Remembering Joe Herzenberg

RIP Alice the cat

2010-12-15T18:01:00.000-08:00

Rest in Peace Alice the cat. :(

She had cancer. She was the sweetest. We are going to spread her ashes over Uncle Joe's grave in the spring. She was a great cat and will be missed.

- Sarah Herzenberg

Alice, Spring/Summer 2010

Alice was Joe's cat, who went to live with his family in New Jersey when Joe died. During his trip to Africa with Kathie Young in 2005, Joe had a memorable encounter with one of Alice's cousins.

Be proud

2010-09-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Indy Weekly, September 29, 2010

by D.L. Anderson

Last weekend, a wave of rainbow colors filled the streets around Duke's East Campus in celebration of N.C. PrideFest. About 2,000 people participated in the parade and nearly 10,000 watched it, according to John Short, executive director of the annual gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender festival, which celebrated its 26th year. "We're also seeing much greater participation from straight allies and the community," Short said.

Joe Herzenberg Memorial Arch at NC Pride 2010. Photo by Jake Geller-Goad.

Beyond the wild color, celebration and naughty humor, N.C. PrideFest is still rooted in the serious struggle for equality for the LGBT community. "It started with a murder, then a march and now a parade," added Short, referring to "Our Day Out," a 1981 march and protest in Durham against the beating and murder of a man assumed to be gay. Speaking at the first official gay pride march in 1986, Joe Herzenberg, who would soon become the South's first openly gay elected official as a member of the Chapel Hill Town Council, said, "There is no way to get from here to there except by coming out, joining together and marching."

Joe at front of NC Pride 1991 march. Photo from Chapel Hill Herald, 4-25-93.

Sean Rowe: New Times Writer/Author/Poet Is Dead

2010-08-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

Miami New Times, August 30, 2010

By Chuck Strouse

Pretty much every word Sean Rowe ever spoke was poetry. Even after he was hit by a train and survived.

I don't say that as praise. I'm not fawning. He just had a way about him.

He arrived in Miami in 1989 to work at the Miami Herald, where I was also employed. Back then, we tooled around town while he talked in a North Carolina lilt about love, redemption in the woods, and dozens of things he had no clue about but loved to describe. I think we planned to cover an Orange Bowl parade but never really made it. I liked listening to the guy blather, so I just kept driving.

Sean, who died recently (nobody is really talking about details), left the Herald for New Times not long after that misadventure. He was a crazy man who provided much of the creativity that got this paper started in its early days. Everybody who was around here back then or knew Sean has a favorite story -- not only from the things he wrote, which were amazing, but also from the real-life adventures he led.

Sean, Joe, Kathie Young and friend, late 90s

The most famous one in New Times lore was Sean's departure from the Fort Lauderdale paper. At a party in the Himmarshee district, he was laying coins on a railroad track when a locomotive surprised him. He was thrown a long way and cracked a vertebra. He began assembling the plot to his novel on the way to the emergency room.

Fever is a novel you should buy. You won't regret it. Also, here are some links to Sean's stories in Miami and New Times Broward-Palm Beach.

The last story I remember was him telling me about reading the New York Times to a bunch of prisoners in a North Carolina jail -- after he mooned the judge. Of course, he also wrote a pretty wonderful novel, Fever, and charmed the globe.

Sometimes the wheels rolled off Sean's wagon. He'd mount 'em again and keep moving forward. This time, there's no putting 'em back on, but what the heck -- the prose ain't dead.

###

Sean was one of Joe's close friends and traveling companions. In 1987, while a Morehead scholar at UNC-CH, Sean covered Joe's victorious Town Council campaign for Lambda, the CGLA newsletter. He became an author and award-winning journalist in Miami before returning to North Carolina. Recordings of Sean telling two stories at The Monti storytelling event in Chapel Hill are posted online. Friends gathered at Margaret's Cantina on Labor Day (Sept. 6) for a potluck dinner to remember him.

Remembering King

2010-01-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

Carrboro Citizen, January 14, 2010

If you’ve recently made your way across the square in front of Chapel Hill’s downtown post office, you may have noticed an inscription near the flagpole that says “Peace & Justice Plaza.”

Below those words are the names of eight individuals — men and women, black and white — who were at the forefront of this community’s civil rights efforts. Below that are the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “True peace is not merely the absence of negative forces, it is the presence of justice.”

You may or may not know the names Charlotte Adams, Henry Anderson, James Brittian, Joe Herzenberg, Mildred Ringwalt, Joe and Lucy Straley and Gloria Williams. They’re largely responsible for that little square in front of the post office being hallowed ground. It was the setting for countless rallies and protests during the civil rights era and each year on the third Monday in January it serves again as a gathering spot for those dedicated to keeping King’s dream alive.

There the NAACP’s annual rally in remembrance of King and the cause he fought and died for begins on Monday at 9 a.m. From there, the annual march down Franklin Street will start at 9:30 and proceed down to First Baptist Church on Roberson Street for a worship service. The service starts at 10:30 a.m. Tim Tyson, author of the book Blood Done Signed My Name and an extensive study of the 1898 Wilmington Riots, will be the keynote speaker.

The rally, march and worship service are among dozens of events throughout the community, including several for those who want to honor King with a day of service to their community.

Mayor-Elect Mark Kleinschmidt Wins in Chapel Hill

2009-11-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

By ERIK OSE

Last night, two-term Chapel Hill Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt was elected mayor of Chapel Hill in a hard-fought victory over fellow Town Council member Matt Czajkowski. One of Joe Herzenberg's political protégés, Kleinschmidt fulfilled part of Herzenberg's unfinished legacy by becoming the first openly gay (and at age 39, the youngest ever) mayor of Chapel Hill.

Kleinschmidt ran on an unabashedly progressive platform, supporting civil liberties, a responsible approach to development, and environmental protection.

And unlike his opponent, who vastly outspent him by at least a 4-1 margin, Kleinschmidt supported and participated in the town's pioneering campaign finance reform program, Voter-Owned Elections. Czajkowski vocally opposed the program, claiming, "there is no special interest influence in Chapel Hill."

Amazingly, Czajkowski was so ignorant of local politics and history that in the week before the election, he ran a full-page endorsement ad listing former segregationist mayor Sandy McClamroch at the very top of his list of supporters. In early 1964, McClamroch led a 4-2 majority of the then-Board of Aldermen in Chapel Hill in voting against a public accommodations law that would have integrated Chapel Hill. The town's refusal to integrate became a moot issue when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in July, 1964.

During the campaign, Kleinschimdt also had to contend with gay-baiting tactics used by another marginal mayoral candidate, Kevin Wolff. First, Wolff paid for a push poll that called himself the only "moral" candidate in the race. Then, he distributed flyers labeling Kleinschmidt a "gay-rights activist" who doesn't have children or own a home in Chapel Hill. In fact, Kleinschmidt owned a home in Chapel Hill from 2003-08 and is currently house-hunting for a new one, as fully detailed by the News & Observer once Wolff's scurrilous campaigning came to light.

Despite these obstacles, Kleinschmidt ran a professional yet grassroots campaign built on small donations, broad community support, and lots of volunteer effort. He focused relentlessly on the nuts and bolts of local issues, and his "reputation for getting things done" while standing up for progressive principles. It was the classic Herzenberg campaign model, and Joe would have been overjoyed to be there at the R&R Grill (formerly Papagayo's) last night watching Kleinschmidt declared the winner by the TV cameras while an overflow crowd of his supporters cheered.

Indy Weekly, 11-4-09 ("Relieved and jubilant, Kleinschmidt basks in win")

Supporters erupted. His mother burst into tears. His sister shouted. Mark Kleinschmidt just smiled contently, arms crossed but giving the kind of ear-to-ear grin you could feel across the room, satisfaction and disbelief merging together on his face. The campaign had just received word that rival Matt Czajkowski had made his concession speech at the Franklin Hotel...

N&O, 11-4-09 ("Kleinschmidt wins Chapel Hill mayoral race")

CHAPEL HILL -- The liberal establishment held off a band of businessmen trying to change the town's course. Two-term councilman Mark Kleinschmidt, a death-penalty defense lawyer and gay rights activist, narrowly defeated colleague Matt Czajkowski to take the reins as mayor. Kleinschmidt had just 48.6 percent of the vote in the four-person mayoral race...

Q-Notes, 11-4-09 ("Openly gay Kleinschmidt is next Chapel Hill mayor")

A member of the Chapel Hill Town Council since 2001, Kleinschmidt will become the third openly gay man to hold mayoral office in the state...

Worthy of the honor

2009-09-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, Editorial, September 23, 2009

Roses to Chapel Hill's ongoing efforts to commemorate those local activists who led the way on the momentous issues of civil rights and justice.

A historic marker was unveiled in the front of the Franklin Street post office Sunday. The event, sponsored by the town and the local chapter of the NAACP, honored nine remarkable local people: Charlotte Adams, Hank Anderson, James Brittain, Joe Herzenberg, Mildred Ringwalt, Hubert Robinson, Joe Straley, Lucy Straley and Gloria Williams.

The marker is at a spot that has been named Peace and Justice Plaza. Those nine are worthy of the honor, and we're confident that each of them would have agreed that there have been many more who played key roles in the struggle.

It's always worth remembering those who put themselves on the line to help society live up to its ideals.

Dedication of Tribute Marker

2009-09-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

(Click for larger image)

Town to unveil tribute marker today

2009-09-20T02:00:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, September 20, 2009

CHAPEL HILL - The historic unveiling of a tribute marker will take place from 3 to 4 p.m. today at Peace and Justice Plaza in front of the Post Office-Courthouse, 179 E. Franklin St.

The public event will be the second in a series sponsored by the town and Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP to honor nine local peace and justice leaders: Charlotte Adams, Hank Anderson, James Brittian, Joe Herzenberg, Mildred Ringwalt, Hubert Robinson, Joe Straley, Lucy Straley and Gloria Williams.

The quote on the marker comes from Martin Luther King, Jr.: "True peace is not merely the absence of some negative force, it is the presence of justice."

The town has recently increased efforts to commemorate its civil rights history.

Celebrate Our Peace and Justice Legacy

2009-08-28T13:12:00.001-07:00

(Click for larger image)

Town, NAACP to remember historic march

2009-08-16T00:30:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, August 16, 2009

On Friday, Aug. 28, the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, the Town of Chapel Hill and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP will hold the first of two programs to honor nine local peace and justice leaders.

An outdoor rally will be held from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Peace and Justice Plaza outside the Post Office/Courthouse at 179 E. Franklin St. The leaders being honored are Charlotte Adams, Hank Anderson, James Brittian, Joe Herzenberg, Mildred Ringwalt, Hubert Robinson, Joe Straley, Lucy Straley and Gloria Williams.

Three weeks later, the public unveiling of a tribute marker at Peace and Justice Plaza will be held from 3 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20. The Town Council has established a process to honor additional peace and justice leaders in the future.

Missing Joe

2009-07-23T07:23:00.000-07:00

Carrboro Citizen, July 23, 2009

There are a lot of reasons people miss former Chapel Hill Town Council member and greenways champion Joe Herzenberg around election time.

For poll organizers and precinct captains, a big reason is that he could always be counted on to lend a hand. For journalists, he was a kind of institutional memory of local elections.

Joe could have quickly answered one of the big trivia questions floating around about the four-way race for Chapel Hill mayor. So we’ll put this one to our readers: When was the last time four people ran for mayor of Chapel Hill?

Inside the halls of power: Gays and lesbians have served the Carolinas well

2009-06-27T00:15:00.000-07:00

Q-Notes, June 27, 2009

By MATT COMER

In the 1980s, the chances for any openly gay man or lesbian woman wining an election to public office were pretty much slim-to-none. That didn’t stop scores of gay and lesbian North Carolinians from throwing their hat into the ring and giving it a shot.

...

Bob and Lightning

On August 25, 1981, openly gay N.C. State University graduate student Bob Hoy filed to run for the Raleigh City Council where just a generation before, arch-conservative Jesse Helms held office. Hoy was ultimately unsuccessful. Even The Front Page, North Carolina’s most comprehensive gay and lesbian newspaper at the time, said Hoy wasn’t a “serious contender.”

The Front Page’s writers changed their tune when Lightning A. Brown came onto the scene, extolling his abilities and platform. Just weeks after Hoy filed to run in Raleigh, Brown filed to run for the Chapel Hill Town Council.

Come election day, neither Hoy nor Brown won. Hoy picked up only three percent of the vote in his primary. Brown picked up more than 1,400 votes in his primary, but ultimately failed to capture the 2,100 votes required to continue on to the general election.

Hoy’s and Brown’s candidacies are likely the first openly gay candidacies for public office in the Carolinas.

‘The Mayor of Franklin St.’

Brown’s partner, Joseph Herzenberg, would go down in history. At the same time Brown was fighting for his chance to become Chapel Hill’s first openly gay town councilman, Herzenberg — not yet out — lost his chance to continue serving on the council.

Herzenberg had run for the council before. In 1979, he was narrowly defeated. He was later appointed to the council when University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill student Gerry Cohen resigned. Trying to keep that seat in 1981, Herzenberg barely missed the mark, losing his seat in the same primary election that saw his partner’s defeat.

That didn’t stop Joe. In 1987, he ran again and won, becoming the state’s first openly gay elected official. Serving until 1993, Herzenberg was instrumental in political organizing statewide and was a co-founder of the Equality North Carolina Political Action Committee.

He died of complications from diabetes at the age of 66 on Oct. 28, 2007.

Joe was always a true friend of the IFC

2009-03-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

IFC News, Spring 2009

Thanks, Joe

Throughout his life, Joe Herzenberg enriched Chapel Hill. And so it's no surprise that even after his death in 2007, Joe continues to help the community, thanks to bequests he made in his will, including a $250,000 gift to IFC.

A historian and political activist, Joe became the first openly gay elected official in North Carolina with his 1987 election to the Chapel Hill Town Council. A fierce advocate for social, environmental and economic justice, Joe's generous bequest will help the disenfranchised served by IFC by supporting emergency shelter and long-term housing opportunities for men, women and children.

In addition, IFC purchased a truck, for its new FoodFirst program, which is used to transport food between all of IFC's facilities.

The FoodFirst truck used to transport food between IFC locations is just one of the legacies of a generous bequest by the late Joe Herzenberg.

"Joe was always a true friend of the IFC," says Chris Moran, IFC Executive Director. "He was a regular donor and advisor to IFC over the years. And he was someone who was extremely public in his views about supporting human services."

Community members are invited to support The Joe Herzenberg Fund; funds raised will support IFC's residential services operation.

For more information, contact IFC Development Director Kim Shaw at 919-929-6380 ext. 29 or developmentdirector@ifcmailbox.org.

Bill of Rights reading honors 'mayor of Franklin Street'

2008-12-16T04:48:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Dec. 16, 2008

By LISA A. YOUNG

CHAPEL HILL -- With the traffic and activity of downtown Chapel Hill buzzing around them, a group of elected officials and local residents paused Monday to reflect on freedom and a man who championed it as they gathered for an annual reading of the Bill of Rights.

This year's event at Peace and Justice Plaza in front of the old Franklin Street post office -- organized by the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee -- also served as a tribute to the late Joe Herzenberg, a former Chapel Hill councilman and the so-called "mayor of Franklin Street."

Herzenberg, who died last fall at the age of 66, was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the South and is particularly remembered for his passion for civil rights.

"We're doing this in honor of Joe," said State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, who gave a few remarks before the reading. She then looked heavenward and added, "We know you're doing the right thing up there, too."

Bill of Rights Day 2008 marks the 217th anniversary of the day the necessary number of states ratified the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Kinnaird said the event has been held in downtown Chapel Hill for at least the last 20 years.

Chapel Hill Mayor Pro Tem Jim Ward, Orange County Commissioner Barry Jacobs and Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton each read a proclamation declaring Dec. 15 "Bill of Rights Day" in their respective jurisdictions. They noted that North Carolina withheld its ratification of the Constitution until a Bill of Rights could be added.

All three jurisdictions have passed resolutions reaffirming the human and civil rights of residents. Additionally, Jacobs and Chilton said, the county and the Town of Carrboro have established policies against the use of local law enforcement to enforce civil immigration law and policy.

Reading with gusto

Ten individuals then read, some with great gusto, the original 10 constitutional amendments.

Daniel Pollitt, a retired UNC law professor who has been attending the Bill of Rights reading for most of its history, said he recalls a time when some had to read more than one amendment because there weren't enough people. This year's crowd of 15-20 people was much bigger than in years past, he said.

"It's good to keep people reminded that we have a Bill of Rights and they ought to abide by it," Pollitt added.

Bill of Rights Day 2008 press release

2008-12-02T15:56:00.000-08:00

Orange Politics, Dec. 2, 2008

From Peggy Misch:

COMMEMORATION OF CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS!

12 Noon, Monday, December 15, 2008

Bill of Rights Day

Peace and Justice Plaza, East Franklin and Henderson Streets, Chapel Hill

Proclamations read by two mayors and county commissioner; 10 amendments read by participants; words spoken by NC Senator Ellie Kinnaird remembering Joe Herzenberg for his dedication to civil rights

Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Information: 942-2535

Chapel Hill may name trail for Herzenberg

2008-11-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

N&O, Orange Chat, Nov. 10, 2008

by MARK SCHULTZ

The Greenways Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission voted unanimously to jointly recommend at tonight's Town Council meeting that the town make the following naming and dedication change:

* Dedicate the future phase 3 section of the Bolin Creek Trail in honor of Joe Herzenberg. The commissions note Herzenberg was a strong proponent of open space and greenways and left at least $250,000 upon his death to be used for the Bolin Creek Trail. (The commissions also note that it would be easier to plan a memorial to Herzenberg if any such dedication were made prior to construction.)

Joe and Allan Gurganus at Joe's Stonewall party, 2004.

Helms and Herzenberg: When The Old South Met New

2008-10-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Huffington Post, Oct. 28, 2008

by ERIK OSE

Despite sharing the same initials and middle name "Alexander," Jesse Helms and Joe Herzenberg were very different. Helms was a bigoted, heterosexual, Southern Baptist, extreme right wing Republican who used divisive politics to keep himself in power for five U.S. Senate terms. Herzenberg was a tolerant, gay, Jewish, staunchly liberal Democrat who spent his life standing up for progressive ideals.

Jesse Helms and Joe Herzenberg

Yet they were both historic politicians who bookended the Old and New South. Helms, who died last summer at age 86, was the last unapologeticly racist politician of the segregation era. Herzenberg, who passed away one year ago today at age 66, was elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council two decades ago as the first openly gay elected official in the former Confederacy. And in 1984, their paths memorably crossed during the epic Helms-Hunt U.S. Senate race.

That year, Helms used shameful hate mongering against Herzenberg, his partner Lightning Brown, and the rest of North Carolina's gay and lesbian community to eke out his narrow re-election against sitting Gov. Jim Hunt. Helms had been getting decreasing mileage out of race-baiting, drawing heavy criticism for his filibuster against the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday a year earlier. So he found a new bogeyman - the homosexual menace.

Headlines screaming "Jim Hunt Is Sissy, Prissy, Girlish and Effeminate," and asking, "Is Jim Hunt homosexual?...Is he AC and DC?" appeared throughout 1984 in a free newspaper called The Landmark, a virulently anti-gay publication printed in Chatham County, N.C. The paper's homophobic publisher, Bob Windsor of Chapel Hill, was a cog in the Helms machine.

The stories ran alongside paid ads for Helms' re-election campaign, and hundreds of thousands of copies of the paper were distributed around the state, particularly in rural areas. Its press run increased dramatically in the weeks leading up to Election Day. The Landmark was funded by shadowy national Helms backers, part of the religious right that played a key behind-the-scenes organizing role in Helms' campaign.

That June, the N.C. Republican Party held a press conference to accuse Jim Hunt of a "gay connection" because gay donors had bought 100 of 700 tickets to a Hunt fundraiser in New York, and Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, leading Senate sponsor of a gay rights bill, had held a fundraising dinner for Hunt in Boston. The next day, Helms supporters paid to have a Landmark story reprinted as a large ad in the Raleigh News & Observer, accusing Hunt of "accepting a $79,000 contribution from Gay Activists."

Posing as reporters for the black and gay press, right-wing operatives made and taped phone calls to gay Hunt supporters around the country. Articles based on distorted excerpts from the phone calls were then published in issues of The Landmark.

Herzenberg and Brown were the smear campaign's N.C. poster children, targeted because they had helped co-found the Lesbian and Gay Democrats of North Carolina two years earlier, and were both vocally campaigning for Hunt. According to Lightning, one caller "asked about my fund raising for Hunt. The details ended up in The Landmark right away - it was frightening."

Besides running made-up stories that slandered Herzenberg and Brown relentlessly, including accusations that they had started a Chapel Hill NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) chapter and were secretly "porno kings," The Landmark also published their home addresses and did everything possible to incite violence against the two of them. No wonder, as gay activist Mab Segrest recounted in an article on the Senate race, that "Brown and Herzenberg were subjected to more than a dozen separate incidents of intimidation, vandalism and harassment...for their work within the Democratic Party."

In a 1984 interview with the Independent Weekly when Herzenberg and Brown were awarded two of the Indy's first-ever Citizen Awards, Brown told of how "two people even threatened to kill me on Rosemary Street." Herzenberg called the attacks "very disruptive and at times painful." Asked if he had been scared, he admitted, with a subtlety that testified to his courage, "At moments."

In September, The Landmark published an interview with Helms in which he called homosexuality "a perversion and a crime." He described the gay movement as a "threat to the morals of our young people" and to "the ability of our population to reproduce itself...jeopardizing the very survival of the nation."

Helms was eventually forced to publicly distance himself from The Landmark after the paper published its most sensational charges accusing Jim Hunt of having a lover who was a "pretty young boy."" But he was well aware of how the paper was being widely distributed on his behalf. Helms betrayed himself on this point during a televised debate.

Although both were known in Triangle political circles, and in the state's gay community, the only actual media coverage of their status as gay activists was through The Landmark's smear campaign. But in one of their four debates, Helms twice gay-baited Hunt by thundering, "You're supported by people like Joe Herzenberg and Lightning Brown!" Herzenberg considered the moment he was publicly outed to have been when Helms announced his name on statewide television.

In the wake of his sliming by Helms' hateful tactics, Herzenberg decided he was out of the closet for good. His political activism and organizing flourished. He was elected as an openly gay Mondale delegate to the 1984 Democratic National Convention. He helped organize North Carolina's first Gay Pride Parade in 1986. He ran for the Chapel Hill Town Council as an openly gay candidate in 1985, and again in 1987 before he was finally elected.

