Traversing the Personal and the Political: an Ethnographic Study of Progressive Women in North Carolina Politics

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Traversing the Personal and the Political: An Ethnographic Study of Progressive Women in North Carolina Politics

A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Faculty of Humanities

2019

Skyler E. Hawkins

School of Social Sciences Social Anthropology Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology

3 Contents

Abstract 5

Declaration and Copyright Statement 7

Acknowledgements 9

Introduction 11

Chapter One 25 Intersections in the Field: Building a Black Feminist Framework for Conducting Ethnographic Research

Chapter Two 39 Methodological Considerations in the Political Field

Chapter Three 55 “Forward Together - Not One Step Back!”: An Essay of Photography and Commentary

Chapter Four 107 1 June 2016: An Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern American Politics

Chapter Five 129 Serving State-wide: Female Executive Officers on the North Carolina Council of State

Chapter Six 149 Localizing Leadership: Black Female Representation in the North Carolina General Assembly

Chapter Seven 167 Representation in Action: Combatting Food and Housing Insecurity as Case Studies in Progressive Policymaking

Conclusion 183

Works Cited 191

Word Count: 63,939

5 Abstract Much has been said about the major figures and issues of the 2016 national election cycle, and yet, the bulk of what affects Americans in their everyday lives is determined by legislation and concurrent activist efforts at the state and local levels. Within these localized political structures, there are elected officials and influential activists whose work and careers examine the very relationship between the personal and the political, and embody the complicated interplay between governance, representation and civic action. In exploring the ways in and points at which female elected officials are, at times, supported and promoted, while at others, constrained and erased, this thesis will argue that gender, race and class continue to play an active role in the presentation, production and passage of public policy. Based on fieldwork carried out during 2016 and early 2017 in Raleigh, North Carolina, among progressive female elected officials, activists and community groups, and non-profit organisations, this ethnographic project seeks to analyse how women work, interact and are understood in modern, American politics. Centring itself on the intersection of race and gender in the political lives, identities and experiences of women, the thesis explores the multi-faceted ways in which these women engage in political process. Citing extensive research conducting during the highly charged atmosphere of the 2016 election season, this thesis employs a range of ethnographic techniques, interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, and draws upon visual research and presentation methods to ask these core questions: What are the ways in which women work, interact and are understood in a modern, political environment? And how is this work influenced by concepts, experiences and understandings of race and gender? In doing so, this ethnographic project provides a nuanced understanding of aspects of women’s political, social and economic power that acts as a shaping force in modern, American political life.

7 Declaration

No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning

Copyright Statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and she has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance Presentation of Theses Policy iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=2442 0), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses.

9 Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisors, Professor Peter Wade and Dr. Angela Torresan. Without your time and attention to my project, and care and compassion for me as a person, this thesis would not have been possible. Thank you for pushing me when I needed it and allowing me space when I needed that, too. I hope that this thesis is a reflection of my growth under your tutelage and I will be forever grateful for my time here in Manchester.

Also at the University of Manchester, I would like to thank my cohort and friends in my department, especially Lana, Jeremy and Jasmine, who all challenged me to be a more confident thinker; the women of the Feminooks reading group, for reminding me to trust the authority of my own voice; and my friends on the SoSS TA Committee, for showing me of the power of collective action. I want to offer a special thank you to my dear friend James for embracing me, pushing me and inspiring me to be a more honest, hopeful and happy version of me.

Back at home, I want to thank Adele, Beth, Canaan, Carey, Christina, Gretchen, Maeve, Nicole, Rob, Taylor and Will for sending memes and words of encouragement in equal measure.

This project required me to dig deep, both in the lives of my informants, but also my own; and in recognition of this, it is important that I share this project and this moment with the women in my life who selflessly entrusted their story to me and who tirelessly supported me:

First, my deepest gratitude goes to Yvonne, Beth and June who, by agreeing to share their story with me, opened the door so much more than we could have imagined. I am so appreciative to you all, as my leaders and as my friends.

Secondly, I’d like to thank my closest Manchester girlfriends – Gudrun, Mena and Caroline – for inspiring and loving me over these past five years. When you read my work and gave me helpful feedback, travelled with me to really fun places, held my hand through heartbreak, and danced along with me to live music, you showed me such support and kindness.

And lastly, I must thank the women of my family – my Grandmother Louise, my Mom, Aunt Carolyn, Aunt Dianne, Aunt Linda, Aunt Pam, Tamara, Ashley and Miya – to whom I dedicate this thesis. As Romans 13:8-10 tells us,

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.”

Thank you all for teaching me, showing me and filling my life with love.

11 Introduction

Based on research during 2016 and early 2017 in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a group of left-leaning female elected officials and community activists, particularly women of colour, this ethnographic project seeks to explore the ways in which women work, interact and are understood in a modern, political environment. The women presented throughout this thesis embody the complicated interplay between governance, activism, race and gender, and my research rests at this particular intersection. In an effort to better understand the relationship between the past and the present, and the defining and practiced elements of racial and gender identifies both from and therein formed, the ethnography that follows navigates the shifting political landscape in which its protagonists, structures and sites exist. Engaging with the notion that extended participant observation and the employment of visual methods will allow for an analysis of current political structures, this thesis seeks to understand the difficulties facing women when running for and while serving in office, their obligations to personal and professional communities, and how one quite significantly influences or affects the other. This ethnography examines a wide range of personal and collective narratives in order to contribute to the existing literature about feminism and the wide range of political involvement among women, particularly for Black women, and give commentary on this emerging era of political figures and movements in the Southern region of the United States. In viewing, documenting and analysing the means by which women becoming actively involved in the political and legislative process on the local and state level, this project’s mission is to reveal the myriad of ways through which the historically and socially created concepts of gender and race are experienced and lived on a daily basis, and how these concepts are inextricably linked to the political identities of these women. The ideas are ever changing – at times, notions of historic definitions and stereotypes of a kind of racialised femininity are confirmed, at others, and sometimes simultaneously, they are challenged, revealing a reformation and refashioning of what it means to be a woman working and existing in a modern, political environment. This thesis makes its way through these complex and shifting concepts by analysing the place, space, characters and events occurring at a pivotal time in the state and nation’s history, doing so through the presentation of written narratives and an engagement with visual and aural sensibilities. Seeking to understand how female leaders work on a wide scope of issues and act on behalf of their community to raise awareness and effect meaningful change, this thesis argues that progressive women working in North Carolina state government face particular gendered and racial barriers in their campaigns and while in office that both restrict and empower them to carry out the duties of their elective office. Central to this analysis is an exploration of such binaries as the personal and the political, and the private and the public, as my informants’ careers are predicated upon traversing these spaces.

North Carolina and the American South: The Field Site

North Carolina State Capitol Building, Downtown Raleigh

Located in the Southeast region of the United States along the Atlantic coast, North Carolina is home to an estimated 10,383,620 people (United States Census Bureau 2018). With a population that is 51.3 percent female, 1 in 5 North Carolinians identify as Black or African- American and registered Democrats outnumber any other political party, with just over 2.46 million affiliated voters, compared to the 1.98 million registered Republicans and 2.08 million Unaffiliated voters (North Carolina State Board of Elections 2019). Individuals or families are deemed to be living below the poverty line if their annual pre-tax cash income falls below a dollar amount, or poverty threshold, and this current threshold is a single person making less than $12,752 and a family of 4 making less than $25,100; in the state of North Carolina, 14.7% of people, approximately 1.47 million, live in poverty, which is above the national rate of 12.3 percent (Fontenot, Semega and Kollar 2018; United States Census Bureau 2018). While the median household income is around $50,000, and by some estimations as high $52,752, the startling number of children and families living below the poverty line reveals the wealth disparities that continue to persist (Appelbaum and Pear 2018; Kennedy and Umbarger 2018; Suneson 2018; White 2019). As a former colony that depended on slave labour and the production of raw materials and goods at the hands, minds and bodies of enslaved African and indigenous people, North Carolina’s history includes a period that some would argue constitutes a “second slavery,” a time when Jim Crow segregationist policies denied access to the core economic and political systems and simply reinforced the racial and classist hierarchies that had existed before the Civil War (Coates 2014; Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia 2019; Pollard and Bernard 2012). North Carolina has been a major site of political and social movements, and continues as such today. The coastal town of Wilmington was the site of the country’s only coup d’etat, when a group of white supremacists stormed the city’s main Hall, forcibly removing the black and white city 13 officials from their offices, homes and out of the city itself (National Public Radio 2008; LaFrance and Newkirk 2017; Umfleet 2006); Greensboro’s Woolworth sit-ins forced a national dialogue about segregation (Smithsonian National Museum of American History 2019; Horton 2018); and Raleigh, the state capital, is home to the university campus where the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was formed and headquartered (Shaw University 2014). With the slow movement toward school integration across the United States as mandated by the landmark Brown v. Board of Education court case in 1954, school districts across the state of North Carolina were not eager to integrate, with the state’s legislators stepping in to enact the Pearsall Plan in 1956 that would gradually integrate educational spaces rather than forcibly doing so like other Southern states (Brown 2004). Eventually forced by the 1971 ruling in Swann v. Charlotte- Mecklenburg Board of Education that dictated integrate through a system of bussing that brought students together from across the school district, the state saw a great shifts in demographics, with increased minority migration for educational and work opportunities, and a widening of the private sector, with the long-standing manufacturing and agricultural companies shifting their outputs because of legislative and regulatory mandates and also seeing increasing competition from tech and entertainment companies (Moody 2018; Our State Staff 2017; POV 2005; Sarmah- Hightower 2019; Tippett 2014; Uzialko 2016). Following the efforts toward great equality made during the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights Movements of the mid-twentieth century, North Carolina saw shifts in the public sector too, with a greater diversity in people running for office that included the first female candidate to serve on the state Supreme Court as Chief Justice who was the first elected woman to serve in this capacity in the country, the first female Senator and Governor, and the first African-Americans to sit on the state Supreme Court, serve as Speaker of the state House and represent the state in the United States Congress (Ballotpedia n.d.; North Carolina Museum of History n.d.). Firmly placed within the often-watched group of swing states that could affect both Congressional and Presidential outcomes, North Carolina has increasingly been noted as a more progressive beacon in Southern politics (Browder 2016; Shepard 2016). Yet with an onslaught of conservative leadership changes across the three branches of state government in 1898, beginning with the conservative lean on the state Supreme Court and their control of the House and Senate in 2010 for the first time since 1898, continuing on to their win of the governorship in 2012 for the first time since 1993 (Ballotpedia n.d.), and several high profile court cases involving LGBTQ rights, voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering efforts that all favour Republican candidates and issues, many journalists, researchers and voters alike are challenging this very notion (Eamon 2014; Hobson 2016). Cooper and Knotts ask: “Does North Carolina deserve this progressive reputation? Although the state’s residents have elected many progressive politicians, Tar Heel voters have also supported traditionalists such as Sam Ervin, Everett Jordan, and Jesse Helms. Helms, ‘the unreconstructed foe of civil rights and the

14 chief tormentor of Tar Heel liberals’ (Christensen and Fleer 1999 81), employed racially charged tactics in his re-election bids, tactics that should have backfired in a progressive state. Moreover, white males have always dominated state-wide political offices, and despite a few exceptions, Tar Heel voters have most often supported national candidates with traditional rather than progressive policy positions” (2008 1-2). This ethnographic project explores this kind of overarching critique of North Carolina politics through an examination of women who disrupt the status quo. In a particular political moment, following the two-term administration of the country’s first African-American president and facing the prospect of its first female president, in a particular political context where progressivism is self-defined by its subscribers as a group that includes diverse candidates, employs a range of activist techniques to advocate on behalf of a wealth of issues and puts forth legislative initiatives that support usually underserved communities, how, why and through what means do progressive, politically-engaged women take up public service? When considered within, against and alongside a traditionally conservative, often gendered and racially segregated environment, how do women run for, hold and influence public office?

African-American Cultural Institutions In lead up to election night 2016, both major candidates for President, their Vice Presidential picks, their families, celebrity supporters and political allies had passed through the state of North Carolina hoping to garner as much support as they could for their campaign and that of their party’s candidates. Noting the importance of Black voters in the 2008 and 2012 election of President Barack Obama (Philpot et. al 2009; Roberts 2009; Wheaton 2013), Hillary Clinton and her team came to North Carolina for a series of rallies, meetings with supporters and donors, and press conferences meant to reach and inspire this key block to vote come Election Day. Just 48 hours away from the opening of voting booths across the country, I arrived at First Baptist Church, a historically Black church in downtown Raleigh. Located a stone’s throw away from the State Capitol Building, First Baptist Church was originally founded by “an integrated membership of fourteen slaves of African descent and nine free men presumably of European descent” (First Baptist Church n.d.). Following the Civil War and the resulting freedom of enslaved people in the state, the nearly 200 Black members separated from the first church to establish their own First Coloured Baptist Church. As their membership, outreach and prominence grew, the church eventually changed its name back to First Baptist Church and took up a permanent home on Wilmington Street, just two blocks from the location of the original, integrated church. Standing alongside more than 100 historically and majority Black churches in the greater Raleigh area, First Baptist Church serves as a cultural and spiritual hub for many African-American residents in the state capital, with several church, bible study and counselling services throughout the week, boasting thousands of members, providing gathering space for dozens of community 15 groups and progressive political organisations and a Family Life Centre that focuses on programming for local youth. Cemented as one of the core institutions in the African-American community, the Black church has been studied across theological, sociological, economic and political areas because of its pervasive presence and impact in the Black community (Du Bois 1903; Lincoln and Mamiya 1990; Mellowes n.d.; SimmsPariss 1998; Wortham 2009; Zuckerman 2000): In church-centered Black communities, the relationship between one's community and one's church was intimate. Far more than just a place to worship, the Black Church was a nation within a nation. […] For many African-Americans, church was not only a place to receive religious instruction on the doctrines of Christianity, church was a community in which to learn about one's world. […] As microcosms of the larger society, Black churches provided an environment free of oppression and racism for African-Americans. In Black Churches, African-Americans were consistently exposed to social, political, and economic opportunities which could be sought and had by all members equally. The representational structure of African-American churches confirmed Black preachers as both religious and community leaders. The sermons of many Black preachers expounded messages of Christianity analogized to the daily experiences of African-Americans. Thematic expressions of overcoming oppression and ‘lifting while climbing,’ were first articulated in church sermons.” (SimmsPariss 134-5; Frazier 1964) Though historically targeted by white, domestic terrorists to discourage, intimidate and kill clergy, staff and members of Black churches (Finley and Fung 2015), with threats and violence continuing to today in such cases as the arson of a Black church in Charlotte and the tragic mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina (Kaplan 2015; Simeone et al. 2015), Black churches persist in their advocacy for mindfulness and healthy habits, against the growing trend of economic insecurities in their community, and in favour of political engagement both inside and outside of their walls. They work toward to better physical health of their members and local community (Campbell et. al 2000; van Olphen et al. 2003) and in recent years, shifting focus to mental health resources (Dempsey et al. 2016; Pitts 2018), to offer provisions to those facing food and housing insecurities (Black Church Food Security Network n.d.; Mitchell 2018; Vaughn 2019), and as core sites for political organising around voting, disenfranchisement and gerrymandering, and to provide direct contact between voters and their elected leaders (Craven 2016; Gallitz 2016; North Carolina Black Alliance 2019; SimmsPariss 1998). I frequented such spaces, recognising their importance in the Raleigh community, to my main informants and the constituencies they serve, widening my recognition of local spiritual and political lexicon alike. First Baptist holds their 8am Sunday morning service in the Family Life Centre, offering Gospel-style worship in a more casual space with a wide-range of attendees in

