Blog Posts: Annexation

Community Leader Florine Bell walks students through Lincoln Heights, NC, Halifax Co. excluded community

Ms. Florine Bell outside an abandoned home on Branch Avenue in Lincoln Heights, NC

UNC Law students spent their Spring Break on the Wills Project, providing free wills, powers of attorney, and living wills for low-wealth clients in Halifax, Lenoir, Pitt, Avery and Watauga counties. The biannual Wills Project is sponsored by the UNC Pro Bono Program, Legal Aid, and the UNC Center for Civil Rights. Before meeting their first clients, students on the Eastern NC team were led on a walking tour of Lincoln Heights, and excluded community in Halifax County, by community advocate Ms. Florine Bell. Ms. Bell has been a minister and organizer in Lincoln Heights for several years and has spent her life fighting for economic, legal, and social justice in Halifax County.

Standing outside the Lighthouse of Deliverance Church on Branch Avenue, Ms. Bell gave a brief history of Lincoln Heights. Community Inclusion Attorney Fellow Peter Gilbert then gave an overview of community exclusion, the layered effects of disempowerment faced by Lincoln Heights, and the Center’s work there and in other excluded communities.

Continue reading for more pictures, student remarks, and a video of Ms. Florine Bell's introduction and Center Attorney-Fellow Peter Gilbert speaking about community exclusion.

Truth and Hope Tour of Poverty in North Carolina

Concerned citizens listen to speakers about continued poverty concerns in the state

The Truth and Hope Tour of Poverty in North Carolina organized by the NAACP, the NC Justice Center, and the UNC Center on Poverty Work and Opportunity, on January 19th and 20th visited six counties in North Eastern North Carolina to hear from some of the most excluded and exploited residents of North Carolina about their experience of poverty. Story after story revealed the truth that poverty is not an individual or personal problem, does not result from laziness or personal morality, but too often results from specific government action or inaction. The most recurring problems we heard were issues the UNC Center for Civil Rights focuses on - manifestations of community exclusion, including lack of access to water and sewer, segregated and underfunded schools, and unreasonably high electric bills.

N.C. Enacts Center for Civil Rights' Suggested Annexation Law Changes to Aid Excluded Communities

The UNC Center for Civil Rights and our client communities have been working in the legislature since 2006 to remove the hurdles to low income underbounded communities seeking annexation and needed municipal services. The enacted bill lowers the signature requirements for voluntary annexation of these communities, provides priority funding to municipalities to extend water and sewer service to these communities, and in certain cases requires municipalities to annex communities they have historically excluded. In partnership with the N.C. Justice Center, we hope these communities will soon be able to seek annexation and access to clean water.