Durham leader calls criticism of consultant a lynching, a charge with a political history

The chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners accused two local activists in a public Facebook post this week of trying to “lynch” a Black man whose company is seeking a consulting job.

Chair Brenda Howerton addressed the post to community members Nicholas Graber-Grace and Millicent Rogers, who had emailed the board with concerns about a contract up for discussion at Monday’s county commissioners meeting.

The Robert Bobb Group had proposed a nearly $50,000 contract with Durham County to provide governance training to the board.

Leading up to the meeting, Graber-Grace and Rogers emailed the commissioners to express concerns with Bobb’s group and how the proposal bypassed the county’s typical bidding process.

In his email, Graber-Grace stated Bobb’s history as emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools made him a poor fit for Durham. He called Bobb a “school privatizer,” and wrote he “has deep ties to the Broad Foundation, which is infamous for pushing a privatization agenda.”

Rogers, a co-president of the Durham political group People’s Alliance, asked the board in her email to consider additional proposals to pick a “well-vetted agency.”

In response, Howerton published a public statement on Facebook in defense of Bobb with the header, “GO AHEAD LYNCH ANOTHER BLACK MAN,” addressed to “Nicholas and Millicent.”

“The is (sic) a group of consultant (sic) discussing the possibility of working with the commissioners. This has nothing to do with the school. If we are true to OUR VALUES, why are you trying to Lynch another black man. Those are not my values. Help me understand why are you weighing in on this conversation,” Howerton wrote, and added several paragraphs about Bobb’s work in Detroit.

Professor Irving Joyner, a legal and civil rights scholar at N.C. Central University, said Howerton may have used the term because she saw an organized effort to assassinate the character of Bobb, who is Black.

From Clarence Thomas in his proceedings with Anita Hill to Brett Kavanaugh during their Supreme Court confirmation hearings, both Black and white politicians have used word “lynching” since the 1950s, he said. The term has been misappropriated by politicians to the point where “it’s lost a lot of its original meaning,” he said, as it relates to the lynching of African-Americans and whites during the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras.

“But it still carries a stain, in terms of the inappropriate motivation of whomever it is that is directing a campaign against a particular person,” Joyner said. “It still has the racial tinge.”

The two references to “lynching” in Howerton’s post were deleted as of Wednesday afternoon. Before they had been deleted, The News & Observer reached Howerton by phone Wednesday morning to ask why she chose to use the term, and she said she was too busy to answer questions.

She had not responded to additional phone calls as of 5 p.m.

Organizers comment on post

Rogers, who is Black, said the response from Howerton, who is also Black, shocked her. It was not her goal to lynch, intimidate, or put anybody under duress, she said, and her email to the board wasn’t about Bobb’s work in Detroit.

“I feel very strongly that Black men can be held accountable without being murdered or tortured,” said Rogers. “And it’s especially astonishing that people in leadership think that they should avoid accountability by equating accountability and lynching.”

Graber-Grace, who is white, said the privatization of public resources, like schools, can harm communities.

“Defeating these forces requires cross-race, cross-class coalitions. And I think the language that Chair Howerton used has a chilling effect on debate and makes those coalitions harder to achieve,” said Graber-Grace, a former teacher and admin of the Durham Association of Educators Facebook page.

Rogers said she’d like Howerton to acknowledge what she wrote.

“I’d appreciate an apology from her, a statement that she posted publicly and felt concerned enough to edit merits a public apology,” Rogers wrote to the N&O in a text.

Racial equity and governance training

Howerton announced in February that she had asked the county attorney to arrange racial equity and governance training for the board, as follow up to a consultant’s report last year by James Coleman Jr., a Duke University professor of law.

The county spent over $29,000 to hire Coleman to investigate an accusation by County Manager Wendell Davis that Commissioner Heidi Carter harbored a racial bias against him and other Black county employees last February.

Carter had rebuked Davis at a public meeting over funding construction projects for Durham Public Schools, criticism which senior county staff members considered “unfounded,” Coleman’s report stated. Staff also perceived former chair Wendy Jacobs’ questioning over county business as “micromanaging.”

Coleman found no racist intent behind Carter’s remarks, but he described Durham County government as periodically “dysfunctional,” and wrote that county employees working with Carter or Jacobs could reasonably perceive their conduct as biased, whether conscious or implicit.

The Robert Bobb Group proposed the county do an initial, 8-week “assessment” phase, when the group would conduct interviews with commissioners and create an action plan. The group would determine a cost for a second phase, for the training, at a later date.

“Our concern is working with you to assure that you turn dysfunction into functionality,” said Clara Axam, who presented the proposal on Monday with Robert Bobb. “And that you assure effectiveness by addressing those things.”

The Durham County commissioners held off on hiring the majority-Black firm Monday night..

Instead, the board voted 4-1 to seek two more proposals from consultants in addition to the bid by the Robert Bobb Group.

Howerton cast the lone vote against getting more bids.

This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 5:08 PM.