubs or from addressing white audiences.

This stands in stark contrast to the respect Obama receives in most corners of the U. S. — respect that Lee said he had to earn himself.

“He is being referred to simply as ‘president-elect,’” he said. “I was referred to constantly as ‘the black mayor of Chapel Hill.’”

Lee said that a hesitancy to get involved is one of the greatest barriers that minorities and women interested in politics face today.

Lee ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1976, and now serves as the chairman of the N.C. State Board of Education.

He said that he overcame a great obstacle as a young man when he was able to stop blaming society for his problems.

“I think the outside influences today will not be the great barriers for minorities or women,” he said.

“It’s the obligation of those interested in politics to become involved, grassroots up.”



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