16 more relaxed dress. I was encouraged to attend this morning in particular because a special group of activists were in town and planned to worship there before heading to nearby Durham for a rally with Secretary Clinton to encourage Black voters. The guests of honour that morning were the five women who make up the Mothers of the Movement, a group of Black women all brought together by the tragic deaths of their unarmed at the hands of police officers. The Mothers in attendance that day included Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother; Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner; Sandra Bland’s mother Geneva Reed-Veal; Maria Hamilton, mother to Dontré Hamilton; and Lucy McBath, Jordan Davis’s mother who now serves as United States Representative for the 6th congressional district of Georgia. In addition to speaking at the Democratic National Convention earlier that year, and their scheduled appearance later that Sunday with the Clinton campaign, they all advocate collectively and in their own communities against police brutality and gun violence (Drabold 2016). Though shorter in length than the traditional service held later in the morning, it was a deeply moving worship ceremony, with members gathering around the Mothers and the church pastor at the pulpit down front of the hall. Together, they lifted hearts, minds and arms in prayer for these victims, their families and the communities within which these senseless tragedies took place. Meditations reflected a desire to heal the country that was seemingly plagued with cases of police violence, mass shootings and deep political divisions. That morning, several state and local elected officials, leaders from Secretary Clinton’s president campaign and community activists were present, bringing the spiritual and secular realms together under this religious roof. Given the racial history of the United States and the American South, that both literally and socially codified segregation and other forms of discrimination, institutions such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities1, Black sororities and fraternity, and civic organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People2, the National Urban League, United Negro College Fund, National Council of Negro Women and Prince Hall Black Freemasonry, have all made significant strides toward tackling inequality and provided spaces for Black life and leadership to flourish and grow (Black Issues Forum 2018; Bracey 2017; Jalata 2002; Jaynes and Williams 1989; North Carolina African American Heritage Commission n.d.). Beyond their own church halls, neighbourhoods and school grounds, historically Black and minority- serving organisations focus on improving the living conditions, job and educational opportunities, and overall political outlook and power of minority, low-income and migrant citizens and residents, and therefore placing advocacy at their heart. This activism happens through a myriad of means, notably through political engagement, increasing voter registration among underrepresented communities, and direct lobbying of political parties and elected officials. Several of my informants cite their upbringing within these physical, cultural and political institutions as the biggest influencers of their character, interpersonal relationships and their

1 Also known as HBCUs. 2 Also known as the NAACP. 17 families, and the strongest motivating factor for serving in elected office. Discussed in greater length in Chapter Three, these groups operate in very significant political and social spaces across North Carolina, influencing legislative initiatives, fundraising on behalf of Black institutions, encouraging and supporting Black and minority candidates for office, and rest at the heart of Black art, music, food, religion and life. Long-standing African American institutions like HBCUs, fraternal and sororal organisations and other civic groups originating in this community continue to bring their considerable impact directly to their governing bodies through special days dedicated to lobbying at the General Assembly. At the 2019 HBCU Day of Advocacy saw students, faculty, alumni and current legislative officials who attended these institutions speaking out on a range of issues that HBCUs face in this modern collegiate climate. Although they face ongoing issues with underfunding, potential displacement due to gentrification in their surrounding neighbourhoods and the ongoing threat of disaccreditation, HBCUs continue to educate thousands of Americans every year. According to the HBCU Student Action Alliance, “80% of Black judges attended an HBCU, 40% of Black members of Congress added an HBCU, HBCUs are responsible for 20% of all current bachelor degree grants to Black students [and] 134,090 jobs are created by HBCUs in their surrounding communities” (HBCU Student Action Alliance n.d.; Killan 2019). As the birthplace and home to so many African-American women who rose to prominence in the worlds of education, social justice, science, religion and law, as the first to complete such tasks as graduating from college in the United States, serving as district judge, United States Attorney General, and a priest in the Episcopal Church (North Carolina Museum of History n.d.), among many other impressive and important achievements, North Carolina’s deeply rich educational, social and political tradition carries on today in the lives and work of the progressive, politically-engaged women and people of colour.

The Contemporary North Carolina Political Landscape Described in the New York Times as a state that “was once considered a beacon of farsightedness in the South, an exception in a region of poor education, intolerance and tightfistedness,” progressive leaders and votes in North Carolina today fear that the dismantling of key pieces of legislation, limitations to voting rights, the reinstatement of the death penalty and the debate on the passage of a religious freedom bill all contribute to a decline in the civil rights, economic prosperity and reputation of the state’s residents (Editorial Board 2013). As a state in the midst of political and policy change, North Carolina has shifted from a Democratically- led General Assembly, Governorship and Cabinet to a Republican supermajority, Governor and mostly conservative Cabinet in the last five election cycles. The resulting leadership instability, intra-branch fighting and power grabs across state government, and unprecedented legal and legislative issues, have meant the local, national and global media and cultural attention focusedon North Carolina is reaching new levels (BBC News 2016; Christensen 2015; Coleman

18 2012; Graham 2016; The Hill Staff 2016; The New York Times Editorial Board 2013, 2017; Nilsen 2018; Seelye 2008).

Fayetteville Street, Downtown Raleigh

One of the most contentious areas highlighting this continuing collision of history and race within the context of social and political movements is the ongoing legal battle concerning the presence of gerrymandering, or the favourable drawing of districts to favour one political party, along racial and party lines (Binker 2015; Biskupic 2018; Brosseau 2018; Boughton 2018; Burns 2014; Chicurel-Bayard 2018; Ingraham 2014; Jacobs 2018; Kim 2018; United States Supreme Court 2018). The state is among fifteen jurisdictions whose preclearance conditions – the prior approval of voting policies and practices from the federal government that is needed by local jurisdictions where high volumes of race-based violence occurred after the Civil War – were removed when section 4(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was declared unconstitutional in July of 2013, allowing conservative state leaders to tighten voting laws (Dymond 2013; United States Supreme Court 2012). North Carolina, and the American South, makes for a compelling field because this region is an active site for social justice-focused activism. The North Carolina General Assembly, the state-level version of a congress or parliament, is made up of both a state Senate and House of Representatives and houses elect members every two years. In a non-election year, the General Assembly has a full legislative calendar, which means they convene in January to write, discuss, vote on and enact a wide variety of laws and 19 regulations. They are usually in session until the fall, ending at late as October or November, and adjourning just before the holiday season. In the second year of their term, which is an election year, Representatives and Senators battle it out over how exactly they plan to pay for the new laws, programs and rules they instituted in the previous session. Though a few additional laws sneak their way into the budget session in the form of money allocated for these new programs or regulations, the primary focus is to divvy up the state and federally allocated funds to the various departments, programs, local municipalities and employees that make up the state system. With the prospect of losing their supermajority and the governorship in the upcoming 2016 elections, Republican leaders sought to shore up a budget that would be difficult to dismantle in subsequent legislative sessions, and I was front-row centre for one of the most contentious budget battles in modern times. With divisions among the parties increasingly more ardent, the struggle to secure adequate funding for education and teachers, state employees, those on social programs, colleges and universities, infrastructure, health care and much more was not only between the two parties, but among intraparty ranks as well (Christensen 2010; Zengerle 2017).

Research Questions Much has been said about the major figures of the 2016 national election cycle, and yet, the bulk of what affects every day Americans is carried out through legislation formed at the state and local levels. Furthermore, the study of political life and culture through an anthropological lens invites a prolonged, intimate and in-depth look at the multifaceted levels of political involvement for these women. Moving through the theoretical and methodological approaches from a variety of social science discourses, I arrived at the follow set of research questions.

For the main research inquiry: Considering the historic and social crafting of such concepts, how do the understandings of and experiences within notions of race and gender impact the personal and professional identities of and the regulatory and legislative initiatives led by female political leaders?

For female politicians at large, how do the concepts of gender, womanhood, maternity and femininity shape their experiences as legislative and executive leaders? Setting a number of firsts, female political figures in North Carolina are leading the way by winning elections, representing diverse constituencies, successfully enacting legislation that addresses a variety of needs within their communities and paving the way for generations of women to serve in the future. The progressive female leaders of North Carolina often link their experiences today with the work of the abolitionists and suffragettes, the women organizing and

20 leading the mid-century sit-ins and protests, and the women who moved from working primarily within the home to the formal workplace, symbolically linking their path to leadership to the work done by women who overcame misogynist ideas about women becoming involved in the breadth of political processes, from voting to running for and serving in elected office. At a time when the national and global conversations were exploding with opinions about the possibility of electing the first female President of the United States, this was a crucial time to explore the enduring impact of sexism and gendered tropes as they influenced and impacted a woman’s experiences within political culture.

For Black female politicians, how do their lived experiences differ from their colleagues, white and black, female and male? Following Collins (2000) theory on controlling images of Black women, this question seeks to both conceptually pinpoint and practically unpack how the political life of Black women differs from that of Black men, White women and men. In other words, in what ways do the perceptions associated with Black femininity affect the relationships, both personal and professional, between Black women and their other colleagues in elected office, and how do these perceptions affect their access to and within the political and legislative processes? While at this point it is important to note that the project does not research the lives and experiences of all politicians in an effort to comparatively explore the entire political structure in North Carolina, it does access what elements this group of Black women conceive as being different than their white and male counterparts. Because so much of political life relies on alliances and relationships between political figures, it is important to understand how these women perceive their experiences to be distinctive in very particular ways. Seeing experiences of these concepts as a weighted measure – examples are the frequency with which they see themselves having to set aside concerns about gender in favour of supporting an issue important to the African-American community at large, or the times that they experience racism within a traditionally feminist environment – allows us to see how often, when and for what purpose definitions of race and gender come into the everyday experiences and decision making processes for female politicians. Counter to the ways in which white women can identify primarily in terms of their gender and Black men who can closely identify with their racial identity, Black women must simultaneously link their identities as both women and people of colour, resulting in a range of implications for this group’s political experience, including their legislative agenda, the committees to which they are assigned and fundraising capabilities.

21 Chapter Summaries This thesis flows along in three parts. The first section, Chapters One and Two, focus on the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of this research, providing an engagement with relevant social science literature, news media and the world of film and photography to situate this research within the scholarship of gender and politics. The second section, Chapters Three and Four, set the field site as the stage within which explorations of these theories and employments of chosen methods occurred. As the field site was loaded with activities such as protests, rallies and lobbying events, among many other forms of political engagement, it was important to share with you these sights and sounds to better encapsulate the fieldwork experience and the context within which my informants and I were working at the time. Lastly, the third section includes Chapters Five, Six and Seven, where the thesis explorers section one’s theories, within the context of section two, to analyse the experiences of women, and in particular Black women and women of colour, in North Carolina. The thesis concludes with a call to action – for researchers, practitioners and elected officials alike – to rethink the ways in which their personal lives and histories affect their political positionality, to take a more critical eye on the enduring impact of gender and race within government bodies, political parties, and activist circles themselves, and to encourage a more active and intentional approach to reforming existing power structures. Chapter One, “Intersections in the Field: Building a Black Feminist Framework for Conducting Ethnographic Research,” not only explores the concepts of race, gender and politics through an examination of existing literature, but does so in a way that sets a framework within which the rest of the thesis situated. From there, Chapter Two, titled “Methodological Considerations in the Political Field,” provides a detailed account of the rationale behind this project’s choice and employment of a range of ethnographic methods. With special attention to both the theoretical and methodological use of written and visual texts, Chapters One and Two lay out a roadmap along which scholars can also conduct similar research. “Forward Together - Not One Step Back!”: An Essay of Photography and Commentary, presented in the thesis as Chapter Three, documents the widespread impact of political protest in the state’s capitol and surrounding communities. Some fifty years on from the Civil and Women’s Rights and Anti-War Movements in the United States, the impact of these historic freedom movements continues to greatly affect and influence how political figures, their governmental institutions, activist groups and the general public alike deal with the issues of the present. Particularly in light of the current economic and social issues facing North Carolinians, their families, neighbourhoods and community organizations, the employment of a variety of protests techniques across the state offers a unique exploration of the sights, sounds and spaces of this major political moment.

22 Chapter Four entitled 1 June 2016: An Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern American Politics outlines the events of a single day during my fieldwork. Beginning at a prayer breakfast addressing community access to affordable healthy foods and ending with an evening legislative session, this chapter analyses the relationship between political work and collective action, inclusive of lobbying day activities, office meetings, a rally and receptions, shedding light on the interconnected elements of Representative Holley’s personal and political life. In Chapters Five and Six, I explore the relationship between gender, race and political identity more closely, through an ethnographic exploration of the careers of three prominent female politicians in Raleigh. Serving State-wide narrates the personal and political lives of State Auditor Beth Wood and former State Superintendent June Atkinson, both of whom are the first women to hold their elected office. Chapter Five discusses their path to the electoral process, the persistent impact of gender within the workplace, and problematises the concept of work/life balance. Chapter Six, Localizing Leadership, highlights the work of State Representative Yvonne Lewis Holley and other black female, state and Raleigh-area political leaders as they navigate the political structure as simultaneously racialized and gendered figures. Also sharing their road to holding public office and highlighting their legislative work, this chapter analyses intersectional experiences within politics. The thesis then examines two community issues – food and housing insecurity – as they develop into legislative initiatives. Chapter Seven, “Representation in Action: Combatting Food and Housing Insecurity as Case Studies in Progressive Policymaking,” reveals the processes through which a concept can become a law, and the groundwork, interpersonal relationships and coalition building that it takes to make it happen – and sometimes, when these best efforts fail to bring legislation to fruition. In highlighting the deep impact that food deserts and the increasing lack of access to affordable, nutrient rich foods in low-income areas, the chapter takes the development and enactment of House Bill 250, titled the Healthy Food Small Retailer/Corner Store Act, as a site of inquiry in order to explore the impact of legislative processes on the legislator themselves, their colleagues, their constituencies and community groups alike. By contrast, those working to combat the rising problem of housing insecurity across the state faced incredible roadblocks when trying to turn a constituent issue into something addressed by law. Although Representative Holley was able to find legislative success with House Bill 250, housing insecurity continues to plague her district and the lives of homeless women, children and families across North Carolina. An exploration of the theoretical discussions and research questions outlined above, through the use of the methods brought forth in throughout the thesis, will contribute to an understanding of the issues currently facing women who are elected or community leaders and how their positioning as women and people of colour challenges, complicates or boosts their ability to lead; in doing so, it will firmly situate both the project and its informants along a timeline 23 and in a body of work that examines the lives of their foremothers of past American freedom movements while also providing foresight into the future of the political presence of women for generations to come.

25 Chapter One

Scholars in anthropology, sociology, political science, gender studies and many more have taken multidisciplinary and mixed methods approaches to the study of women and gender, labour and the workplace, legislation and the state, and contemporary political engagement through activism. Social scientists working with visual materials enter this debate too, bringing along an additional arsenal of theoretical and methodological approaches to these studies, and this ethnographic project seeks to weave this variety of methods and theories into its very fabric. This chapter represents this entwining of knowledge, tying together scholarship from across the academy, the news media and the kitchen table alike, with the hope of joining contemporary debates about the role, power and impact of women in elected roles.

Gender, Race, Intersectionality and Black Feminist Thought The following section aims to set the theoretical and ethnographic stage on which this research project will take place, providing an overview to key theories and concepts in the vast literature on gender, race and intersectionality. It is important to highlight the special interventions in race and gender theory that provide a framework for the project’s exploration into the ways in which this group of women negotiate the existing conceptual opposition between the personal and political, in relation to the concepts of race and gender. Among the most influential interventions in the study of gender and its role in the fabric of a society are the works of Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan. Calling for an interrogation of the literal and physical space allocated for women’s intellectual and other pursuits, recognizing that women are not born, but “rather become,” and in questioning the relationship between the public and private lives of women, these early feminist writers serve as underscoring, thematic influences for work within gender studies, and indeed, this ethnographic project (Woolf 1929; de Beauvoir 2009 283; Friedan 2013 330). Challenging feminism to reshape its discourse on female biology and science, sexuality and social constructions of femininity, Avtar Brah writes that while radical feminists argue that there are distinct physical and psychological qualities that are unique to the female body that have been undermined by patriarchy and thus should be reclaimed and celebrated, social feminism rests on the notion that human nature is created and produced socially (2000 507-8). In the preface to the first edition of Gender Trouble, Butler begins, “Contemporary feminist debates over the meanings of gender lead time and again to a certain sense of trouble, as if the indeterminacy of gender might eventually culminate in the failure of feminism,” (xxvii); and in stirring up this ‘trouble’, Butler asks how feminists can best challenge the “gender categories that support gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality?” (xxviii).