Herzenberg was arguably the first gay candidate in U.S. history elected to office outside an urban area or historically gay enclave, and he did it by assembling a broad-based progressive coalition. His election was an important symbol of how the South was changing, and in some ways, Jesse Helms made it possible. Joe Herzenberg would have been thrilled to see the political landscape one year after his death, only one week away from the election of Barack Obama and a historic repudiation of the politics of division and hate.

Joe Herzenberg's Yahrzeit

2008-10-11T13:42:00.000-07:00

As the anniversary of Joe Herzenberg’s death nears I would like to share with you the Jewish custom for observing the Yahrzeit of a family member. The Hebrew Date is used instead of the actual date of death. This year the date will be November 14.

Traditionally family members mark the yearly anniversary of a death (called "yahrtzeit") in two ways:

Light a yahrizeit candle. A candle that burns for 24 hrs. Yahrzeit candles should be lit the evening before the date specified. This is because the Jewish day actually begins at sundown on the previous night. There is no prayer said with this lighting.

And giving some form of charity (tzedakah) in the name of the deceased.

Candles can be purchased at Harris Teeter in the ethnic section of the store or at the Chapel Hill Kehillah gift shop.

I gave a Rainbow Arch to NC Pride Fest that is now is the Joe Herzenberg Memorial Arch. It was dedicated September 26 at the Pride March in Durham.

Joe left 1/2 of his estate equally to Friends of Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation and Greenways for the Bolin Creek Greenway, especially for benches and other amenities, as well as actual construction; and the Inter-Faith Council for Social Services, Inc. for the operations of the homeless shelter and the kitchen. Each has received a check in the amount of $250,000.00.

L’shalom,

Kathie Young

Gay Pride allies pin their hopes on Obama

2008-09-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

N&O, Sept. 28, 2008

by Jesse James DeConto

DURHAM - "We are on the doorstep of the most important political election of our day," Chapel Hill Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt told the crowd (at the N.C. Pride Festival on Saturday) on Duke's East Campus.

...

Kleinschmidt and others celebrated the late Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg, who in 1987 became the first openly gay elected official in North Carolina. The path to the stage passed beneath a 20-foot-high inflated arch -- the Rainbow Memorial Arch -- in Herzenberg's honor. He died in October.

"His election opened the door for the rest of us who followed," said Orange County Commissioner Mike Nelson, former mayor of Carrboro.

Helms created our ‘Stonewall’: N.C. Senate Vote 90 was a defining moment for queer N.C.

2008-07-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

Q-Notes, July 26, 2008

By DAVID STOUT

Mandy Carter leaps onto the comparison like a cat pouncing on a cricket. “Yes, I so agree,” she says excitedly. “That was a defining moment for the lesbian and gay community in North Carolina. I think you absolutely can call it this state’s version of Stonewall.”

The event Carter is referring to is the creation and year-long organizing of N.C. Senate Vote 90, a statewide political campaign founded by a handful of Triangle-area lesbians and gay men for the purpose of defeating virulently anti-gay Sen. Jesse Helms. The Republican senator from North Carolina was seeking his fourth term in the 1990 general election.

“We were all upset about Helms’ gay record,” Carter observes. “But as a black lesbian I was also very aware of his horrible record on civil rights. Even George Wallace and Strom Thurmond understood that things were changing, but Helms was not letting go. Let’s not forget that he was an equal opportunity destroyer.”

Anyone who even halfheartedly follows politics already knows that Helms was reelected. What many don’t know, however, is that some of the most significant gains won by the state’s LGBT community in the ensuing two and a half decades have risen from the ashes of NCSV90’s stinging defeat.

The advances haven’t come from the loss itself — the crucial exception being the unavoidable and unavoidably empowering realization that the LGBT community could have its collective breath knocked out on Tuesday and still get up on its feet on Wednesday. Rather, the gains have blossomed from the lessons learned, the groundwork laid and the coalitions assembled before the polling places even opened that fateful election day.

“This all really begins with Sue Hyde,” Carter recalls. “It was around 1989 and she was working for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She was in Durham for a hearing because the City Council was considering a gay anti-discrimination policy. Afterward, she asked a few of us what we were going to do about Jesse Helms.”

Hyde’s deceptively simple question sparked a house meeting of local activists, including host David Jones, Carter, openly gay Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg, Mab Segrest, Jim Duley, Jim Baxter and Meredith Emmett.

“We needed to do something, but we didn’t know what,” Carter says. “We didn’t know anything about what we were doing.” Still, there was enough energy and determination in that initial meeting to convince Carter to tell her bosses at Durham’s legendary women’s music label Ladyslipper that she was “going to take time off to work on this thing to defeat Helms.”

Carter, a nationally respected activist who started organizing with the War Resister’s League in the late ’60s in San Francisco, wound up campaign manager of the nebulous start-up, which after a bit of research was registered with the Federal Elections Commission as an independent expenditure political action committee.

“That meant we could raise and spend as much as we wanted, but we could have no contact with the Gantt campaign,” explains Carter.

Harvey Gantt, the African-American former mayor of Charlotte, was creating history with his bid for Helms’ seat. No black candidate had ever before run for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina and Gantt was actually making a strong showing in the early polling.

NCSV90’s launch was less auspicious. The group had an office but no money. Carter, at that point a full-time volunteer, says things turned around as word of the campaign spread.

“We had people contacting us from Greensboro, Charlotte, Asheville, Wilmington asking ‘how can I get involved?’ When we saw that, we decided it was time to go public in the traditional press. The response was incredible, and that’s when we knew we had something. Money started pouring in from our friends outside North Carolina. It was just remarkable.”

The PAC was now legitimately up and running, but organizers knew that money alone didn’t equal victory. It would take more than paid staff and media buys to defeat the Helms juggernaut. To maximize the odds of victory, they needed a voter army.

So, they assembled one — and forever changed the face of North Carolina politics.

“We had a strategy meeting in Chapel Hill where we were wondering how we would pull together enough votes to defeat Helms,” Carter remembers. “Even if we got every gay person to vote we figured it wouldn’t be enough. We started to think, who would work with us on this? That led us to get a copy of Helms’ voting record.

“Arts, environment, education, people of color, gay and lesbian allies, pro-choice — these were the groups we knew we should be in contact with. It was an alliance that we needed then and I’m happy to say that it still exists to this day. That historic moment really got down to the roots of who would be the progressive coalition in North Carolina.”

As the race — one of the most closely watched in the nation — unfolded through the spring and summer, NCSV90 volunteers statewide worked tirelessly canvassing neighborhoods, staffing phone banks, fundraising and registering voters. Gantt’s numbers continued to grow until he was actually leading in the polls.

And then the wheels fell off. In an 11th hour act of desperation, Helms’ campaign unleashed what has come to be known as simply “The Ad.”

The TV spot focused on a white man’s hands as he tore up a rejection notice for a job that, according to a voiceover, was given to a less qualified minority applicant “because of a racial quota.” The ad was blasted by moderate and left-wing pundits and politicians nationwide for its racist fear-mongering. But, Helms was unbowed and the spot stayed on the air.

A few weeks later, the embattled incumbent eeked out a win with 52.5 percent of the vote. It was a crushing loss for North Carolina’s LGBT community and the entire progressive coalition after they had worked so hard and come so very close.

“I was taping every ad during the campaign,” Carter says. “When I saw that one, I said this election’s over. But it still didn’t soften the blow because we had experienced all these mini victories — money, volunteers, this amazing alliance we had put together — along the way. To lose like that at the end was devastating.”

Today, the river of time has carved out enough emotional distance that the perspective required to accurately assess NCSV90’s “failure” is possible.

Beyond the progressive coalition that was established, other essential, lasting benefits from the campaign include EqualityNC — the statewide LGBT advocacy organization was founded as NC Pride PAC by key Senate Vote 90 organizers — as well as an increase in the number of openly gay elected or appointed officials in the state.

A couple of years after working with NCSV90, Mike Nelson successfully ran for the Carrboro Board of Aldermen. After serving just one term, in 1995 he became the first openly gay candidate to be elected mayor of a North Carolina city. Mark Kleinschmidt and Julia Boseman are additional out candidates who successfully campaigned for public office.

Amazingly, nearly three decades after the fact, one more advancement from the anti-Helms campaign is playing out before us right now, in the historic political race of another trailblazing African-American politician — this one seeking the nation’s highest office.

Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s primary victory and competitive general election polling in North Carolina is a testament to the courage of Harvey Gantt and the sweeping vision of a few gays and lesbians at a house party who were very early adopters of the real politics of change.

Looking at these results, it’s clear that the legacy of NCSV90 actually has little to do with loss or lack, but a great deal to do with increased common will, visibility, political standing and connectedness. The campaign ushered in a new era for LGBT North Carolinians. It should be celebrated for the remarkable victory history has revealed it to be.

“Helms has come and gone,” Carter concludes, speaking pensively. “But we’re still here, and in the long run we won.”

Brilliant Flight - a love poem for Mama Nayo and Joe (VIDEO)

2008-06-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

This video honors the lives of Joe and Nayo Barbara Malcolm Watkins ("Mama Nayo"), a Durham community activist and educator who died of cancer on January 22, 2008. It was created by artist and poet Ebony Noelle Golden.

Blacks added to plaza names: Marker naming rights leaders will be installed in the fall

2008-05-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, May 25, 2008

By Meiling Arounnarath

CHAPEL HILL -- The names of the first people approved for the town's new historical marker were all white. Where were the black people who helped lead the civil rights struggle in Chapel Hill, the local NAACP asked.

The NAACP recently recommended four additional names be added to the sidewalk marker planned for the Peace and Justice Plaza outside the Franklin Street post office. The Chapel Hill Town Council wants to install the marker in the fall.

The Naming Committee originally approved Joe and Lucy Straley, Charlotte Adams and Joe Herzenberg, who were active in the local peace and civil rights movements and other causes.

The NAACP proposed Henry "Hank" Anderson III, James R. Brittain, Hubert Robinson and Gloria Williams.

...

The historical marker will be a tablet installed in front of the flagpole.

It will read: "Peace and Justice Plaza" at the top. Under that will be the names of the nine honored, in alphabetical order, said Town Council member Sally Greene, who sits on the Naming Committee. More names can be added later.

"Most of them are probably not as well-known as these other activists because, as someone has said recently, the black community tends to be invisible and overlooked," Yonni Chapman, a local civil rights historian, told the Town Council. "The NAACP, upon hearing the news of this initiative to honor peace and justice activists, certainly supported the names put forward, but we thought it would be appropriate to have some African-Americans added to that list."

The Peace and Justice Plaza wasn't just a focus of the anti-war movement, Chapman said.

"It was also the focal point of the civil rights movement, of all the Martin Luther King Jr. marches that have been held," he said. "It's been a rallying area for the black freedom struggle in Chapel Hill, which has been tremendously important to this entire community."

First names proposed for post office plaza

2008-05-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

N&O, Orange Chat, May 2, 2008

by MARK SCHULTZ

The Chapel Hill Town Council will consider the first names to be engraved on a marker outside the Franklin Street post office on Monday.

The council voted in 2006 to name the spot the "Peace and Justice Plaza" in recognition of the political gatherings that have taken place there.

In a 2007 story, we reported that the the council voted to engrave the names of longtime activists Charlotte Adams and Joe and Lucy Straley on a 5 foot by 5 foot granite marker outside the post office.

Now comes word, by way of Monday's Town Council agenda, that town leaders have decided to add some other names to the marker.

The council will consider a recommendation to engrave the following names: Joe and Lucy Straley, Charlotte Adams, Joe Herzenberg, Hubert Robinson, James R. Brittain, Henry "Hank" Anderson III, and Gloria Williams.

Exemplary Regional Leadership by an Elected Official 2007 Recipient: Joe Herzenberg

2007-12-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

"Regional Leadership Honored with Goodmon Awards," 12/13/07

On Monday, December 10, 2007, Leadership Triangle turned its annual awards presentation into a family reunion of sorts. The Goodmon Awards Gala celebrated Triangle family values and recognized the connection between the citizens of the many cities, towns and counties in the central North Carolina area. The event also celebrated the accomplishments of several Triangle individuals and organizations.

And the Goodmon Award Winners Are:

Exemplary Regional Leadership by an Elected Official
2007 Recipient: Joe Herzenberg

Joe Herzenberg was a true leader. He worked tirelessly to promote and protect civil rights and liberties for all people. As our state’s first openly gay elected official, he broke down barriers for future generations of legislators and created a more diverse body of elected officials in Orange County and across the state.

That election began a slow march, a journey, that led to Carrboro becoming the first municipality in the South to adopt domestic partnership benefits, and to Jim Neal becoming the first openly gay man to run for US Senate in North Carolina.

Mike Nelson accepts the Elected Official Award in memory of his good friend Joe Herzenberg.

Franklin Street's unofficial mayor remembered

2007-11-16T07:31:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Nov. 16, 2007

BY BETH VELLIQUETTE

CHAPEL HILL -- His friends remembered him as courageous, cranky and caring, a world traveler who always returned to his favorite spot on Franklin Street, a postcard-sender, a movie-lover, a book-giver and a patriot.

Joe Herzenberg, who died from problems related to diabetes at the age of 66 on Oct. 28, was remembered during a memorial service Thursday at the Chapel Hill Kehillah. About 175 people, including state senators, mayors, councilmen, aldermen, activists and old and new friends attended the morning service.

Although publicly Mr. Herzenberg was known as the first openly gay elected official in North Carolina -- winning his race for Chapel Hill Town Council in 1987 -- and was admired for leading the way and opening doors for other young politicians, both gay and straight, to many he was also a dear friend.

State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, who worked with him on many Democratic party events and issues, told of going to the movies with him for years and years, and then having dinner together afterward at Margaret's Cantina. "If I was reading a newspaper article late at night, I could call him at midnight to talk about it and know Joe would be up," Kinnaird said.

Traveling the world

Mr. Herzenberg, who sometimes sat in front of Pepper's Pizza with his trademark floppy hat and was known as the mayor of Franklin Street, had traveled throughout the nation and the world, including trips to Antarctica and Africa during the last years of his life.

His best friend, Kathie Young, remembered sleeping in a tent in Africa as the rain poured down. Mr. Herzenberg wrote in his journal how nice it was to sleep with the sound of the rain on the tent, "and how he got a good night's sleep because he couldn't hear Kathie snoring," she said with a laugh.

On his trips he studied the history, the culture and the country, said his friend Jonathan Courtland. "What he learned really helped inform his idea on how he could better help his community," Courtland said.

He met his goal of visiting all 50 states, and when he traveled he sent his friends postcards with little notes on them. "I'd love to see if we would all stack our postcards up how big the stack would be," Courtland said.

Mr. Herzenberg, described as a voracious reader, also was known for giving books away. Sometimes a friend would open the front door in the morning to find Mr. Herzenberg had left a book on the doorstep, or a friend's child would receive a book as a gift when Mr. Herzenberg stopped by for a visit.

Mr. Herzenberg, described as a patriot who loved the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, loved gathering with his friends, listening to Mozart and operas and talking about politics.

Leonard Rogoff, the founder of the Chapel Hill Kahillah, summarized Mr. Herzenberg's Jewish philosophy. "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat."

Memorial collage at Margaret's Cantina after Joe's service. Photo by Ruby Sinreich.

We were family

2007-11-15T11:30:00.000-08:00

Tribute by Kathie Young at Joe's memorial service in Chapel Hill, Nov. 15, 2007

Joe and I were best friends for about 30 years. We were family. All of you are aware of the various contributions Joe made to our community and society so I am not going to talk about any of them.

We traveled to Alaska and Africa together during his last years. We talked on the phone several times a day. Wednesday nights we had dinner together followed by grocery shopping. When he felt up to it after shopping I would leave him at Cafe Driade and Mark K. would give him a ride home.

As best friends we shared each others' joys and sadness. I am privileged to have been able to help Joe enjoy a more comfortable life for the past year. All of the time I spent with him will forever be with me.

Once several years ago Joe asked me to go to the movies to see Daniel Wallace’s “The Big Fish.” I asked what it was about. Joe said, “It’s about the kind of funeral I want.” I was surprised as the movie began because I didn’t understand what Joe meant. Midway through the movie I understood and both Joe and I cried like “girls” till the end. Those tears were wonderful tears of love, joy and understanding.

I left the theater knowing that Joe wanted me to be the person piecing together the stories he had gathered over the years. And I, too, like Will Bloom, began to understand Joe’s great feats and his great failings. I am so happy Joe let me carry him into the water.

I want to thank my husband, Roy, for being so understanding of my absences and my two sons, Fred and David for offering me so much strength and support when I needed it.

I will also miss Joe and am so happy that he was such a huge part of our lives.

Joe in Africa, 2006.

Friends Remember Joe

2007-11-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

Tributes from Shirley Dreschel and Rep. Verla Insko, as read by Kathie Young at Joe's memorial service in Chapel Hill, Nov. 15, 2007

"These won't be new words heard today about Joe...kind, insatiably interested in subjects he wanted to know about, look-you-in-the-eye caring, loyal, trusting, lived a life marked by the spirit of adventure, inspired questioning, sweet...and there I want to pause and share that three days before Joe died, I received a box of 'Shirley' tulips from him. We had only days before shared in the Harris Teeter parking lot, (accompanied by Bev Kowalec), a plan for him to visit our farm and see our gardens in the spring. Joe had sent me three such boxes in the past. He is, and will be, a very real part of me. In each tulip face I will see his sweet, jovial, light-up-the-world smile and will be encouraged to reflect it in the world. Thank you Joe."

Shirley Dreschel

"I don't have anything profound to say. Joe was just such a constant presence in local Democratic politics and a dependable and wise counselor for me that my political world seems out of balance without him. For me, he provided some kind of solid link with what is right about the Chapel Hill/Carrboro community. I didn't ever see a chink in his armor, and I disagreed with those who did. I just wanted to be with other people who had the same kind of experience with him.

I'll be thinking about you all and Joe on Thursday."

N.C. Rep. Verla Insko

Joe's passion for life

2007-11-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

Tribute by Jonathan Courtland at Joe's memorial service in Chapel Hill, Nov. 15, 2007

Different people in different places have written of Joe's myriad of social works. Obviously these need to be remembered; they were his greatest passion. But they weren't his only one. I loved Joe's passion for life - his love of people of all stripes, of movies (what great reviews!), of opera, Mozart, Vermeer, fine food (of course not furry creatures - he loved them as well), good tea, of travel all over the world and much more.

It's nice to recount some of these more personal things to each other. Also, because of his nature, we are all having to help fill in the blanks. I think I can help on a couple things. As for his Judaism, I believe Joe was bar mitzvahed at 13. This is classic Joe - I don't think his father practiced his religion, but Joe, after having read about many different faiths, decided he wanted to be a practicing Jew. As a teenager, Joe was often called to the synagogue to help make a minion (10 adult Jews needed for God to hear their prayers). I do think his faith became more important to him over the last few years.

Joe didn't quite get to all the Vermeers - I believe there were a couple in Germany and another somewhere else in Europe that he missed. (Though if he did see all the ones on public display he planned on knocking on the door of the woman who owns the one not publicly shown - I think a widow of a Johnson & Johnson heir in NJ - I always liked the mental image I have of this possible encounter).

He decided he wanted to concentrate his last travels elsewhere. He did make it to all fifty states. The last couple were within the last few years. One of my favorite Joe postcards was from his last state (Missouri?) - it said only "How about the territories?".

Concerning his papers, Joe did mention to me a number of times over the last few years that he wondered if Wilson Library would be interested. He wrote in his journal daily from the day Stalin died (1956?) until he fell ill a couple years ago. I, for one, would certainly be interested in reading what he wrote. I sure do miss him.

Remembering Joe

2007-11-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

John Dittmer's tribute as read by Gerry Cohen at Joe's memorial service in Chapel Hill, Nov. 15, 2007

Joe Herzenberg and I first met 40 years ago, in Mississippi. I had applied for a job in the history department at historically black Tougaloo College. Joe was the chair of the department. He was also the director of the Freshman Social Science Seminar, an experimental program funded by the Ford Foundation; a faculty leader, working to initiate much-needed curriculum reform; and a civil rights activist, who had been jailed after a demonstration in Canton, a mean, racist town twenty miles to the north. Joe was 25 years old. When I came down for a job interview, Joe was not terribly impressed with me, and had his own candidate for the job. Fortunately for me, Joe was overruled by the college president, and I was hired. (Six weeks later the Ku Klux Klan bombed the campus home of the academic dean. He lit out for the territory, and I was appointed dean. So for the next two years I was Joe’s “boss,” a fitting turn of events, as I was always quick to remind him!)

For those of us who taught at Tougaloo in the late 1960s, this was a memorable time. My wife Ellen and I became good friends with Joe and the other young professors (the average age of the faculty in our Social Science Division was 26). The civil rights movement was winding down, and black power was ascendant. Although the college now had a black president, Tougaloo’s faculty was still overwhelmingly white, and the students were demanding more black faculty and academic content. They turned their wrath on the Freshman Social Science Seminar, and Joe and I watched while they fed a bonfire with copies of their next assigned reading, Division Street America, written by Studs Terkel, whom they knew only as a “white man.” (Two years later, when Studs came to the college, and was walking across the campus, he spoke glowingly of the Tougaloo student body. Joe and I did not have the heart to tell him that he was standing on the very spot where his book was burned!)

Racist violence was still a reality in Mississippi in the late 1960s. One of my favorite “Joe stories” occurred when several of us white faculty went downtown one evening to see a movie. When we walked out after the showing there was a disturbance in the lobby. It seems that a white exchange student at Tougaloo and his black date, there for the second show, were being harassed by what looked like the makings of a white mob. After shouting the usual epithets, they warned him that they would be waiting for him after the movie ended. As faculty, we knew we had to do something, so we retired to our favorite black bar to plot strategy. There we decided that two of us would wait inside in the lobby, then whisk away the couple into a car (driven by my wife), parked in front of the theater with the motor running. Joe was to be the lookout. When we arrived back at the theater shortly before midnight everyone took their assigned positions. The street was totally deserted. And there, across from the theater, was our lookout, Professor Herzenberg, standing under a streetlight, pretending to be absorbed in a newspaper. It was a scene right out of a “B” movie, and we all cracked up, despite the imminent danger facing us. The movie ended, the couple came out, there was no white mob, and we all repaired back to the bar to recount our heroic deeds.

Joe was jailed during civil rights protests in 1964, but this gag photo was taken at the last ever segregated (“colored”) county fair in Jackson, Mississippi, 1965.

Joe left Tougaloo in 1969 (I believe), having gotten a grant to enroll at UNC to work on his doctorate. Like most Tougaloo faculty, he had come to the school fresh from completing an M.A. Joe was planning on returning to Tougaloo, but one thing led to another, and he stayed in Chapel Hill. Several factors accounted for his decision not to return to Tougaloo. The “end” of the activist phase of the civil rights movement and the departure of several of his close friends influenced his decision. There was also his increasing interest in the career of Frank Graham (his dissertation subject), and his love affair with Chapel Hill. And we noticed that Joe was becoming more involved in politics, not as a subject for abstract discussion but as a participant.

