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News & Opinion
Charlotte Crown Adds to Rich History of Women’s Basketball in Charlotte
Charlotteans are known for staying home when heavy rain looms, but a darkening sky did not keep hopeful fans from flocking to the home opener of the Charlotte Crown, the city’s first professional women’s basketball team since the WNBA’s Charlotte Sting played its last season 20 years ago. Fans streamed…
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LGBTQ
OPINION: Transgender Women Need the Support of Fellow Women
A young woman stands beside a ballot box, sleeves puffed, neck hidden by a high white collar, hat tilted atop her head. She holds up her skirts as though she is about to curtsey and looks straight at the viewer, chin lifted, expectant. Beneath the drawing a caption reads: “Good…
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News & Opinion
What to Know About Butterfly Gardening in the Carolina Piedmont
A tiger swallowtail glides above my backyard creek, held up by yellow wings with coal-black tiger stripes. It heads toward a clethra bush festooned with spikes of nectar-filled pink flowers. It settles and sips. I never tire of watching. Late summer is butterfly season here in the North Carolina Piedmont.…
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News & Opinion
OPINION: Moms for Liberty or Parents for Bigotry?
On the first Wednesday of September, I ventured to Pure Pizza on Central Avenue for what became a rather dramatic rendezvous with the Mecklenburg County chapter of Moms for Liberty, which was holding their monthly meeting there. The ensuing confrontation, part of which was cynically and abusively posted to social…
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Black Lives Matter
Author’s Note: ‘Legacy: Three Centuries of Black History in Charlotte’
The three men gaze out over the vehicles speeding past on South Brevard Street. Their dark suits and stiff white collars mark them as belonging to another time, to the era of the Grace AME Zion Church that stands in front of them and the elegant, three-story Mecklenburg Investment Company…
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Opinion
A Follow-Up on Grief and the Faceless Nature of Facebook
Tip Top Daily Market proprietor Jason Michel saw me as soon as I pushed open the door of his establishment on The Plaza. He left the conversation he was having, came around the bar, and enveloped me in a big bear hug. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Thank you,” I replied.…
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Opinion
Adventures in Bureaucracy: The Bradford Pears of Shamrock Gardens
The crazed, broken trunks of dying Bradford pear trees emerge from the ground at awkward angles, like wraiths struggling to rise from ancient graves. I’m standing at the corner of Anne Street and Country Club Drive, looking through the trees at the bustling construction site where the new Shamrock Gardens…
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Opinion
ESSAY: Grief and the Faceless Nature of Facebook
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. The message arrived September 23, at 10:30 a.m.: “Hi Pamela. We received a request to reset your Facebook password. Didn’t request this change? If you didn’t request a new password, let us know.” More followed thick…
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Black History of Charlotte
Black History of Charlotte: Slavery & Revolution Part 2
The following is a continuation of Pamela Grundy’s original five-part series Black History of Charlotte and touches on the treatment of enslaved people in Charlotte and the impact of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. You can read the entire Black History of Charlotte series here. In November 1839, the editors of…
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Black History of Charlotte
Black History of Charlotte: Slavery and Revolution
The following is a continuation of Pamela Grundy’s original five-part series Black History of Charlotte and touches on the treatment of enslaved people in Charlotte and the impact of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. You can read the entire Black History of Charlotte series here. On October 21, 1852, the…
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News & Opinion
OPINION: Rethinking the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence
On the morning of May 20, 1963, a group of Johnson C. Smith University students set out on the two-mile trek from the Smith campus to the Mecklenburg County courthouse. Clad in suits and Sunday dresses, and carrying an American flag, they sang and clapped as they made their way…
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Editor's Notes
Editor’s Note: Meck Dec Day and Charlotte’s Racist History
In our latest News feature, Ryan Pitkin talks to local author and social entrepreneur Justin Jones-Fosu about diversity and inclusion, topics on which he sometimes leads workshops and are the focal points of his new book, The Inclusive Mindset. In the chat, Ryan brings up a recent movement, made up…
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News & Opinion
‘Fragile Democracy’ Tells of Struggle for Voting Rights in NC
In the fall of 1936, Franklin Roosevelt was running for his second term as president, and Elizabeth Randolph could not wait to vote. The young schoolteacher, who would go on to a long, distinguished career in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, had just started teaching in rural Rutherford County, west of Shelby. “I…
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Black History of Charlotte
Black History of Charlotte Part 5: The Battle Over Desegregation in Charlotte
The following is the final chapter in a five-part history of Black culture in Charlotte, and touches on desegregation in Charlotte schools. You can read the entire Black History of Charlotte series here. In September of 1964, Vera and Darius Swann wrote the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education to request that…
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Black History of Charlotte
Black History of Charlotte Part 4: How Redlining, Blockbusting and ‘Urban Renewal’ Victimized a Community
The following is the fourth in a five-part history of Black culture in Charlotte, looking at the history of urban renewal, redlining, and blockbusting. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 and stay tuned for the final installation of the series in our upcoming issue. On February 9, 1960,…
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Black History of Charlotte
Black History of Charlotte: Women of the Charlotte Sit-Ins
The following is a special addition to our five-part Black History of Charlotte series, to be read alongside Part 3. On a crisp February morning in 1960, Hattie Ann Walker put on her new suit with the sailor collar, fixed her hair, and joined a group of fellow Johnson C.…
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