I HOPE everyone arrived to this post-Thanksgiving week having had some moments to exhale. 2021 has been another long and difficult year.
This edition of Stone Walls is a brief one to provide links to recent James Cates news coverage, plus a small update about Stone Walls.
If you missed the James Cates Remembrance Coalition’s webinar from before the holiday, the full video can be viewed here. For many, the webinar was the first opportunity to hear directly from family and friends about their loved one and his 1970 murder. There was also a vigil in the Pit on the 51st anniversary organized by UNC students and attended by family and community members as well as students.
Here is a roundup of recent news coverage of the James Cates webinar, vigil, and anniversary:
The News & Observer, column by Sara Pequeño: “James Cates’s family still deserves answers decades after his killing”
Pequeño’s column also appeared in the Charlotte Observer and Herald-Sun
The Daily Tar Heel, editorial: “51 years after the murder of James Cates Jr., we are still complicit”
The Daily Tar Heel, news story by Jade Neptune: “UNC community honors memory of James Cates on the anniversary of his death”
Chapelboro, column by Benjamin Rappaport: “‘We Expected Justice’: 51 Years After James Cates’ Murder, Trauma Remains”
WCHL The Hill 97.9 FM radio: November 22, 2021 “The 5:00 News” (Cates story begins at 2:07 mark)
The Daily Tar Heel, news story by Madi Kirkman: “Proposal to rename Student Stores Building after James Cates still underway”
ON ANOTHER NOTE, I wanted to let you readers know that Stone Walls will be taking a break through the holidays and New Year’s. I’ve been at this newsletter in my spare time for a year and a half and nearly 50 posts. A bit of a pause is in order. If you are a paying subscriber, don’t worry, payments will take a break as well. (If you are an annual subscriber, the period of your annual subscription will lengthen by the amount of time of the break. If you are a monthly subscriber, no payments will be processed during the break.)
I’m so thankful for all the thousands of people who have read and shared Stone Walls over the past 18 months. I also appreciate those who have even been willing to contribute their writing or photographs, or to chip in a few bucks to help sustain this work and pay guest contributors.
As always, anyone can read posts from the Stone Walls archive at any time.
Yours,
Mike Ogle
Top 10 most read Stone Walls posts:
“Enslaved, Escheated, Erased: Walking in the shoes of tradition” by Danita Mason-Hogans
“Larry loves steak and the American Indian Center” by Larry Chavis
“Village enslavers” by Mike Ogle
“Q&A: Sam’s Reckoning” by Silent Sam’s Reckoning research collective
“Nikole Hannah-Jones & Benjamin Hedrick” by Mike Ogle
“James Cates is gone” by Mike Ogle
“A word on the Greene Tract” by Mike Ogle and Robert Campbell
“Randall Kenan: Walking on Water” by Mike Ogle
“Coal for Black neighbors” by Mike Ogle
“Birth of Cameron Avenue” by Mike Ogle
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“Chapel Hill was half Black” by Mike Ogle