In the summer of 1972 the Democratic National Convention was being held in Miami. The Mississippi Loyalist Democrats had booked a bunch of rooms at the convention hotel, and was not able to fill them. They looked for volunteers, and I asked Joe, then at Chapel Hill, if he wanted to go. The two of us went to Miami, and spent three long days and nights observing events. On Friday night the session dragged on and on. It was clear that George McGovern was to be the Party’s nominee, but his enemies were being obstructive. Finally, at five in the morning, with most of Mississippi’s delegates and alternates having left the building, Joe and I got to go to the floor as credentialed delegates, where we voted on a series of amendments the McGovern people did not want to bring up in prime time. I remember our walking out of the convention hall as the sun was rising, and Joe was not weary, but instead exhilarated by the experience. If he was not already hooked on a political career before that convention, he certainly was from that early morning on.

We stayed good friends with Joe down through his Chapel Hill years (a story better told by his local friends). Over the past couple of years I have had research to do at Wilson Library, and each time I was in town Joe and I would spend time together at his favorite local haunts. And then he almost died. His recovery was miraculous, and he told all of us how blessed he was and that now he was going to take care of himself. So it was disheartening to come to see Joe in his last year, sitting in his pajamas, barely able to move. His health was deteriorating rapidly, and he may well have decided there was nothing he could do about it. Kathie Young’s e-mail on that last day stated that Joe had given instructions not to receive life support at the hospital. When she got back to us later to say that Joe had died at 6:15, Ellen said “Good for him.” Joe was now at peace.

I’m writing this now because I will not be able to come to Chapel Hill for Joe’s memorial service, and I wanted to add my “Tougaloo tribute” to those many moving remembrances from his North Carolina friends. Joe touched our lives, and improved them. And we’ll keep hearing his booming voice and hearty laugh, coming from under that outrageous floppy hat, for as long as we have memory.

John Dittmer
DePauw University, Indiana

Joe on election night at Open Eye Cafe in Carrboro, 2005.

No one like Joe

2007-11-14T16:20:00.000-08:00

I can't remember when Joe and I first met but it had to be a long time ago - in those fine days when he was serving for the first time on the Town Council and when gays boys dared to walk down the street holding hands and even kissing - even if only occasionally - in public - before the Reagan years made the street less friendly.

It's not easy being a gay poet in North Carolina - and it's not just because of the poetry establishment, but also because the gay community can sometime ignore poetry as gingerly as the rest of society. Joe was always interested.

Running into Joe on the street was pleasurable always, enlightening frequently.

When we ran into each other he would ask what I was writing and what I was thinking. Joe never hesitated, either, to open his purse and contribute financially to projects I was working on, or to offer to buy my works - although because I felt I owed him so much I would never let him buy. As with everyone else, he wanted to talk movies too, and that was always a source of debate, good cheer, dismay, and excitement. I was surprised and delighted when a framed photograph of giraffes appeared in the mail one day after Joe's trip to Africa.

Joe also stepped forward, when few others did, after I started the Save West House Coalition. He wrote letters, he talked, he encouraged. I'll never forget his generosity then - nor how we both lamented the passing of many charms of Chapel Hill and wondered why progress had to mean destruction for some of the things we loved. We agreed it didn't have to.

When I moved to Chapel Hill in 1975 the town had lots of eccentrics. Joe wasn't one then, but I was glad he became one. He was one of the last. Luckily there are still a few around, but no one like Joe. My partner, Stanley Finch, and I will miss him. Love you Joe!

Jeffery Beam
UNC-Chapel Hill

Joe on the move in Africa, 2006.

Service Thursday for Herzenberg

2007-11-12T06:17:00.000-08:00

New Jersey Herald, Nov. 12, 2007

By ELISA D. KELLER

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Civil rights activist and former Franklin resident Joseph Herzenberg will be honored with simultaneous memorial services in Chapel Hill and at F. John Ramsey Funeral Home in Franklin on Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

A former history professor at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., Herzenberg died Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007, due to complications from diabetes. He was 66. After relocating to Chapel Hill in the 1970s, he became the first openly gay elected official in the state when he won a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council in 1987.

"A lot of people think of Chapel Hill as being this liberal bastion, but it was a fight," explained Herzenberg's friend and current Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt, noting that Herzenberg had been temporarily appointed to the council in 1979, but lost his bids for reelection in 1981 and 1983. After barely winning the last open seat in 1987, Herzenberg went on to become a popular public figure throughout Chapel Hill.

"It's not that he just knew all the businessmen on (Chapel Hill center) Franklin Street, he knew all the homeless guys by name," said Mark Chilton, mayor of Carrboro, N.C., and former Chapel Hill Town Council member. "He saw all those different people as individuals to be represented. He had a great sense of humor, and I think for a lot of folks from Chapel Hill, he's a figure that people very much associate with the town."

Throughout his years on the council, Herzenberg fought to fund the town library system, register the downtown area as a historic district, and preserve town parks with a greenway system of bicycle paths and walking trails connecting them all.

"He really set the bar for environmental protection and preserving open space, as well as using his seat on the council as a place to speak about equality and justice issues," said Kleinschmidt, adding that these issues made Herzenberg the No. 1 vote-getter upon his re-election in 1991.

"He was extremely popular, becoming himself part of the heart of Chapel Hill. He really left this (town) a better place."

Though he had traveled all over the world, Chilton said, "Joe was very proud of being from New Jersey, particularly from that northwestern area. He would always scold people who had anything negative to say about New Jersey, and point out that most folks who said such things had never been to the parts of New Jersey that were really beautiful."

Herzenberg is survived by his brother, Robert Herzenberg; sister-in-law, Deborrah Herzenberg DiMatteo; nephew, Michael; and niece, Sarah. He was predeceased by a brother, David C. Herzenberg, who was a prominent Sussex County attorney who once headed up the Somerset-Sussex Legal Services and did much pro bono work on behalf of the needy.

My friend, Joe Herzenberg

2007-11-07T12:04:00.000-08:00

Since late October, I'll come upon things and subconsciously think how much fun it would be to discuss them with Joe. He was a great friend for 55 years, and I miss him.

After I learned he'd died, I wrote a brief summary of how I remembered Joe, since pretty much everything online then was about after he'd graduated from college.

My friend, Joe Herzenberg, died on Sunday, October 28, in Chapel Hill. I was shocked and saddened to learn of his death, but not overwhelmingly surprised. I had visited Joe in Chapel Hill in April and was disappointed to find his health had deteriorated significantly since I last visited him a few years ago. If you “googled” his name shortly after his death, there were tens of thousands of items retrieved—obituaries, short biographies, and personal reflections—but in almost every case, these begin at the time Joe left graduate school at Yale or when he arrived in Chapel Hill. There was almost nothing about the first 25 or 30 years of his life. Those of us who lived in Franklin, NJ, and went to school with Joe had the good fortune of knowing this very unique and wonderful person during that time, and many long-term friendships resulted.

A week or so before I visited Joe in North Carolina earlier this year, he called to tell me he’d been having some problems with his legs and was undergoing some treatments. Because of this, he said, he was having trouble getting around. He said he definitely wanted to go out to eat when I got there, but that he’d be just a bit slower. He did indeed have serious mobility problems when I was there, but I’m afraid there were other health problems he didn’t want to talk about. Getting across a room was a chore, and getting him to and from a local restaurant for lunch was very difficult.

During our entire visit, he held onto his cell phone, which rang constantly. He’d look at the name or number—and generally it was a local politician or a friend or some higher-up in the Democratic party—and Joe would say it could wait until later. Then, when we arrived at the restaurant and were trying to get him out of the car, his walker positioned, etc., his phone rang again. This time he looked at the phone and said that this was very important, and he had to take the call. For all his urgency, it could have been a congressman, a senator, an ambassador, whatever. It turned out it was his niece in New Jersey calling to tell him about colleges, or options she had—something like that. Joe was totally and genuinely absorbed in the call, and would have continued talking forever. That, I think, speaks to his loyalty and his priorities. He was extraordinarily loyal to his family and his friends, and always put them above anything else in his life.

Joe did a lot of work for progressive issues he supported, including championing the rights of minorities, racial injustice, affordable housing and the environment. He was enthusiastic, tenacious and relentless in things he believed in and in recruiting others to his cause. If you ever gave Joe a “maybe” or “I’ll think about it,” you were finished, because he’d continue to hammer on you until you came around. Joe could be stubborn in his pursuit of what he believed in. He was a very tolerant person and had basic principles that pretty much dictated what he did with his life.

I first met Joe when I was 11 years old and we were classmates in 7th grade. We were good friends through Junior High and High School. After high school, we communicated primarily through letters. Joe was a prolific letter writer. He probably wrote about every one or two weeks and somewhere I still have stacks of those letters, mostly handwritten, and usually stuffed with newspaper clippings from the New York Times or the New Jersey Herald. He was always reading something and was a very intelligent person.

After he moved to Chapel Hill, he changed from letters to postcards, usually with one thing he wanted to communicate or often a question. Ignoring the question just got you another postcard. I told Joe late last year I’d come down for a visit “sometime soon,” but had no idea when. Between then and the time in March when we decided on a date, I got at least four postcards from Joe, asking when I was coming—the last asking “When, if ever, are you coming?” You would have thought with computers, the Internet and especially e-mail, Joe would have been a logical candidate, but he wasn’t. He never much liked e-mail or computers, preferring postcards, phone calls, and especially talking face-to-face with people. Also, for many years, he never had a television. After he got one (relatively recently), he decided it actually did have some merit.

Last year I got a postcard from Joe saying that he was sending me one of the most important documents of the 1950s. The next week I got another, telling me to be on the lookout for something that was “worth its weight in gold.” Finally I received an envelope with a very small (maybe 3” x 2”) piece of yellowed paper. The writing was in pencil, and read, “Please excuse Joe and Roy from class to do Spotlight [our school newspaper] work,” and it was signed by Mr. Weeks, our school newspaper advisor. I guess Joe decided I needed this, but really it was an amazing thing to have when we were seniors. You could just show this to a teacher and get excused from class. Joe would often surprise me with unusual and unexpected things. He had an excellent sense of humor and was full of life and laughter. He had a mischievous grin and genuinely enjoyed a good gossip session or just reminiscing about growing up in Franklin.

Finally, I believe the thing I’ll most remember about Joe is his kindness. Joe was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known, and he was that way his entire life. Back in Franklin Junior and Senior High, when new students joined us from other schools, Joe was one of the first people to meet them, talk to them and make them feel welcome. I heard from a friend recently who said that when she came to Franklin High, Joe was one of the first people who reached out to her, welcomed her, and got her involved in some school activities. It was very important to her then, and she never forgot it.

These are some of the things I’ll remember about Joe: his enthusiasm, his loyalty, his tenacity, his tolerance, his intellect, his stories, his principles, his sense of humor, and his kindness. Joe worked hard to make the world a friendlier and more peaceful place. Personally, I’ll miss him very much, and I know a lot of others will also.

Roy Timmer
Hockessin, DE

Joe, hiding out in Franklin, NJ, 1940's

Oral history interviews featuring Joe

2007-11-06T06:04:00.000-08:00

The Latest Outrage, Nov. 6, 2007

Two oral histories featuring Joe are available for listening online from Documenting the American South, a project of UNC-CH's Southern Oral History Program.

The first is from November 22, 1976 (the 13th anniversary of JFK's assassination), and features Joe interviewing Anne Queen, legendary former director of the Campus Y at UNC-CH in the 1950s and 60s. They discuss the history of radical politics in the South and Chapel Hill during those years, activism in the 70s amidst the "growing apathy of students on university campuses," and hopes for the future following Jimmy Carter's election in 1976.

The second is an interview with Joe taped almost a decade later, on November 18, 1985. He is identified as a "Chapel Hill politico," and explains his support for the controversial issue of the day, OWASA's construction of Cane Creek Reservoir. Joe also comments on the local political scene, and mixes in helpings of his own political philosophies, like this gem:

"To be American means having to deal with change. That is what is so strikingly obvious to me about what American History is all about. We have been, for more than two centuries now, a very dynamic country where things are always changing. It's difficult for people to deal with that and accept that, even though we have a tradition for it."

Joe outside Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill, 1990

The endnotes of this particular interview's transcript are labeled "About Joe Herzenberg, Interviewee." They were clearly written by Joe himself, and made me feel like I'd discovered one of his final, hidden jokes when I found them:

Joseph Herzenberg, a native of Franklin, New Jersey was born in 1941, professes a Master's Degree in European History from Yale University. Tired of being a student, and following the removal of a kidney, he “was tired and needed a rest” so he undertook a teaching position at Tougaloo [Mississippi] College where upon he came to realize that he was “never [more] tired in my life. It was exhausting!” He has been a resident of Chapel Hill since 1969, currently sharing his abode with one “Harriet Levy” who was reluctant (by omission) to espouse the interviewee's political alignment—democrat, “both kinds”. Asked to wrap up his feelings about this issue in nutshell, Herzenberg magnanimously responded, “I'm sorry if people have to suffer sometimes, particularly if they're straight.”

UPDATE 12/12 - Two additional oral history interviews with Joe are archived for listening as part of the Southern Oral History Program at the Southern Historical Collection Manuscripts Department in Wilson Libary, UNC-Chapel Hill. One from 1995, conducted by current SOHP special projects coordinator Joseph Mosnier, is nearly four hours in length, and was Joe's most in-depth, wide ranging recorded conversation about his life and times.

There is no transcript of this interview, but the interviewer's field notes, a handwritten life history drawn up by Joe, and a tape log that summarizes in detail the topics covered are all on file and available for viewing online.

The other interview, from 2000, was conducted by Chris McGinnis as part of a 2000-2002 oral history project called Listening for a Change: History of Gay Men and Transgender People in the South. The entire interview has been digitized, indexed, and can be accessed online. A complete 43-page transcript is also available online.

UPDATE 12/18 - Besides his previously mentioned interview with Anne Queen, Joe also recorded several other oral history interviews with N.C. political figures as part of his research into the life of Frank Porter Graham.

They included the Rev. Charles M. Jones (who was a key figure in Chapel Hill’s desegregation movement during 1963-64), former Graham confidant Charles Phillips Russell, noted Southern liberal and N&O editor Jonathan Daniels, and oral history pioneer William Terry Couch, who was Director of the UNC Press from 1932-45 and also served as Southern Regional Director of the Federal Writer's Project (FWP).

"At least as far back as the thirties, and certainly continuing into the early fifties, there was a very strong notion throughout the region that Chapel Hill is this liberal island...but from my point of view, if that were so, it's difficult to understand how there was such a violent reaction to the Freedom Riders in 1947. That incident in Chapel Hill was the most violent incident of their journey...and then the nature of resistance to integration in Chapel Hill took some rather violent forms."
- Joe, conversation with Rev. Charles M. Jones during oral history interview, Nov. 8, 1976

Historian John Herbert Roper cites an interview he and Joe jointly conducted with North Carolina icon Paul Green in the notes for his 2003 biography, Paul Green: Playwright of the Real South, but the interview is not cataloged along with other oral histories archived in the Southern Historical Collection.

- Erik Ose

We'll not see his like again

2007-11-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

Dave Hart, Chapel Hill News, Nov. 4, 2007 - Editorial

We lost one of the very best of us when Joe Herzenberg passed away last week.

Joe and Chapel Hill were so much a part of each other that it's difficult to imagine the town without him. Not least because, if not for him, Chapel Hill wouldn't be the Chapel Hill we know.

He changed this place, not only through his remarkable political career, but through his vast store of knowledge, his garrulous personality, and his ubiquitous presence. He fully deserved his unofficial title, mayor of Franklin Street, and his unwavering commitment to the fundamental but all too frequently forgotten proposition that all people are created equal and deserve to be treated that way, with justice and compassion.

His groundbreaking political career is well known around here. He participated in the Freedom Summer voter registration efforts in Mississippi in 1963 and came here in the early 1970s to go to graduate school. He immediately immersed himself in local and state politics, culture and history, and when he was elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council in 1987 he became the first openly gay elected official in the state, and probably in the South. He opened the door for others to follow. He was a champion not only of gay rights, but of civil rights in general, social justice, environmental protection and other issues.

In a town with a long history of activism, he's right up there at the top. He managed somehow to be at once a giant of a man and just Joe.

And when many of us think of him, we don't think of him speechifying or voting at the council table. We think of him where we so often saw him, on the Franklin Street he loved and knew so well, wearing his trademark floppy hat, talking to everyone.

Matt Stiegler, Joe, and Fred Young at Joe's Stonewall party, 2004.

Obituary - Joseph A. Herzenberg

2007-11-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

The Carrboro Citizen, Nov. 1, 2007

Joe Herzenberg — the first openly gay elected official in the American South, an ardent defender of civil rights and the environment, and the unofficial Mayor of Franklin Street — died on October 28, 2007 at UNC Hospital. He was 66 years old.

Joe was born June 25, 1941, to Morris & Marjorie Herzenberg. His father owned the town pharmacy in Franklin, N.J., where Joe grew up.

After he graduated from Yale University in 1964, Joe went to Mississippi to participate in voter registration for Freedom Summer. He joined the faculty of historically-black Tougaloo College, where he was appointed chair of the history department. A very popular instructor, Joe was named an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. During this time, Joe was briefly married.

Joe arrived in Chapel Hill in the early 1970s to enroll as a graduate student in history at the University of North Carolina, and, along with his partner Lightning Brown, immediately immersed himself in local, state, and national politics. Although Joe’s first campaign for Chapel Hill town council in 1979 was unsuccessful, he was appointed to the council that year to fill a vacant seat and served until 1981. In 1987, he was elected to the council, becoming the South’s first openly gay elected official. He was re-elected in 1991 with the highest vote tally in the four seat race (and, up to that time, the highest vote total ever in a Town Council race), and served until 1993. As a council member, Joe was responsible for creation of the Chapel Hill greenway system and enactment of the town’s tree protection ordinance.

Joe remained active in civic and political activities. He was a founding board member of Pride PAC, a statewide lesbian and gay political action committee now known as Equality NC. He also served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina and the Fund for Southern Communities. He served as chair of the local greenways commission, the tree commission, and the libraries bond task force, and served on several other local boards. Joe also organized Chapel Hill’s annual Bill of Rights Day celebration.

Throughout his time in Chapel Hill, Joe was an ardent Democratic Party supporter, serving as longtime chair of his precinct. His party activism brought him brief notoriety in 1984, when Senator Jesse Helms angrily raged at his opponent Jim Hunt during a live televised debate “You’re supported by people like Joe Herzenberg and Lightning Brown!” – a moment that Joe was forever after proud of. Joe received a Citizen’s Award from the Independent newsweekly in 1984, the first year that award was given.

Joe was an enthusiastic traveler who visited all seven continents and all 50 states. He also loved art and music. He was a member of Chapel Hill Kehillah.

Joe is survived by his brother Bobby, his sister-in-law Debbie, his nephew Michael, and his niece Sarah. He was pre-deceased by his brother David.

In lieu of flowers, well-wishers are asked to make contributions in his name to Equality NC, http://www.equalitync.org, or the Inter-faith Council for Social Services, http://www.ifcweb.org.

Joe visiting the Netherlands, 1998.

Joe Herzenberg, 1941-2007

2007-10-31T12:18:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Strom, Independent Weekly, Oct. 31, 2007

Joe Herzenberg had a big voice.

Booming across the sidewalk on Franklin Street or over the phone line, he could get your attention with a bit of political news, a funny story, a short lesson in local history. And he was always good for a little gossip.

He didn't hold a conventional job for most of his adulthood, but he chose a giant task for his life's work: to use his voice to fight against injustice and bigotry and fight for civil rights, both in his hometown of Chapel Hill and nationally.

In 1964, he joined the voter-registration drives for African Americans in rural Mississippi—a potentially life-threatening decision for a white, homosexual, liberal, Jewish Yankee back then.

In 1984, he landed squarely in the sights of Jesse Helms' hate machine, when his participation in Jim Hunt's U.S. Senate campaign generated harassment and threats from many sources, including a Chatham County newspaperman who made it his mission to attack Herzenberg and his partner, Lightning Brown.

Closer to home, he became North Carolina's—and some say, the South's—first openly gay elected official. He was appointed to fill an unexpired term on the Chapel Hill Town Council in 1981 and then won a seat in 1987. He was re-elected in 1991 but stepped down after pleading guilty to failing to pay his state income taxes—a mistake he took responsibility for and overcame, playing a prominent part in local grassroots politics in the years since.

Along the way, Herzenberg shared his voluminous knowledge and razor-sharp insight with anyone who'd take the time to listen. He became a mentor and role model for a new generation of local, young progressive leaders, both gay and straight.

Over nearly four decades in Chapel Hill, he stayed involved in all the good fights (and started a few of his own): advocating for non-discrimination policies that covered sexual orientation, defending the privacy rights of public-housing tenants, opposing anti-panhandling laws, helping draft the state's first tree protections, pushing for creation of municipal greenways and a historic preservation district.

Through it all, Herzenberg maintained a Southern gentility that belied his New Jersey roots. He was a master at the art of the postcard, penning little notes of encouragement or thanks and signing them with a trademark flourish whenever the occasion called for it—which was often.
He knew everyone on Franklin Street, not just at businesses like his beloved Pepper's Pizza, but also the folks for whom the street was home.

In a few weeks, we will publish our annual Indy Citizen Awards, a tradition born, like the paper, in 1983. Every November, we honor individuals and groups around the Triangle whose "acts of conscience and sacrifice" make our community better. In 1984, we recognized Joe Herzenberg for speaking out against "political terrorism." Twenty-three years later, we mourn the silencing of his powerful voice.

Death of a Political Hero – Joe Herzenberg

2007-10-31T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Latest Outrage, Oct. 31, 2007

Joe Herzenberg, 1989

With the death of Joe Herzenberg on Oct. 28, Chapel Hill has lost a true political hero, and one of its most caring, kind, and generous lights.

His victory in 1987 as the first openly gay man elected to public office in the South inspired countless future leaders. He championed progressive causes throughout his life, starting with his civil rights work in Mississippi during the 1960’s. Joe went to Mississippi as a Freedom Summer volunteer in 1964, and worked to register black voters who had been denied their democratic rights.

“Participating in the Freedom Summer was not a casual decision…gay Jewish Yankees from Yale were being murdered by the cops in Mississippi,” said Mark Chilton, one of Joe’s political protégés and the current mayor of Carrboro. "I remember him telling me about how the local county boards of election would refuse to let them have copies of the voter registration rolls." The volunteers sat in the election board offices and copied the voter registration lists by hand.

