By [[Hap Turner]] My work as Heritage Research Consultant for the City of Rocky Mount unearthed events, places and persons that are examples of the significance of African American people and places to the building of modern Rocky Mount. It also uncovered a history of the city repeatedly and strategically suppressing Black history to the economic and cultural disadvantage of the Black residents and Edgecombe County. A summary of my recent work with corresponding reports are below: 1. Rocky Mount city planners have systematically excluded, from all past and present comprehensive land use planning, the unbiased historical narrative and findings presented in [[Kate Mearns Ohno]]'s 1979 [[Rocky Mount Architectural Survey]]. This strategy to suppress Black land use history was reinforced when the Development Services and the Planning Board changed the Local Development Code (LDC) definition of “historic structure”. [[Threads of Corruption]]: ![[Pasted image 20240609220255.png]] - The Atlantic Arlington Corridor Plan is a culmination of over forty years of efforts to erase Black history and leave historic Black material culture unprotected and exposed to development, while simultaneously funneling the advantages of heritage preservation to white areas. - Federal preservation funding, including that received by the city, has long been aimed towards promoting a more accurate and just African American Heritage narrative for America. This purpose has been thwarted, decade after decade, by the actions of Rocky Mount city planners. 2. Black historic structures, areas, and landscapes have been lost forever due to the actions described in number one and the injurious strategies in the past. *See* [[Structures and places lost through discriminatory planning]] 3. Black historic structures, areas, and landscapes are in danger of being lost with implementation of the current 2050 Comprehensive Planning process. *See* [[The New Rocky Mount Black Preservation Movement]] 4. The City of Rocky Mount continues to avoid admitting that it owns and is responsible for the two-acre public African American cemetery located between Northeastern Cemetery and the Unity Cemetery Complex, established in 1915 to replace the city’s original 1892 public African American cemetery now located in the Pineview Cemetery maintenance yard. This cemetery is of great historical significance because of both the history of how it was established and the historical figures buried there. Significant cultural and financial benefit could be realized by establishing this cemetery as a landmark. In 2023, I submitted an application for Local Landmark designation to the Historic Preservation Commission. [[“Displaced Cemetery” landmark application]]. 5. Unity Cemetery’s significance lies not only in the history of the significant persons buried there but also in the history of the cemetery itself. While this history has much in common with other cemeteries, black and white, that have been neglected, it also reveals manipulations by city leaders that seriously disadvantaged its caretakers. Consequently, its complex history has been difficult to fully uncover. My report on the privately owned 15.2-acre Unity Cemetery was in the final research stages when I was directed to cease my work for the city. Nonetheless, I plan to submit a Local Landmark application for the Unity Cemetery Complex this year. 6. My research unearthed a great deal of new material regarding a largely forgotten, but hugely important founding father of modern Rocky Mount, [[W. Lee Person]]. An online version of my draft biographical sketch can be found [[W. Lee Person|here]]. 8. I am in the early stages of a paper on Dred Wimberly. My research suggests that Wimberly was a far more active, radical, significant, and courageous civil rights leader than early Dunning school white supremacists histories suggested.