26 With recognition to its title, “Traversing the Personal and the Political,” this project sits within two ongoing dialogues within feminist theory – first, the concept of gender as a by-product of a socialisation process, rather than solely, if at all, biological, critiquing the processes by which ideas about women’s roles and the images associated with femininity, womanhood and maternity are forever shaping the daily lives and careers of women; and, second, the critical approach to the divide between the public and private domains, bringing forth the literal and symbolic usages of the phrase “The Personal is Political” by studying women whose physical bodies and bodies of work are forever intertwined, interlinked and interdependent (Boyd 1997; Hanisch 1969, 2006; Patemen 1989; Ribbens and Edwards 1997; Rich 1977; Snaith 2000; Woolf 1929). Social and economic approaches to labour drive this delineation of work between our public and private lives, and although there are various approaches to this divide, the former is broadly defined as under the authority of the state, and the latter falling into the domestic sphere (Squires 2013). Building on the work of Davidoff, Ribbens and Edwards argue, “It is clear that ‘public’ and ‘private’ are tricky and ambiguous concepts, which cannot simply be identified by reference to physical locations of home, neighbourhood, workplace, or government, nor can they simply be mapped straight onto gender identities” (1997 8). This ethnographic project echoes the arguments of Patricia Hill Collins, Ribbens and Edwards and others that this divide in labour is very much predicated upon ideas about gendered, racial and classed differences. For Black women in the United States, the separation between public and private domains has been forever blurred by the country’s foundation upon a slavery-dependent economy and its subsequent impact on the economic developments to follow, and thus it becomes vital that this project take care to use such concepts as gender and race as theoretical underpinnings to examine the differences in the lived experiences of women from diverse backgrounds who are working in this political environment. The focus on this group of middle-class, female political figures contributes to existing literature on these binaries by tracing the experiences, recollections and views of these key informants who are working within an environment in which race, gender and class heavily influential among the politicians themselves, the dynamics of the legislative and executive branch spaces, and the kinds of legislation, regulations and projects are produced. Over the course of its history that includes major transformation from the slavery era to Reconstruction, the Jim Crow segregation of the South to the present economic and political gap between racial and gender groups, the United States has imagined blackness and the Black identity in a number of specific ways. Theorists have grappled with the breadth of definitions and uses of race across society, how to situate race and identities among other social categorisations, the role of race in our global history of exploration and nation building, and the particular use of race in the study of science. Robert Miles and Malcolm Brown’s work Racism addresses several key ideas about race, as it works with scientific, political, social and legal discourse by examining and critiquing the ways in which the idea of race and racism have been defined, developed, and in 27 some ways greatly expanded over time (2003). In an effort to locate race in a number of contexts, the authors begin with a discussion of race as an ideology, moral question, and political question: During the last fifty years or so, [racism] has become a key idea in daily discourse. […] Like other elements of ‘common sense’ discourse, much of the everyday language is uncritical, taken-for- granted. The concept of racism is also heavily negatively loaded, morally and politically. Thus, to claim that someone has expressed a racist opinion is to denounce them as immoral and unworthy. In sum, racism has become a term of political abuse. This presents special difficulties for the social scientist who defends the use of the concept. Whatever definition is offered has significance for not only academic work, but also political and moral debate.” (3) Describing the common use of the term racism as taking on two problematic forms, Miles and Brown point to both the inflated uses of the concept of racism that are too broad and too vague and a deflated sense of racism that restricts an understanding of race to biological differences and determinism as part of the formation of social and political structures where hierarchies are based on a racist view of difference (66, 73). Miles and Brown use the term institutional racism as an exploration of this inflation of racism in common discourse. By defining racism in terms of “all processes that, intentionally or otherwise, result in the continued exclusion of subordinate group… [and] all activities and practices that are intended to protect the advantages of a dominant group,” the authors argue that the scope of racism has been widened such that it simultaneously amplifies and de- contextualises racism and racist practices (66, 71). Citing Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South as examples of the use of race to justify unfair or inhuman practices, Miles and Brown argue that racism is a process that transforms over time, and with it, the need to highlight by what criteria one can examine racism that makes this ideology different from others like nationalism or sexism (62). This important intervention in the discourse about race and social categorisations is an important part of this project, as the examination of role of race in the lives and careers of its subjects will require an exploration of the particular ways that racism exists within this specific time and place, independent from, oppositional to and in tandem with sexism. With the election of its first African-American President and in the wake of several, nationally televised trials of white police officers charged with killing unarmed Black men and women, the discussion of racism continues to sit at the forefront of the current American political and popular cultural climate. The inflated sense of racism and the deflated understandings of the kind of racist acts that can occur are two key theoretical points through which we can interpret and analyse the national conversation about the role of race in the United States. For the Black women involved in community activism and politics, the idea of race and the experiences of racism often drive their decision to get involved in issues such as unemployment, access to health care, combatting food insecurity and strengthening local infrastructure, and thus understanding how racism inflates and

28 deflates in their work will be key to understanding how race influences their local and legislative efforts. The construction of Black femininity is important to examine, as it, too, formed out of this settler-slave history, shifting and forming alongside significant changes to the cultural, economic and political landscape in the United States over time (Davis 1972, 1981; hooks 1992; Spillers 1987, 2007; Collins 2000). It is this history that drove the women of the mid-twentieth century freedom movements to speak not only to issues of people of colour as a whole, but explicitly for Black women, in a number of innovative, damning, confrontational, and intimate ways. The emergence of a feminist movement that was mostly rooted in the white, middle class perspective, and an anti-racist movement that was both preoccupied with economic and political equality and focused on men’s employment and voting rights led black feminist thinkers to begin addressing the specific ways in which black women live simultaneously racialized and gendered lives, and that there needed to be more discernible ways of addressing the multiple oppressions that they experience (Crenshaw 152). Psychologist Veronica Thomas writes, “A distinctive Afrocentric epistemology makes the case for an Afrocentric consciousness as a result of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, apartheid, and other systems of racial domination that resulted in a shared history and experience of oppression of people of African descent. In other words, Black people, irrespective of gender, share a common experience of being Black in a society that denigrates people of African descent. In a similar vein, feminist scholars argue that women in American society share a history of patriarchal oppression through the political economy of the material conditions that transcend divisions among women. Black feminist theory, as an epistemology, is interdisciplinary in nature and encompasses formulating and rearticulating a distinctive, self-defined Black feminist consciousness that embraces both an Afrocentric worldview and a feminist sensibility to better understand the unique Black women’s standpoint (e.g., Collins, 1990; hooks, 2000; Hull, Bell-Scott, & Smith, 1982; King, 1988)” Noted by Lindsay-Denis a “culturally based perspectives that take[s] into consideration the contextual and interactive effects of herstory, culture, race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression,” (2015 509) Black feminist theory tackles the distinctive means through which Black women can contend with their experiences and knowledge from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives. Kimberlé Crenshaw theorizes this phenomenon as ‘intersectionality’ – the meeting place of two or more descriptive elements, such as race, gender or class – and in coining this term, sought to break the tendency to singularly describe experiences as solely racial or gendered, but instead how one informs the other (1989 140). Just as Crenshaw notes that single-axis analysis distorts Black women’s experiences, I argue throughout this thesis that Black women who run for and hold political office today embody a meeting place of overlapping oppressions and quite often encounter obstructions or limitations as a result (139-40). Patricia Hill Collins theorizes the origins and manifestations of the stereotypical representations of Black women, highlighting such 29 stereotypes as the mammy, the matriarch and the welfare mother, and she argues that these controlling images drive the ways in which black women are viewed, experienced and perceived (2000). In examining the relational way that race and gender work in this field, always operating in tandem and regularly influencing one another, leading to a particular way of viewing and experience each phenomenon and identity, the works of Crenshaw and Collins overlap in a significant way for the Black women depicted in this thesis. They understand that external organisations and their colleagues alike would see them as a particular kind of ally or representative, with their femininity tied closely to an image of a mother and caretaker who exists in churches and neighbourhoods across the state and has been represented countless times across fictional platforms. More than aggregation of identities, Black female politicians experiences are informed and influenced by the concepts and expressions of race, gender and class. This is a central part of this ethnography, most notably outlined in the second half of the thesis. Following Crenshaw’s call to action that, “If we really want to begin noticing more intersectionalities, we must train our eyes to look for them. We truly are at a crossroads, in more ways than one,” and as a part of the larger body of literature and research that explores issues of race and gender, the intricacies of Black female identities and experiences, and an understanding of representation and essentialism, this research project seeks to explore how these complexities constitute the political lives and identities of progressive women in North Carolina and the American South (2003 56). Though the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights Movements were greatly influenced by the knowledge, passion and courage of black women such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Coretta Scott King and Angela Davis, the structure of the movement itself limited the ability of black women to be the public face of the movement to the same extent as their male counterparts (Crawford, Rouse and Woods 1993; Robnett 1996; Nance 1996; Ling and Montieth 2004). Fifty years from the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and the ground-breaking passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this ethnographic project emerges from a unique opportunity both to study the political and social climate in the United States as the public discourse about and engagement between the needs and rights of citizens and those who represent them continues to grow, and to observe the legislative, electoral and post-election processes of governance. During the field work period, newspapers and broadcasts were strewn with political discourse – discussions about the possibility of the first female President, critiques of the legislative efforts in many states to expand and restrict individual rights, and scenes of widespread protests emerging across the country (BBC News 2015; Eversley and Estepa 2015; NBC News 2015; The New York Times 2013; Washington Post 2016). Issues of race, gender, and political representation are discussed from the household kitchen table to the presidential podium at the White House; and in this global political moment, compelling stories of

30 representation, leadership and social justice must be documented and studied from a multitude of perspectives (Ahmed 2017; Crewe 2018; Emejulu 2011; Wedeen 2010).

“Doubly Bound”– Political Behaviour among the Black and Black Female Community As raised by political scientist Tom Eamon, one central question lingers within North Carolina politics: “North Carolina, like the rest of the South, is more Republican than it was in the middle of the twentieth century. But unlike in neighbouring states such as South Carolina and Georgia, North Carolina’s Democrats remain a powerful force. […] How did North Carolina reach its early-twenty-first century position, giving considerable discomfort both to serious Democratic partisans and committed Republican ideologues?” (2008 31). For many observers of progressive candidate success at the local and state level across North Carolina, the persistent support of African-American voters is one of the foundation paths through which public officials win their elections (African American Caucus n.d.; Brown 2019; Eamon 2008; Vercellotti 2008). Black voters largely donate to, campaign on behalf of and vote for Democratic candidates (Brownstein and Tseng 2019; CNN 2016; Philpot et al. 2009; Wheaton 2013), Black citizens also often run for and hold a number of political offices themselves (Horsch and Campbell 2019; NC Legislative Black Caucus n.d.; North Carolina Black Alliance n.d.; Office of the Historian n.d.). Even in the face of heavy gerrymandering, identification requirements to vote, the purging of voters from registration lists, reducing the number of early voting days and accusations of voter fraud, all meant to weaken the impact of Black and minority voters, having marginal success in slowing Black voters in the 2016 and 2018 elections (Elliot 2019; Ingraham 2014; Lopez 2016; Nilsen 2018; Roth 2016; Washington Post Editorial Board 2018), Black voters continue to show up in large and influential numbers on election day. Aptly labelled “doubly bound” by Gay and Tate (1998 169) for its concise summation of the obligatory experiences of Black women, the influence of race and gender in Black women’s political views and behaviour requires a multifaceted understanding of not only allegiances to racial and gendered identities, but an approach to how both are “mutually reinforcing” (170). Prestage (1991) argues that Black women have been heavily involved in traditional and non- traditional political activities from their first arrival in the United States. Tracing their activity both pre-emancipation and in the man eras that followed as they were kept out of voting or running for office, Prestage calls Black women’s means of community organising, writing editorial pieces about the horrors of slavery, lynching and segregation, the establishment of such national organisations at the NAACP and educational institutions for Black, Native and female students, their involvement in the Women’s Rights and Civil Rights Movements, and more recent work with political parties all forms of non-traditional political work (1991 90-101). In American politics today, Black women overwhelming support the Democratic Party more than any other voting bloc (CNN 2016), most recently seen influentially en masse in the 31 2017 special election for the Senate candidate who would replace Jeff Sessions, the conservative Senator from Alabama who vacated his seat to become the United States Attorney General. The efforts of Black women, 98% of whom voted for the Democratic Senatorial candidate, securing Doug Jones a victory, were written about in numerous articles whose titles ran the gambit from praising Black women to highlighting their vote as an exercise in self-preservation – “The Alabama election is the latest example of the political power of black women: Black women didn’t vote to ‘save’ Alabama last night. They voted to protect themselves” (Lockhart 2017); “How the Alabama Senate Election Sanctified Black Women Voters” (St. Félix 2017); and, “In Alabama, black women saved America from itself – as they’ve always tried to do” (White 2017). Other long form pieces and reports that followed the 2017 special elections and 2018 midterm elections saw connections Moore’s electoral loss to the upsurge in Black, female candidates – “Black women in Alabama helped defeat Roy Moore. Now they’re running for office in deep-red district” (Campbell 2018) – and as an invigorated electorate, “Black women are looking forward to the 2020 elections,” (Perry 2019). In a report on the 2018 midterm elections and the impending national election in 2020, Perry writes, “Fueled by their high voter turnout across the country, black women, who voted overwhelmingly for Democrats (90 percent), increased their share in Congress from 4 to 5 percent and helped the Democrats regain control of the House. […] But assessments that black women turned out for Democrats in service of the party would emphatically miss the mark. They turned out to advance their own agenda that many others can rally behind. […] Black elected women have a mandate to the diverse voters who put them in office to push an agenda, which happens to resonate with the social, economic, and political realities that black women face.” There’s a particular link between progressive political agendas and that of Black women, one which deserves continued scholarly exploration and this thesis contributes to such.

Engagement and Elections - The Impact of Whiteness on the 2016 Election Cycle Being simultaneously part and representative of the female voting bloc, female political leaders see an enduring link between their identity as both officer and voter. For white, progressive women who were politically active in the 2016 election cycle faced a multi-pronged dilemma – the recognition of one’s racial privilege and how a sense of colour blindness often obscured white Americans’ ability to recognise the problematic construction of political philosophies and policies, a reconciliation of their close family and friends who would go on to vote for the Republican presidential candidate and other similar political figures, and the realisation that the top Republican nominee, whose career outside of government meant that he lacked any familiarity with its processes, would perhaps either embolden other men with similar

32 backgrounds to also run or propel those further down ballot to find success during the same election cycle. Studying whiteness as it operates in this particular field site is an exercise in linking the social and political opposition to integration and other key civil rights initiatives and the shift in the conservative party’s platform. As noted by Maxwell and Shields, Rather than arguing over exactly how to implement civil rights legislation, Republican candidates questioned the role of the federal government in enforcing such laws in the first place or insisted that government should be colour blind. Mitt Romney, for example, spoke at the NAACP national convention in 2012 and announced that, if elected, he would eliminate Obamacare, knowing that he boos from the audience would win him applause from some key white voters. Such deflections were, in fact, choices, seemingly polite and abstract, that had everything to do with halting the march to racial equality while pretending not to be about that all. White southerners and Americans, for that matter, were less likely to stereotype negatively African Americans in this new political correct era, but many simultaneously elevated their evaluation of whiteness; the gap between how they view whites and people of colour may have shifted, but the absolute value or size of that gap is persevered. Whiteness thus remains a vantage point by which one sees both others and sees the world,” (2019 320-1). Understanding the operational ways in which identifying labels such as progressive and conservative work within North Carolina politics, and that of the Southern region and the United States more broadly, this thesis follows along with voters, community organisations and elected officials themselves to see how they link their own personal and political identities. Such related concepts as whiteness and blackness, femininity and masculinity, sexuality and the family, and the closeness between religion and the state in the South deeply affect how these figures organise themselves and their community through activism, how they carry out their elected position, how they relate to the other members of their legislative or executive office or community group, and the kinds of policies for which they advocate and put forth. In both conscious and unconscious ways, constructions of race and gender play into how my main interlocutors see themselves, their voters and their positions, and the thesis contends with these relationships through an examination of activist efforts, the election cycle, life within elected office and the challenges and achievements of the legislation process. As experienced by two of my main interlocutors, Auditor Wood and former State Superintendent Atkinson, and the white women working within liberal community circles, the 2016 election brought to the forefront a confrontation that had been building for many other left- leaning voters for many years – how to deal with the problematic rhetoric and behaviour coming forth very strongly through political discourse. This election cycle required many of the white, liberal women to try to understand and explain, at best, and apologise for, at worst, their white friends and family members who decided to vote conservative, some for the first time ever. It brought to the forefront a crucial point of contention for white, liberal, female politicians – 33 outward and explicit racism, sexism and classism, espoused from the top of the GOP ticket on down to conservative leaders across the country, and deeply prominent within North Carolina politics over the past ten years – and fierce debate about not only this political moment, but about how history had led the country to that point and how to overcome it for future elections (Maxwell and Shields 2019; O’Neal 2016; Rosenberg 2019; Simmons 2018). I spent a great deal of time working in a variety of liberal and left-leaning spaces that leaned Caucasian demographically, including Democratic party events and fundraisers, within the offices of various political campaigns and of those already in office, and with various community groups like the Democratic Women of Wake County and GASP3. Working and researching alongside white women and women of colour, including Black, Latina, Asian and Indigenous women, meant taking into consideration the multifaceted understandings, experiences and interactions with race as it operated within this political space and in this legislative and electoral period. As I explore in Chapters Five, Six and Seven, the particular ways in which race interacts with gender are important to note when trying to make sense of the experiences, electoral wins and defeats, and legislative initiatives championed by women working in North Carolina state and local government.

