Maria continues to follow up for her N&R feature story.

She called one of the founders of the Aycock Neighborhood Association who took issue with one of her questions about the decline and rise of our neighborhood:

"...The one thing I did take issue with was her assertion that you claimed the neighborhood was in a state of decline when you moved in. It was not.

I can understand how you might think such a thing if you did not know anything about the neighborhood's history, but you do know the history. The neighborhood has imrpoved tremendously since you moved here, but please remember, the neighborhood association had been in existence for seven years before you got here and had fought some major battles. The neighborhood was definitely improving by 1987. Although I did not say this to Maria, such a statement, perhaps unwittingly, negates most of the efforts taken by those in the association who came before you.  Some even went to jail for the neighborhood."

He is right, I do know the history of the neighborhood very well and the turn-around we have experienced is because of the efforts of a long line of very involved residents, including the one who sent me the above email.  The writer was the neighborhood association's first president (if I've got my history right).

My statement to Maria was along the lines of, "the neighborhood was in serious decline before we attained Historic District status".  My ego is no where near as large as to even hint that Aycock's success started the minute I moved here.  The 'hood was well on its way to a transformation, and had fought many battles, in the years that ensued before I landed here.

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A Greensboro community leader, who insists on anonymity, but who says he attended the NAACP meeting I wrote about last September when the Simkins PAC made their appeal for support of the baseball referendum, comments on this post after he read the Carolina Peacemaker article about promises made and promises kept:

"... They acquiesced to the removal of the last major public entertainment venue from East Greensboro ... for basically nothing in return. ...

...I heard Joe Williams lie, with my own ears, at an NAACP meeting, about "written guarantees." He lied to me, and he lied to the African American community that he purports to represent. He lied convincingly, and he lied heatedly when challenged by members of his own community.

If this is the state that East Greensboro's leadership is in, is it any wonder that East Greensboro is in the state that it's in?

I think Bowden and Williams were not willing really to knock heads on this issue because it would have jeapordized their relationships with the city's movers and shakers, and hence their own wealth and prestige.

They've sold out, and they've sold out their own -- and my -- community...."

I left out the last line.

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