In 1969, Joe came to Chapel Hill as a graduate student and soon began working to elect progressives in North Carolina. Joe helped register thousands of students in Chapel Hill to vote for the 1972 elections. He served as campaign manager for Gerry Cohen, who in 1973 became the first graduate student to win a seat on the town’s Board of Aldermen.

And then Joe was defeated in his first campaign for a Board seat in 1979. Later that year, Joe was appointed to fill Cohen’s unexpired term as Alderman, when Cohen stepped down to run for Mayor. He would lose his race for re-election in 1981, the same year his partner, Lightning Brown, also ran unsuccessfully for the Board. Joe lost another bid in 1985, but he wouldn't give up. He finally returned to the (re-named) Town Council through his victorious campaign in 1987.

“Not many among us could have summoned the energy — the courage, really — for a fourth run at the town council,” said Matt Stiegler, attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “Joe did.”

Joe on North Street in Chapel Hill, 1991

Seeking public office as a gay man in the South, at the time, was a very courageous act. Less than a year before Joe's first campaign, on November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk, the first openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, was assassinated in City Hall after only 11 months in office. Harvey Milk was a hero to Joe Herzenberg, and in turn, Joe became one to a new generation of progressive activists and politicians in North Carolina – gay, lesbian, and straight.

Mark Kleinschmidt, director of the Fair Trial Initiative and a current member of the Chapel Hill Town Council, credits Joe as his inspiration for entering politics.

"I just got off the phone with a friend in California," said Kleinschmidt. "My friend and I both arrived in Chapel Hill as UNC freshmen almost 20 years ago. Both of us had grown up in small North Carolina towns. Upon arrival, we learned about a man who just a year earlier had dared to honestly present himself to his community as an openly gay man and at the same time ask this same community to elect him to office. No one had successfully attempted such an audacious political act. During our conversation, my friend and I both confessed that it was the moment we heard about this guy that we knew we had found our 'home town.'"

“His election twenty years ago…changed the South,” said Mike Nelson, Orange County Commissioner and former mayor of Carrboro, who was Joe’s campaign manager in 1987 and the first openly gay mayor in N.C. “That election began a slow march, a journey, that led to Carrboro becoming the first municipality in the South to adopt domestic partnership benefits, to the governor appointing John Arrowood to the NC Court of Appeals, and to Jim Neal becoming the first openly gay man to run for U.S. Senate in North Carolina.”

I think I first met Joe in 1990 as a UNC undergrad. We shared mutual interests in Democratic politics, the local political scene, and of course, voter registration. Joe was thrilled at the idea of trying to re-awaken the sleeping student vote in Chapel Hill. He encouraged me at every turn to make it happen. With his help, we registered over 15,000 students to vote on campus during the early to mid-90’s, plus 10,000 more statewide.

We also bonded over my home state of Rhode Island. Joe spent part of almost every summer vacationing with his family on Block Island, a beautiful, unspoiled little island off the coast of Southern RI that he loved.

Like many who knew him, I have a small collection of postcards that Joe sent me over the years. His handwritten gestures followed me wherever I moved.

Joe befriended and mentored young people in this town. It was a part of who he was, like his thoughtful postcards. And he kept up his interest even after most of us graduated and drifted away from Chapel Hill.

He didn’t like e-mail or computers. Dubbed the "Mayor of Franklin Street," Joe liked walking around town and talking to people. He was old fashioned and very human.

Joe made me aware of the example set by civil rights activist Allard Lowenstein, a kindred spirit who, like Joe, had a flair for inspiring the young, worked tirelessly for progressive causes, and shared Chapel Hill ties. Both Joe and Allard Lowenstein are near the top of my list of all time heroes, and I think it’s fitting that one introduced me to the other.

When Joe believed in something, he put his energy, resources, and spirit behind it. And it was infectious. His enthusiasm and sense of the possible about doing good in local politics got me and plenty of others involved.

In 1992, Joe was a founding board member of Pride PAC, a statewide lesbian and gay political action committee now named Equality NC. Its work has helped elect a string of out and gay-friendly officials in North Carolina, including State Senator Julia Boseman, the state’s first openly lesbian legislator.

Joe found himself targeted by Jesse Helms’ hatemongering when he and his partner vocally campaigned for Gov. Jim Hunt against Helms during their hard fought 1984 Senate race. In one memorable televised debate, Helms gay-baited Hunt by thundering, “You’re supported by people like Joe Herzenberg and Lightning Brown!”

Posing as reporters for the black and gay press, right-wing Helms fanatics made and taped phone calls to gay activists around the country who were backing Hunt. Articles based on distorted excerpts from the phone calls were then published in issues of The Landmark, a conservative Chatham County newspaper.

Headlines screaming “Jim Hunt Is Sissy, Prissy, Girlish and Effeminate," and asking, “Is Jim Hunt homosexual?...Is he AC and DC?” appeared throughout 1984 in The Landmark. Funded by shadowy Helms backers, hundreds of thousands of free copies of the paper were distributed around the state, particularly in rural areas.

Joe and Lightning were the smear campaign’s N.C. poster children. According to Lightning, one caller "asked about my fund raising for Hunt. The details ended up in The Landmark right away - it was frightening." Joe and Lightning each received one of the Independent Weekly’s first Citizen Awards that year, for speaking out against “political terrorism.”

"I think gay political people elsewhere in the country think we are so brave down here having to deal with Jesse Helms," Herzenberg said. "But I've never met Jesse Helms. He doesn't live in my town. Really, life isn't so difficult here in North Carolina."
- Joe, characteristically modest, as quoted in the Chapel Hill News, April 12, 2002.

Joe in Chapel Hill, 1991

Joe crusaded to elect Democratic candidates to office, from the local to national level. He personally provided crucial early financial, organizational, and moral support for countless progressive campaigns in N.C.

One prominent example was when Joe backed former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt for the Democratic Senate nomination in 1990. At the time, the party establishment was lined up behind Mike Easley, then a little known Eastern N.C. prosecutor. Easley’s chief qualification among party insiders for taking on Jesse Helms seemed to be that unlike Gantt, his platform was more middle of the road than inspiring, and he wasn’t black.

And in 1998, Joe was a very early backer of John Edwards’ populist, outsider Senate campaign, despite the overwhelming support by Chapel Hill political elites for UNC Vice President D.G. Martin.

“In primaries, always vote your heart. You will have plenty of time to vote your head in the general election.”
- political advice from Joe in the 1980's, as remembered by Mark Donahue

The list of local, progressive elected officials whose campaigns Joe helped or mentored is lengthy, but some notable ones are Mike Nelson, current Orange County commissioner and former mayor of Carrboro; Ellie Kinnaird, also a former mayor of Carrboro and current N.C. State Senator; Mark Chilton, current mayor of Carrboro, and the first undergraduate student ever elected to a town council seat in Chapel Hill; and current Chapel Hill Town Council members Mark Kleinschmidt and Sally Greene.

Before coming to North Carolina, Joe served as chair of the history department at Tougaloo College, a historically black college in Mississippi.

Nov. 15, 2007 resolution honoring Joe issued by Tougaloo College

He was keenly aware of how history shapes the present day, and fought to have the town of Chapel Hill do more to recognize the contributions made by some of its overlooked citizens.

Joe urged us to remember people like Samuel Phillips, one of the state's leading Radical Republicans, who prosecuted the KKK as a federal attorney during Reconstruction and was appointed Solicitor General by President Grant.

And John Dunne, Patrick Cusick, and Quinton Baker, leaders of the local civil rights movement in the 1960’s. Their story is told in John Ehle’s long out of print book The Free Men, recently reissued in paperback, which documents the gripping events of this turbulent, too-often glossed over chapter in Chapel Hill’s past.

"At some point in the future ... there ought to be some official town notice of the three main leaders of the civil rights leaders in Chapel Hill: John Dunne, Pat Cusick and Quinton Baker. They did back in 1963 and 1964 what very few citizens of our town were willing to do, unfortunately, which was to stand up for what was right," he said. "They deserve some acknowledgment."
- Joe speaking before the Chapel Hill Town Council, as quoted in the Chapel Hill News, March 29, 2006

Looking back on the conversations we had, I think about all the places around town I remember talking or having lunch with him. I loved talking with Joe. Besides his always perceptive take and inside dope on the latest political news, he was full of personal stories - about his adventures growing up in Franklin, New Jersey (where his father owned the local drug store), living and working in Mississippi during the 60’s, and what Chapel Hill was like in the 70’s and 80’s. He was our resident wise man.

"It is very important, when running a government, to know what happened the day before yesterday or the year before last."
- Joe on Nov. 4, 1991, the day before he was re-elected to office with the highest vote total of any Chapel Hill Town Council member

Herzenberg family drug store, Franklin NJ, 1950's

I’ve been numb ever since I first heard the news yesterday morning. The last time I saw and spoke with Joe was at the grocery store. We talked for a while, first walking the aisles, then I followed him outside and said goodbye when his faithful friend and caregiver Kathie Young pulled the car around. I realized from what he told me how close he’d come to death about a year ago. But he looked much better.

I regret not seeing more of Joe over these past couple of years. I’m mad that he’s left us too early. I’m sorry he got so sick, but I remember him full of life and laughter. I’ll miss him. He devoted his life to standing up for equality and justice, and everyone who believes in these ideals will miss Joe, too.

Memorial shrine to Joe at Margaret's Cantina in Chapel Hill, November 2007. Photo by Ruby Sinreich.

Excerpts from this post have also appeared in the Carrboro Citizen and Chapel Hill News.

Joe Herzenberg, former council member, dies at 66

2007-10-31T06:50:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, Oct. 31, 2007

By Samuel Spies, Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL -- Sitting in a county board of elections office in Mississippi in 1964, Joe Herzenberg got an early taste of grass-roots political activism.

"I remember him telling me about how the local county boards of election would refuse to let them have copies of the voter registration rolls," said Mark Chilton, mayor of Carrboro and a longtime friend.

So the volunteers for Freedom Summer, a voter-registration effort, sat and copied the lists.

"Joe was one of the scriveners, if you will, for that project," Chilton said. Herzenberg also walked through neighborhoods and encouraged people to register to vote. "He was a white gay Jewish Yankee who went to Mississippi to participate in the Mississippi Freedom Summer."

Herzenberg died Sunday. He was 66.

The first openly gay elected official in North Carolina, and some say in the South, he left an indelible mark on Chapel Hill and its politics, and mentored a generation of local politicians and activists.

"He's part of the reason that Chapel Hill became my hometown," said Mark Kleinschmidt, a Town Council member. "You look around this community, you just see his fingerprints on everything that makes this community such a nice place to live."

Herzenberg had been ill for several years, friend Kathie Young said. He died at UNC Hospitals of complications from diabetes, surrounded by friends and his rabbi.

Young and others remember his insightful intellect and warm sense of humor. "We spent our life together being a family in an untraditional sense of the word," Young said. "He could be so cranky, such a curmudgeon, but the relationship we had was nothing but love."

Commonly seen at Pepper's Pizza, Herzenberg loved food and literature, often giving friends books from his extensive library. His favorite meal was Sunday brunch at Crook's Corner, lawyer Matt Stiegler said. Several of Herzenberg's friends gathered there Sunday to celebrate his life.

"There was a lot about Joe that was quirky. That I know of, he never owned a car," Stiegler said. "He sort of personally resented the idea of ever having to leave Chapel Hill."

Herzenberg was born June 25, 1941. His father owned a drugstore in Franklin, N.J., where Herzenberg grew up, according to an obituary prepared by his friends.

While a college student at Yale, he made the civil rights trip.

"He didn't move to New York and make a lot of money and complain with his friends over cocktails about the plight of poor people in the South," Kleinschmidt said. "... He was an activist in the real sense of the word: He was active."

Herzenberg moved to Chapel Hill to continue his studies. He first ran for Town Council in 1979, and though unsuccessful was appointed to fill a vacancy until 1981, his friends said. He campaigned persistently for election, finally winning in 1987.

"Joe was a historian. He more than any of us was aware that his election was of historic significance, but that it was not the beginning of a revolution, not the end, but one small piece of a larger journey," said Mike Nelson, an Orange County commissioner who also is gay. "Really what it did for the rest of us was give us hope."

Kleinschmidt called Herzenberg a personal hero to him as a young gay man thinking of entering politics. "Because of the legacy that he has left, I am fortunate enough to have a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council," he said.

Herzenberg's career as an elected official ended in 1993 after a tax scandal. Though he remained on the council for about a year after pleading guilty to not paying state taxes, colleagues asked him to resign. Faced with the threat of a recall election, he did so.

"He was disappointed and embarrassed. But he didn't let [it] get him down, and he didn't stop being involved in his community," Nelson said. "I think that's a great tribute to him, that he kept going."

Friends said Herzenberg's legacy includes not only work on lesbian and gay issues, but also for racial justice, affordable housing and the environment.

Herzenberg is survived by a brother, Bob Herzenberg. He will be cremated and his ashes buried in New Jersey, Young said.

Kathie Young & Joe, New Year’s Eve, 1978.

Requiem for an original

2007-10-31T05:41:00.000-07:00

Ruth Sheehan, The News & Observer, Raleigh NC, Oct. 31, 2007

In a spiffed-up, buttoned-down Chapel Hill some UNC graduates would hardly recognize, Joe Herzenberg was a touchstone.

He earned a footnote in history as a Chapel Hill council member -- the first openly gay elected official in North Carolina and in the South.

But for true Chapel Hillians, he symbolized what the town was really about: a place where a Jewish boy from New Jersey, a civil rights crusader, could make a life and never feel the need to leave.

In fact, he seldom did.

Once a year, he went to Rhode Island. But he told me he was always glad to get home, to get back to Franklin Street.

He spent part of every day, in his big floppy hat, walking Chapel Hill's main drag, stopping to chat, waving at passers-by as if he were in a parade.

If it's possible to be a moving fixture, he was it.

Before I knew Herzenberg well, I would stop occasionally to offer him a ride, remembering that he didn't own a car. He always politely declined. I realized later that he was connecting with his public.

When I was hired by The News & Observer to cover Orange County, Herzenberg was my ace in the hole.

If I needed the background on a thorny issue (albeit with that lefty Herzenberg spin), I would call. If I needed sources, he would suggest some. If I needed help to sort through the baloney, he would oblige.

Sometimes I would call Herzenberg before 9 a.m. (he was not an early riser) just to get his answering machine.

The message, in his loud, quirky voice, made me smile:

"Leave messages for Joe Herzenberg, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Orange County Democratic Party, the so-and-so for such-and-such office campaign ... and Harriet Levy."

Harriet was his cat.

He always called back. And he always had something interesting to say.

An historian who never completed his dissertation, he read voraciously and kept up with the news, official and otherwise.

Fifteen years before we learned about foot-tapping in a Minneapolis airport restroom, he urged me to write a book about closeted Republicans.

He had a starter list.

Herzenberg had friends of all ages, from the kids at Pepper's Pizza to the most esteemed Carolina deans. That's how he stayed so plugged in.

If it was happening in Chapel Hill, he knew about it, and he had an opinion about it.

That was my first clue something was wrong when I called him last week to hear his thoughts on Senate candidate Jim Neal, a Chapel Hill financier who is gay.

Herzenberg told me he didn't know anything about Neal.

I hadn't realized Herzenberg had been sick. I wrote him a letter the next day. It was still sitting on my desk when I got news of his death.

In recent years, Herzenberg and I had exchanged cards at the holidays, but little more.

When my sons were born, he surprised me by sending beautiful hardcover versions of such childhood favorites as "Harold and the Purple Crayon" and "The Little Engine That Could."

That they are dog-eared now would make him happy, I think.

They were classics.

He was an original.

He will be sorely missed.

Joe and Kathie Young on Halloween, 2005.

The town loses a unique presence

2007-10-31T05:13:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Oct. 31, 2007 - Editorial

Everyone knew Joe. Joe knew everyone.

If ever there was a man about town, particularly downtown, Joe Herzenberg was the guy. He lived downtown and, it seemed that every day, he walked through it. He'd chat with the flower ladies, stop at Pepper's Pizza, grab a hamburger at Crook's Corner, talk to everyone as he made his way down Franklin Street.

Herzenberg, who died over the weekend at the age of 66, was in some ways the antithesis of the average Chapel Hillian, whatever that may be.

He was intentionally car-less and walked everywhere. His everyday costume was a combination of New York hipster and backwoods farmer. In the land of the svelte and athletic, he was anything but.

But no one loved Chapel Hill more than he did, no one cared about Chapel Hill and its future more than Joe Herzenberg cared.

Herzenberg will be recalled for being the first openly gay official in the state and one of the first anywhere, during a time when being gay was less accepted than it is now. He will probably most be remembered for his diligent service on the Chapel Hill Town Council beginning in the late 1980s and for how that service ended, as he was forced to resign when it became public that he had not paid his state income taxes for several years.

But the scandal and his resignation did not diminish his love for his adopted hometown or his involvement in our civic affairs. Rather than hide in the corner, he admitted his indiscretions, apologized for them, and stayed involved in our affairs. He served on local boards and mentored young politicians. He continued to work for civil rights and for peace and justice. He continued to be, particularly on Franklin Street, a presence.

A few years ago the Town Council created a committee to study the then-contentious idea of renaming Airport Road for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It appointed officials to the committee as well as Airport Road residents and members of the local branch of the NAACP. It also named to the committee Joe Herzenberg, as a "citizen-at-large."

Yes, indeed.

North Carolina's First Gay Elected Official Dies

2007-10-31T04:04:00.000-07:00

The Advocate, Los Angeles CA, Oct. 31, 2007

Joe Herzenberg, a longtime activist and the first openly gay elected official in North Carolina, died Sunday. He was 66. Herzenberg had been ill for several years, his friend Kathie Young told The [Raleigh] News & Observer. He died at the University of North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill of complications from diabetes.

Herzenberg moved to Chapel Hill after graduating from Yale in the 1970s. He unsuccessfully ran for town council in 1979 but was appointed to a vacancy through 1981. He kept campaigning until he won in 1987.

Mark Kleinschmidt, a current town council member, told The News & Observer that when he was a young gay man eyeing the political arena, he considered Herzenberg his personal hero. "He's part of the reason that Chapel Hill became my hometown," he said. "You look around this community, you just see his fingerprints on everything that makes this community such a nice place to live."

Herzenberg left the town council in 1993 after neglecting to pay state taxes, a charge for which he pleaded guilty.

Herzenberg is survived by a brother, Bob Herzenberg. He will be cremated, and his ashes will be buried in New Jersey, Young said.

N.C.'s first openly gay elected official dies: Joe Herzenberg was 66

2007-10-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Washington Blade, D.C., Oct. 30, 2007

North Carolina's first openly gay elected official has died. Joe Herzenberg of Chapel Hill died Sunday at the age of 66.

Friends say Herzenberg first ran for the Chapel Hill Town Council in 1979 and was appointed to a position there two years later. He finally won an election to the position in 1987.

Mark Kleinschmidt is a Chapel Hill Town Council member who is also gay. He says Herzenberg is a personal hero whose legacy helped other gays enter and succeed in politics.

Joe in 2000, as featured in Out and Elected in the U.S.A. photo exhibit

Herzenberg inspires others: First openly gay official led way

2007-10-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

The Daily Tar Heel, Oct. 30, 2007

By: Max Rose, Staff Writer

When openly gay politician Ernie Fleming ran for Warren County commissioner last year, the local newspaper ran an editorial that warned of a "moral tsunami."

But that did not prevent Fleming from being elected.

For years, Joe Herzenberg was the only openly gay elected official in North Carolina, but after his Sunday death, many still follow the road he paved.

"(Herzenberg) pried that door open and kept that open by himself in order to keep alive the promise of full participation," Chapel Hill Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt said. "He made it possible to get enough people that it's never going to close again."

In 1987 Herzenberg became the first openly gay elected official in the Carolinas, said Denis Dison, spokesman for Victory Fund, a national organization that helps get gay and lesbian candidates elected.

Now there are at least six gay elected officials in the state, including Kleinschmidt and Orange County Commissioner Mike Nelson.

Herzenberg died Sunday in Chapel Hill at age 66, but his impact extends beyond the town's borders.

Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover, was the first openly gay state senator in North Carolina, and openly gay people also have been elected in and Cabarrus County and Boone.

"We've seen people getting elected in areas that are not liberal bastions, and I think that's an indication that voters are willing to look beyond a voter's sexual orientation," said Ian Palmquist, executive director of Equality North Carolina.

Two gay candidates are running in 2008 for statewide office in North Carolina. Jim Neal is a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and John Arrowood is running for the Court of Appeals.

"Joe Herzenberg was an inspiration to everyone who is interested in making our society a better place to live," Neal stated in an e-mail. "He was one of those leaders who broke down barriers."

But openly gay candidates sometimes still have difficulty getting voters to look past sexual orientation.

Dison said 25 percent to 30 percent of voters will not vote for an openly gay candidate, according to a Victory Fund national survey.

"There are still a lot of people who will immediately discount you when they learn of your sexual orientation," Dison said. "The people you see who do get elected typically run perfect campaigns."

Still, the number of openly gay leaders continues to increase. Victory Fund is endorsing 71 gay candidates in 2007, including Carrboro alderman candidate Lydia Lavelle.

Lavelle received financial support from Herzenberg for her campaign.

Her partner, Alicia Stemper, said sexual orientation has not been an issue in the alderman race.

"That she is able to mention that she has a partner and raising children without worrying that it will pull the campaign off message is such a luxury," Stemper said.

Dison said that while some gay officials, work actively for equal rights, others show their colleagues that they are not the stereotype.

"Being out is perhaps the most powerful statement that anyone can make because it forces people to look at you for who you are," he said. "It changes hearts and minds."

Herzenberg encouraged Kleinschmidt to run for town council, and it became a ritual for interested candidates to speak to Herzenberg before filing.

"He is a model which I try to emulate," Kleinschmidt said. "I think that's true for most every politician in Chapel Hill, straight or gay."

Joe & Bill Strom at Joe's Stonewall party, 2004.

Local leaves personal and political mark

2007-10-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

The Daily Tar Heel, Oct. 30, 2007

By: Sara Gregory, Assistant City Editor

Joe Herzenberg sent his friends hundreds of postcards.

The longtime Chapel Hill resident sent the notes from his home and his travels: a photo on one side and on the back, a few funny observations or words of support.

"He's the only person who sent me postcards," said Chapel Hill Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt, a friend of Herzenberg's. "He would sometimes send postcards with just a simple thought or idea to remind us what was important. It was just this charming way of conveying a message."

Friends said Monday they will miss Herzenberg and his postcards. The civil rights activist and the first openly gay elected official in the Carolinas died about 6 p.m. Sunday at UNC Hospitals. He was 66 years old.

Herzenberg was born June 25, 1941, to Morris and Margaret Herzenberg, and grew up in New Jersey.