Voting Districts as Sites of Inquiry Neighbourhood studies offer a particular kind of scholarship that examines the construction of families, homes, community and place, exploring a wide range of topics from childhood, gender roles within the family, socio-economic spatiality and rural to urban migration, using qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches to the study how we live, work and constitute our lives together (Ellen and Turner 1997; Coulton, Korbin, Chan and Su 2001; Xerez and Fonseca 2011). Not unlike the ways that academia has dissected the neighbourhood, the state’s vested interested in the family, housing development and the overall economic health of the housing market means that they, too, often find value in analysing particular areas and districts within their constituency. Explored alongside the legislative effort to combat food insecurity within her district, as documented in Chapter Seven, Representative Holley’s work with Project CATCH and the other housing-related organisations working in the Raleigh area forms a type of neighbourhood study, as her district itself was in the throes of a housing crisis and action on this issue would require a great of research on the topic, relating this data to current regulations and legislation, finding ways to act further to address the crisis, and figure out just how to translate these ideas into a bill that would gain both recognition and funding.

3 Originally formed Girlfriends Appalled about Sarah Palin as they were formed shortly after the nominations of John McCain and Sarah Palin as the 2008 Republican party Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates, GASP is now known as Girlfriends Actively Supporting Progress. This group is largely made up of middle and upper class, white women who identify as progressive, feminist and who are “working to end gerrymandering now.”

34 Researching the development and changing nature of voting districts over time allows room for the analysis of the factors that cause economic insecurity. Owing to the persistent system of disenfranchisement, exclusion from earning, and limits to many other important economic and social resources for Black people in the United States, as noted by both Coates and Emejulu, the income and wealth gap between African-American and white families persists today, and the link between race and wealth, which would include home ownership among other markers of means, cannot be ignored. Emejulu writes, “Black Americans must negotiate a thicket of discriminatory housing policies and covenants that undermine our ability to accumulate wealth. Further, Black Americans’ modest wealth gains from the late 1990s onwards have been completely wiped out by the 2008 economic crisis. The racial wealth gap, combined with the flight of jobs overseas, the erosion of real incomes and institutionalised labour market discrimination have been disastrous for the incomes of many Black households” (2016). In his long-form piece entitled “The Case for Reparations,” Coates expertly details the relationship between history and the present, linking the regulatory overt racism of segregation to the precarious financial position many African-Americans find themselves in today: The lives of black Americans are better than they were half a century ago. The humiliation of whites only signs are gone. Rates of black poverty have decreased. Black teen-pregnancy rates are at record lows—and the gap between black and white teen-pregnancy rates has shrunk significantly. But such progress rests on a shaky foundation, and fault lines are everywhere. The income gap between black and white households is roughly the same today as it was in 1970. Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at New York University, studied children born from 1955 through 1970 and found that 4 percent of whites and 62 percent of blacks across America had been raised in poor neighbourhoods. A generation later, the same study showed, virtually nothing had changed. And whereas whites born into affluent neighbourhoods tended to remain in affluent neighbourhoods, blacks tended to fall out of them.” (Coates 2014) Because an overwhelming majority of those served by housing-focused non-profit organisations in the greater Raleigh area are minority and female-led families, the persistent link between poverty and housing insecurity among people of colour cannot be ignored. In the working and personal lives of my main informants, studying the home, neighbourhood and the interrelatedness of housing affordability, accessibility and economic insecurity helps to underscore the complexity of the Black working and middle class communities and reveals the relationship between political figures and their constituents, the complex systems of local and state politics, community involvement in activism and shifting economic demographics.

Ways of seeing and knowing Still photography and filmed images were an important part of the data collection process. Theorists of visual anthropology argue that this kind of research methodology that includes the employment of the camera and the still photography, filmed images and sound it captures, 35 constitutes its own, unique “way of knowing related phenomena” (MacDougall 2005 63) and thus should be considered alongside of, not in opposition to or as a replacement for, more traditional ways of presenting data through text (Banks 1992; Torresan 2011). Bertrand Russell (1917) asserts that the knowledge generated by text is descriptive, while knowledge is gathered through acquaintance in film, a distinction used by several visual anthropologists to argue in favour of the use of visual technology in both method and presentation (MacDougall and Taylor 1998; Torresan 2011). In this thesis, written and visual texts speak to and with one another, each presenting their own, yet interrelated, ways of knowing and experiencing the multiple activities and arenas of political life. Though referred to as still, the images presented throughout this thesis are anything but – they represent the movement of people and ideas as they passed along and through a variety of political spaces; of bodies as they gathered together to create protest signs and wrote notes to their elected officials that highlighted a particular cause or concern; and of the objects and rooms within North Carolina’s municipal buildings that came alive with energy and sound when protest activities, such as rallies, sit-ins and the mock Town Hall meeting, occurred. In a world where photography and films are widely shared, on screens both large and small, on the public stage across borders, this project utilises a mixed methodological approach to yield a compelling and critical written and visual product that can be discussed publicly and shared widely. As we move toward a more open and public form of anthropology, this ethnographic project contributes to the contemporary political scholarship on the involvement of women of colour in American politics, engages with the literature around the use of visual techniques in anthropological research, and actively participates in the debate about the role of anthropology in the public sphere (Borofsky 2000; Brown 2014; Brown and Gershon 2016; Cammisa and Reingold 2004; Cohen 2004; Collins 2000; Gay and Tate 1998; Githens and Prestage 1977, Prestage 1991 2014; Scola 2014; Singer 2000; Torresan 2011; Vine 2011). The photo essay found in Chapter Three, the three short films that accompany Chapters Five and Six, and the additional clips and photographs interspersed throughout invite you to immerse yourself in the stories of North Carolina’s politically engaged citizenry. The first photographs were taken in February 2016 and the final ones were captured in late February 2017, documenting thirteen months of protests, election events, town hall meetings, the convening of the General Assembly, community group gatherings and more, around the Raleigh area and as I travelled with my main informants across the state. I asked each of the women who I would interview on camera to tell me when and where they would like to film, in an effort to allow them to collaboratively shape how their story would be told. It was crucial for this research project that, in addition to the general legislative, executive and party spaces available to me during fieldwork, I work alongside and within female-led and female-focused organisations, offices and campaigns, creating a project that, as Few, Stephens and Rouse-Arnett would say, was “for Black women,

36 rather than simply about Black women,” (2003 206). As explored in Chapter Two, the formation of a theoretical framework that took into account the unique lived experiences of women broadly and Black women had far reaching methodological implications to be considered both during and after the fieldwork period.

39 Chapter Two

One late summer afternoon, my Mom drove us across town to a building I did not quite recognize. Once we parked and stepped out of our burgundy Volvo station wagon, I turned to the right and was happy to see the Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church just down the road, a place familiar to me because of my weekly Girl Scout meetings. I perked up as I saw some other children run by and thought that it may be another new social group to which my Mom hoped to introduce me. Turning back toward the small shopping centre, I saw a few different storefronts, with one shop near the end that did not appear to be selling anything at all. Signs were posted all across the windows that read “re-elect Clinton-Gore ’96” in red, white and blue lettering with a design that gave a nod to the United States flag. I could see a number of adults on telephones, some typing quickly on computer keyboards, a few chatting to one another while standing around a fax machine, and others organizing stacks of campaign materials. After greeting a friend who had also been asked to take part in the campaign, my Mom joined the other adult volunteers that included women and men from a variety of backgrounds and ages as part of the phone bank team, calling registered Democratic and Independent voters, asking for their support and votes, while I was busy alongside the other volunteers’ children putting together yard signs, organizing bumper stickers and buttons to be given out at rallies and events, and information packets for the volunteers who would work at polling sites on election day. Though I was only eight years old, I remember the feeling that what we were doing, if only in some small way, would impact the country and our future. Reflecting on our work during the ride home, my Mom told me that it was important to her that she share this experience with me, just as her Mother and Aunts did with her during the sit-ins and rallies of the 1960s, out of respect for the political process and to instil in me a sense of responsibility to those who had come before me. Joining the rich academic tradition of those using autoethnography to make sense of the worlds in which we live, I reflect on this story from my childhood to help place this ethnographic project as a thoughtful and personal examination of the key pillars of this research, including race, gender, political culture, modern-day anti-racist and feminist movements, social justice initiatives, and the governing bodies of North Carolina and the United States (Behar 1997; Boylorn 2015; Coffey 1999; Collins and Gallinat 2010). As a resident of North Carolina and a Black woman interested in politics and government, I have a distinct closeness to this project and its subjects, a proximity that requires a thoughtful consideration of theory, methods and ethics. As a recognition and reflection on this, Chapter Two sets out a Black feminist, visual framework through which this research was carried out and as a means of contributing to future scholarship on similar such topics.

Framing Black feminism in the Political Field “The shared racial and gender background of the Black female researcher and Black female study participants also increases the researcher’s ability to engage the participant in authentic ways and to better understand the sociocultural, individual, and other nuance factors that influence the behaviors observed. In other words, Black women can bring to traditional psychology, feminist psychology, and Black Psychology another consciousness, one specific to their own social, cultural, and historical experiences” (Thomas 2004 301). Just as Thomas indicates above, Brown (2014) and many other researchers in political science, contemporary activism, education, nursing, psychology, anthropology and sociology (Hall 2016; Jeffries et al. 2018; Lindsay-Denis 2015; Settles 2006) echo this discussion on the uniqueness of the lives of Black women, making them both compelling researchers and subjects. She writes, “The experiences of women of color are mediated by interlocking systems of domination that are constructed by race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, and ethnicity (Collins 1990). These systems of power dictate the allocation of political resources. Women of color also have had differentiating relationships with the state and formal access to the benefits of citizenship. Although women of color share similar experiences with their racial/ethnic male counterparts and white women, they have experiences that uniquely position them in lower social, political, and economic strata due to the confluence of race/ethnicity and gender (Chow, Wilkinson, and Baca Zinn 1996; Landry 2006)” (317). Few, Stephens and Rouse-Arnett note, “Black feminism stems from critical scientific inquiry. Critical social scientists suggest that all men and women are potentially active agents in the construction of their social world and their personal lives. They analyze the meanings, social rules, values, and motives that govern action in a specific context. Human action and interpretations are considered historical by-products of collective experience. As a field of inquiry that emerged from both feminist and critical race theories, Black feminist thought validates the experiences of Black women in the creation of knowledge” (2003 206; Comstock, 1982). Not simply an analysis of one moment in time, employing a Black feminist framework involves “researchers view[ing] their research on a continuum rather than isolated acts of data collection,” (Lindsay-Denis 2015 512), situating its findings along and within the course of political, social and economic history of the construction of gender and the Black identity. Exciting scholarship has emerged in recent years by academics working across the social sciences to investigate, observe and analyse the experiences of Black women in political roles. Building on the foundational work of scholars like Marianne Githens and Jewel Prestage, whose 1977 word A Portrait of Marginality gave ground-breaking insight into the political activities of women, and in particular, Black women, academic figures like Cathy Cohen, Beth Reingold, Sarah Allen Gershon and Nadia Brown contribute to our understanding of the scope and means through which women become politically engaged. 41 Writing alongside co-editors Kathleen Jones and Joan Tronto, political scientist Cathy Cohen opens the work Women Transforming Politics with this incisive statement: “The authors of this volume believe that it is in the contradictory experience of progress and oppression that the transformative power of women’s political work is located. […] Any theory of women’s political behaviour must account for the particular tension between the ascribed role of women and the achieve role of the politician.’ The tension between ‘being a woman’ and ‘being a politician’ is not experienced uniformly; it varies among women of diverse racial and class background” (1997 3). In a later essay, Cohen revisits this idea and contends, “It seems only appropriate that we begin this discussion of the study of women of color in American politics with a painfully obvious, yet no less troubling admission. Namely, in 2000 we still know very little about the political activity, ideologies, and attitudes of African American, Latina, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Native American women, especially in comparison to the knowledge we have gained about other groups such as white men. […] Despite such periodic interest in women's political activity, we are still in desperate need of more research that can provide increasing detail to the skeletal picture we have of the political behavior of women of color” (2003 190). Citing mainstream political science research as focusing on formal, traditional political behaviour such as voting and holding elective office, valuing the quantitative data and relegating studies of women and people of colour to their own conference panels and special elective courses at universities (190-2), Cohen argues for an inclusive approach to scholarship, “remember[ing] that research on women of color in American politics can serve as an important bridge between academia and activism” (208). Speaking to the concern many researchers have about the impact of our work, Cohen boldly states, “It seems almost impossible to study women whose life chances are so intimately tied to systems of oppression and exploitation without also committing ourselves to making our research work toward their empowerment. Research on women of color and political participation provides us with a rare opportunity, not often found in political science, when the work we pursue could actually better the lives of those we study” (209-10). Aware of this blaring omission in subjects, scholars have rightfully pushed their fields to include more about these women, diving directly into the personal and professional lives of Black women in politics. Brown considers the methodological implications of conducting feminist ethnography, as it requires researchers to ponder their own positionality and the reflexive relationships between self and the social world, placing her own identity as a Black woman working along Black female lawmakers “at the center of analysis… offer[ing] fresh insight on the prevailing paradigms and epistemologies in legislative studies” (2012 20). Her work, Sisters in the Statehouse, examines the ways in which “Black women’s culture, history, and upbringings to better understand how African American women elected to public office employ identity in the legislative decision-making process” (2014 1). Brown works closely alongside Black women who

