Durham Housing Authority removes name of racist ex-director from high-rise apartments

This story was updated on July 2, 2020, with a statement from the Durham Housing Authority.

The Durham Housing Authority has renamed a downtown high-rise that was named for a racist 20th-century housing executive.

The former Oldham Towers, a public-housing property on East Main Street, was named after Carvie S. Oldham. He was a former DHA executive director who died in 1983 and segregated his Black residents from white tenants.

The building will be called “519 East Main Street” until the housing authority selects a new permanent name.

“Oldham was bent on re-creating in the public housing projects the world of the plantation,” Osha Gray Davidson wrote in the 2007 book “The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South.”

“In intimidating residents, Oldham’s employees often relied on the Durham police. ... Demands for Oldham’s ouster were routinely ignored by the city,” Davidson wrote.

Oldham threatened to call the police when African-American protesters opposed DHA policies, according to The Carolina Times archives. The Durham newspaper written by Black people frequently called on Oldham to resign.

The housing authority completed the buildings in 1969. It has 106 apartments for senior or disabled residents. The Oldham Towers signage was set to be removed Thursday, said DHA chief executive officer Anthony Scott.

A racist history

Oldham, a former cotton mill executive, ran the housing authority in the 1960s until he resigned amid public pressure in 1972, according to The Times.

The Times on Dec. 16, 1967, condemned Oldham’s “flagrant exploitation and the many cases of downright abuse of Negro public housing tenants. ... They have been forced into the unenviable position of having to demand the dismissal of the director of the Durham Housing Authority.”

Over 90% of DHA residents in 1970 were Black, according to The Times. Oldham allegedly passed over a qualified Black man to be his deputy, the Times reported. He allegedly subjected young women in DHA housing to abrasive physical exams to prove they were not pregnant, Davidson wrote.

Oldham used to tell C.P. Ellis, the head of the local KKK, when Black people planned to attend Durham City Council meetings, Davidson wrote. He wanted Ellis to attend and intimidate anyone who opposed the DHA’s policies.

“It’s nothing new that people have recently called for the removal of his name, because nobody, African Americans in particular, wanted his name on that building to begin with,” said Brandon Winford, a North Carolina native and history professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

“Residents continuously complained about the fines that they received, about the additional charges they received and other housing issues under Oldham’s leadership that represented his disregard for the concerns of African Americans who lived in public housing,” Winford said in an interview with The News & Observer.

The Times criticized Oldham for a $27,000 robbery of DHA money in 1968, the equivalent of nearly $200,000 today. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cited “poor judgment” on Oldham’s part.

“(Oldham) was dismissive and not accountable. He wasn’t really concerned that the money was gone and who was going to be responsible for that. That in many ways characterized who he was,” Winford said.

Oldham was depicted in the 2019 film “The Best of Enemies” as Durham’s mayor, a position he never held.

DHA renames Oldham Towers after learning its history

The housing authority was started in 1949 and owns 17 properties in Durham. It planned last year to form a committee to discuss renaming Oldham Towers after city resident Paul Scott brought the name to the DHA’s attention. In an email obtained by The N&O, Anthony Scott told Paul Scott last year that the DHA originally planned to rename the towers after the building was torn down.

Oldham Towers is one of four buildings the housing authority plans to demolish and redevelop within five years, the N&O reported last year.

The City Council cannot order the DHA to rename its buildings, Durham Mayor Steve Schewel said, but added, “None of our public buildings should bear the name of a racist.”

Andre D. Vann, an archivist and historian at N.C. Central University, said Durham still hasn’t confronted its racist history. As people of color and allies speak up about racism in the United States, Vann said this moment in history is an opportunity to rewrite the racist parts of Durham’s past.

“Monuments or markers or even buildings, they say just as much about the makers as the person being honored,” Vann said. “A lot of times, those who have been marginalized and excluded, like African Americans and other minority groups, haven’t had the opportunity to rename structures after people who had an impact on their community.”

On Thursday, after The N&O posted this story, the housing authority released a statement, calling Oldham a “controversial” figure who “fail(ed) to recognize due process rights regarding evictions.”

“Oldham was closely aligned with the white power structure in Durham. Like many southern towns, Durham tried to segregate the African American community in one part of the city,” it said. “The damage was already done by Oldham and even today the population in the census tracts of the southeastern quadrant of the City is 98% minority.”

Who should the former Oldham Towers be named after?

Winford suggests renaming the building after Joyce C. Thorpe, a resident of the DHA’s McDougald Terrace who took the housing authority to the Supreme Court in 1968 after she was evicted without reason. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in her favor, which set a national precedent protecting residents from unfair evictions.

Paul Scott, a 53-year-old Durham minister and activist, wants the building renamed after Ann Atwater who advocated for low-income African Americans in Durham and died in 2016. Her unlikely friendship with reformed KKK leader C.P. Ellis was portrayed in the book and movie “The Best of Enemies.”

“(Oldham Towers) is a seven-story shrine of white supremacy overlooking downtown,” Scott said. “It was Ann Atwater and other civil rights leaders during that time who actually confronted Carvie Oldham, so I think it’s appropriate that (the building) be named after her.”

This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 10:49 AM.