Ms. Bell spoke
to the students about the history of the community, which began with wood and
tin shanty homes built for black workers, and its transition from a thriving
neighborhood to a mixture of determined homeowners amidst an assortment of
abandoned and dilapidated buildings. She
pointed out parcels suffering from the legal stagnation of heirs' property—passed
down without a will and now owned by numerous heirs with fractional ownership
stakes-- stating that derelict homes were becoming fire hazards, havens of
criminal activity and public health nuisances because neighbors cannot find or
reach agreement with the multitude of absentee owners. Read more
about heirs' property from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
UNC Pro Bono Wills Trip Students and Center for Civil Rights attorneys with Ms. Florine Bell outside the convenience store in Lincoln Heights, NC
The Center
will continue to work with Lincoln Heights and advocates like Ms. Bell toward
cleaning up past environmental hazards, removal of dilapidated housing,
affordable housing development, provision of municipal services, and
annexation. Thanks to the law students,
the UNC Pro Bono Program and the Legal Aid attorneys who continue to make the
biannual Wills Trips so successful.
See more
pictures from the Lincoln Heights walking tour and the Eastern NC Wills Trip.
Eastern trip students also provided their reflections on the walking tour
and on their experiences writing end-of-life documents for clients. Read
more reflections on the Wills Trip Blog: Where
There's a Will, There's a Way.
Abandoned property in Lincoln Heights, NC
After going on this trip, visiting Lincoln
Heights, spending time with clients, and talking to the attorneys from the UNC
Center for Civil Rights, I faced a reality: in the Land of Opportunity, you can
get trapped at the bottom. – Rebecca Fiss, 1L
As we walked, I
learned that this community was literally built on top of waste. When
Roanoke Rapids still maintained a thriving mill industry, the mills would cross
the river to dump all of their waste in Lincoln Heights. Even after the
mills stopped dumping, the town of Roanoke Rapids leased land in Lincoln
Heights to use as a landfill for the trash of Roanoke Rapids. In a time
before regulations were in place on what could be put in landfills, toxic and
hazardous waste was being dumped in the back yard of Lincoln Heights
residents. This was not a community that had been forgotten – this
community had been actively neglected for generations, and the community
leaders are now doing what they can just to keep their heads above water. – Justice
Warren, 1L
However, the
greatest impact, for me, was the eye-opening experience of seeing the level of
poverty and exclusion in communities only a few hours from Chapel Hill, and
learning that similarly-excluded communities exist right in Orange
County. I, as I am sure many of us do, take for granted resources that
seem so basic—access to water, sewer, paved roads, street lights, public
transportation, and even proper grocery stores. Being able to walk
through these communities and put a face on the issues facing excluded
communities across the state was the most impactful experience. – Kevin
Denny, 1L
There is some hope
for the community: Ms. Florine Bell, who led our walking tour, is a powerful
advocate for Lincoln Heights and has helped push a number of measures forward
to both protect and improve the community. The UNC Center for Civil Rights and
other similar groups are also working to rectify the structural impediments to
Lincoln Heights' progress. But still, as
I walked around that community, I was reminded of villages in Uganda and rural
Peru. How can we allow something like this to happen on our own soil? I don't
know how we allow it to happen anywhere, but I hope more of us can work to
change it. – Ryan Fairchild,
1L
Walking through Lincoln Heights with Ms. Florine Bell on this Spring
Break Wills Trip made me realize just how much there is a need for free or
relatively inexpensive legal services. The community there is in need of
some serious help and people who, like Ms. Bell, care deeply about North
Carolina's rural communities and helping others. It is truly amazing not
only what Ms. Bell does for her community, but also what the UNC Center for
Civil Rights does on a daily basis and what our students did over this
break. – Gabrielle
Vires, 2L
News about the Wills Trip:
Thanks to UNC Law Student Rebecca Fiss for the pictures accompanying this post.