42 are elected to their state-level legislative body and “examines how Black women legislators use their own identity to mediate representation, as narrated by their policy preferences” (4). Much like my own ethnographic study, Brown is quick to emphasise from the beginning that an analysis of politics in relationship to gender or race fails to adequately account for how the two intertwine and affect one another in very specific ways for which we must account. Using feminist life histories as a method to obtain the personal narratives of several Black legislators, Brown paints a vivid picture of the diversity among this group of women, highlighting their early lives, paths to office and how they see themselves both in that moment and in the future. Similar to my experiences in the field, Brown “observed patterns, namely, that the women in this sample had difficulty representing singular identities. In other words, no legislator spoke solely of being a woman or of being African American. Instead, the identities they incorporated into their narratives were overlapping, intersectional, and interconnected, and their experiences mediated by linked views of the salient parts of their identities” (28-9). The use of such method can give a research so much more than a linear story of our subject’s life – it tells us how they think and speak of themselves, their experiences and their networks; it can give us insight into areas that are deeply emotional, and therefore potentially of utmost importance to them; and, very importantly, it can connect us on an interpersonal level, removing some of the barriers that can exist between researcher and informant, and allow for a depth of knowledge to be exchanged and shared. The stories she shares in “Formative Experiences,” chapter 2 of her book, give the reader a wealth of knowledge about the women of the Maryland state legislature – women who grew up in military families, who grew up poor, who grew up with an understanding that society saw Black people as inferior to whites, who experienced domestic violence, and who learned about gender for the first time at college. This duplicity of life experiences helps to break down the common notion that Black women are to be understood as a monolith. Rather, while acknowledging certain shared experiences among her informants, her work gives Black women the space to be themselves, in all their different forms. Brown then takes us through the legislation process, noting the points at which intersectional approach to their own identities influences their support of policy. Challenging mainstream political science research that would take a single axis approach to understanding their political behaviour, Brown writes, “The Black women legislators are attuned to their intersectional situation and attributes but, as individuals, choose to deploy them differently. Here we find that the legislative context matters in the prioritization of social identity in legislative decision making” (88). The work then assesses two issues – same-sex marriage and care for the elderly – to examine more radical approaches to legislative work, the distinct views of Black political elites and more marginalised groups, the generational gaps between legislators themselves, and other personal identifying traits such as religion and sexuality, as a further examination of difference among this group of lawmakers. Chapter Seven of this thesis examines a similar connection between the personal identity of a 43 Black female state legislator and the initiatives for which she champions. Brown’s important work ends with a reflection of her findings, emphasising that “although Black women legislators adopt largely uniform policy priorities, they propose vastly different identity based policy solutions and deploy a specialized range of legislative tactics to achieve desired outcomes” (170). She contends, “African American women challenge an essentialist Black political identity, and my theorization of Black women legislators’ political behavior uses representational identity theory to account for both the similarity and diversity within Black women’s legislative decision-making processes” (170). Brown and Gershon open their piece “Intersectional Presentations,” which examines the biographies listed on congresswomen’s websites, with the recognition that, “While a wealth of research exists concerning the impact of race or gender on representation, previous scholarship largely neglects the critical intersection of race and gender, leaving questions about minority women’s representational styles largely unanswered” (2016 85). “Identifying the unique ways in which minority congresswomen present themselves to constituents,” these authors examine the particular points at which personal identities and traits are played up or down to appeal to different voters and constituencies and are often based on perceptions of women and minorities (86). To illustrate this Brown and Gershon argue that the kind of delicate balance of pairing masculine qualities and feminine softness that women running for office must maintained is made complicated for minority women by the stereotype that they are inherently more “tough and non-feminine” (88). When in minority-majority environments, these same candidates may then lean into a sense of racial and ethnic solidarity, exhibiting a familiarity and closeness with their constituency. This kind of research tells us much about “strategic intersectionality” employed by female candidates of colour as a means of relating to their voters and are (89), but with care to balance this kind of behaviour so that they continue to reach white and male voters as well (104). Writing just this summer about diversity in state legislatures in the United States, Reingold opens with this important reminder: “For most of the 400-year history of state legislatures, women and racial/ethnic minorities have been excluded as both voters and elected representatives. Although many African American men gained state-legislative office during Reconstruction and the first white women were elected in 1894, it was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the second wave of feminist movements that women and minorities began gaining state-legislative seats in significant numbers” (2019 426). Working with many women who firsts in many areas – the first in their family to move away from their hometown and attend college, the first person in their familial or social circle to work in the corporate world or own their own business, and often, the first woman to hold their elected position – we reflect together on the meaning and impact of that kind of experience can have on them both personally and professionally. While in the field, it was important to be mindful of this history, considerate of

44 Black feminist and intersectional scholarship in the political world, as called upon by Reingold (2019 428), and use other such studies that deal with the motivations and decision making around legislative work as inspiration for my own research. Like Bratton, Haynie and Reingold whose findings “underscore the recent recognition by scholars that minority and female legislators can and do respond to multiple constituencies, and this is particularly true at the sponsorship stage of the legislative process” (2006 91; Cannon 1999), there were many key areas of legislative and executive governance that would require my attention while in the field that could have positive analytical possibilities. Bratton et al. go on to write, “the legislative activity of African American women is a particularly interesting avenue through which to explore the intersections of race, gender, and political representation. […] Future research should explore how the intersection of gender and race influences a broader set of legislative activities, including committee participation,” (92). Sanbonmatsu (2015) writes that, “Women of color can serve as role models and mentors, helping other minority women run for office. And they can improve the substantive representation of underrepresented groups, thereby enhancing the legitimacy of American democracy,” (2). With growing scholarly interest in this rising demographic of America’s political leaders (Bratton et al. 2006; Brown 2012, 2014; Lawless and Fox 2005; Oxley and Fox 2004; Reingold and Smith 2012; Sanbonmatsu 2015), this ethnography will situate itself within the conversation about the interest, willingness, and impact of women in elected roles at the state and local level in North Carolina.

Methodology While this project’s rationale is built on the pursuit of feminist and anti-racist social justice, it seeks to differentiate itself from other similar studies in its use of ethnography for long-term engagement with and study of its subjects, its appreciation of qualitative methods as a means through which this engagement can occur, the employment of audio and visual technologies in gathering, analysing and presenting data, and in its core objective to present politically engaged women, particularly women of colour, as complex and compelling sites of inquiry. My familiarity with the North Carolina political landscape stems from my personal history as a campaign manager, Democratic Party volunteer and a student of American government and political systems, allowing me to establish relationships with a variety of political leaders, their communities, donors and constituents, and providing many unique points of access to several key figures on the city, county and state level. Reorienting myself with Raleigh required me to spend the first few weeks of fieldwork driving and walking around town, getting reacquainted with the locations and spaces where legislation is written, where communities gather to meet with their organizers and elected officials, and to practice my photography and camera work. In my field notebook, I began to map several important spaces and networks: the layout of downtown Raleigh; the places across the state that are represented by women and people of colour using 45 the state map and legislative records to map out; and the key legislators, lobbying groups and activist organisations that would be present during this short session. Cammisa and Reingold write, “State legislatures have become a fruitful place to study women in politics. The absolute number of women in these bodies, while small compared to the number of men, has always been much higher than the number of women in state-level executive positions or in Congress. Researchers also have found that the relatively easy access to state legislators and the comparability of institutional arrangements in the state legislatures have made them more conducive for study than their national, state-wide, and local counterparts” (2004 182). My existing relationships – particularly to Yvonne Lewis Holley, a Democrat and State Representative for District 38, once my own home voting district in 2016 but the borders of which have since moved because of the legal battles previously referenced – that allowed me to re- enter such a familiar site; this time, as a researcher. Just as Few et al. “surmised that one of [their] foremost challenges in conducting interviews on sensitive topics with Black women would be gaining some measure of insider status with [their] informants. [And that d]espite the fact that [they] are all Black women studying Black women, [they] never assumed that we would be granted unmitigated ‘insider’ status” (2003 207), I also knew that the second layer of this reorientation process would be to enter into spaces as part-researcher, part-political and social ally. After catching up a bit and discussing some of what was to come in the next session, Representative Holley offered me a chance to spend time with her, both while in session and while on the campaign trail, just as I had hoped, and while we sat and caught up, she received an email sent to all legislators, their assistants and staff reminding them of the intern summer programs. She immediately asked if I’d be interested in participating more formally in the intern program, as it would give me access to the committee, caucus and floor voting processes, often granting me entry to traditionally closed-off areas. I immediately said yes, and began as a Legislative Intern in mid-April just before the session began on April 25th. As member of three of the largest and most powerful committees, Finance, Local Government and Agriculture, Rep. Holley’s influence is felt in her own party and has garnered the attention of many leading Republican lawmakers, relationships that have been crucial to the successful passage of her cornerstone bill. As the weeks and months continued to march along, my informant pool grew exponentially to include Representative Holley’s General Assembly colleagues Representatives Rosa Gill and Bobbie Richardson and Senators Erica Smith and Angela Bryant, newly elected Wake County Commissioner Jessica Holmes and Lieutenant Gubernatorial candidate and long-term Wake County elected official Linda Coleman. Attending fundraisers and party gatherings brought introductions to State Auditor Beth Wood, Superintendent June Atkinson, and United States Senatorial candidate Deborah Ross, among a host of other candidates, family members, friends,

46 neighbours and activists who helped to provide additional context to the lives and work of my informants. The main participants in this ethnographic project – Representative Holley and Auditor Wood – have decades of experience working in their chosen industry, have served actively within their communities, and are well-respected and heavily involved in political circles. Their active presence among community organisations, the Democratic Party and within their legislative and executive offices meant that, nearly every day, I was able to meet powerful lobbyists, influential legislators and executives and well-known and long-term local activists, with whom I could spend many hours observing, interviewing and analysing. Navigating such spaces required recognition of the location, the others who would be in the room, and to what extent my presence there would create a particular kind of “symbolic power” (Few et al. 2003 210). They suggest, “A qualitative researcher must be attentive to her use of language throughout the interview process. Like personal appearance and body movements, language is a social status marker. It connotes a privilege--education or socialization-that can drive a wedge in or cement the informant-researcher relationship” (2003 211). These long-standing relationships, and my attention to, and appreciation for the position I was afforded in the field, were key to the success of my project; however, in such a political environment, where alliances and partnerships can often mean limiting one’s connection to other people and perspectives, these same relationships were, at times, limiting to my access to other potential informants. I began this project hoping to spend time with as many women involved in political circles as I could. After nearly eight years under President Obama, where political party lines had seemingly shifted so widely that contention and dissent were more often present than bipartisanship, and through the strategic redrawing of voting districts across the state, territories both big and small were carved out for each major party; there each stood, rarely to meet. Heightened by the tension caused by the Presidential and federal elections, conservative female activists, lobbyists and lawmakers were less than eager to share anything more than a hello or brief conversation over lunch in the ‘members and invited guests only’ dining room. Brown faced a similar dilemma, having originally planned to work with legislators from a variety of backgrounds, but found she focused squarely on Black women’s experiences (2014 1). What initially felt like a blow to my research transformed into an opportunity to dive more richly into the diversity of representation and involvement by women on the left, and allowed me to spread my research wings by flying directly into the progressive world, working with women from a variety of backgrounds, taking specific notice of the places of divergence in their experiences, often due to race. The women with whom I spent the bulk of my time all know each other – they work and travel together, live in adjacent communities and collaborate on local and legislative projects. Some grew up together, attended the same secondary or tertiary schools and are members of the same sororities. They are researchers in their own right, consistently questioning the ways in 47 which they can be effective, sometimes interrogating when and how they may have fallen short, and probing both their parties and communities in an effort to dismantle systems of oppression that limit opportunities and maintain insecurities. Their closeness is important to understanding the development of political and organisational networks – how relationships grow together, and sometimes apart, over time, the presence and influences of these relationships in the professional setting, and how one affects the other. One of anthropology’s key contributions to this body of scholarship is in expanding knowledge about the personal lives of our informants. Qualitative research requires that we take up methods that allow for a depth of narrative data, and this thesis takes full appreciation of long-term, participatory observation and the use of visual media as a means of enriching this knowledge.

Employing the Visual to Facilitate and Generate - Necessary adjustments while in the field “When my emotions became noticeable, when my feelings were hurt, when I was angry, offended, upset, or even physically assaulted, I eventually found some comfort in putting the events and my experiences into an ‘analytical perspective’ if only to simply feel as if I had distanced myself from the particular situation; to feel that what happened is now in the past and will ultimately be useful for my overall purpose for being here. This epistemological approach of attempting to create some sort of distance between my emotions and my "analytical perspective" - this Weberian approach to a "passionate detachment" - did, in many ways, help, if only as a temporary remedy in struggles for power, feelings of homesickness, fear, anger and unhappiness,” (Smith 2009; Weber 1978).4 As detailed by anthropologist Katherine Smith, the fieldwork process produces a range of emotional and psychological issues, especially when working within and among communities and environments whose political or social leanings may be quite different to your own (2009). While my main research subjects, inclusive of the individual informants, progressive political circles and community organisations, worked hard to create welcoming and accommodating environments within which I could conduct this fieldwork, we were all unable to stop the fast speeding train that was the 2016 legislative session and subsequent national election cycle. Examples of vitriol, violence and division were plastered across the covers of major magazines, news programs and social media, and even traditionally safe and encouraging events like campaign rallies, town hall meetings and community gatherings became contentious and filled with anger toward the opposition, distrust of the government and political parties and dismay over the potential electoral outcomes. Although my intention at the outset of this fieldwork endeavour was to create a feature length film that would follow a particular political process, such as the creation of

4 Please see two short clips before proceeding to the next session, which can be found here: https://vimeo.com/319326537/2f48dbd202 and https://vimeo.com/319326731/36be331b52.

48 a bill or the electoral season, the practicalities of daily life in highly political spaces, including my presence in confidential spaces, forced a rethinking of visual engagements. Becoming an intern allowed for an ease and wealth of access, as all legislative employees could move freely about in nearly every part of the two main buildings, and with these privileges, I would often position myself in the most favourable spots in the legislative spaces. Especially on busy days, when the building was full of hundreds of visitors, activists and lobbyists, when one my informants’ committees was holding a key hearing or the General Assembly was due to vote on an important, highly publicised bill, I would arrive early to those spaces, ahead of the general public. Ensuring that I could have a seat and a copy of the documents on the bill and schedule produced by the chambers and committees that would often run out before everyone in attendance could secure them, the intern badge allowed me to move about these spaces that are so crucial to the life of the General Assembly. In short, identifiers like this badge, the business dress required of both Members and their staff while the Assembly was in session, and the pin of the State of North Carolina given to each Senator and Representative all formed a kind of belonging, signalling that our presence was appropriate and allowed, the humans giving life to the large and cold structure of the legislative buildings. There are also many occasions during which this badge did very little. Shown in the clips included above, there were instances where the security staff of the Legislative Building would not take the time to discern between forms of belonging – in moments when protests erupted, and a perceived danger arose, plain clothed and uniformed members of the General Assembly Police Department would remove any and all people from any area, even those deemed to be public spaces like the House gallery where I sat while filming these clips. Security offices stationed with the House or Senate Chambers wear business formal attire, often wearing large and long blazers, emblazoned with the state seal that only reveal their glistening badges and sometimes, a small glimpse of the handle of a gun. These men stand at every entry point and often move across the back row, usually tasked with simply helping older visitors down the carpeted stairs to available seats or ensuring that water bottles, mobile phones and feet are kept off the Gallery’s ledge and railing. On this day, however, there was a great deal of tension in the air, and the usually jovial and welcoming officers were on high alert. LGBTQ rights were the main focus of Moral Monday protests5 on 25 April, kicking off a week of activism and lobbying by progressive communities against the recent enactment of House

5 “From the moral framework of the scriptures and our constitution we are calling together a coalition of goodwill, a nonviolent volunteer army of love, to oppose this legislature's heartless, ideologically driven agenda. We call on all people of goodwill to join us, that we might build the bridges of understanding, not the walls of division. We call on all residents of North Carolina who believe in the common good to pray and partner with us as we use the tools of protest and the tactics of nonviolent moral suasion to illuminate for the nation the shameful acts taking place here. We are not alone. We shall speak and we shall act. We will become "the trumpet of conscience" and "the beloved community" that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called upon us to be, echoing the God of our mothers and fathers in the faith. Now is the time. Here is the place. We are the people. And we will be heard.” – Reverend William J. Barber, former President of the 49 Bill 26, a controversial piece of legislation that had been implemented at a special session convened a month prior. Part of a longer battle between liberal leadership in North Carolina’s major cities and the Republican leadership in the General Assembly, HB 2 instituted three new state-wide provisions: first, it required people to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender assigned at birth, and was created specifically to target transgender students; second, it then required that anyone attempting to sue an employer for discrimination must do so on the federal level, a much more costly and time consuming pursuit when compared to completing that process on the state level; and, lastly, HB 2 took away local municipalities’ ability to raise their own citywide minimum wage (Gordon, Price and Peralta 2016; North Carolina House of Representatives 2016; Smith 2016). Dubbed the bathroom bill across the news and social media, HB 2 became an epicentre for liberal and conservative causes, with opponents and proponents fiercely debating each other, rally around its creators and dissenters, and bringing forth another layer to the Moral Monday movement’s core agenda. When the House and Senate convened to formally begin the 2016 short session the following day, wearing the shirts, pins and headwear of numerous left-leaning organisations like EqualityNC, the NC NAACP and Southerners on New Ground, and carrying signs and banners with such phrases as “Say no to Hate Bill 2,” “ We shall overcome,” “We stand for voting rights,” “Forward together, not one step back,” written in a variety of fonts and colors, activists formed drumming circles just outside of the House Speaker’s office, chants and protests songs rang out throughout various parts of the main building over the course of the day, and they filled the House gallery to its capacity for the formal opening session. Though individual protesters stood up at seemingly random points during the short opening session, no sooner had the gavel dropped to adjourn the first meeting than the protesters began standing – at first, one or two at a time, and then more quickly in groups of five and six, then more – in an attempt to draw the attention up to the gallery. It was a confrontational and politically significant gesture – in chanting “You will do no business but the people’s business in the people’s house!” the activists present that day boldly challenged their elected officials to make an important decision in repealing HB 2. While I was not fearful of arrest in that particular moment, the force with which the police officer spoke, which

North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, now leader of the Poor People’s Campaign for a Moral Revival and recent recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship Taken from the speech delivered at the first ever Moral Monday protest in 2013, this quote highlights the core of the Moral Monday movement – a commitment to raising awareness of the key issues facing North Carolinians and to demand action by the state’s executive and legislative leaders. The weekly protests began with a small group of faith leaders and activists refusing to move from the Legislative Building in opposition to the policies being implemented by the newly elected Republican leadership that year, and has since blossomed into a consistent voice throughout the legislative session. Each week will have a different theme, such as access to health care, increasing gun control, ending the cuts to social programs and strengthening protections for the environment, and draws out hundreds of people and organisations committed to the issue at the protest series. Now in its fifth year, the Moral Monday protests continue to serve as a model for other states and social justice movements more broadly (Blythe 2018; Grossman 2014). 6 Hereafter referred to as HB 2.

