A helper, healing

One of the good guys met four of the bad guys. Martin Eakes, co-founder of the now-legendary Self-Help Credit Union, was severely beaten by four men last Monday night as he left his downtown Durham office. Eakes, 54, required 15 stitches in his forehead and will have surgery to repair a severed bicep. It was a brutal attack, and the four then demanded his wallet and cell phone.

Eakes, who founded his organization with $77 generated from a bake sale in 1980, has done good works all his life. He has a law degree from Yale, yet pays himself a modest salary and focuses on helping people who couldn't get regular loans to buy houses.

He has long fought for fair lending practices and for ordinary people on a variety of issues. He owns one of the most persuasive voices when it comes to influencing state and national lawmakers to advance pro-consumer causes.

Eakes is, in other words, just an outstanding fellow and tremendous asset to North Carolina. So when someone like him is the victim of such a crime, people all over the state are understandably outraged. Most, however, will follow Eakes' positive attitude and focus their attention on hoping and praying that he is soon restored to good health.

Eakes was The News & Observer's Tar Heel of the Year in 2005, and he is a Tar Heel for the ages as well. There are not many people among us who have shown the wisdom and the will to help others and have succeeded on the scale (more than 50,000 homeowners assisted with financing) that Eakes has. When he's able, and probably before he really should, Martin Eakes will return to work, and many thousands of North Carolinians will be better off because he's there.