Former Chapel Hill councilman Herzenberg dies
Published: Mon, Oct. 29, 2007 10:02AM
Modified Mon, Oct. 29, 2007 10:09AM
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closeCHAPEL HILL -- Joe Herzenberg -- among the first openly gay elected officials in the South and an ardent defender of civil rights and the environment -- died Sunday at UNC Hospitals. He was 66.
Herzenberg was born June 25, 1941, to Morris and Margaret Herzenberg. Morris Herzenberg owned a drugstore in Franklin, N.J., where Herzenberg grew up.
After he graduated from Yale University in 1963, Herzenberg went to Mississippi to participate in voter registration for the civil rights movement Freedom Summer. He joined the faculty of historically black Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., where was appointed chairman of the history department. A popular instructor, he was named an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
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Herzenberg arrived in Chapel Hill in the early 1970s to enroll as a graduate student in history at UNC-Chapel Hill and, along with his partner Lightning Brown, immediately immersed himself in local, state and national political campaigns.
His first campaign for Chapel Hill Town Council in 1979 was unsuccessful, but 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. He was re-elected in 1991 with the highest vote tally in the three-seat race and served until 1993.
As a council member, Herzenberg was instrumental in the creation of the Chapel Hill greenway system and enactment of the town's tree protection ordinance.
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