50 can be heard in the above clips, generated a level of anxiety I had not yet experienced. With tensions between local police and activists already quite high in Raleigh, coupled with the ongoing national conversations about police brutality and death at the hands of law enforcement, I quickly stopped filming, left the gallery and returned downstairs to Representative Holley’s office, simultaneously shaken and intrigued by the energy and power generated by this particular kind of activism. The visual methodologies and resulting data utilised in this project invite an investigation of my complicated and emotional relationship to the camera, with all of its comforts and discomforts, risks and rewards, self-imposed restraints but also real life implications. Therefore, the camera itself – as a tool, as my companion, as my friend and my foe – serves as an additional figure in my research. As a visual anthropologist, I am required to critique the inclusion of media both in the data collection and presentation phases of research, mindful of their ability to both clarify and complicate. Even with the pervasive use of smart phone cameras and larger, traditional video cameras used by reporters and news outlets, when bringing along my camera and taking photos and film, I was often in the back of the room or crowd, huddled amongst the journalists or late-comers who had to stand in the back; as a means of blending in at times, and sometimes as a comforting way to exist among the others who also had a camera. Protests became such a hot bed issue that at times, my positioning in the room or in the crowd was strategic, as I sought to shield myself from the other young people with a camera in the crowd who were real protesters and who might be arrested at any minute. Grappling with the theoretical concerns of this project alongside utilising this type of method meant considering the ways through which the various tools at my disposal could generate particular kinds of relationships, experiences and knowledge. These tools would be the catalysts for and the means of collecting data while in the field. They also dictated what written and visual texts I could produce after leaving the field. Using film and photography would come to help me try to make sense of the things I was seeing, the people I met, the sounds I heard and the spaces within which these political encounters take place, just as it would help me contribute to the wider conversations about political spaces, figures and events of this time. In turn, the camera figures into this ethnographic project in three key ways – much like a spiral notebook and pen, to help document the moment for future analysis; as a catalyst for conversation, drawing in curious bystanders that often became future informants; and as a producer of content that literally and symbolically framed the moment. These bounded moments are representative of the larger issues, discussions and events of the time and allow the project to relay information and formulate critiques about political engagement at the time. The methodological adjustments that we must make in the field are tremendous, particularly when confronted with situations that push us to a level beyond just the minor inconvenience of a cancelled meeting or an occasional moment of awkwardness with the camera. In this political moment, it felt more important than ever that I lean into discomfort, when 51 necessary, to shield myself from conflict when possible, and to seek out the stories of the women whose work is key to transforming the lives of so many. The methods by which we choose to conduct our research impacts the data collected at that moment as well as what we have to analyse and present when we return from the field, and especially for ethnographers in a highly political environment such as that of my field, it is imperative that we not only share images, such as those presented throughout this thesis, as a way to disseminate information and critique its contents, but to also help document this momentous time in American history. The result of methodological choices is presented throughout this thesis, telling the story of women in North Carolina politics, bookended by stories of activism and the passage of legislation, in the form of a photography essay, written chapters and three short accompanying films.

Method(ology) in Action The election season is a dynamic time on an elected official’s calendar. As election night creeps nearer, events pop up on just a moment’s notice, sometimes to the chagrin of long- standing, personal or community commitments. My days in the field were a mix of time spent in the homes and communities of my main informants, road trips to events across the state, last minute invites to rallies sponsored by state officials and the national Democratic campaigners, early morning prayer breakfasts and late evening strategy meetings, and impromptu lunch offers extended by my interlocutors who just needed to see a friendly face in the middle of their hectic days. The ability to get up, get dressed for a particular occasion, and get out the door upon receipt of a text or call was crucial through my 14 months in Raleigh, as I knew opportunities abounded and I did not want to miss a single moment of the action. These dynamic days offered so many rich opportunities for filming, observing, interviewing and learning, the fruits of which are described in the chapters to follow, including meeting students at a community college pre- election day event, spending the day on a farm in rural Orange County, attending fancy fundraisers and balls, traveling to Washington D.C. to meet with the staff of North Carolina’s Democratic congressional leaders, stuffing hundreds of envelopes with candidate materials, driving the State Auditor to rotary club meetings, getting a selfie with Senator Elizabeth Warren, and witnessing the successful passing of funding to Representative Holley’s legislation. “To explore the gender dynamics of institutions, processes, and outcomes more thoroughly and comparatively,” encourage Cammisa and Reingold, “scholars need to employ a variety of types of data, data collection methods, research designs, and analyses. Most of the research on women in state legislatures to date has been limited to surveys of, and (less frequently), interviews with, state legislators. While useful, such data could be validated with archival and historical documents, observation, and oral histories,” (2004 204). This kind of active engagement with my informants and this field, and integration of both written and visual methods within this research design,

52 allowed for a rich interrogation of the role of race and gender within the political world and afforded the chance to put forth the thick, descriptive work that follows. To engage with the written and visual materials presented in this paper is to participate in the electoral, activist and legislative efforts of my informants throughout the 2016 legislative session, general election and the aftermath that followed into early 2017. I invite you to explore the worlds within which activism and community building take place to examine how activists and organisations incorporate their multiple realities to construct a particular kind of protest and protestor. I then welcome you to the offices, homes and lives of three of North Carolina’s most prominent female elected officials, both in written and visual form, to explore the direct impacts of political work and public life. Finally, Chapter Seven brings together these figures, their work and this context to analyse and critique the lingering effects of sexism and racism within the legislative process.

55 Chapter Three

“You will do no business but the people’s business in the people’s house!” – Protest chant heard in the hallways and in the galleries of the North Carolina General Assembly

For North Carolinians, whose history is deeply rooted in colonialism, slavery, and Jim Crow-era segregation, citizen engagement through activism has become increasingly wide- reaching, with progressive, conservative and independent voters working in tandem to combat what they deem to be regressive and extremist legislative initiatives and policies (Blythe 2018; Browder 2017; Burns 2015; Greene 2018; Smith 2016; WRAL News 2013, 2014). Particularly for left-leaning politicians and constituents alike, the recent rise of modern conservatism has led many who were not previously active in their community to now join an organisation, attend a rally, contact their representative to voice their concerns on upcoming policy votes, and even consider running for office themselves. The desire to protect public education, women’s health care, science and technology, care for veterans, and rights for people of colour, women and those in the LGBTQ community sparked a collective sense of urgency to take action (Faussett 2016; Heiskanen and Butters 2017; Levitz 2018; Schweitzer et. al 2016). My informants would often speak of a link between today’s social movements and those of the mid-twentieth century, leaning on the experiences of racial and gender inequality experienced by their foremothers and bringing their activist work into the present, with the hope that it would positively shape the future. With their professional careers and sometimes personal safety on the line, my interlocutors were on the front lines of institutional fight against regressive policymaking, and delicately balanced their presence within both formal and informal political, economic and socially-conscious institutions and organisations. This chapter is inspired by the work of famed American photographers Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams who captured the lives of Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II, award-winning photojournalists Gordon Parks and Moneta Sleet Jr. employed by Life and Ebony magazines to document the Civil Rights Movement and the evolution of black lives across the country during that era, Diana Davies, whose photographic work recorded the Peace Movement, the Poor People’s March and Women’s Rights events across several decades, and by the more recent iconic images of world leaders and major political events captured by New York Times photography Ruby Washington (“Archive: Civil Rights, 1963-70” n.d.; Blakemore 2017; “Collection: Dorothea Lange” n.d.; “Diana Davis photographs, 1963-2009” n.d.; Gonzalez 2018; Mason 2016; “Moneta J. Sleet Jr.” 1996). In this chapter, I seek to join the conversation about how we attempt to understand what it means to be a progressive American in a particular political moment, framing this in visual form. This photo essay investigates the relationship between the wider social fabric and informal and formal institutions that change legislative policy, and describes the conditions and tone in which my main informants lived and

56 worked during this legislative and election season. Activism serves as a bridge between the past, today and the future – bringing the work of the many women and men who fought against enslavement, segregation and inequality into the present protests again political and social unrest, in order to form and fashion a future that reflects the dynamic and diverse landscape of the United States. The following chapter represents a path through which this ethnography explores the places at which life and legislation, the personal and the political, and the symbolic and the system overlap; and this photo essay seeks to capture the ways in which the citizens of North Carolina, like their ancestors and neighbours across the South and urban centres of the North and Midwest, have used the political, social and economic power of wide-scale protest as a key component of collective action for change (Ervin 2017; Goudsouzian and McKinney 2018; Hayter 2017; Lau 2014; McGuire and Dittmer 2011; Minchin and Salmond 2011; Pimblott 2017; Purnell 2015; Wang and Soule 2016). Being situated in the South, a region whose history of slavery and segregation holds a number of stories both told and untold, documenting this political moment was of utmost importance. The accompanying images encompass small and large scale protests, national rallies, town hall style gatherings, political figures, religious leaders, key community leaders and their organisations, young activists, concerned families and engaged citizens. More specifically, the following photos were taken at the Moral March on Raleigh in 2016 and 2017, a press conference and several rallies against House Bill 2 and the National Moral Day of Action, both taking place during the summer of 2016, and the Cary Town Hall event in February 2017. This chapter and thesis are part of the social and academic project that seeks to give credence to the power and impact of social movements and activism, in their plentiful forms, over the course of history across the United States of America. In order to better understand the political environment in North Carolina at this time, this photo essay provides a glimpse of the sights and sounds of my fieldwork, highlighting a number of the key events that were influential to these female political figures. This chapter invites you to explore the scenes of protest in my field site – observe the protesters themselves, the locations of the rallies and events, and the text and images on the posters and banners. For my informants, the stakes have not been this high in nearly half a century – and this chapter highlights that every speech, rally and vote become more consequential than its predecessor, influencing the movement and pace of several key legislative initiatives, with outcomes that are both felt almost immediately and are still yet to come.

Moral March on Raleigh, 2016 and 2017 Activism in the twenty-first century requires recognition of the power of digital life and communities in the gathering of like-minded citizens who organize themselves through online talk boards, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, and the websites run by socially engaged community groups. A wealth of social science literature delves into the digital 57 medium as a space for both individual and collective thinking, simultaneously allowing people from diverse racial, age, gender, economic, educational, religious and geographic backgrounds to reflect on their own personal relationship to a political issue and the electoral process while also socializing the organisational efforts of political and social groups across local and national spaces (Agarwal et al. 2014; Bennett 2012; Brown 2017; Browning 2017; Castells 2012; Gerbaudo 2012; Trapenberg Frick 2014; Velasquez and LaRose 2015; Wang et al. 2016). Much of the organizing done by North Carolina’s political left blends the digital and physical worlds, bringing together long-time activists and newly engaged citizens with the hope of rallying both their resources and their bodies what they believe to a political shift toward conservatism. Engaging with visual technology, social media and digital activism, this photo set links together our two worlds – both the digital identities we create and the ones we live in public – to examine how these activists incorporate their multiple realities to construct a particular kind of protest and protestor. This first section of photographs depicts scenes from the Moral March on Raleigh in 2016 and 2017. The annual gathering that takes place at the beginning of the year, usually during Black History Month, brings together a wide range of citizens – left-leaning political parties, neighbourhood associations, unions and professional associations, community groups, college students, elected officials, retirees, individuals and families, members of the clergy and the media – to commemorate the work that has been done in the previous year and to jumpstart another year of active engagement in politics. As the seminal event of the Moral Monday movement, the Moral March in Raleigh has formed a wide reaching coalition of more than 325 organisations, including chapters of National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People7 and other social justice group from across the state and region, such as Action NC, Raise up for 15, NC AIDS Action Network, NC Housing Coalition, Clean Water for NC, NC Council for Churches, Equality NC, NC Moms Rising and NC Peace Action (HKonJ People’s Assembly Coalition 2019). Dubbed the Historic Thousands on Jones Street, or popularly known by its hashtag #HKonJ, named after the history-making attendance of thousands of protesters along the main street on which the Legislative Building and many other government buildings sit, the Moral March continues to garner national attention, having increased its annual attendance from 3,500 supporters in 2006 to drawing a crowd of approximately 80,000 in 2017 and greatly influencing the public opinion on a number of key issues (Blest n.d.; Cambell and Bennet 2017; HKonJ People’s Assembly Coalition 2019; Public Policy Polling 2016; Purdy 2017). A YouTube channel entitled the NC Forward Together Moral Movement Channel has nearly five thousand subscribers and more than one million views on its dozens of videos promoting the annual Moral March, the weekly Moral Monday protests and a variety of other press conferences, rallies, humanitarian events, interviews with leading activists, among many other videos, and Fusion Films, a

7 Hereafter referred to as the NAACP.

58 production company that specialises in progressive movements, sponsors a livestream of the annual march (“NC Forward Together Moral Movement Channel” n.d.; “2016 Mass Moral March on Raleigh” 2016). By increasing their outreach through online and in-person engagement with the movement, and by spreading awareness through both traditional and social media platforms, the Moral March has become one of the prominent events on the political calendar for the citizens of North Carolina, and serves as important site of inquiry for this project.

8 These images depict scenes from the 2016 Moral March on Raleigh, held on 13 February 2016.

9 These photos begin coverage of the 2017 Moral March on Raleigh. 65

10 With a vision “to create an environment where the legacy of Deah, Yusor, and Razan continues to inspire love, giving, and community building through collective impact and engagement” the Our Three Winners Foundation was established following a hate crime that took the lives of Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salha, commemorated in the sign above. Please visit https://www.ourthreewinners.org/ for more information about these three wonderful and much-loved North Carolinians.

