The Washington Post Article

        The Washington Post has published an article on Davidson County, North Carolina titled:  “Facebook post exposes racial divide.”  The article paints our county as being bigoted, backwards, prejudiced and racist.   The reporter called me and said he was told I knew a great deal about the history of our county.  He said he wanted to understand the true culture and the true spirit of Davidson County.  I took him at his word, but he didn’t take me at mine.  I was not only misquoted, but the Davidson County that I described to him was not the one he portrayed in the article.  

        The article first appeared in the Post and then was reprinted on Monday, October 28 in both the Winston-Salem Journal and the Greensboro News and Record.   I want to share two responses.  The first is a reflection on the article I shared with City leaders.  The second is a Letter to the Editor that I am submitting to both the Journal and the News and Record.



         I want to share my reflections on the Washington Post Article.  Obviously, I am greatly disappointed in the article.  The reporter told me he really wanted to understand the culture and the spirit of our county.  I told him that if he really wanted to accomplish this, he needed to know the name of Charlie England.  I also referenced the 1963 incident as an example of how our community responded to a racial crisis in a positive and redemptive way.  He never mentioned the name of Charlie England and he used the 1963 incident in the same way the national media did in 1963—never bothering to tell the full story.

            I was misquoted also.  I never told him people cautioned us about living in the city.  When he asked about the perception that the county was more prejudiced than the city, I told him that first of all, things were much better now than they were 30 years ago when I moved to Lexington.  I told him that some people told us that we should have our kids in county schools and others said they should be in city schools.  No one ever told us not to live in the city.  We did buy a house in the city.  I also told him that it was only a perception.

            I was quoted correctly when I told him that our church and most mainline churches are all white.  I told him that while most of our members have acquaintances who are black, we don’t normally socialize and go out to eat together.  He made the leap to say most of my members don’t have black friends.  Oh, goodness!

            This is a good example of how a reporter can skew a story in a certain direction.  

Editor:

          The Washington Post story “Facebook post exposes racial divide” doesn’t tell the whole story, in fact, it misses the real story.

          The Davidson County I know is not the county portrayed in this article, nor is it the county I described to the Post when I was interviewed.  I told the reporter that if he wanted to know the true spirit of Davidson County, there was one name he needed to learn—Charles England.  Coach Charlie England was the legendary football coach of Dunbar High School winning five state championships before integration.  He willingly stepped down to become an assistant coach at Lexington High School to facilitate integration.  He spent his entire life working for racial reconciliation. 

          I told the reporter that whenever we had a racial incident in the past, it had always been mediated in a positive and redemptive manner that promoted healing and reconciliation—the Charlie England way.  The name Charles England never appeared in his story and the historical references only reinforced the negative, divisive, and prejudiced picture that he paints. 

          But the biggest mistake that the Washington Post and everyone else made was that they missed the real story.  The story was not the one student who painted the racial slur, but the other students who immediately painted over the unacceptable words.  They made a powerful statement.  The slur did not represent them, their school, their families, or their community. 

          The Post article does not reflect who we are in Davidson County, but the South Davidson students who stepped in certainly do!