Tyrone N. Butts
APE Reporter
Sewer line to school strains racial feelings
DURHAM -- Shortly after the Civil War, freed slave Isaac Jones bought 66 acres of farmland in what is now southwest Durham County and set about building a life with his four children in a climate of racial prejudice.
More than a century later, his descendants say they are again the victims of racism -- this time at the hands of Durham Public Schools and the city of Durham.
The school system is building Creekside Elementary School nearby and signed an agreement with two adjacent landowners to share the cost of installing a new sewer line. Th
developers are white, and the new sewer line would not serve four black-owned homes farther down Ephesus Church Road.
Ella Woods, a Jones descendent, said her family has been petitioning for yea
rs t
o get city water and sewer service, with no s
uccess. The family's land is about a quarter-mile outside the municipal limits, a few hundred feet from Interstate 40.
"We don't want to call it racial, but that's what it is," Woods, 77, said last week at a joint meeting of county and school officials. "If there were white families living out there, we wouldn't be having this problem. But we're being told to go to the outhouse. Not fair."
Woods' small home, which sits on 10 acres of the original family tract, relies on a septic tank.
She and her son, Isaac Woods, have asked that the school system void its contract and halt construction on the new sewer line, which is already being built, and reroute the line to serve her and t
he other homes. They have garnered encouragement from school board members Jackie Wagstaff and Regina George-Bowden, as well as the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.
School syst
em officials
, however, say that the deal with the developers to split the cost of the new 900-foot
sewer line is saving taxpayers more than $150,000 and that the pipe is following a low-lying gully that makes it the most direct and desirable route from an engineering standpoint.
At a meeting Wednesday morning with Durham Mayor Bill Bell, City Manager Marcia Conner, school board Chairman Michael Page and Assistant School Superintendent Hugh Osteen, Isaac Woods argued it would be cheaper to build the sewer line on a 1,600-foot route along Farrington and Ephesus Church roads to tie in with an existing city sewer. He said he would be happy to pay his family's share of the $23.50-per-foot assessment usually charged by the city to install the pipes.
But Dan Jewell, a civil engin
eer hired by the school system, said he couldn't see how taking the longer, more circuitous route could possibly be less expensive -- especially without the developers footing two-thirds of the
bill.
&qu
ot;We need to look at all the costs involved," he said, "like frontage fees, traffic control a
nd pavement repair."
After a two-hour meeting rife with accusations and side conversations, the officials agreed Wednesday to hire an independent engineer to review Woods' plan and report back next week.
But regardless of that assessment, Conner said, the decision on the placement of the sewer lies with the schools.
"We can facilitate, but the school is driving the project," she said. "The real question is whether the schools want to change it. It's not something we can force."
If the schools don't build the sewer where he wants, Isaac Woods said in a telephone interview Wednesday, there could be no other explanation than
racial prejudice.
"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and swims like a duck, then it must be a duck," he said.
**********
If it looks like shit, s
tinks like shit, and wants
YT to do all the work at YT's expense, then it must be a n-gger.
T.N.B.
DURHAM -- Shortly after the Civil War, freed slave Isaac Jones bought 66 acres of farmland in what is now southwest Durham County and set about building a life with his four children in a climate of racial prejudice.
More than a century later, his descendants say they are again the victims of racism -- this time at the hands of Durham Public Schools and the city of Durham.
The school system is building Creekside Elementary School nearby and signed an agreement with two adjacent landowners to share the cost of installing a new sewer line. Th
developers are white, and the new sewer line would not serve four black-owned homes farther down Ephesus Church Road.
Ella Woods, a Jones descendent, said her family has been petitioning for yea
rs t
o get city water and sewer service, with no s
uccess. The family's land is about a quarter-mile outside the municipal limits, a few hundred feet from Interstate 40.
"We don't want to call it racial, but that's what it is," Woods, 77, said last week at a joint meeting of county and school officials. "If there were white families living out there, we wouldn't be having this problem. But we're being told to go to the outhouse. Not fair."
Woods' small home, which sits on 10 acres of the original family tract, relies on a septic tank.
She and her son, Isaac Woods, have asked that the school system void its contract and halt construction on the new sewer line, which is already being built, and reroute the line to serve her and t
he other homes. They have garnered encouragement from school board members Jackie Wagstaff and Regina George-Bowden, as well as the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.
School syst
em officials
, however, say that the deal with the developers to split the cost of the new 900-foot
sewer line is saving taxpayers more than $150,000 and that the pipe is following a low-lying gully that makes it the most direct and desirable route from an engineering standpoint.
At a meeting Wednesday morning with Durham Mayor Bill Bell, City Manager Marcia Conner, school board Chairman Michael Page and Assistant School Superintendent Hugh Osteen, Isaac Woods argued it would be cheaper to build the sewer line on a 1,600-foot route along Farrington and Ephesus Church roads to tie in with an existing city sewer. He said he would be happy to pay his family's share of the $23.50-per-foot assessment usually charged by the city to install the pipes.
But Dan Jewell, a civil engin
eer hired by the school system, said he couldn't see how taking the longer, more circuitous route could possibly be less expensive -- especially without the developers footing two-thirds of the
bill.
&qu
ot;We need to look at all the costs involved," he said, "like frontage fees, traffic control a
nd pavement repair."
After a two-hour meeting rife with accusations and side conversations, the officials agreed Wednesday to hire an independent engineer to review Woods' plan and report back next week.
But regardless of that assessment, Conner said, the decision on the placement of the sewer lies with the schools.
"We can facilitate, but the school is driving the project," she said. "The real question is whether the schools want to change it. It's not something we can force."
If the schools don't build the sewer where he wants, Isaac Woods said in a telephone interview Wednesday, there could be no other explanation than
racial prejudice.
"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and swims like a duck, then it must be a duck," he said.
**********
If it looks like shit, s
tinks like shit, and wants
YT to do all the work at YT's expense, then it must be a n-gger.
T.N.B.