Gene Nichol, long-time columnist for the Raleigh News and Observer and distinguished professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Law School, said this of his involvement in the 2016 march: Like thousands of North Carolinians, I marched at HKonJ a couple of weeks ago. Also like thousands of others, I’ve done it many times. I look forward to it for months. Often, I’m one in a long list of speakers leading up to an inspiring and fiery address by the Rev. William Barber. When Barber brings the word, no soul goes unstirred. There is something thrilling about inclusion. About the outstretched hand, the inter-locked arm, the atypical embrace. Faces are young, old and in between. The strong, the ailing, the angry, the threatened, the loving. Baby strollers parade alongside senior scooters. Families abound. Marchers are black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, transgender, preachers, priests, nuns, rabbis, imams, rich, poor, organized and free-wheeling. Women’s rights advocates, labor folks, ACLU-types, greens, teachers and overall do-gooders abound. Of all the variegated masses, I’m most taken with the young ones. They’re clear-eyed, fearless, boundless in enthusiasm, skeptical of the old wine, modestly disinterested in the instruction of their elders, sick to death of my generation’s divisions and unwilling to believe it’s impossible to remake the world. Their unfolding is more powerful than Raleigh or Washington. These young marchers announce the ‘sound of freedom calling, the sound of the old ways falling,’ as Phil Ochs wrote. ‘You can hear it if you try.’ The sound of freedom calling. Say glory.” 79

As noted by Bennett (2012), “The more diverse the mobilization, the more personalized the expressions often become, typically involving communication technologies that allow individuals to activate their loosely tied social networks. There are still plenty of conventional politics based on identification with parties, ideologies, and common causes. However, the rise of a more personalized politics has become a notable trend” (21). Nichol’s recollections and these photographs echo this conversation about the ongoing reformation and reshaping of one’s personal identity as it relates to a sense of belonging to a wider community, particularly present during an election cycle where our very ideals and values are placed before us in a public forum and in a voting booth. For those documented in photographs here, participation in collective action highlights the connections they believe exist between themselves as individual protesters and the issues for which they advocate, subsuming their individual lives and identities with a larger one – the collective spirit and hope for a better, more inclusive state. Working together with allies creates a particular kind of coalition building that pushes forward both the dialogue around social, political and economic issues and the legislative work addressing said issues. In what has become a rallying cry of many young progressive activists and young people of colour in particular, the phrase ‘stay woke’ means keeping abreast of current events affecting our communities, keeping informed of legislative initiatives and landmark legal battles, and remaining actively engaged in the efforts of those working against discrimination. Often used on social media alongside other well-known hashtags such as Black Lives Matter, Say Her Name, A Seat at the Table, and She Persisted this particular concept has helped to connect many young activists to the wider progressive movement, easily identifying like-minded people, organisations and events

80 across social and traditional media platforms (Bonilla and Rosa; Gleason; Khaleeli; Richardson and Ragland; Yang). In the time period of 1 January 2016 to 28 February 2017, the hashtags associated with the movement, #HKonJ and #MoralMonday, appeared more 9,200 times on Twitter alone, with Google and social media searches and uses surging around the annual Moral March and at a candlelight event held on 29 November on the steps of the State Capitol Building as part of the emerging resistance movement following the mixed results of the election in 201611. The record crowds in 2017 led to the most frequent uses of the popular March hashtags, and #HKonJ was trending across Raleigh, the state of North Carolina, and surrounding areas as far as Washington D.C (Trendsmap DC). Polling companies and other organisations invested in tracking the impact of social movements on public opinion and legislative and election outcomes attribute the multimodal approach to activism employed by the Moral Monday movement with many of the results seen in recent North Carolina legislative sessions and in the 2016 state-wide election, which saw the Governorship and other elected positions returned to the Democrats. Public Policy Polling, a North Carolina based company, which conducted nationwide telephonic and online surveys on behalf of political groups, unions and business for nearly twenty years, said in a series of tweets that the Moral Monday movement’s persistent and unwavering protest against the conservative policies of the previous administration not only spread awareness but kept the spotlight on a number of issues that were deeply important to North Carolinians (2016). The company tweeted, “The seeds of [Former Governor] McCrory's defeat really were planted by the Moral Monday Movement all the way back in summer of 2013. It was a long game.”

11 Although there are mechanism to view tweets over a certain period through its advanced search options, Twitter does not provide a complete count of the numbers of times a particular word, phrase or hashtag is used within any given period of time. This data, though, is invaluable to brands, organizations, campaigns and more, as it helps to depict the frequency with which certain words are used, but also to track the reach of those tweets. As a work around to this, social media consultant firms computer coding and complex software to track the usage of particular hashtags, one of which was used here – to see the number of times the hashtags #HKonJ and #MoralMonday was used, I opened the advanced search dialogue box, typed in both hashtags in the box marked “These hashtags,” set the date parameters in the boxes marked “From this date” and “to,” hit search and was then given the top tweets during that period. After clicking on “Latest,” I scrolled down all of the tweets until I reached the final tweet, showing me the very first tweet using either hashtag during that period. Upon reaching the bottom of the list, I typed the Control and F keys simultaneously to search the page for the word “like,” as this word appears twice within the code of every tweet. By dividing this number in half, I was able to find an approximation of the frequency with which these hashtags appeared over this time frame. This is not a fully accurate depiction of the frequency of usage, as some tweets may have contained the word like as well. There are also misspellings, double uses and variations in use, such as #HKonJonesStreet or #MoralMondays; however, for the illustrative purposes of this thesis, the approximation of 9,200 appearances helps to paint a picture of the scope and reach of this campaign across major social media and search engine platforms. Google Trends also provided an approximation of the volume of tweets using these hashtags and compared its usage over time to reveal when it was most popularly and widely used, confirming that these hashtags are notations of the importance of major gatherings and can begin to help us reveal the ways in which social media is being used to organise events, publicise the information in real time, and connect people with the event itself, the organizations involved and other like-minded individuals. Special thanks to Jordan Rogers and ** for their lending their social media tracking expertise 81 “McCrory let himself be defined by a wide variety of unpopular legislation, and the Moral Monday movement made sure everyone knew about it.” “Moral Monday movement forced all these issues to stay in the headlines. Gave media no choice but to keep covering it, make sure voters knew,” “The Moral Monday protesters were getting arrested...and they were popular! 49/35 favorability rating in August 2013. Public appreciated it.” “The Moral Monday movement didn't let voters forget what McCrory had done. It was a long game. For us in NC a very long game. But it paid off.” (2016) Understanding the reach and impact of a hashtag and events organized, publicised and sometimes even held online tells us the means by which people become activists in their own right, highlighting that this recognition building through hashtags, following accounts and posting under one’s own Twitter handle develops a particular kind of knowledge, ways of being and interacting, and thus creating a kind of engaged, socially-aware citizen. Gleason argues, “It was suggested that learning on Twitter involves learning certain competencies, such as recognizing, or being able to find, appropriate hashtags that represent rich learning spaces. Knowledge building in this informal learning space involves knowing, literally, where to go and how to behave to be able to take advantage of the affordances of the technological platform. In a learning space where source credibility is unstable, an ideal strategy may be to reserve judgment until a broader survey of the content is feasible. Although individuals are motivated to receive information that confirms initial perceptions, the use of Twitter as a platform for knowledge construction from a wide variety of different perspectives may present a challenge to this bias. As the bridge between informal learning, characterized by experiential spontaneity, and non-formal learning, in which one has specific learning objectives, Twitter offers multiple opportunities for participation in a social protest movement. Twitter facilitates participation through a number of different avenues, whether it is uploading a citizen journalism video, tagging and sharing useful content, or becoming a more informed citizen.” (Festinger; Gleason 979-80) Thinking through the digital and physical spaces in which activism exists invites an interrogation of the development of the activists themselves, analysing just how an activist is made, how they are formed and fashioned over time, and how they influence their communities and wider political culture. This chapter argues that social media presence is an ever-evolving process of activist making, and that when coupled with in-person protest activities, a modern take on activism emerges, that works to seamlessly blend the digital and physical worlds, in a collective and conscious effort to effect political and social change. This chapter actively works to connect traditional, visual and digital anthropologies by exploring the ways in which the three intertwine and influence one another, lending interesting routes to explore the range of progressive issues,

82 the individuals and groups for which these issues are incredibly important, and the spaces in which they organise, lobby, connect and empower.

The Fight Against House Bill 2 Common throughout the 2016 election cycle was a tension between social issues and the discriminatory way in which these issues are addressed in legislation. One such example of this kind of legislation deemed harmful by my interlocutors was House Bill 2, enacted by the General Assembly during a special session called specifically and only in order to swiftly pass this sweeping law. The Bill required people to use restrooms that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificate, rolled back several provisions to combat workplace discrimination and eliminated the ability by local municipalities to set their own, local anti-discrimination regulations. On 23 March 2016, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act was voted into law by legislators by a margin of 108 to 26 in the House and 32 to 0 the Senate. The Senate has 50 minutes, and the lack of ‘against’ votes represented a symbolic abstention from the Democratic delegation. Although it was the first of its kind in the nation, HB 2 soon stood alongside dozens of similar policies enacted across the country that stripped protections for LGBTQ Americans in the workplace, in public spaces and across a range of other areas (North Carolina General Assembly 2016). This kind of legislation fits right in with other conservative policies that limit access to state-supported healthcare for women and families, that have made the deep cuts to North Carolina’s public education in favour of private and charter schools, and that reshapes and further restricts protections for immigrants. In seeing the links between various restrictive policies that affect many different groups, national and local organisations, community and church groups, student-led organisations and individuals all began to collectively organize their members and tactics, with the belief that by protesting together, they could amplify their sound and thus grow their reach. The set of rallies captured here – carried out along the main streets of Raleigh and in the rotunda of the State Legislative building – brought together LGBTQ North Carolinians and their allies, which included faith leaders, community organizers including the NC NAACP, Equality NC, Turn OUT NC and Southerners on New Ground, large companies that spoke out against the passage of HB2 such as the NCAA and PayPal, federal departments such as the National Institutes of Health, and media outlets across the state, all in an effort to put pressure on the state government to change its position (Gordon et. al 2016; Smith 2016). The law was eventually repealed just over a year later, on March 30, 2017, but only after costing the state upward of $3.76 billion in current and future earnings from numerous companies, conventions, concerts and sports tournaments that have withdrawn from the state (Dalesio and Drew 2017; Silva 2017; Steinmetz 2017). Here, we see political, social and economic pressure working in conjunction with one another to influence policy.

86 National Moral Day of Action In an act of nationwide solidarity, progressive leaders across the United States organized a rally in 36 state capitols that bought together faith leaders, labour unions, community organisations and student groups to speak out against what they view as a rise in extremist policies. September 12th began with an interfaith prayer that linked morality with political and economic agendas, advocating for the protection and care for the least among us. Rev. Dr. William Barber, former leader of the North Carolina NAACP and founder of the Moral Monday protest movement, began the day with this prayer: “We welcome the God that we call by many names. And for those who may not be people of faith but that believe in the moral arc of the universe, we welcome all into this circle of justice and love, as we make a declaration that we will have a moral reset of values in this country.” For the organizers, speakers and those in attendance at the National Moral Day of Action rally, this was not simply an opportunity to speak to our current elected officials or to those running to become our next set of leaders – this was a fight for the moral direction of the country. The overlap between the social, the political and the religious is never more prevalent than it is here in this moment – seeing the leaders from every major religious tradition in the United States, standing shoulder to shoulder with union leaders, community activists, students and citizens alike, an inextricable link is confirmed between the ways that we see and shape our collective sense of humanity with that of the legislative and legal actions of elected and government leaders. At rallies throughout my fieldwork and since my departure, Reverend Barber and the many others who organize alongside him have proclaimed this evocative statement, evoking imagery that not only seeks to reach the core of every individual listening to the voice of those standing on the podium, but that elicits and carries a deep sense of gravity and enormity - “This is not about saving any one party or policy agenda but about saving the soul of America,” (Quillin 2017). The evolution of the Moral March continues, birthing not only the Moral Monday protest series, the National Day of Action, and the Poor People’s Campaign, but now the Moral Revival movement, seeking to continue this significant linkage between the political and moral (“A Moral Agenda” 2018). As an initiative that emerged 50 years on from the Poor Peoples’ Campaign launched by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, just before his untimely death, the “The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival” seeks to rehabilitate the call beckoned half a century ago. As the 2018 campaign put it: “We call upon our society to see the predicaments of the most vulnerable among us and to halt the destruction of America’s moral vision,” (“The Souls of Poor Folk” 2018).

90 Cary Town Hall meeting In early February 2017, Facebook’s ever developing algorithm suggested an event happening near me – “Town Hall Meeting,” to be held at a community center in Cary, a suburb west of Raleigh.12 I did not recognize any of the three event hosts, all private citizens, and the organisation listed in the event’s description, Indivisible Triangle Daily Call to Action, was an unfamiliar one. A quick social media search told me a bit more – “brought together by a practical guide to resist the [45th President’s] agenda, Indivisible is a movement of thousands of group leaders and more than a million members taking regular, iterative, and increasingly complex actions to resist the GOPs agenda, elect local champions, and fight for progressive policies,” (“About: Indivisible” n.d.). An identical event would take place just over 160 miles away in Charlotte, sponsored by their local chapter of the same, recently formed, national organisation (Douglas 2017). I decided to attend the Cary event, and to take along my camera, as this offered a chance to not only document this moment, but to be in the room with others still reeling from and living in the aftermath of 8 November. North Carolina has long been viewed as a purple state, a state where voters often elect a variety of candidates from both sides of the aisle, never more so than in 2016, when polls of likely voters revealed it to be one of the must win states for both presidential candidates (Browder 2016; Campbell and Anderson 2016; Enten 2016; Shepard 2016). From the top of the ticket, where the candidates for president were listed, down to the city offices, amendments and local bonds, candidates from all parties felt the extra pressure to get out their voters, as their opponents would surely be investing a range of resources to do the same. In 2008, the same year that North Carolina made the choice to support its first Democratic nominee for the office of President for the first time since former President Jimmy Carter in 1976, voters elected their first female governor, Beverly Perdue, and voted in a Council of State that included 6 Democrats and 2 Republicans, and a General Assembly with a 98 to 72 split between Democrats and Republicans. Just four short years later, deemed to “no long[er be] a politically moderate player in the South,” North Carolina would see the return of Republican leadership in the Governor’s and General Assembly’s offices in 2012, creating “its most conservative government in a century,” (Severson 2012). 2016 seemed to be a make or break moment for progressives across the State – riding on the excitement around the national election and the fierce competition between two major North Carolina political figures vying for the office of the Governor, could the Republican stronghold be broken? In the final hours leading up to 8 November, both major presidential candidates’ campaigns were active and present in North Carolina, sending their A-list friends, their running mates, and even popping up themselves, to make one last appeal, outlining their vision for the country, maintaining the energy and excitement of their base, hoping to enthuse any uncommitted voters to cast in their favour, and to show their ability to not only inspire, but to

12 Town Hall Meeting, 22 Feb 2016: https://www.facebook.com/events/223237678147708. 91 lead (C-SPAN 2016). The final polls released on the eve of election day showed a slight lead to Secretary Clinton, confirming the suspicions of many progressives that although the election felt akin to a daily circus of surprise acts and revelations, the country would ultimate be safe in the hands of their chosen candidate (Benen 2016; “FiveThirtyEight: 2016 Election Forecast” 2016). The next 24 hours would send shockwaves through the country, and the world, among supporters of Secretary Clinton. Even the most ardent supporters of her opponent would admit their surprise at his election. Countless articles, blogs, tweets and television stories popped up in the days and weeks to follow, running the gambit between reactionary think pieces to long form essays, trying to make sense of an election that was, by many extensive mathematical, historical and political measurements, all but guaranteed to return Secretary Clinton (Bump 2016; Elizabeth 2016; Goldmacher and Schreckinger 2016; Hirschhorn 2016; Roberts et. al 2016; Underwood 2016). In the weeks and months to follow, citizens mobilised, both on and off-line, to address their concerns over what the next administration would bring. As is tradition between legislative sessions, especially for those who serve in federal office whose home states may be quite far from Washington D.C., Congresswomen and men held open meetings ahead of the new year, to meet with voters, hear their concerns and ideas first hand, and to offer insight on the legislative process and the goings on in the halls of the United States Capitol Building. What were usually quite calm and organized opportunities for constituents to meet their representatives in a town hall format turned into contentious gatherings (Lartley 2017; Park 2017; Sensenbrenner 2017). With attendees exceeding the number of chairs in the room and often shouting back, sometimes at and often over, their elected officials, out of frustration and disappointment over recent decisions to roll back protections for health care, education and immigration, among others, many representatives stopped hosting town hall meetings all together. This led to an initiative across the country to hold “empty chair” town hall meetings – the usual gathering of citizens and media, with an empty chair at the front of the hall to signify their lack of presence, and a symbolic reminder of the distance felt between the constituents and those who are supposed to represent them. I arrived early so that I could introduce myself to the organizers, discuss my project, and ask permission to film. As news media trucks were already parked outside and cameramen were setting up their tripods, I knew this would not be an issue, but it was still important to me to meet the group of women who seemed to be in charge, to ask about the evening’s scheduled events and to follow along as they prepared the room for the mock town hall. The three official organizers – two young women of colour and a white man – were scurrying about, talking to the Town of Cary building manager and police security assigned to the event, while the others helped to set aside space for disabled attendees and a separate area for the press. The strict fire codes in

92 town-managed buildings meant that the number of people in the room was restricted to only 250, but by my estimation while filming and photographing the line forming outside the front door, the crowd would far exceed that number. After helping to set out some additional chairs along the perimeter of the room, and joining in the poster making activities, I decided to plant myself in the centre of the room, at the back, so that I could get a scope of the room and to avoid the cluster of cameras on the right side by the door. From here, I could see the steady progression of anxious voters filing into the room – young families with small, squirmy children in tow, and families with children already in the public school system, all with concerns about potential cuts to public education in favour of private and charter schools, an issue of particular concern for Southern states who, only in the past three to four decades, worked specifically to integrate and diversify the classroom; retirees who had volunteered for the county Democratic party, who count on government sponsored healthcare and living sustenance, and fear the future cuts to benefits promised by Republican lawmakers; middle aged men who arrived on their own, with worries that active duty and former military officers alike would be impacted by threats of war, instability in global political order, and shrinking support for veterans; people who moved from other parts of the country, and world, in search of a moderately progressive and affordable state, that still retained an air of Southern charm and hospitality, and who now worry about increasingly hostile tone against migration coming from those in power; and young people, like myself, who worry about the stagnation of wages and who are facing chronic underemployment at a time of rising living costs, dwindling affordable housing and increasing pressure from student loan debt. A familiar beginning to many political events in North Carolina, faith leaders opened the Town Hall, praying in their own religious tradition and offering encouragement and blessings to the concerned and disillusioned crowd, while the picture of conservative Senator Thom Tillis, who declined an invitation to attend, leaned up against the wall. Although our Senators did not respond to the invitation to attend that evening, many of us had seen the news coverage of other town hall events around the country and knew that we were in for a similar experience of vocalized frustration – the tension in the room was palpable, and the room itself was buzzing.