He received a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1963. After graduating, Herzenberg was one of the nearly 1,000 student volunteers who went to Mississippi to register black voters during Freedom Summer in 1964.

Herzenberg then joined the faculty of Tougaloo College, an historically black university, where he served as chairman of the history department. The Delta Sigma Theta sorority named him an honorary member while he taught at Tougaloo.

"He had fond memories of teaching there," Kleinschmidt said. "He thought of that as one of his great achievements in his life."

Herzenberg came to Chapel Hill as a graduate student in history at UNC.

In 1979, he led his first campaign for Chapel Hill Town Council and lost. Herzenberg was appointed to the seat vacated mid-term by Gerry Cohen, but failed to win re-election in 1981. He lost a third attempt for the council in 1983.

Friends said they will remember his determination to fight for progressive issues.

"He really set the bar for infusing our public policy decisions with progressive values and his commitment to civil rights and fairness and equality," Kleinschmidt said. "He found a role for those decisions in all that the town does."

Orange County Commissioner Mike Nelson managed Herzenberg's first successful attempt in 1987.

Nelson, who was the first openly gay elected Mayor of Carrboro before serving on the board of commissioners, was a student when he campaigned with Herzenberg.

Nelson met Herzenberg in 1983 at the Henderson Street Bar and said it was exciting to be involved with the successful campaign.

"Joe and our volunteers knocked on virtually every door in Chapel Hill," Nelson said. "We put together an extraordinary grassroots effort."

On the council, Herzenberg was responsible for the creation of the town's greenway system and the enactment of the tree protection ordinance.

"You look around Chapel Hill and you see his fingerprints on anything that's worth anything here," Kleinschmidt said.

He also was a mentor to many UNC students who later went on to elected offices in Orange County. Kleinschmidt, Nelson and Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton were supported by Herzenberg when they ran for office.

"I remember how excited he was whenever I told him I wanted to pursue getting a seat on the council," Kleinschmidt said. "He taught me not just how to fight for the things I cared about, but also how to be effective with the people I was serving."

Chilton was a student when he first ran for a spot on the Chapel Hill Town Council. He and Herzenberg both ran in 1991, and Chilton said Herzenberg became a key adviser.

"Joe was a real important figure in Chapel Hill politics," Chilton said. "It seemed kind of strange, kind of unusual having someone like that supporting me."

Chilton said he learned a lot working with Herzenberg after they both were elected - Herzenberg with the highest vote total ever in a council race up to that time.

"Joe was somebody who was not afraid to stand up for the things that he believed in even if his point of view might be unpopular," Chilton said. "Joe and I were at the losing end of a couple of votes together over the years."

The two were the sole dissenting votes when the council decided to establish new policies allowing public housing apartments to be searched for drugs.

"We were quite vilified for that," Chilton said, who keeps a copy of an editorial cartoon that shows the two being burned at the stake together.

Herzenberg resigned from the council in 1993, but continued to remain active in Chapel Hill, serving on several town boards, including the committee that worked to rename Airport Road in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

He was a longtime Democratic Party supporter, and served as a precinct captain for many years. On Election Days, Herzenberg would go around in the afternoon to convince people to vote.

"He and others would go knocking on doors and all but drag them to the polls," Kleinschmidt said. "He didn't care if they were going to vote for him or not. At the end of the day, he appreciated people participating whether they agreed with him or not."

The upcoming municipal elections mark the 20th anniversary of Herzenberg's election. Equality NC, which Herzenberg helped found, planned to honor him at its Equality Conference and Gala Saturday.

Nelson now will share a personal remembrance during the gala.

Herzenberg is survived by his brother Bobby; his sister-in-law, Debbie; his nephew, Michael; and his niece, Sarah. He was preceded in death by his brother David.

A memorial service is being planned and likely will occur in the coming weeks. Friends and family have asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Interfaith Alliance or Equality NC PAC.

Herzenberg's friends have taken to calling him an unofficial mayor of Franklin Street, recognizing the time he spent downtown meeting new and old friends.

And, in typical fashion, Chilton said Herzenberg reached out to everyone downtown.

"It wasn't just all the business owners and patrons he was friends with," Chilton said. "Joe knew all of the panhandlers by name. He really knew everyone."

Ex-Town Council member dies at 66: Joe Herzenberg served Chapel Hill from 1987 to 1993

2007-10-30T05:22:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Oct. 30, 2007

BY BETH VELLIQUETTE

CHAPEL HILL -- Joe Herzenberg, one the first openly gay elected officials in the state, a political mentor to many and a former Town Council member, died Sunday at UNC Hospitals.

He was 66 years old.

Mr. Herzenberg had been suffering from serious health problems related to diabetes for about a decade and was hospitalized in a coma about a year ago. He recovered from the coma and seemed to be doing better when he had a downturn several weeks ago and was hospitalized again.

His friends held a vigil at his hospital bed during his last days, and some of them were with him when he died.

Mr. Herzenberg's time on the Chapel Hill Town Council from 1987 to 1993 was filled with highs and lows. His friends and supporters said he led conservation efforts, worked to preserve the historic district of Chapel Hill, built the greenway system, was instrumental in developing the tree ordinance and always fought for the civil rights and civil liberties for all people.

Yet he resigned from the Town Council in 1993 when it became known that he had not filed his state tax returns from 1978 to 1992 or his intangible tax returns from 1986 to 1992. He resigned as election workers were close to validating a recall petition.

Mark Kleinschmidt, a member of the Chapel Hill Town Council, was with Mr. Herzenberg and friends at the hospital several hours before he died on Sunday evening. "Yesterday we were all gathering. The Rabbi had come and gone through the end of life process for him, and we made a schedule when each person would come to be with him," Kleinschmidt said.

Kleinschmidt went home and was scheduled to return later that night when he got a call about 6:15 p.m. Kleinschmidt rushed back to the hospital. "He was gone," he said.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton, the youngest person to be elected to office in North Carolina, served on the Chapel Hill Town Council with Mr. Herzenberg and also was with him during his last hours.

Chilton, a student at UNC at the time, met Mr. Herzenberg as they both were running for two open seats on the Chapel Hill board. "I think Joe might have been the only person besides me that thought I could win in 1991," Chilton said. "He was somebody who really believed in me and helped give me a chance.

"When we both won in 1991, him by a landslide and me by a fingernail, we worked very closely on the Town Council," Chilton said. "I learned a lot about how to do things from Joe."

Mr. Herzenberg lived on Cobb Terrace for many years and walked downtown often, sometimes sitting in front of Pepper's Pizza, speaking to the many people he knew as they walked by. "He did cut an unusual profile," Chilton said with a laugh. "He was very recognizable, and he was always on foot."

Mr. Herzenberg knew not only the store owners by name, but also the employees and the homeless people and panhandlers who hung out downtown, Chilton said.

Kleinschmidt also was a student at UNC when he first met Mr. Herzenberg, he said. "Like many young people who are now involved in local issues, he was a very important part of helping me develop," Kleinschmidt said. "He was always so much more than a friend. He was my mentor. He was my teacher."

Although Mr. Herzenberg lived in Chapel Hill and served on the Town Council there, he was very influential in Carrboro politics as well, said Carrboro Alderman Jacquelyn Gist. "If anybody doubts Joe's influence in Carrboro, our last three mayors were mentored by him, Ellie Kinnaird, Mike Nelson and Mark Chilton," Gist said.

Staff writer Ginny Hoyle contributed to this report.

Chapel Hill political leader and mentor dies at age 66

2007-10-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

The Daily Tar Heel, City Briefs, Oct. 29, 2007

Local activist Joe Herzenberg passed away at about 6 p.m. Sunday at UNC Hospitals.

In 1987, Herzenberg was elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council, becoming North Carolina's first openly gay elected official and the first in the south.

Mark Kleinschmidt, an openly-gay Chapel Hill town council member, along with several other local leaders, say they owe their political career to Herzenberg.

Kleinschmidt calls Herzenberg his hero."Joe's one of the most special people in the world to me," Kleinschmidt said. "He was a mentor - not just in politics."

The Equality NC Foundation will honor Joe Herzenberg at the Equality Conference & Gala on Saturday in celebration of the 20th anniversary of his 1987 election. He served on the Chapel Hill Town Council from 1987 to 1993.

He was also a founder of Equality NC PAC, then NC Pride PAC, and served on that board for more than a decade. Since his 1987 election, Herzenberg served the town on several advisory boards.

"You look around the community and see the things that make it a wonderful place to live - you see Joe in all of it," Kleinschmidt said. "Whether that's social politics, our greenways, our libraries, our downtown. Those things were hugely important to them.

"Making sure Chapel Hill was a wonderful place to live and work was something he committed his life to."

Joe Herzenberg dies

2007-10-28T15:15:00.002-07:00

The Carrboro Citizen, Oct. 28, 2007, 3:15 pm

Joe Herzenberg, longtime Chapel Hill Town Council member, Democratic Party stalwart, Greenways champion and an astute historian of local politics died today from complications of diabetes.

He left this world, we are told, surrounded by friends. Details of memorials to follow.

Update: Thread on OP: We’ll Miss You Joe

Video footage of Joe Herzenberg in his element, speaking before the Chapel Hill Town Council

2007-06-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Town Council Meeting, June 27, 2007

In June, 2007, Joe appeared before the Chapel Hill Town Council to alert the town to the paperback reissue of The Free Men, John Ehle's landmark history of Chapel Hill's desegregation protests during 1963-64. Joe praised the book as "one of the best ever written about the civil rights movement in any town."

The Free Men was originally published in 1965, but had been out of print for many years. He urged members of the council and the entire community to read the book and remember the town's history, even though it was "not a very happy story...almost nobody in Chapel Hill, except students, primarily black students, did what they ought to have done."

According to Kevin Watson, co-owner of Press 53, the Winston-Salem based publisher that reissued the book, Joe "bought the first copy of the reissued version of The Free Men. He bought eight, in fact."

VIEW VIDEO FOOTAGE

SUMMARY MINUTES: Joe Herzenberg mentioned a book titled "The Free Men," written by John Ehle, which is about the civil rights movement. He described it as the best book ever written about Chapel Hill and gave a copy to Mayor Foy. Mr. Herzenberg encouraged Council members to read it.

Leaders look to honor corner: Cite post office's historic presence

2006-03-29T06:39:00.000-08:00

The Daily Tar Heel, March 29, 2006

Its history has never been quiet.

Beginning with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, the Franklin Street post office plaza has remained a site where residents go to make their voices heard loud and clear.

...

To honor the plaza's unique history, the council is looking for a fitting tribute for the site, opting at its Monday meeting to hold a public hearing on the matter in the future.

....

Joe Herzenberg, a member of the continuing concerns committee, which was set up to address race relations after Airport Road was named in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., also suggested to the council Monday that three (local) men be commemorated at the site.

Then-UNC students John Dunne and Pat Cusick and Quinton Baker, a student at the N.C. College for Negroes (now N.C. Central University), participated in a vigil and fast in the plaza on Easter of 1964, Herzenberg said.

March, 1964. L-R: Patrick Cusick, LaVert Taylor, John Dunne, James Foushee. Photo by Jim Wallace.

Like the people who gathered there, the plaza has a history in and of itself.

Now owned by the town, the site was once the property of the federal government.

"Because of that, the Chapel Hill police could not arrest people on federal property," Herzenberg said.

Council seeking names for plaza

2006-03-29T05:43:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill News, March 29, 2006

The initial proposal was to name the plaza for Charlotte Adams and Joe and Lucy Straley, local civil rights and peace activists who used the post office plaza as a soapbox to spread their message.

The naming committee suggested they could be honored with plaques in the plaza. But (council member) Sally Greene said the committee also recognized that others also might be worthy of honor and options should be left open.

Former council member Joe Herzenberg started the bidding with a suggestion to also name the plaza, or something else at some point, for three leaders of the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill.

"First of all, I have no problem -- how could I have a problem? -- with Joe and Lucy and Charlotte," Herzenberg said.

"Great citizens of our town. But at some point in the future ... there ought to be some official town notice of the three main leaders of the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill: John Dunne, Pat Cusick and Quinton Baker. They did back in 1963 and 1964 what very few citizens of our town were willing to do, unfortunately, which was to stand up for what was right," he said. "They deserve some acknowledgment."

Cousin Alice - Joe's entry in 2006 Chapel Hill Community Art Project

2006-03-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

Cousin Alice

Artist's Name: Joe Herzenberg

Age: 64

Statement: When I feel myself lost I often go on my travels. This cheetah, Cousin Alice, seemed lost herself. She wandered about for some time.

[Editor's note: This photo was Joe's entry in the 2006 Chapel Hill Community Art Project. According to Kathie Young, during their trip to Africa, she and Joe followed Cousin Alice (a relation of Joe's cat Alice) for a long time. Eventually, she stopped, and stood still for what seemed like an eternity.]

Building on the great success of the 2004 Self Portrait Project and the 2005 Dream Project, the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission is pleased to announce the theme for the 2006 Community Art Project - Lost and Found.

What have you lost? What have you found?

Now in its third very successful year, this community-wide exhibition will be on view in public places throughout Chapel Hill and Carrboro in Spring 2006. Take this opportunity to create!

To be a part of this project, the CHPAC invites everyone who lives/works/plays in Chapel Hill and Carrboro to create an artwork based on the theme Lost & Found. Any interpretation of Lost & Found is acceptable – be creative! What have you lost? What have you found? Does it relate to the materials you use or the concept you choose? You decide!

The reception for the 2006 "Lost and Found" Community Art Project will be held on March 23 at the Chapel Hill Museum, located at 523 East Franklin St. in Chapel Hill from 7 until 9 pm.

Joe and Bob Herzenberg at the Ava Gardner Museum - portrait by Kathie Young

2006-03-23T18:59:00.000-08:00

ANOTHER LOST MOMENT IN A FOUND PHOTOGRAPH

Artist's Name: Kathie Young

Age: 63

Statement: I took this photo of my best friend and his brother having coffee after a visit to the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield. My camera captured the souls of these two aging men. I enhanced the photograph by inserting old family photographs and memorabilia to aid it in fitting the category 'Lost and Found'. I call my embellished art photograph 'ANOTHER LOST MOMENT IN A FOUND PHOTOGRAPH.'

(Editor's note: This portrait was Kathie Young's entry in the 2006 Chapel Hill Community Art Project, featuring Joe and Bob Herzenberg, who was visiting from New Jersey. In the photos on the wall behind Bob, Kathie can be seen hugging Joe on the night of his first election victory in 1987.)

A bow to integration

2006-02-11T05:26:00.000-08:00

The News & Observer, Raleigh NC, Feb. 11, 2006 - Letter to the Editor

The obituary last month of opera singer Birgit Nilsson reminded me that she was more than a great soprano.

In 1964, students at Tougaloo College, a black institution in central Mississippi, contacted guest artists who were scheduled to appear with the Jackson (Miss.) Symphony. At that time the symphony was segregated, that is, there were no blacks in the orchestra and blacks were not admitted to the concerts. The students asked the artists to cancel their appearances, at least until the symphony desegregated.

Birgit Nilsson did so, despite the considerable cost to her for breaking her contract.

So, in her passing, we have lost both a great voice and a great heart.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

(The writer, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member, is a former assistant professor of history at Tougaloo College.)

Grannies rage for Bill of Rights

2005-12-16T06:18:00.000-08:00

News & Observer, Dec. 16, 2005

By Meiling Arounnarath

Margaret Misch wore an orange jumpsuit with a black hood over her head, while a group of grandmothers dressed as the Statue of Liberty sang songs of peace Thursday.

Huddled with them beneath the roof of the Franklin Street post office, another group of 10 people read, one by one, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

They were, each in their own ways, marking a national holiday: Bill of Rights Day.

The Bill of Rights ensures U.S. citizens have the right to be tried in front of a jury and the right to bear arms, among many others.

It also also guarantees people the freedoms of speech and assembly, which Misch and the Raging Grannies were exercising inches from the cold, winter rain.

Misch, 75, who helped found the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was protesting the treatment of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib and Cuba's Guantanamo Bay prisons.

In addition to her outfit, Misch held a sign that read "We 'indict' torture" above an image of a red, octagonal stop sign. Instead of letters spelling out "STOP," the octagon framed a silhouette of a person in a hood and loose-fitting garment. Electrical wires dangled from the figure's arms and groin.

Torture is an inhumane way for the military, FBI and CIA to get information from prisoners, from "persons, no matter if they are a citizen, tourist or person with a green card," Misch said.

Beside her, the Raging Grannies, in pale green T-shirts and foam Lady Liberty crowns, took a lighter approach -- singing songs to protest the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act.

"We're the Raging Grannies singing our songs / Doo Dah, Doo Dah ... We don't like the Patriot Act / Doo Doo, Doo Doo."

Lori Hoyt, a mother of five and grandmother of 10, helped found the group.

"We started because we all just hold values that say violence does not make for a better place, war does not make for peace," the Carrboro resident said. "We're deeply concerned about what kind of world we're leaving to our children and our grandchildren."

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton and Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy, who issued Bill of Rights Day proclamations in their towns, also participated.

"It's important to remember the basic principles on which our nation was founded, even if people are not always comfortable with hearing it," Foy said. "The freedom of speech and religion actually means something."

Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy is flanked by Raging Grannies as he reads a Bill of Rights proclamation at the Franklin Street Post Office. From left are Jane Hare, Wynn Berg, Elisabeth Curtis, Ann Powers and Lori Hoyt.

(Editor's note: Joe helped organize this annual event at the Peace and Justice Plaza outside the Chapel Hill post office on Franklin Street. He was always one of the ten readers of the Bill of Rights.)

Name change remains divisive: On first birthday, battle lines persist

2005-12-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

The Daily Tar Heel, Dec. 6, 2005

Controversy still travels down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, formerly Airport Road, one year after the Chapel Hill Town Council unanimously voted for the name change and ended an 11-month debate.

The street formally was dubbed its new title last May on the 45th anniversary of King's visit to Chapel Hill, but it was on Dec. 6, 2004 that the council received a standing ovation for its decision to proceed with the renaming.

...

Fred Battle, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he is "still elated about it."

He represents the voice of many residents who think the name change was the best way to remember the historical figure.

"It makes me feel good to live in a community that commemorates the civil rights movement," said Yonni Chapman, a committee member. "I think many people in the community feel it was about time that Chapel Hill honored Dr. King."

...

One year later, former council member and committee member Joe Herzenberg said that with more time the community gradually will grow to embrace the new name.

"As with anything of this kind, there are still plenty of people who call it Airport Road." Herzenberg said. "Increasingly over the years, people will begin to forget Airport and think Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard."

"Whenever I drive by and look at the signs, I feel good."

Unveiling of MLK Jr. Blvd street sign in Chapel Hill, 2005.

Joe and Kathie Young on Halloween

2005-10-31T20:00:00.000-08:00

Joe and Kathie Young on Halloween, 2005

Triangle Stonewall Democrats Meeting

2005-09-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

WakeDems.org, Sept. 6, 2005

Submitted by Julia Lee

Event: Sep 18 2005 - 3:00pm

Description:

Orange County member and former Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg will chair the meeting. The agenda includes possible endorsements for upcoming elections, participation in Gay Pride events on September 24, and finding volunteers to serve as representatives in each of the three Triangle counties. Please try to attend this important meeting. We need the participation and contribution of everyone to make the Triangle Stonewall Democrats an effective and positive organization.

For more information contact Joe Herzenberg at 929-4053.

Mrs. Spencer's era

2005-01-15T05:37:00.000-08:00

The News & Observer, Raleigh NC, Jan. 15, 2005 - Letter to the Editor

To compare, as a Dec. 21 People's Forum letter-writer did, the racial views of Abraham Lincoln in 1858 with those of Cornelia Phillips Spencer in the Reconstruction era (1865-75) is to compare historical apples and oranges.

Between 1858 and Reconstruction, a great Civil War had been fought, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers had been killed, Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation and included black soldiers in the Union Army, and the Constitution had been amended three times with regard to former slaves. By the time of his death, the Lincoln of 1858 was no more.

And Lincoln wasn't the only white American whose racial views had changed. Samuel Phillips, Cornelia's brother, as federal attorney in Raleigh prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan so vigorously that President Grant appointed him solicitor general. And he wasn't alone. An entire political party (the Republicans!) acted as if they believed in racial equality.

Mrs. Spencer was not in good company. And today, Chancellor James Moeser is to be commended for his recent decision regarding the Bell Award.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

Local progressive ideas boost gay rights issues

2004-12-07T06:54:00.000-08:00

The Daily Tar Heel, Dec. 7, 2004

By: DAN SCHWIND

Of the six openly gay officials ever elected to office in North Carolina, four have been elected in Chapel Hill or Carrboro.

Although many agree on the source of the apparent openness toward gay rights, there is debate on how progressive the area really is.

"The first victories are usually in the more progressive areas," said Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson, one of four openly gay mayors in the South. "Orange County is certainly one of the more progressive areas in the state."

Former Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg, who became the state's first openly gay elected official in 1987, also cited the towns' liberal reputations.

"I always thought that Chapel Hill would elect an openly gay official," he said. "University towns are traditionally ... more liberal and tolerant."

Council member Mark Kleinschmidt said Chapel Hill's history in playing a major role in activist movements is also key.

"We've been at the forefront of most civil rights movements," he said. "Generally, progressive and liberal people are the first to take on social justice issues."

Ian Palmquist, executive director for Equality NC, echoed the sentiment.

"Chapel Hill and Carrboro have had a long history with social justice issues," he said. "I think they are a little ahead of the rest of the state on issues like this."

Rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community are recent social issues the area has tackled.

At the council's March 22 meeting, Kleinschmidt presented a petition that would have asked the state to ignore the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

Doing so would have allowed the town to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally elsewhere in the country and provide those couples with the same benefits accorded to married couples.

Nelson followed suit, making a similar petition at the March 25 Carrboro Board of Aldermen meeting.

Both petitions were killed quickly in the N.C. General Assembly, but Kleinschmidt said his petition still has much support locally.

But for all the perceived local support toward the LGBT community, some harsh feelings toward the group still resonate.

"It's not completely easy," said Gloria Faley, former member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education. "There are a lot of folks in this community who are not happy with us."

Faley said that during her campaign for the school board, she received a number of anonymous phone calls and "a lot of nasty anonymous letters."

Faley said she is even more worried by the results of the Nov. 2 general election, in which 11 states approved state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage.

"I'm worried about the overall state of the nation," she said. "I worry about people portraying other people as moral or immoral."

But Kleinschmidt said that despite the election results, he believes the nation has turned the corner toward a more tolerant view of the LGBT community.

"This isn't really backlash," he said. "It's really just half of an opinion. If you look at the polling numbers, there's a lot of support for civil unions."

