NC Politics: A Balanced Perspective

  The Honorable George Kenneth Butterfield Jr. became Congressman Butterfield on July 20, 2004. I was fourteen years old and president of my eighth-grade class. The average price of gas was $2.10 a gallon. President George W. Bush was president, and the United States of America was at war with Iraq.  The world was a different place than it was today, but challenges and opportunities are constant. Congressman Butterfield navigated through many obstacles and opened the doors to many opportunities for the First Congressional District of North Carolina. He realized that some of the decisions he made had the potential to inspire and change lives.  I met the Congressman in the fall of 2013 while running for Elizabeth City City Council. He took my campaign team and me out for dinner and inspired us to continue the fight. He was proud of me because I was a small manifestation of what he had spent his entire life fighting for, voting rights. See, I had to fight to get on the ballo...

 On February 23, 2020, a 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was chased and shot down in rural Georgia by three white men performing a "citizens arrest." Come to find out, neither of those men witnessed Ahmaud committing a crime. Ahmaud's only crime was jogging through a neighborhood where some felt he did not belong because of the color of his skin.  As a black man, I do not have to explain why watching the Ahmaud Aubery trial has been challenging and triggering. It's personal for me. No matter how professional, courteous, or "nice" my demeanor is. I am still a black man in the south. And often go out of my way to make sure that I do not appear threatening to those that do not look like me. Today is a giant leap forward for justice and equal rights. I am beyond relieved that justice was served today. However, my heart still aches for the hundreds if not thousands of black men and their families that are still devoid of justice.  I long to see a day when I will not h...