VANCE COUNTY AND SURROUNDING AREA COMMUNITY IMPACT REFLECTION
Personal Foundations and Integration
Early Education: I attended all segregated Black institutions (Adams Kindergarten, Eaton Johnson Elementary, and Henderson Institute). Each were high-quality environments for academic and social development.
Integrating Athletics: In 1965, I was part of a select group that integrated Henderson High School. As the first student athlete, my participation helped shift racial dynamics and fostered confidence among people of color that we could excel in newly opened opportunities. As a leader of the small group integrating Henderson High School, I was able to demonstrate that I could handle the academic rigor, social and racial dynamics that gave some assurance to my fellow student classmates that we could be successful and graduate with honors from Henderson High School. This was a result of the preparation that we had received at Eaton Johnson Elementary and Henderson Institute, which prepared us for this opportunity and other opportunities that we would have later in life.
Professional Biography and Community Impact
After graduating from Elizabeth City State University my professional career led me to complete one year of law school, secure two Masters Degrees — one MEd and an MS — and a Senior Executive Program Diploma at Harvard’s Kennedy School. After having completed these educational endeavors and living in different parts of the country, I returned to Henderson, North Carolina and was encouraged and recruited by Margaret Ellis and Andrea Harris to help move Henderson forward using some of what I had learned while being away from Henderson.
As a result of my impactful career, I have been awarded two Honorary Doctorate
Degrees — Elizabeth City State University awarded the Doctorate of Community Services, and Livingstone University awarded the Doctorate in Leadership and Service.
- Gateway Community Development Corporation (CDC) was my first recommendation for the betterment of Henderson, Vance County and surrounding area. Gateway CDC was founded and incorporated by Andrea Harris, Margaret Ellis, and myself. Gateway CDC utilized a Board of credible, multi-generational community leaders to drive change. Gateway became our platform and legal entity to launch community economic development strategies and projects focused on building assets and wealth for individuals and families previously excluded from economic growth.
Gateway moved forward to acquire the historic J. C. Penney’s building on Garnett Street/Main Street downtown Henderson and converted it to the Gateway Center. This was the first significant real estate holding/ownership by persons of color in downtown Henderson. The Gateway Center became a focal point for community meetings, community events – such as birthday parties, weddings, community discussions, community organizing, baby showers, family reunions, etc., as well as an incubator for entrepreneurs attempting to start or grow their newly-found business. The Center remains the corporate office for Gateway Community Development Corporation.
The next project of Gateway CDC was to develop Pine Forest Subdivision, 20 new homes built in the Happy Hill community. Then we developed the A. L. Harris subdivision and other scattered site housing in other communities in the city. In total, Gateway has developed more new housing in communities of color than any other builder in the last 50 years, public or private. These two developments represent and check many of the strategic goals of Gateway CDC: building assets for individuals and families, creating safe, attractive neighborhoods, expanding the tax base for Henderson and Vance County, contributing to the economic growth of Henderson and surrounding area.
Our next major strategic initiative was to try to educate and organize an entity that would allow us to build individual assets and wealth by creating the Vance Warren
Mutual Association, which lead to the federal incorporation of Gateway
Community Development Credit Union, of which I became a founder and first Chairman of the Board. The Credit Union, being federally chartered and certified, carried $250,000 of individual insurance on each individual account. The Credit Union provided small personal loans, automobile loans, small business loans, and housing loans. The Credit Union became a member of the Association of Black Credit Unions in the State of North Carolina. North Carolina had more Black Credit Unions than any other state in the United States.
- For the last five years I have been asked to provide strategic vision, executive leadership and management for Franklin Vance Warren Opportunity, Inc., a 60year old legacy organization here in our community. This $12 million, hundred employee institution found itself in operating and fiscal trouble when I arrived. I was asked to help stabilize the organization and lead it to new fiscal integrity and productive operating programs.
Coming to this task I committed to a three-month advisory role and have been here now for five plus years, have produced five years of clean audits, raised $2.5 million of new capital, launched new strategic programs—one, a million dollar entrepreneurial support program and a $1.5 million YouthBuild Workforce program. We are completing a $3 million retrofitting and rehab of the former Jubilee Hospital facility to now house Franklin Vance Warren’s corporate offices and the Jubilee Center, which captures the history of the Jubilee Hospital and its contribution to the evolution of Henderson, Vance County and surrounding area. The Jubilee Center will document and celebrate contributions of other individuals, families, institutions, businesses by persons of color to the growth and evolution of our region. I am leading an effort to secure $6 million to rehabilitate 74 senior apartments owned by Franklin Vance Warren in Louisburg, NC.
- I have served in leadership roles as a member of the Vance Granville Community College Board for more than 20 plus years, and served as the first Black male chairman of the Board of Trustees of VGCC.
- I have served as a member of the Triangle North Industrial Park Initiative, which is a partnership between Vance, Warren, Granville and Franklin counties to jointly pursue industrial projects and impactful economic strategies to attract large employment opportunities to our four-county region.
- I have recently been elected to the Vance County Historical Society, and in that role I am helping to examine and reimagine the history of Henderson and Vance County.
- Lastly, I have served on the Board of Directors for McGregor Hall, as requested by Sam Watkins, the founder of McGregor Hall. I facilitated and assisted in securing a $3 million USDA loan addressing a critical capital shortfall and ensuring the completion of the project.