Nelson shared similar views, pointing out Julia Boseman's election as state senator for the traditionally conservative New Hanover County.

"Once you cross that hurdle, you can win anywhere," Nelson said.

"Clearly, we've made it over that hurdle."

Voters seek comfort in company of others

2004-11-03T05:55:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill News, Nov. 3, 2004
CHAPEL HILL -- Joe Herzenberg walked through the front door of the Orange County Social Club in downtown Carrboro, dwarfed by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer's face looming on the enormous television screen taking up one entire wall.

Herzenberg, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member and a close observer of all things political, stood for a moment and took in the scene. Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson, wearing a T-shirt that said, "George W. Bush: You're fired," hurried over from the bar to greet him.

"Hi, Mike," Herzenberg said. "What do you know?"

"I have a good feeling," Nelson said.

"Yes, but what do you KNOW?" Herzenberg asked.

Fright night on Franklin Street

2004-10-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, Oct. 27, 2004

Residents have reveled in or put up with the downtown Halloween celebration for years now.

But just when did Franklin Street morph into the largest demon destination in the state?

Though no one can pinpoint the date, most interviewed said downtown Halloween crowds started growing sometime in the 1970s.

"I was sitting in the window of Spanky's on Halloween in 1979," recalls former councilman Joe Herzenberg. "I just noticed it was really not what it used to be. It was really getting to be a big thing."

Attempt to save West House is only getting started

2004-10-04T05:45:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Oct. 4, 2004 / Chapel Hill News, Oct. 17, 2004 - Letter to the Editor

West House on campus at UNC-CH, before its August, 2006 demolition.

The West House Coalition reiterates our support for the Arts Common and its programs, that we believe the Common can support those needs without sacrificing West House, and that it seems clear Arts Common architects were never asked to consider incorporating the house into the Common -- an exciting challenge for any firm. Since last January we have heard from numerous folks in all stages of planning and public debate that claim West House was seldom, or only peripherally discussed.

Paul Kapp was hired by UNC after the house's fate was sealed. His recent guest column in The Chapel Hill Herald and comments in The Daily Tar Heel imply that West House preservationists insult Carolina's preservation record. We have publicly praised Carolina's preservation activities, including Mr. Kapp's hiring. Observing the quality restorations of our beautiful historic buildings inspired our group to take up the house's fate. It should be noted, master planners also sought to demolish Smith and Swain Halls until Myrick Howard of Preservation North Carolina insisted that they and West House should be saved. Indeed, the Y-Court, also slated for demolition, was saved by an enormous outcry from students and alumni.

West House garden view

It's important to clarify that West House does not sit on top of any utilities. The house was built in 1935 on private property before any utilities were underground. Utilities are under at least one, if not all, of the myriad Music Building footprints (and despite protestations otherwise, the building's architects confirm no footprint is yet set).

West House represents one-third of Carolina's history with many noted historic associations. During the last two home football games, alone, the Coalition has gathered more than 500 signatures from alumni, students, faculty, employees, and visitors in support of the house. We've only just started.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

Demolition of West House, August 17, 2006.

(Editor's note - the efforts of the Save West House Coalition were ultimately defeated by the tear-down-the-past, uncaring, shortsighted agenda of the UNC-CH administration under Chancellor James Moeser.)

’81 killing spurred Durham gay rally, one of N.C.’s 1st

2004-10-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

Durham Herald-Sun, Oct. 1, 2004

In April 1981, four sunbathers on the banks of the Little River were attacked by a group who, witnesses said, headed toward them shouting, "We're going to beat some faggots!"

One man, 46-year-old Ronald Antonevich, died three days later.

Joe Herzenberg, who is gay and was a Chapel Hill Town Council member at the time, said he remembers the death vividly.

"It meant that somebody could be killed or badly hurt because somebody thought you were gay," he said.

The attack also enraged Durham's small gay community, prompting "Our Day Out," what Herzenberg recalls as one of North Carolina's earliest gay rallies. The event attracted hundreds of supporters and curious onlookers, and brought a
new civil rights issue into prominence.

Much has changed in the 23 years since Antonevich's fatal beating and the rally that followed. Durham's gay pride festival is now a statewide event that attracts several thousand people. This weekend, PrideFest 2004 celebrates "20 Years of Pride," including the march sparked by the attack and the parades that began a few years later. The activities begin tonight with a "Ninth Street Promenade" and continue Saturday with speeches and a parade on and around Duke's East Campus.

"The climate in Durham is one of the more accepting climates in the state," said Ian Palmquist, executive director of Equality North Carolina, a political action committee working for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. "The state as a whole still is relatively conservative," he said, "and, certainly, the work being done in places like Durham is leading the state forward."

Panel prepares for renaming debate: Different stances to shape future of Airport Road

2004-09-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

The Daily Tar Heel, Sept. 17, 2004

Mayor Kevin Foy announced the names of the people who will make up the special committee to consider renaming Airport Road in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

...

The idea of renaming the road originally came before the council in January. But after a series of heated public forums, the council decided it could not make the decision without more citizen input.

Monday, the council chose 20 people to give that input.

Joe Herzenberg, a former Town Council member, long-time Chapel Hill resident and historian of the civil rights movement, was appointed as a citizen-at-large.

Herzenberg said the struggle to rename the road pales in comparison to the struggles in Chapel Hill during King's lifetime.

The renaming is a way to compensate for things that should have been accomplished locally while King was alive, Herzenberg said.

"We should have something to honor Dr. King," Herzenberg said, adding that he is willing to listen to those who disagree with him.

Town: Zap ‘defense of marriage’ law in N.C. - Chapel Hill council wants repeal of law banning gay unions

2004-04-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

Durham Herald-Sun, April 15, 2004

CHAPEL HILL -- The Town Council voted unanimously Wednesday to ask state legislators to do away with North Carolina's "defense of marriage" law, which bans same-sex marriages.

...

Councilman Mark Kleinschmidt proposed making the request part of the council's legislative agenda, and he described it Wednesday as a way for the town to say, "Hell yeah, we're about fairness, we're about equality, we're about treating people fairly."

"If that means stepping out and making some noise, then give me the noisemaker," he said.

...

The proposal is aimed at a law the state Legislature passed in 1996, the same year that Congress passed the national Defense of Marriage Act. The federal law defines marriage as a union between a man and woman and gives states autonomy in deciding whether to recognize same-sex marriages from other states or countries.

The N.C. law bans same-sex unions and says that same-sex marriages performed outside the state are not valid in North Carolina.

Joe Herzenberg, a former council member who is gay, spoke in favor of Kleinschmidt's petition. Herzenberg said he was proud that, back in 1975, town officials protected employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation, and he hoped the council would vote unanimously about the same-sex marriage request.

State might not follow locals' lead

2004-04-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

The Daily Tar Heel, April 7, 2004

As the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro headline a fight for same-sex rights in North Carolina, most doubt the rest of the state will join in on what is now a national debate.

"North Carolina is not the most progressive state," said Joe Herzenberg, former Chapel Hill Town Council member and co-founder of Equality North Carolina, an advocacy group for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

As the first openly gay elected official in the state, Herzenberg has paid close attention to the state of gay rights in North Carolina for more than a decade.

"I think what they are doing in Chapel Hill and Carrboro is great," Herzenberg said. "At least we are starting somewhere."

Spencer in a different context

2004-03-19T05:59:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill Herald, March 19, 2004 - Letter to the Editor

With respect to Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Chancellor James Moeser suggests that she be judged in the context of the time (i.e., Reconstruction, that period of U.S. history when racial views were most fluid). That's fine. How about going one step further and judging her in the context of her own family?

Samuel Field Phillips, Mrs. Spencer's brother, did such a good job at prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan when he was a federal attorney in Raleigh that President Grant appointed him solicitor general, the second highest position in the Department of Justice. He served for 12 years under four presidents.

As solicitor general he defended civil rights legislation before an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. And then, late in life, Phillips came out of retirement in 1896 to represent Thomas Plessy, a man of color from Louisiana who wanted a better seat on a train. Unfortunately Phillips, Plessy and all of us lost -- in Plessy v. Ferguson.

So when it came to racial matters central to the democratic struggle in the late 19th century, who can deny that Samuel Phillips (and not his sister Cornelia) is the better American hero -- for then and now.

P.S. We should all thank Yonni Chapman for helping us appreciate our past.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

I cannot imagine how anyone thought John Kerry would be more electable than John Edwards

2004-03-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

Edwards' Exit: Thanks supporters, commends Kerry, won't say what's next

Charlotte Observer, March 4, 2004

U.S. Sen. John Edwards, the mill-town kid turned millionaire lawyer turned major presidential candidate, ended his bid for the White House with an endorsement for his chief rival, rousing words for his supporters and no hint of his future plans. Edwards stepped aside Wednesday in a carefully choreographed announcement at Raleigh's Broughton High School, which his oldest son and daughter attended.

...

"I cannot imagine how anyone thought John Kerry would be more electable than John Edwards, but I guess people were concerned about the experience," said Joe Herzenberg, a former member of the Chapel Hill Town Council and liberal activist.

N.C. governor weighs execution bias case

2003-09-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network, Sept. 30, 2003

by Christopher Curtis

With time running out for convicted murderer Edward Hartman, his lawyers say they are doing what they can -- including an appeal Tuesday to the North Carolina governor -- to spare him from execution this Friday.

His defenders maintain prosecuting attorneys unfairly used Hartman's homosexuality to get him the death penalty for the murder of his housemate, 77-year-old Herman Smith Jr., in 1993.

...

On Monday Gov. Easley's staff met with gay leaders in the state. Former Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg, who claims to be the first openly gay elected official in the South, said he asked for executive clemency in this case, "because we
believed there was homophobia in his prosecution and conviction."

Mark Kleinschmidt, a current council member who was also at the meeting, reflected on the case, saying, "The injustice hit me personally."

"This reflected more than just an isolated case of injustice," Kleinschmidt told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network. "It's not surprising to us that the courts never cured this. From the lowest courts all the way to the Supreme Court, gays and lesbians had a hard time receiving justice. We need guarantees and fairness, otherwise a court is a farce."

Gay rights advocates say their objections to Hartman's trial primarily focus on the sentencing phase. While his defense tried to explain how the sexual abuse Hartman endured as a child should be considered as a mitigating factor when determining an appropriate punishment, prosecutors said such a claim was irrelevant for homosexuals.

...

Triangle gays say court’s decision overdue: Sodomy laws called symbolic affront to rights

2003-06-27T06:03:00.000-07:00

Durham Herald-Sun, June 27, 2003

For members of the Triangle's gay and lesbian communities, the end of state sodomy laws was long overdue.

Former Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg remembered another time, 17 years ago, when the Supreme Court was deciding whether to discard them.

"We were waiting for the Supreme Court to issue the Bowers decision," he said. "We were hopeful at the time they would do the right thing, but they didn't."

So when the Supreme Court ruled the laws were illegal Thursday, it marked a shift toward an era when gay rights could no longer be overlooked.

"I think that gays and lesbians are just too obvious all over the place in today's society," said Herzenberg, who was Chapel Hill's first openly gay elected official when he came to office in 1987.

Herzenberg was one of about 100 gays, lesbians and their friends who gathered Thursday evening at the Mad Hatter's Bake Shop in Durham to celebrate after the Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex, ruling that the law violated rights to privacy.

The decision effectively made North Carolina's own sodomy laws obsolete.

Senate hopeful Dan Blue draws local support

2002-08-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Aug. 7, 2002

CHAPEL HILL - U.S. Senate candidate Dan Blue picked up endorsements from 20 current and former elected officials from Orange and Chatham counties during a Tuesday news conference at the Franklin Street post office.

Nine of his new backers joined Blue for the morning event, which took place on a traditional rallying ground for the local political community.

They said Blue is the Democrat best equipped to take on Republican Elizabeth Dole in November, and the one with the strongest credentials for a would-be senator.

"We need a candidate who will represent Main Street, not Wall Street," Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson said. "And Dan's just strong. After 22 years in elected office, he's got a strong track record of working on issues that people in this county care about."

Nelson was the main spokesman for the group and the most senior of the current office-holders who lined up behind the candidacy of the former speaker of the N.C House.

Blue, D-Wake, is running on a crowded primary slate that also includes former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, former Durham City Councilwoman Cynthia Brown and N.C. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall.

...

The sitting officials who endorsed Blue on Tuesday also included Carrboro aldermen Joal Broun, Mark Dorosin and Diana McDuffee; Chapel Hill town councilman Mark Kleinschmidt and Bill Strom; Orange County Commissioner Moses Carey Jr.; and Chatham County Commissioner Margaret Pollard.

Blue also got endorsements from former city school board members Sue Baker, Fred Battle, Ed Caldwell, J.R. Manley and Ted Parrish; former Chapel Hill town councilmen Mark Chilton, Joe Herzenberg, R.D. Smith and Joe Straley; former Carrboro aldermen Braxton Foushee and Allen Spalt; and former Hillsborough Mayor Horace Johnson.

...

Blue "is electable and he stands for things I think a Democratic candidate should stand for," Herzenberg said. "Some of the so-called New Democrats have gone a little too far to being old Republicans. In particular, I'm afraid that Mr. Bowles has gone too far over to the pro-business side."

Are you a cat person or a dog person?

2002-08-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, Aug. 4, 2002 - Voices From The Hill

"Cat, because I don't really know...well, yes I do. I am really just against dogs. My cat Alice is the greatest cat, I wish she was here."

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

Public Must Accept LGBT Politicians

2002-04-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

The Daily Tar Heel, April 24, 2002

By Jonathan Chaney

When you run for political office, it's best to make sure your closet is clean of skeletons.

And conventional wisdom also tells you that if you're gay and want a political office, it's best to stay in the closet.

But more and more successful pols are bucking that trend.

If you don't believe me, take a look at the photo exhibit "Out and Elected in the U.S.A." on display at the Carrboro Century Center.

The exhibit was organized by Washington, D.C., photographer R. S. Lee, who spent more than four years compiling all of the material.

There are 60 photos of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans who either hold public office or held public office in the past.

Surrounding the photo montages are personal essays from leaders in 30 of the 33 states where openly gay and lesbian officials have captured elected office.

With the sponsorship of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a national educational and public interest group that helps gay and lesbians attain political office all over the country, the exhibit is on a national tour after a stint in Washington, D.C.

And Carrboro was its first stop.

There's good reason for Chapel Hill and Carrboro to be the national debut for this exhibit.

That's because this area has been the vanguard of LGBT political opportunity in North Carolina.

In fact, two of our own are on display in the exhibit itself.

Joe Herzenberg, former Chapel Hill Town Council member and mayor pro tem, became the state's first openly gay elected official when he sat down in the Chapel Hill Town Hall in 1987.

And Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson became North Carolina's first openly gay mayor in 1995.

But obviously Chapel Hill and Carrboro are not microcosms of the entire state.

There are still many counties here where people would be deathly afraid to come out of the closet, much less try and run for a publicly elected office.

Supporters of this exhibit, including photographer Lee himself, hope this tour will allay some of those fears -- or at least educate the public at large.

"If this can help one person who has always said, 'No way, no how,' realize that it doesn't have to be that way, that they don't have to spend their life trying to be something that they're not, then I've accomplished my goal," Lee said.

People like Nelson and Herzenberg are anomalies in a state whose national political identity is inexorably linked with Sen. Jesse Helms.

But recognizing their contributions to political mainstreaming for gays and lesbians in the state is important.

After all, what other group of people can say they have representatives holding political office in just 33 of the country's 50 states?

Jewish-Americans?

African-Americans?

Women?

Of course not.

But face it.

Though racial and religious discrimination is still prevalent in our country, discriminating against and ostracizing gays and lesbians are the most socially tolerated forms of intolerance in our society today.

Jokes and innuendo regarding sexual orientation are fair game for sitcoms and late-night comedy hosts.

Walk through the Pit and hear, "That's so gay," or, "What a fag."

In such a climate at large, is it any wonder that there are only 33 states with openly gay and lesbian officials?

(Though I promise that all 50 states have ones still hiding in the closet.)

That's why recognizing those who have taken the bold step to not only open up their closets to the public, but freely come out of them, is worthwhile.

"Out and Elected in the U.S.A." premiered April 14 to a crowd of more than 100. The exhibit runs through May 12.

Take a few minutes to visit.

The men and women who grace the Century Center's walls are pioneers who have my gratitude and respect.

At the very least, they deserve to have us hear what they say.

'Out and Elected': Gay people in public office - A Century Center exhibit features openly gay politicians

2002-04-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, April 16, 2002

By GRETCHEN DECKER

CARRBORO - At any given time in the United States, there are roughly half-a-million elected officials, and a growing number are openly gay.

In "Out and Elected in the U.S.A.," a photo-text exhibit now on display at the Carrboro Century Center, photographer and documentarian R.S. Lee has captured what some are calling a new phase in American political history.

Black and white portraits of elected officials, accompanied by
excerpts from interviews conducted by Lee over the past four years, capture the experiences of 60 openly gay politicians in 30 states over the past 30 years.

At Sunday's opening, Lee said he set out to learn as much as he could by documenting the stories of out and elected officials in their own words - asking, Who are they? What don't we know about them? How did it happen?

Lee said he was drawn to these questions because when people who are "out" decide to run for office, "They hold themselves up to public scrutiny with the uncertainty of how the electorate would respond."

"It's difficult to be gay in our culture in many ways," Lee said. "We have a way of putting politicians on a pedestal and also throwing eggs at them."

...

Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson was among several local politicians to attend the opening.

"I'm glad that these folks are being recognized for the work they did because they're pioneers in their own communities," Nelson said of the exhibit, in which he is one of the politicians featured.

"This last 25 years is really important because it was the first wave of openly gay and lesbian people in public office," he said.

By documenting this moment in American political history, "Ron has done a service to not just the lesbian and gay community, but the American community in general," Nelson said. "It's not unlike the first wave of African Americans being elected to office."

...

Former Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg, who is also featured in the exhibit, said that the exhibit showcases "a remarkably good bunch of people."

"To be gay or lesbian and open about it. I don't know how to explain this. But you have to be a bit better than the rest," Herzenberg said.

Herzenberg said that the public expects gay politicians to be beyond reproach, "even though we're not."

A Gay Person In Public Life - essay by Joe Herzenberg

2002-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

Essay for Out and Elected in the USA photo exhibit, written 2001

by JOE HERZENBERG

It was a simple matter. I had always been interested in politics. Both my father and his father had served on the Borough Council and the Board of Education in my hometown of Franklin, New Jersey, where I was born.

After five years at Yale, where I studied history, and another five years at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where I taught and helped make history and witnessed great social change, I arrived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a southern university town with a tradition of liberalism and tolerance. That was in 1969, when the voters had just elected the first Black mayor in a White-majority southern town.

While still in the closet, I ran for the Chapel Hill Town Council for the first time in 1979. I lost, but then served two years on the Council after being appointed to fill a vacancy. It wasn’t until 1987, after I came out, that I was elected to a full term on the Council. I served for six years, and one of those years, 1992, I was also Mayor Pro Tempore.

Chapel Hill has about 45,000 residents, half of them University of North Carolina students. And our local elections are non-partisan. (There are not enough Republicans to make much difference.) Gay students and activists, and sometimes the North Carolina press tried to make a big deal about my election as the first openly gay official on "the Southern Mainland" – there was already one of us in Key West. But most of my constituents didn’t seem to mind one way or the other, so long as I was doing a good job tending to the public business.

I enjoyed my service on the Town Council, where I helped accomplish a good deal including a shelter for the homeless, a new public library, a downtown parking garage and plaza, important additions to our greenway system, an AIDS house, and new legislation in several areas including tree protections and noise abatement. And I always was, and still am, a gay person in public life in our town.

Joe in 2000, as featured in Out and Elected in the U.S.A. photo exhibit

Photo exhibit documents gay elected officials

2002-04-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, April 14, 2002

By Virginia Knapp

CARRBORO -- A new exhibit, "Out and Elected in the U.S.A.," opening today at the Carrboro Century Center provides a snapshot of gays and lesbians in recent political history.

"The real importance of this exhibit is the historical value of capturing this moment in time," Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson said. "The last quarter-century has seen the first openly gay people elected to public office. It's like when the first women were elected and the first African Americans."

"It's important that those folks and their lives be documented in some way."

The photo exhibit of 60 openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Americans who have served or currently serve in elected office throughout the country includes Nelson and Joe Herzenberg, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member and mayor pro tem.

Herzenberg became North Carolina's first openly gay elected official when he took office in 1987, and Nelson became the state's first openly gay mayor in 1995.

"I think gay political people elsewhere in the country think we are so brave down here having to deal with Jesse Helms," Herzenberg said. "But I've never met Jesse Helms. He doesn't live in my town. Really, life isn't so difficult here in North Carolina.

"But there may be a pity thing going on."

Carrboro is the first stop on a national tour for the exhibit, which was organized by Washington, D.C., photographer R.S. Lee and sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Foundation.

"While the collection focuses specifically on the collective experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender political candidates, ultimately it reflects the courage of all people who hold themselves up to the scrutiny of the electorate," Lee said. "They care about their communities and want to make a difference."

The 60 photos hang near personal essays written by officials from 30 of the 33 states where openly gay and lesbian candidates have been elected.
Herzenberg said the photos and personal essays in the exhibit help put a face on a part of the population that many people might not realize is there.

"I still believe very strongly that it's important for gay people to come out and run for public office," Herzenberg said. "It's important because it helps to dispel the notion that there's no gay people where we live."

Nelson said he was honored that the exhibit is debuting in Carrboro, and he hopes that the show will highlight the larger issues of democracy and fairness.

"A democracy works best when a diverse set of views is at the table when decisions are being made," Nelson said. "The importance of having openly gay elected officials can't be overstated."

Carrboro first stop in nationwide tour for Out & Elected in the U.S.A.

2002-04-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

Press Release, Town of Carrboro, April 14, 2002

The Carrboro Art Committee, Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission, and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Foundation are pleased to announce the arrival of an important new nationally touring exhibit. Out & Elected in the U.S.A. features 60 photographs with accompanying texts of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans who have served or currently are serving at nearly every level of elected office throughout the country. Through the efforts of Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson, Carrboro was the first stop in the nationwide tour.

"With black and white photographs, and the words of the subjects, this is a remarkable and thought-provoking body of work that documents the past 30 years of a significant emerging trend in U.S. political history," said Nelson.

The collection includes subjects from 30 of the 33 states where openly LGBT individuals have been elected.

Brian K. Bond, Executive Director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Foundation, commented: "We are pleased to sponsor an exhibit that offers such personal and accessible testimony to the importance of the work we do at the Victory Foundation, preparing LGBT leaders for positions in public life."

Out & Elected in the U.S.A. kicked off the tour with a display at the Carrboro Century Center on Sunday April 14, with a reception from 5 until 7 pm. The free reception was open to the public and hosted a crowd of more than 100 people.

...

The exhibit has been coordinated locally by volunteer Catherine DeVine. Of particular interest at the local level are two photos of local elected officials, Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson and former Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Herzenberg. The Carrboro Art Committee is honored to be showing this exhibition from April 14 until May 12, 2002. Stop by and check it out.

Joe at Out & Elected in the USA reception, seated with hat

A tribute to a community treasure - Frances Hargraves

2002-04-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, April 10, 2002

By Valarie Schwartz, Staff Writer

Miss Frances has fallen off her horse.

That's how Frances Hargraves phrased it three years ago when lung cancer struck and she had to interrupt her volunteer work at the Northside pre-school, where she reads to the children, to have surgery and recover.

She has fallen off her horse again, and this time she is wondering if she will be able to return to the beloved children. They were the first concern she mentioned to me several weeks ago while she was still at UNC Hospitals.

Now she is back at home, but the prognosis does not look good for her return to the saddle. The cancer is back and, with Hargarves only a few weeks shy of 88 (her birthday is April 23), treatment looks more awful than helpful.

As divine providence would have it, Edwin Caldwell, state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, Velma Perry, Florence Peacock and Joe Herzenberg put their heads together about a month before Hargraves' "fall" and decided to give a tribute to one of Chapel Hill's finest and most-loved citizens.

...

On Sunday, residents are invited to "A Tribute to Frances Hargraves" at the Horace Williams House from 3-5 p.m., where the retired teacher who has been the liaison between the black and white communities in Chapel Hill will be treated like the royal person she is.

"We want to recognize the treasure Frances has been to our community," Kinnaird said. "She has created so much with her presence, energy and creativity. We just wanted to make a tribute to her -- to our beloved Miss Frances from all her friends and the community."

...

Joe Herzenberg has known Hargraves since the early 1970s.

"She was always so friendly and wanting to help with whatever the project was," he said, noting that Hargraves' attitude made a difference. "I just always enjoyed working with Frances."

...

Hargraves grew up on the family farm in the spot on West Franklin Street where McDonald's now stands -- in the house in which her mother, Alice Neal, was born. Hargraves lived there until she was an adult, but while still a child, her mother, as the cook for two presidents of the University of North Carolina, exposed her to greatness. During the five years her mother worked for Harry Woodburn Chase, Hargraves accompanied her mother and became good friends with the president's daughter, with whom she ate lunch every day.

During that time, little Frances learned that skin color made her different in the eyes of some. But she also learned that some white people are color-blind.

When Frank Porter Graham became the president of the university, Alice Neal's excellent cooking skills were again called into service on East Franklin Street. Graham made a lasting impact on Hargraves.

"Uncle Frank was ahead of his time," Hargraves said. "He was such a wonderful man, he was just born during the wrong time." But she recognizes that the strides that were made back then were only possible because of people like Graham.

There is so much to be said about Frances Hargraves and all she has accomplished and all the hearts she has filled. The gathering on Sunday will be the chance for people to show their love and, of course, to learn even more about this Chapel Hill treasure.

If you treasure Frances Hargraves, be there. She will be seated in the foyer and will greet people as long as her strength and her family will allow, then everyone will move into the rotunda, where 11 people will speak.

Listening for a Change: Interview with Joe’s friend and fellow activist Mark Donahue, conducted by Chris McGinnis

2001-12-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

Oral History Interview with Mark Donahue, conducted by Chris McGinnis, Dec. 16, 2001.

Interview Number: K-0843. Archived for listening as part of the Southern Oral History Program at the Southern Historical Collection Manuscripts Department in Wilson Libary, UNC-Chapel Hill.

Mark Donahue is a fellow activist and close friend of Joe's who worked on three of his five campaigns for Chapel Hill Town Council. He served as editor of Lambda, the Carolina Gay & Lesbian Association's newsletter, at UNC-CH during the mid-to-late 1980's.

Along with Joe, Mark was interviewed by Chris McGinnis in 2001 . Portions of the transcript are reproduced below.

Listening for a Change: History of Gay Men and Transgender People in the South

These interviews by Chris McGinnis, an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, were conducted for an independent study in the fall semester of 2000 and for the Southern Oral History Program in 2001-2002.

They give a perspective of gay life in the South, with particular emphasis on North Carolina in the 1960s through the 1980s. The interviews chronicle the development of the gay community in the South and explore early gay bars, social events and festivals of the gay community, gay organizations and activism, and places where gay men met and engaged in public sex, among other topics.

Included are interviews with Chapel Hill, N.C., town council member Joseph A. Herzenberg and writer Perry Deane Young.

CHRIS MCGINNIS: I am interviewing Mr. Mark Donahue. All right Mark, usually when I am interviewing folks, the first thing I ask them is where they were born and where they grew up, and that spiel.

MARK DONAHUE: I was born in Indian Trail, North Carolina, which is a suburb of Monroe.

CM: Oh!

MD: The home of Jesse Helms. I grew up there and entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1981.

CM: Okay. So, what was your major at UNC?

MD: Political Science.

...

CM: Did you ever hold a position in CGLA?

MD: Yes, I ended up being editor of the Newsletter, Lambda. And actually that was at a later time, in a later incarnation. It was like in '87 or '88. I suspended my studies for a couple of years and was going part time during that time, but when I got back into the full swing of things, became Editor of the Newsletter, which I really enjoyed as it turns out, putting that newsletter together was a real pain in the butt.

CM: Yeah, I did it too.

MD: Yeah, it was hard pulling it together, it was hard getting stories, it was hard getting people to use their real names and getting stories. It was hard getting people to use their real names in interviews and things like that, because some people didn’t want to be—have their name used in the school, in the school gay news rag, as it was referred to.

...

MD: Also, as an advisor to the organization at that time was Cecil Wooten, Classics Professor--

CM: He remained until relatively recently.

MD: Cecil was great, he was always there if we had any questions. We also had the advantage of someone who had ran as an openly gay man for the Chapel Hill Town Council. At that point, he had—let’s see had he been elected? Yes, he had been elected in 1987, Joe Herzenberg. I worked on his campaign briefly in '85 when he ran for the town council and lost—

CM: Right, and '87 was that when Mike Nelson managed the campaign?

MD: You know, I can’t remember if Mike was the manager or not, but I know that he worked on the campaign. I can’t tell you, Joe Herzenberg could tell you.

CM: I believe that was the year, because '87 was the year that he won—

MD: Yes.

CM: --'85 he ran and lost and '87 he won and ran, I mean ran and won [Chris laughs]

MD: And in '91, I was more involved in Joe’s re-election. I was put in charge of the endorsement ad. I was basically collecting the signatures of folks who supported him in his re-election and to date, I think that this still stands true - it is the largest endorsement ad, in terms of the number of participants in Chapel Hill Town Council History. (editor's note - 599 people and one cat signed this endorsement ad).

CM: Wow! That’s great.

MD: So, I was very proud of that.

CM: What was the general feel of the town when Joe was running? I mean, did you feel that Chapel Hill was liberal outside of the University Community—meaning the students—were pretty supportive of him?

MD: I think that there were a few detractors of Joe. Some of those were related to Joe being gay, others were—

CM: They just didn’t like Joe.

MD: They didn’t like Joe for other political reasons, that had to do with some town development issue, or it had to do with the fact that Joe was such an outspoken liberal Democrat on other issues. So, I think that there was a strain of detractors, with Joe in his campaign. But, I think, generally he got great support. I think that he got great student support. Students are notorious for not really participating in town elections. Number one, because they are not registered to vote. Number two, they are registered to vote, but they are not registered to vote in Chapel Hill, they are registered back in their hometown. Number three; they don’t understand the election process very well. Number four, they are uneducated and unconcerned that much about town issues, as opposed to student issues and number five, they are distracted by athletic events and things happening on campus like exams.

CM: Imagine that.

MD: Imagine that [Chris laughs] I think that in that point in time, Joe Herzenberg had the largest student turnout—

CM: He had a good political machine.

MD: He had a good political machine. He did very well with students. Later on there was Mark Chilton, who was a student at the time, who did very well among students and there have been others since then.

CM: So tell me a little bit about Joe as an individual, was he very active in the gay community per se? Or was it that he was just an out gay person running in the...?

MD: Interesting. My impression of Joe at that time was yes he was an out gay person and he was outspoken, but I tend to think of Joe as a Democrat before I think of him as a gay person. I would say that Joe has been very educating in terms of what—he explained to me the complete differences between the Democrat and Republican Party. Most of which I basically understood, but he did sort of school me on a lot of fine points. I basically figured out just how evil some parts of the Republican Party were at that time and still some remain to this day, such as Jesse Helms. But, you know, Joe, I think was a great influence. I remember in 1985 when he was running for town council as an openly gay person, and I was like, “Wow! He is running for political office and he is not hiding the fact that he is gay.” I thought that was amazing. Of course it was very disappointing when he lost. He didn’t lose by much, but other things were working against him at that time.

CM: What did you do as a volunteer with his campaign?

MD: In '85? Mainly I stuffed envelopes and I put up—

CM: You did mass mailings?

MD: We did mass mailings, some were fundraising letters, some were get out the vote. Also, as we got closer to election day we worked on get out the vote—GOTV in the lingo—which mainly means taking “Vote for Joe Herzenberg” signs and putting them up at strategic locations?

CM: What kind of budget did he have?

MD: I—as I recall he did not have much money. And a lot of the things that were done for Joe’s campaign were very low cost. It was all going to, I think it was Copytron in those days. I don’t think that Kinkos was around at that point, you know it was very cheap copies. He did invest a little bit of money in having bumper stickers printed up, which were very nice, and some nice posters, which you need. I don’t know exactly how much he spent on his campaign.

CM: But he did spend some of his own money as far as you know?

MD: Well, he raised money within the gay community. So, he raised enough money to run a credible race in '85. Evidently, it was not enough money to win. But, he came back in two years and was able to raise more money and I think articulated his campaign very well.

...

MD: (Mike Nelson) became involved with CGLA later on. Certainly became an outspoken person and got a lot of media attention because he was very good at sort of cutting to the chase and he had been tutored quite well, I think, by Joe Herzenberg and was able to get the media’s attention, and local press. When he ran for the Carrboro Town Council the first time. I think he—I am trying to remember—did he lose the first time?

CM: I don’t know his political history very well.

MD: I think that he lost the first time, just like Joe Herzenberg. I think he lost the first time. But, then he came back and won. So, you know, Mike clearly had aspirations for political office. And he was just a perfect candidate in so many ways.

...

CM: Well great, are there any final comments that you would like to make?

MD: I think that we all have to realize that, you know, Rome was not built in a day. And it will take a long time, and I realized in the mid 80s that I was in this for the long haul, you know. We have to be fighting not only when we are college students and had little to lose because we don’t have any—we don’t owe anything to the establishment as it exists, but we have to continue that in our adult lives and in our professional lives, and also I think in our personal lives, the most important place. We have to come out to family; we have to come out to friends. We have to—if someone tells an anti-gay joke in front of us and they don’t know we are gay, I think that it is important to say, “I disapprove of that.” I think that you have to be vocal, and until we all start coming out and being more vocal at all times and at all stages of our life, we are not going to make much progress. If we start going down the road of being an advocate at all times, then I think we will have success.

More Voters Head To Polls This Year

2001-11-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

The Daily Tar Heel, Nov. 12, 2001

Twenty-six percent of Orange County's 77,224 registered voters participated in this year's election, a 10 percent increase since 1999, the last municipal election year.

...

Joe Herzenberg, a former member of the Chapel Hill Town Council, said he is "an addicted voter" and that he couldn't recall ever missing an election.

"(Voting) is what our country's all about," Herzenberg said.

But Herzenberg said that in many years of participating in local elections, he has been frustrated by a lack of student votes. He said that if every resident of Teague Residence Hall voted for one candidate, that candidate would probably win.

The last 'white racist politician'

2001-09-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Sept. 1, 2001

By PERRY DEANE YOUNG

Washington Post columnist David Broder deserves the Hemingway "built-in bull-- detector award" for all time for cutting through all the embarrassing nonsense that has been published in recent days about the retirement of Sen. Jesse Helms.

Broder wrote: "Those who believe that the 'liberal press' always has its knives sharpened for Republicans and conservatives must have been flummoxed by the coverage of Sen. Jesse Helms' announcement last week that he will not run for re-election next year in North Carolina. The reporting on his retirement was circumspect to the point of pussyfooting."

...

As a homosexual, I also have been troubled in recent years by Helms' attempt to raise the specter of a new kind of sexism or homophobia. Where once he accused Graham of being a communist sympathizer, he later said Hunt was supported by "homosexuals, labor unions and bloc votes" (meaning blacks).

Former town councilman Joe Herzenberg, the first openly gay elected official in our state, agrees with me that there was not a trace of sincerity in Helms' anti-homosexual rhetoric. His advisers had merely told him this was a new hot-button issue; it had worked to bring in millions of dollars to Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, it would work for Helms.

Important Home: Smith Level house should be preserved

2001-06-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, June 2, 2001 - Editorial

Though there's no formal application for development of the former Smith plantation property, it's not too soon to begin a movement to preserve the home, and Carrboro administrators should be commended for doing so.

The house, built in the 1840s, is a gem. The thought of that lower stretch of Smith Level Road without the house is distressing. Also laudable is the intention to hide whatever is built on the 105-acre parcel from the road.

But besides the visual appeal of the property, it has historical significance.

"It is one of the very few surviving plantation houses in the county," Chapel Hill resident Joe Herzenberg said. "It's really a magnificent house, and it's in relatively good condition."

Herzenberg is a fitting speaker on the house, being one of this year's winners of the Pauli Murray Human Relations awards, given out by the county. Murray's ties to the home are another aspect of its historical import.

Murray is renowned as a woman who fought against discrimination as a writer, lawyer, professor, college vice president and deputy attorney general for California. At age 62, she entered seminary and eventually performed her first Holy Eucharist in Chapel Hill at the Chapel of the Cross, the church where her grandmother, Cornelia, had been baptized.

Murray was the first black woman ordained in the Episcopal church.

The negative aspect of the plantation house is Cornelia's brutal link to the home.

Cornelia's mother was a slave named Harriet. Her father was Sidney Smith, brother of the woman the land was given to, Mary Ruffin Smith. Cornelia was born of Sidney Smith's rape of Harriet.

A plantation house might not be the greatest candidate for preservation because of its sinister past. But as Herzenberg points out, there are not many left, and we feel this physical link to the South's past should be preserved.

There's no benefit to ignoring the past. In fact, we should be reminded of the horrible things we have done. If the memory gives us pause and guides toward being kinder to the people around us, then it certainly should be kept. The Smith house serves as such a reminder.

And this history makes Murray's story that much more inspirational. Murray did great good in the world, even though she was the progeny of crime in an evil system. Let the preservation of the Smith house celebrate her life.

Smith plantation house, land may come to life again

2001-05-31T07:18:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, May 31, 2001

CARRBORO - Town staff members have had initial discussions with developers about a possible residential project on Smith Level Road, on property that includes the old Smith plantation house.

"At this point, there is no project," said Chris Murphy, development review administrator for Carrboro. "There is no formal application."

But Murphy said prospective developers have asked the town for feedback on rough designs for a residential project.

The familiar house along Smith Level Road was built in the 1840s by members of the Smith family, from whom the Rev. Pauli Murray was descended. Murray's grandmother was born to a black slave and a white member of the slave-owning Smith family.

...

As Murray recounts the Smith family history in (her memoir) "Proud Shoes, An American Family," James Strudwick Smith married Delia Jones in the early 1800s. Jones was the daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Francis Jones, who had been granted several thousand acres for his military service.

Jones deeded about 1,500 acres at Smith Level Road to his granddaughter, Mary Ruffin Smith, the first-born child of James and Delia Smith.

The Smiths also had two sons, Sidney and Francis. According to Murray, the family owned a young slave named Harriet, whom Sidney raped. Harriet had a daughter by Sidney, named Cornelia, who was Murray's grandmother.

Murray descended from free blacks on her grandfather's side. Her grandfather, Robert Fitzgerald, was born in Delaware and came to North Carolina after the Civil War to help educate former slaves.

Fitzgerald met Cornelia Smith in Orange County and they were married.

Murray was born in Baltimore in 1910, but she grew up in Durham with her maternal grandparents and aunts.

Murray fought against discrimination as a writer, lawyer, professor, college vice president and deputy attorney general for California. At age 62, she entered seminary and eventually performed her first Holy Eucharist in Chapel Hill at the Chapel of the Cross, the church where her grandmother, Cornelia, had
been baptized. Murray was the first black woman ordained in the Episcopal Church.

For the past few years, the Orange County Human Relations Commission has given Pauli Murray Human Relations awards to residents and businesses in the county.

Chapel Hill resident Joe Herzenberg was one of the winners this year. Herzenberg read "Proud Shoes" soon after he moved to Chapel Hill in 1969 to study history, and he said he was inspired by Murray's story.

He also has had an interest for several years in the fate of the plantation house on Smith Level Road.

"It is one of the very few surviving plantation houses in the county," he said. "It's really a magnificent house, and it's in relatively good condition."

Herzenberg said historic preservationists at the state level also are aware of the house. He said he'd like to see someone living in the house who would take good care of it, and he'd also like to see an official historical marker placed there.

Herzenberg even went to Carrboro and talked to Murphy about the property, and Herzenberg said he's pleased with the initial recommendations by town staff.

UNC-TV's programming is sometimes baffling

2001-05-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, May 27, 2001

By Kevin O'Kelly

"Something in Common," UNC-TV's documentary on teaching tolerance for diversity in North Carolina schools that premiered in April, will be re-broadcast June 13 at 9 p.m.

"Something" provides glimpses of impressive initiatives in different schools across the state to cope with rapidly changing student populations. For example, in 1987, there were two Hispanic students in Chatham County schools. Now approximately 40 percent of the residents of Siler City are Latino.

...

One of the tolerance issues covered in "Something" is tolerance for gays and lesbians. And this is a production of UNC-TV, the same network that refused to air "It's Elementary" - a documentary on teaching tolerance for gays and lesbians to elementary school students - in 1999. And it's the same network that is airing a number of documentaries on gay and lesbian issues in June.

...

The production of "Something in Common" was UNC-TV's response to public criticism of its refusal to air "It's Elementary."

In November 1999, UNC-TV Director Tom Howe told The News & Observer of Raleigh that he supported the decision not to air "It's Elementary" because the program "advocates and promotes rather than analyzes."

Well, "Something in Common" has a slant as well: It advocates tolerance. And that includes tolerance for gays and lesbians. Having seen "Something in Common," I can't understand why they didn't show "It's Elementary."

Programming Director Diane Lucas refused to discuss the issue.

"I don't want to relive any of that experience again," she said. However, she added, "rather than air a documentary that focused on one issue, we wanted a program that was more inclusive of issues facing our schools."

Not showing a documentary on gay issues is inclusive?

To be truly inclusive, they should have just shown both. I thought it possible that UNC-TV balked at showing "It's Elementary" because the focus was on elementary schools. Perhaps it was thought that grade school is too early for children to be exposed to sexual orientation issues.

Yet on June 9, at 11 p.m. UNC-TV is broadcasting "Our House," a documentary profiling children with gay and lesbian parents. And on June 24 at 11 p.m., UNC-TV will air the "P.O.V." documentary "Scout's Honor," on 12-year-old Steven Cozza's campaign against the Boy Scouts' anti-gay policy.

It just doesn't make any sense. I wondered if the gay-lesbian segment of "Something in Common" was acceptable because it involved high school students instead of elementary school students. And because it was in the last 10 minutes of the program. And as for those other documentaries - they involve children already exposed to sexual orientation issues: they don't suggest teaching tolerance for gays and lesbians in supposedly innocent elementary school classrooms.

I recently discussed the issue with Joe Herzenberg, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member who has been active in local gay issues. I asked him, "Am I being paranoid by devoting so much thought to this?"

"There's definitely paranoia involved," he said. "But it's not yours."

'Limits of Dissent' brings back trial of Junius Scales

2001-05-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, May 18, 2001

By SUSAN BROILI

CHAPEL HILL - Lou Lipsitz had never written a play before he wrote "The Limits of Dissent." But the play practically wrote itself, the former UNC political science professor said earlier this week.

That's because the play is based on the 1950s trial of Junius Scales.

In 1956 and 1957, Scales was tried and convicted in Federal Court in Greensboro for violating the Smith Act, which was passed in 1940 and prohibited even being a member of an organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the government.

"There's nothing invented in the play. All the characters, all the testimony are real. I did some editing, a little smoothing out here and there for the sake of clarity," Lipsitz said.

Lipsitz had been commissioned to do the play in 1976 by Warren Nord, then with the N.C. Humanities Council. Nord now directs UNC's Program in the Humanities.

Nord knew Lipsitz was a writer (he writes poetry) and that the UNC political science professor had a strong interest in civil liberties issues.

Lipsitz retired from UNC in 1995, continues to write poetry and also works as a psychotherapist.

The playwright said he chose the trial of Scales because of local interest and issues involved.

Scales lived in Carrboro and Chapel Hill and went to UNC.

Joe Herzenberg, who performs in the play, said he recently went by Scales' home in Carrboro at 201 Carr St. and took a photograph to display during the staged readings. The exact location of where Scales lived in Chapel Hill is not known. Scales and his mother moved to Chapel Hill, where Scales graduated from Chapel Hill High School in 1936, Herzenberg said.

Scales' father had been a real estate developer in Greensboro but was ruined in the Depression, Herzenberg said.

Scales came from a prominent family in the state; his great-uncle had served as governor. This revival of the play also features "local color" in its actors, Lipsitz said.

Herzenberg, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member, plays the judge.

"It's an easy role. He doesn't have much to say," Herzenberg said.

"The judge was a very conservative man," Herzenberg said. "At one point, he rules that writing your congressman could be illegal - the first step toward overthrowing the government."

Joe Straley, a retired UNC professor of physics and well-known activist, will actually play himself. He was a character witness for Scales during the trial.

"And, he has to read his own testimony," Lipsitz said.

The idea to revive the play came from Mark Dorosin, attorney, Carrboro alderman and current president of the local ACLU chapter, Herzenberg said, adding that other actors also are on the ACLU board.

The cast also features Dorosin, Pat Devine, Malcolm Logan, Margaret Brown, Marina Barber, David Neal and Jonathan Broun. Former UNC student body President Aaron Nelson, currently director of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, plays "The Bailiff."

Issues also made the case of Scales good fodder for a play, Lipsitz said.

"There are always people for various reasons who want to suppress controversial speech," Lipsitz said. "There are free speech issues of different kinds. It's good to have a historical perspective. In America, we have these episodes of suppression."

Then there are the moral questions raised by Scales' case.

There was the issue of his honor: not wanting to dishonor himself and his friends by testifying, Lipsitz said.

There are the questions about the tolerance of unpopular views as well as how honesty and truth, or the lack thereof, figured into the verdict, Lipsitz said.

The main issue, as Lipsitz sees it, and the reason why he titled his play as he did: "What kinds of limits are there to dissent against a government you think is corrupt and evil? When does free speech turn into the advocacy of action? Where's the limit?"

The prosecution could not prove that Scales had committed any violent acts or had plans to overthrow the government, Lipsitz said.

The trial had consisted of 13 days of prosecution testimony mostly about the organization of the Communist Party, portrayed as a secret and violent conspiracy, but there was no actual proof the organization had done anything, Lipsitz said.

"They were trying to convict people for their thoughts," he said.

The case against Scales was very weak, but he was convicted both times, the playwright said.

"He was convicted because of the atmosphere of the times," Lipsitz said.

This was the era dominated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and others who feared the Soviet Union.

The playwright said what struck him about the trial in particular was the disillusionment of the ex-communists who testified for the government and the loss of a sense of proportion.

"Scales is obviously not a dangerous man," Lipsitz said.

Scales was not even a member of the Communist Party during the trials in 1956-57, Lipsitz said.

He had joined the party in the 1930s when he thought it the best way to address the racial situation as well as poverty brought about by the Great Depression, the playwright said.

He, as others, later became disillusioned about the Communist Party, Lipsitz said.

The playwright read through a foot-tall stack of transcripts from the second trial of Scales to get material for his 90-minute play.

"There is moving and funny testimony buried in the three weeks of testimony. I chose the compelling human moments and humor that I found," Lipsitz said.

The play has a lot of humor, including the evasive testimony of Esther Gillis, a textile worker from High Point who was asked to name people who attended a meeting and who managed, in various ways, to not answer the question, Lipsitz said.

The Supreme Court upheld the verdict barely at 5-4 and prominent people campaigned to get Scales out of jail, Lipsitz said.

But Scales wound up serving about a year and a half in a federal prison in Pennsylvania and while there hosted an opera show on the prison radio, Lipsitz said.

President John F. Kennedy commuted Scales' sentence on Christmas Eve 1962.

Scales then worked as a proofreader for The New York Times and vowed never to return to North Carolina because he thought it would cause more pain to his family and friends here, Lipsitz said.

In 1976, Lipsitz said he had written to Scales about the play, and Scales had told him not to do it because the incident had brought pain to so many people. But Lipsitz said he thought Scales was wrong, that the play should be written.

"It would help to heal what had happened," Lipsitz said.

Scales wound up coming to see a performance of the play in 1977 in Raleigh.

"It changed his life," Lipsitz said. "He came out of seclusion, wrote an autobiography, published by The University of Georgia Press. He taught at the Journalism School at Columbia University."

Herzenberg said he saw Scales once at a reception held in the Morehead building after publication of Scales' autobiography. Women - high school classmates - flocked to see him again for the first time since high school.

"He really was a charming man," Herzenberg said. Scales now lives in Pine Bush, N.Y.

Herzenberg said he also attended the performance of Lipsitz's play in the '70s at an Orange County courthouse, where a "jury" of community members wound up being hung because of a debate about whether to make the decision based on the standards of the '50s or of the present day.

"Juries" at the other 29 performances, all held in courtrooms throughout the state, found Scales innocent, Lipsitz said.

What had seemed threatening 20 years before did not seem that way when the play was performed. "People were really afraid in the '50s," Lipsitz said.

The play premiered in the Federal Courthouse in Greensboro where Scales was tried. "What really gets to me is how difficult it is to transport ourselves back in time. Audiences of today laugh at things that people found very serious back in the 1950s," Herzenberg said. "I just hope people remember these things weren't intended as jokes."

The Smith Act was passed before World War II to attack radicals, Herzenberg said. "Throughout our history, there have been repeated periods of political paranoia, usually from the far left. The main point is that you should know that these things can happen in our society."

But the limits of dissent have broadened since Scales' trial, Herzenberg said. "We're a much freer society than we were then."

Staged reading

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro ACLU presents "The Limits of Dissent" by Lou Lipsitz. A public staged reading of the play takes place at 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday inside the Chapel Hill Courthouse on the corner of Henderson and East Franklin streets. The play is based on the 1950s trial of Junius Scales, the only American ever sent to prison just because he belonged to a political party - the Communist Party.

No admission will be charged, but donations will be accepted.

Junius Scales died of a stroke in August, 2002. He was 82.

Roses to Joe Herzenberg

2001-02-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill News, Feb. 21, 2001 - Roses and Raspberries

Roses to Joe Herzenberg of Chapel Hill and Bonnie Davis of Hillsborough, co-winners of this year's Pauli Murray Human Relations Award.

The honor is given by the Orange County Human Relations Commission to residents who have served the pursuit of equality, justice and human rights for all citizens.

The award is made in the name of the Rev. Pauli Murray, the first ordained black woman priest in the Episcopal Church, who lived in Durham and performed services at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill.

Herzenberg deserves recognition for his persistent advocacy on behalf of the disenfranchised and victims of discrimination. A former Chapel Hill Town Council member, he is chair of the Chapel Hill Greenway Commission and the Merritt Pasture Access Committee.

...

The awards will be presented Sunday at 1 p.m. in a ceremony at A.L. Stanback Middle School.

Award honors 4 for human relations work

2001-02-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Feb. 18, 2001

HILLSBOROUGH - The Orange County Human Relations Commission has named three residents and a local business as winners of this year's Pauli Murray Human Relations awards.

For the first time, the individual Murray Human Relations Award went to two people - Bonnie Davis of Hillsborough and Joe Herzenberg of Chapel Hill.

...

The overall aim of the Murray awards is to honor those with a "significant history of promoting and fostering better human relations among the diverse residents of Orange County."

The award program gets its name from the Rev. Pauli Murray, who focused on human relations in many roles, including her work as the first black woman in the country ordained in the Episcopal Church, in 1977.

...

The individual Murray award goes to residents who have worked to foster conciliation, human rights, diversity and/or equality in Orange County.

...

Joe Herzenberg moved to Chapel Hill in 1969 to study American history as a graduate student. His first history professor told Herzenberg about Pauli Murray, and he was so intrigued, he tracked down a copy of her book, "Proud Shoes."

"She's just a great role model for anybody," Herzenberg said about Murray. "She viewed herself as an American, of both African and European descent. She never saw anything narrowly. She saw the civil rights movement as a way to liberate not just black people, but white people as well. She was pretty much interested in everything."

Herzenberg, 59, is a native of Franklin, N.J., and he had been teaching at a black college in Mississippi before he came to Chapel Hill. He has been active in local politics and issues for many years, serving on a number of advisory boards and committees.

He is chairman of Chapel Hill's Greenways Commission and the Merritt Pasture Access Committee. He served eight years on the Chapel Hill Town Council before resigning in 1993, in the midst of controversy over his pleading guilty to a tax evasion charge.

Herzenberg laughed Friday in recalling the recent phone call in which he learned about the award. He said he initially joked with the caller that he didn't want the award, because he felt such awards were supposed to go to older residents.

"I'm actually quite happy," he said. "This award is one that I'm especially honored to get."

Herzenberg said his focus in the past three decades primarily has been on civil rights for black residents and on gay and lesbian rights.

UNC removal of magnolia for utilities irks residents

2001-02-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Feb. 14, 2001

CHAPEL HILL - For three decades, Ken Jackson has enjoyed the view of the UNC campus he has from his jewelry store window.

Thus, the recent removal of a towering magnolia tree near Franklin Street has saddened Jackson and others who treasure the beauty of the campus.

"I was very heartsick," said Jackson, who owns Franklin Street's Wentworth & Sloan. "I've looked at that tree every day for the last 30 years. It's a loss."

The tree came down about two weeks ago, the result of a new campus building project. It was in the way and its destruction couldn't be avoided, said UNC officials, themselves sorry to see the tree go.

Jackson, for one, accepts the university's explanation that the tree had to be removed to install a utility line. But others in town aren't so easily convinced.

"It seems to me they could have planned better," said Joe Herzenberg, a town resident who, as a member of the Town Council in the late 1980s, led a town task force on tree protection. "They took the shortest distance between two points for this utility line. If they had gone 20 yards to the east, closer to Battle Hall, they could have avoided the roots of the tree."

The tree stood back from the street just west of Battle-Vance-Pettigrew. It was slated to be preserved, but construction on a new Institute for the Arts and Humanities nearby took an unplanned twist. To hook the new institute into an existing water line on the north side of Franklin Street, construction workers had to build a larger, deeper hole than was originally thought. The hole was needed to bore under Franklin Street to reach the water line. The other option, to tear up Franklin Street and build a new line under it, was less feasible. So, the tree had to be removed.

"I really had nowhere to go on this," said Kirk Pelland, UNC's grounds director. "The tree couldn't be saved."

And university officials say there's nothing to Herzenberg's claim that they simply could have moved the path of the utility line slightly, to work around the tree.

"It's not that easy, and you have to weigh your disruptions," said Anna Wu, UNC's associate director for facilities planning and design. "It proved to be the best alternative."

But the decision has left Herzenberg unsatisfied, a sentiment he expressed in a recent letter penned to UNC Chancellor James Moeser. The decision, he said, points to a larger issue involving the university's philosophy concerning campus development.

"The big point is that the university has its eye on master plans, on campus and for the Horace Williams property," he said. "They tend to be not as careful about the smaller points, which are also important - in this case, the tree."

But facilities planners say the university does make those so-called "smaller points" a priority and pledge to beautify the area around the institute once construction finishes. Bruce Runberg, associate vice chancellor for facilities services, has pledged to plant a new magnolia tree nearby to replace the old one.

"Our intention is to go back and re-landscape that area," Wu said. "We will restore that area."

Jackson, the jewelry store owner, accepts the price of progress. Still, he's sorry to see the old magnolia go. "It was an older tree," he said. "The older I got, the greater appreciation I had for older things. It was a beautiful tree."

Schools do the right thing on Boy Scouts

2001-02-02T07:45:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Feb. 2, 2001 - Letter to the Editor

What our Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education voted was not only fair and wise - but the right thing to do. The school board cannot support programs, however splendid, that are not open to all children.

The Boy Scouts may be a wonderful organization. If so, the organization should be open to all boys. And I'm pleased to note that local Scout leaders seem to be opposed to the exclusionary policy of the national organization. That policy, sooner or later, will be changed.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

Listening for a Change: Interview with Joe Herzenberg, conducted by Chris McGinnis

2000-11-01T06:24:00.000-08:00

Oral History Interview with Joe Herzenberg, conducted by Chris McGinnis, Nov. 1, 2000.

Interview Number: K-0196. Archived for listening as part of the Southern Oral History Program at the Southern Historical Collection Manuscripts Department in Wilson Libary, UNC-Chapel Hill. The complete transcript is reproduced below.

Listening for a Change: History of Gay Men and Transgender People in the South

These interviews by Chris McGinnis, an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, were conducted for an independent study in the fall semester of 2000 and for the Southern Oral History Program in 2001-2002.

They give a perspective of gay life in the South, with particular emphasis on North Carolina in the 1960s through the 1980s. The interviews chronicle the development of the gay community in the South and explore early gay bars, social events and festivals of the gay community, gay organizations and activism, and places where gay men met and engaged in public sex, among other topics.

Included are interviews with Chapel Hill, N.C., town council member Joseph A. Herzenberg and writer Perry Deane Young. Interviews with Angela Brightfeather and Lily Rose DeVee offer perspectives of transgender individuals.

Joe in 2000, as featured in Out and Elected in the U.S.A. photo exhibit

Town milestone in gay rights

2000-09-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill News, Sept. 13, 2000 - Letter to the Editor

Twenty-five years ago, on Sept. 13, 1975, the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen, as the Town Council was then called, passed the first gay rights law in the southern states. (In 1975 fewer than a dozen towns and cities in the United States had such laws.)

The aldermen at the time were considering a new personnel ordinance for the town employees. In response to a request from the recently formed Carolina Gay Association, a UNC student organization, the aldermen included gay people among the list of groups against whom the town should not discriminate in matters of hiring and compensation, training and promotion. The vote was unanimous.

After all these years, it may be appropriate to thank once again those who took a stand in 1975: Mayor Howard Lee and Alderman Gerry Cohen, Tommy Gardner, Shirley Marshall, Sid Rancer, R.D. Smith and Alice Welsh.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

Gay Rights: Where Are We Now?

2000-06-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

NC Society for Ethical Culture Sunday Platform Talk, June 11, 2000

Featured Speaker:

Joe Herzenberg, retired historian, Founding Board Member of Equality NC PAC

Presentation:

Gay Rights: Where Are We Now?

Our platform speakers are selected based on their knowledge and expertise on a given subject, not necessarily on the degree to which they agree with the basic values and principles of Ethical Culture. We may invite speakers with dramatically opposing views in order to challenge the existing "politically correct" views.

Presentations are on Sundays at 11AM at the Arts Center, 300 E. Main St. in Carrboro, NC.

Wilson would help protect environment

2000-04-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, April 20, 2000 - Letter to the Editor

It seems we've had one environmental disaster after another this year. We need strong leadership in North Carolina to protect our environment for the people of our state. Ed Wilson, candidate for lieutenant governor, will provide such leadership.

For instance, Ed Wilson wants to eliminate hog lagoons. Meanwhile his opponent, Beverly Perdue, not only voted to prohibit local communities from regulating hog lagoons, she also sponsored a bill that would have barred the state's main environmental police from inspecting livestock operations.

Vote for Ed Wilson to represent the environmental concerns of the people of North Carolina over special interests of corporate hog farms.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

Readers know about their pizza

2000-01-30T07:48:00.000-08:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Jan. 30, 2000

Last week's Challenge readers know their pizza joints, including Courtney Morris who knew the answer to the following:

Where on Franklin Street can you get a slice of Luau pizza?

The hint was that compared to a slice of Luau, the regular Hawaiian pizza, ham and pineapple, is like looking at slides of someone else's vacation.

The answer is Pepper's Pizza on East Franklin Street. Pepper's opened its doors in the mid-1980s and has become a favorite hangout since for those looking to rub shoulders with an eclectic mix of customers and staff.

...

On the wall opposite the front counter are several profiles of Pepper's customers, including Joe Herzenberg whose profile describes his occupation as "small town politician" and his latest accomplishment as "an out-of-town trip to Carrboro."

There's also an ever-changing display of artwork for sale above the booths.

Gays see the glass half full

1999-06-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

Ruth Sheehan, The News & Observer, Raleigh, June 11, 1999

Starting this evening, thousands of gay men and women will gather in Greensboro for seminars and speeches, a big campy parade - and lots of parties. They call it PRIDE weekend. And this year, gay activists say they have much to celebrate. Much to be proud of.

"This was a good year," says my friend Joe Herzenberg, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member and the state's first openly gay elected official. "A very good year."

A key reason, according to Herzenberg, is that in April, for the first time ever, not one but two bills aimed at protecting gay citizens received a hearing on the floor of the state House.

One of the bills would have allowed Orange County commissioners to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations. The second - named for Matthew Shepard, the former Triangle resident who was pistol-whipped, tied to a fence and left to die in Wyoming because he was gay - would have expanded the definition of hate crimes to include victims targeted because of their sexual orientation, sex, disability or age.

Both bills were killed on the House floor. But to Herzenberg, in some ways, that's a small detail.

"Gay rights were discussed by the full House," Herzenberg tells me. "That is a big step. There are people who want to make radical change in a hurry. That's not always the best approach."

Herzenberg knows all too well that gay rights in a Bible Belt state such as North Carolina, where anti-gay sentiment remains so entrenched, is a two-steps-forward, one-step-back proposition at best: Superior Court Judge Ray Warren comes out of the closet, only to be run out of the Republican Party. The Rev. Jimmy Creech officiates at a gay union, only to face the possibility of expulsion from the pulpit. Chapel Hill and Carrboro offer benefits to the domestic partners of town employees, including two gay workers, only to find the policies challenged in court by disapproving conservatives.

The progress is incremental. Painstakingly so, it seems to me.

Because in the end, you can still be fired, or evicted, or denied a job because you're gay.

You can be beaten simply because of whom you love - and it won't be considered a hate crime.

You can actually be arrested for the way you and your partner engage in fully consensual sex, even though many straight people routinely engage in similarly illegal activity.

It all amounts to legal discrimination against one final unprotected group of people. So to me, the fact that the state House heard, and promptly quashed, two mostly symbolic bills to protect gay civil rights is more an outrage than a cause for optimism.

But Herzenberg is far more patient. He points out that the landscape has changed dramatically since 1987, when he was first elected. Gay couples are out-virtually everywhere, without so much as an eyebrow raised, Herzenberg notes.

Getting the laws to acknowledge this social reality is the next step. And getting gay-rights legislation heard on the House floor is obviously a crucial part of that process.

Perhaps, as Herzenberg says, it has been a "good" year. But I believe we could have done better.

Tradition could wilt with retirement of `flower ladies'

1999-05-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, May 16, 1999

By Ray Gronberg

CHAPEL HILL -- Franklin Street regulars are starting to wonder where all the flower ladies have gone. And the answer, unfortunately, seems to be that age is catching up with them.

Some worry another Chapel Hill tradition is about to fade away, a gnawing fear that has grown in inverse proportion to the number of active flower ladies. For now, only one still plies her wares on a regular basis.

"It looks like it's a dying breed," sighed Manning Outen, manager of NationsBank Plaza. "We need somebody to pick up the tradition."

Outen's building -- soon to be renamed the Bank of America Center -- served as the daytime base of operations for two of the last flower ladies, Mary Farrington and Betty Jones.

Neither is active.

Outen and hotdog vendor Ed "Squeaky" Morgan believe Jones is out of the flower business entirely after an early evening auto accident about a month ago.

Until then, Jones "was here any day it wasn't raining," said Morgan, also a Franklin Street fixture. "She didn't get hurt, but she was shaken up. Her son came and took her back to Texas. I don't think she'll be coming back."

Farrington seemingly hasn't set up shop in the lobby of NationsBank Plaza even once this year. Health is believed an issue, though she has told patrons she'll "be coming back now and then," Morgan said.

One other woman, Moselle Pratt, is holding up the flower lady tradition by night. She prefers working outdoors, and Police Department Sgt. Steve Riddle said people can find her near the Sephora perfume store most any time the weather is nice.

Morgan and Outen are not alone in suspecting that the curtain is about to close on Chapel Hill's flower ladies.

"It is probably not a profession that anybody's looking to go into," said Robert Humphreys, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Commission. "Once our existing flower ladies are gone, it may be something that falls by the wayside."

If that's the case, time will have done something the town bureaucracy couldn't.

The flower ladies -- and Morgan -- are the last vestiges of a sidewalk vending trade that Chapel Hill essentially outlawed during the 1970s.

The ban targeted a small group of peddlers "whom one might call hippies," said Joe Herzenberg, a local historian and former town councilman.

"It wasn't exactly an effort to get rid of the flower ladies, quite the contrary," he said. "It was an effort to get rid of other people, and the flower ladies were gotten rid of in the process."

The hippies sparked complaints, he said, from people offended by their views and their appearance. Town officials tried briefly to exempt the flower ladies from the ban, but they soon fretted that the attempt would draw a court challenge.

In any case, the exemption gave the town's real targets a way to evade the ban.

"Vendors would sell you a daisy for $30 and give you a pair of sandals for free," Planning Director Roger Waldon said.

Several of the flower ladies eventually found a home in the NationsBank Plaza lobby -- safe on private property -- as did Morgan, who briefly defied the vending ban in 1993.

The final flower lady may fall victim to simple economics. "I don't think business is great, to tell you the truth," Herzenberg said. "She doesn't sell that many, but she likes coming and talking to people."

ACLU seeks nominees for top award

1998-08-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, Aug. 16, 1998 - Letter to the Editor

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is seeking nominations for our 1998 Charles and Dorcas Jones Award.

This award, initiated in 1993, recognizes a person or group who has made outstanding contributions to civil liberties and civil rights in Orange and Chatham counties, the area served by the local ACLU chapter.

Previous recipients of the Jones award include: Joe and Lucy Straley, 1993; Rebecca Clark, 1994; Robert Seymour, 1995; Dan Pollitt, 1996; and the UNC housekeepers, 1997.

The deadline for submitting nominations is Aug. 31.

To make a nomination, call 929-4052 and leave a brief message, or drop a note to ACLU, P.O. Box 1285, Chapel Hill, 27514.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill

Joe's 57th Birthday Dinner, 1998

1998-06-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

Joe at his 57th birthday dinner, June 27, 1998. Photo and invite courtesy of Mark Donahue.

The Henderson Street shootings

1998-06-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, June 7, 1998

CHAPEL HILL -- During the past several weeks, readers have voted, by mail and via the Internet, on what they see as the 10 most important stories published in The Chapel Hill Herald during the past decade.

3. The Henderson Street shootings.

Joe Herzenberg's first thought was about gun control. Seeing a man walk down your street with a high-powered weapon will do that.

"He was carrying this rifle, and I was thinking, `Is it illegal to carry a rifle on the street?' " said Herzenberg, a Cobb Terrace resident and former town councilman. "And while I was thinking, he turned to the house next door and started firing on it. He was actually killing somebody."

Herzenberg could only watch as a deranged UNC law student, Wendell Williamson, gunned down the first of two men he would kill during his Jan. 26, 1995, shooting rampage.

Ralph Walker Jr., a restaurant worker, died on the steps of his Cobb Terrace rooming house. Williamson's other victim, UNC lacrosse player Kevin Reichardt, fell between two parked cars. He had been riding up Henderson Street on his bike.

Dozens of people witnessed the shootings, and many were lucky not to lose their own lives. Williamson, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, set out that day to kill as many people as possible. He thought himself to have telepathic powers, and was angry that no one believed him.

A jury later acquitted Williamson of his crimes, judging that his insanity freed him of responsibility for his actions. He remains hospitalized in a state mental institution in Morganton.

Jacobs has all the tools for commissioner

1998-05-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

Chapel Hill Herald, May 2, 1998

Just writing to encourage support for Barry Jacobs for Orange County Commissioner in the Democratic primary on Tuesday (the polls are open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m.)

Barry has a distinguished record of public service, including terms on the Orange County Planning Board and the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board, both of which he chaired. He has progressive positions on various issues, including the environment, civil rights for all, social service, affordable housing and public schools. He is open to new ideas. He works well with elected officials in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough. And, perhaps most importantly, Barry will listen to the voices of all citizens and help provide civil leadership for our county. We can do better.

I urge your vote for Barry Jacobs for county commissioner on Tuesday.

Joe Herzenberg
Chapel Hill