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103 The photos taken at the Town Hall event introduce the idea of pop up or as needed movements – the emergence of temporary coalition building, built around a particular political figure, issue or piece of legislation, was a recurring theme of activist activity before and after the 2016 election cycle; and, how in this context, and many others across the state and country, women emerged as the leaders, organizers and promoters of activist activity. Pfetsch, Adam and Bennett argue “that no single challenger on its own, but the formation of effective online coalitions of challengers function as true agents of change [, and that] if these coalitions reach out and manage to forcefully promote their specific issues and frames, they are likely to trigger spill- over into the offline media” (2013 18). Likewise, the non-traditional establishments that emerge after significant events like the 2016 general election, used here to mean temporary groups that use traditional means of protest but use a different kind of organizing tactic, most often through social media, are often horizontally constructed in power, creating a kind of collective leadership that pops up when there are moments of crisis. The provocations of Pfetsch, Adam and Bennett require a contemplative approach to the multiple ways in which online and offline media relate to, inform and impact one another, as digital spaces allow for agenda and coalition building among actors without direct political making access and power, and can potentially spill over into media, political and social life offline (13, 18-9). The images presented in this chapter lend themselves to the idea that coalition building – in an interpersonal, social networking sense, and in an issue and legislatively based one as well – is often successfully transferred from online existence to a real life one, allowing individual actors who feel marginalised and excluded from politics, in its many forms, to become a visible and vocal actor that is an influential part of the political process. Two women came to sit down just beside me on the back row, and the woman whose badge bearing her zip code is shown above leaned over to me and said, “I’ve never seen anything like it! And I marched in the 60s! I mean, you were at the Women’s March too right? I’m sure… I mean, just thousands of people … and anything that can get people out of bed on a perfectly good Saturday to march, well it must be a good thing!” She and I laughed, and soon after, her friend chimed in, “And – all the signs were spelled correctly!”

The Performance of Protest – as protester, as anthropologist Building on Goffman’s use of theatrical performance as a means of understanding everyday interactions, this photography essay invites us to dramaturgically contemplate the performative nature of protest (1956). Using the stage as an analogy for social interaction, where people, not unlike actors, make specific and conscious decisions about the way they speak, present themselves and act, Cook states that, “Rather than presenting the unproblematic view of social interaction put forward by traditional symbolic interactionists, dramaturgists propose that social interactions can be calculated, manipulative, and open to audience scepticism” (2008). The

104 protesters and the sights and sounds they generate are ripe for this kind of interrogation, as this sensory experience adds another dimension to the larger political project of progressive activism. At the heart of the progressive activism in this field was a deep desire to be seen, to be heard, to be felt and to be taken seriously, and to do so, people employed a range of dramatic and impactful tactics that brought attention to a number of core issues. I argue that while post- election pop up events such as the Cary Town Hall constitute a particular kind of ad-hoc or as needed, progressive movement-influenced activity, the long standing and deeply entrenched work of activist networks purposefully and deliberately drove much of the activity occurring in the field. The performative disposition of drumming circles, protest songs, vocal sit-ins and large scale rallies occupy a physical and symbolic space in ways that differ from some other traditional forms of non-violent protest, like silent sit-ins, signatures gathered on a petition or a rally-type gathering with speakers stood at a podium. Thinking through the host of tactics employed by progressive activists not only allows for an application of the concept of dramaturgy as it applies to the relationships and interactions between activists themselves, across organisations, with other political entities and the wider community, but also helps to contextualize the physical and symbolic spaces within which my main informants see themselves, their work and their constituencies. Arrests have become a tactic used by conservatives and progressives alike to control the narrative. Following more than a thousand arrests made since the first major waves of the Moral Monday protests began in 2013, legislators themselves have decided to create laws to keep people out of these traditionally open spaces and have even intervened in the prosecution of those arrested (Blythe 2017, 2018; Jarvis 2014; NC Legislative Services Commission 2014). There are plain clothed and uniform wearing police placed strategically throughout the Legislative Building common areas, parking garage, in the House and Senate floors and galleries, and even in some halls and elevators, poised at these various locations to escort people out when they are deemed to be disruptive (Lamb and Gardner 2013; McDonald 2017; WRAL News 2013; Valencia 2015). Progressive organisations and activists themselves have used the imagery of police officers escorting out older people, religious leaders and young protesters to portray an image of a heavy handed state trying to not only restrict free access in an open, tax-supported government space, but also actively limiting the constitutionally approved right to protest. Since my fieldwork period, and with the steady increase in mass shootings across the United States, a study of the growing security concerns in public spaces has led the Legislative Services Office and the General Assembly Police Department to install metal detectors at the entrances to the main Legislative Building in an effort they say is to increase security measures, but critics, including the founder of the Moral Monday movement, Reverend William Barber, say that installing safety measures without also passing gun control legislation is a hypocritical move (Campbell and Blythe 2018; Dowell 2017). * 105 To try and decipher the complexity of conservatism in North Carolina, one must weed not only through the highly publicized pieces of legislation or landmark judicial rulings, nor simply look to the thousands of citizens engaged in collective protest, but link the two bodies of work, seeing the ways in which they interact and thus transform the political landscape in profound and far reaching ways. In viewing the state as both creator and steward of particular kinds of structural oppression and discriminatory practices, through legislation and rulings, I seek to more deeply examine the means by which citizens interact with their government, doing so through an examination of the content of, collaboration between and impact of protests, rallies, sit-ins, and other displays of public (dis)content. The photographs presented here represent the breadth of issues the citizens of North Carolina continue to experience every day, struggle against, and on behalf of which they fight. This conversation continues in chapters six and seven, where the online and offline media, political and social worlds both conjoin and collide, influenced greatly by the work of activists explored here and throughout the thesis. Like their foremothers and fathers of the mid-twentieth century who fought a state that was shifting backward toward a deeply codified and entrenched system of segregation, North Carolinians of all backgrounds today are seeking to move “Forward Together,” collectively using their voices, through activism and their votes, to push their state toward a more inclusive and progressive future. The methods by which we choose to conduct our research impacts the data collected at that moment as well as what we have to analyse and present when we return from the field, especially for ethnographers in a highly political environment field sites, it is imperative that we not only share images, such as those presented today, as a way to disseminate information and critique its contents, but to also help document this momentous time in American history. This research was uniquely suited to work with current uses of the camera not just as a tool for research and means of producing a final product, but can serve as catalysts of knowledge. In a highly politicized, highly filmed environment that exists alongside the world of fast-paced journalism that is driven by speed and viewership and the rising influence of social and online media, this chapter seeks to unpack the current relations between political actors, those elected to represent them and wider society.

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107 Chapter Four

“As a starting point for my analysis I describe a series of events as I recorded them on a single day.” – Max Gluckman (1940)

As Representative Holley’s intern, I had access to her daily calendar, which housed a wide array of events, both personal and professional. In my role as support for the office, it was important that I understood her daily and weekly obligations, from meetings and floor votes to dog groomings and doctor’s appointments, in case I was called upon to answer the phone, greet guests arriving for meetings both planned and unplanned, and prepare meeting documents, among the other myriad of office administrative tasks. Before leaving every evening, I would take a look at the next day’s activities, familiarizing myself with the day’s official obligations and scanning for sites of interest for my research. From 7am to 7pm, Wednesday 1 June was fully booked. Twelve hours of lobbying events, in-office meetings, party caucus gatherings and early evening receptions awaited us the following day; and upon reading the schedule, I was both excited and exhausted. When Yvonne and I first began working together, she warned me of days like this – where the physical and mental toll of long hours would perhaps affect us both, especially when there was to be a great personal and community connection to the work of the day. The events scheduled for the first day of June represented much of what she represents – the prayer breakfast scheduled for 7am would be in support of her biggest and most ambitious individual legislative initiative to date; the all-day lobbying activities scheduled were on behalf of the Delta Sigma Theta Greek organization, the sorority to which she has belonged since her time at Howard University in the 1970s; the last-minute rally scheduled for late that afternoon would be in support of the historically black colleges and universities across North Carolina, two of which sit within her constituency, and which were seen to be under attack by the provisions created under Senate Bill 873, which would be discussed and voted on during a previously unannounced General Assembly voting session; and the day would conclude with three separate receptions for legislators and their office and committee staff, hosted by a variety of influential external organizations. 1 June introduces legislative life by outlining an extraordinary day of political work and collective action; and in doing so, it presents several key questions addressed throughout this work: If we think of public servants as community stewards, how do the women working in the politically progressive community navigate through the expansive world of legislative work as representatives both of and for a particular community; and in doing so, what do their tasks, travels and experiences tell us about what it means to be a politically engaged woman in this modern legislative environment? In other words, what does their day look like, with whom or what do they interact, how do they carve out moments for themselves or for their families, and in what ways do their personal and political lives overlap?

108 Just as Cocks argues that Gluckman’s seminal essay “[intimately connected] the methodological innovation that became known as ‘situational analysis’ or ‘the extended case method,’ and the critique of segregation,” here I hope to present the events of 1 June not simply as a recollection of an important day for many of my key informants (2011); but rather, an exposition of the interrelatedness of the concepts of personal identity and experience as it links to, collides with and critiques wider the social and economic issues that arise in modern, American politics. * Housing exhibits, galleries and special events that range from the story of the region’s indigenous origins to the musicians, cinematic stars and athletic figures that make up the state’s present day popular culture, the North Carolina Museum of History plays host to a number of events before the site opens to the public, allowing for drinks and food to be consumed throughout the main foyers, entrance hall and ground floor exhibits. This is a special site for me – apart from the typical school trips and obligatory visits when friends and family come to town, I spent many afterschool days in the basement of the facility, alongside my Mom, who worked as an audio-visual Systems Engineer for the Museum and whose body was used to create a cast representation for a traveling exhibition. If the Museum serves as a representation of North Carolina’s shared history and culture and contains within it some of most important moments and mementos of North Carolina, it was among the most appropriate locations for the first event that day, a prayer breakfast in honor of the coalition of people and groups working together to combat food insecurity in the state. The museum was an important and deliberately chosen location for such an occasion, as legislators, lobbyists and journalists alike gathered to address one of the key issues facing North Carolina, with the hope of moving its future storytelling in a positive direction.

School group entered the Museum of History, which is located in between the State Capitol Building, in the foreground, and the Legislative Building. 109 I arrived shortly after the 7:15am opening time and was pleased to see a crowd of about twenty gathered. Sitting around large round tables, set with dishes and stemware for eight, I decided to sit among some of the lobbyists from Alliance for Health with whom I had become quite friendly, as they frequented Representative Holley’s office on a nearly daily basis during the legislative session. Most of the lobbyists, organizational leaders and legislators in the room were wearing some variety of business casual to business professional, because for most, this was the first of several meetings, events and legislative activities for the day. As I would be in attendance at several different kinds of events, and with my camera in tow, in temperatures and humidity that would exceed eighty degrees and percent respectively, I too decided on a business casual outfit consisting of a loose shirt, dress pants and low heels, with an dress blazer ready in case I needed to upgrade my look. Representative Holley poured herself a diet coke – her caffeine choice, and one that she would refer to as her weakness – and sat down at our table and began to discuss her upcoming speech. While I hurriedly ate breakfast before the official program began, she shared with me that she wanted to do something slightly different this morning. She was not sure exactly what she would say to the crowd, which was a common occurrence for her. For many events, she would vigorously prepare notes or a formal speech, often having me read over her remarks or practice in front her legislative assistant and me in her office on a quiet afternoon; but for events like this, where her personal interest and spirituality were at play, she felt it was best to speak from her heart and her mind in the moment. After a brief conversation, and some words of encouragement for her and Morgan Wittman Gramann, the then-Managing Director for the Alliance for Health, we all left the gallery and our delicious breakfast to enter the auditorium for the next portion of the morning’s faith-based event. A common and significant practice in American politics, the prayer breakfast prototype used around the country is modeled after the Presidential Prayer Breakfast originally created by Norwegian immigrant and Methodist Minister Abraham Vereide in the mid-1930s (Fabry 2016). Some twenty years later, President Dwight Eisenhower attended the National Prayer Breakfast in 1953, “call[ing] it a wholly enjoyable occasion,” and created a trend followed by every sitting president since (Fabry; Winston 2017). According to the latest census data, nearly half of all Americans, including 4.5 million North Carolinians, adhere to a religion (U.S. Census Bureau 2012; Tippett 2014). Extensive research has been done on the importance of individual religious beliefs, moral convictions, and the influence of the two on a host of political issues, voting behaviors and the rhetoric used by political figures themselves (Barber 2012; Beard et. al 2013; Beyerlein and Chaves 2003; Djupe and Gilbert 2008; Greene 2018; Perry 1991; Smidt et. al 2009; Smith and Martinez 2016). In the case of North Carolina, the concept of morality has become an integral part of the conversation about legislation that has cut into the safety net for economically vulnerable groups, that requires the use of public restrooms in accordance with sex assigned at birth, and has

110 moved money away from public schools and into grants for students to attend religious charter schools (HKonJ People’s Assembly Coalition 2019; Nichol 2016; Wootson 2017). A prayer breakfast is a unique type of political activity, one that links together a traditionally individual religious practice with a collective political objective – in this case, bringing together lawmakers, lobbyists, health organizations, military officials, famers and volunteers alike, to combat food insecurity through financial support given to small convenience stores located in food deserts to allow them to purchase the refrigeration units necessary to safely store and sell fresh and affordable healthy foods. Addressing the crowd of six hundred attendees congregated at the 1954 National Prayer Breakfast, who represented all three branches of the federal government and included the Vice President, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, and other diplomats, businessmen and their invited guests, Republican Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas said that the event was “to renew our faith and our commitment to God,” (Fabry). Bishop Hope Morgan Ward of the United Methodist Church echoed these sentiments, leading the much smaller gathering of about 30 people in Raleigh in a prayer and scripture reading that linked the access and availability of affordable, healthy foods to the religious idea of living a full life (NC Alliance for Health 2016). With the enthusiastic, yet cool and collected tone of a Southern preacher, Bishop Ward’s remarks connected the familial and agricultural roots of families across the state with the realities of the food insecurity facing many North Carolina families today: “I give thanks for this time this morning and for the opportunity to remember our calling – to engage in a way that maximises the resources of this geographical space that we love so much, so that all people in NC, children, senior citizens, women, men, all people across our state have access to wonderful food. I came to this commitment very early in life growing up on family farm. My siblings and I were a seventh generation growing up on this same, small piece of land in eastern North Carolina. Our idea of fresh was very, very fresh. My Mom would boil the water in a pot and then she would say, ‘go to the field and pull the corn!’ If it took more than 20 minutes to get the corn to the pot, it would need to be given to the pigs. And the idea of eating a can of corn was beyond – and still is beyond – my imagination. We [still] have the capacity to provide fresh, wonderful, wholesome food for all the people of North Carolina; and so today, we come together to give thanks to God for that potential, for that capacity, and for this shared commitment. The provision of food is a spiritual matter, as well as a physical matter. Our bodies need food, and there is no image [more present] in the holy stories of all religious traditions than the provision of food for people. So thank you, for your time this morning, for your commitment, and for your efforts in this regard. We give thanks to God for this time,” (Ward, 2016) Next to address the crowd was Representative Holley, who was one of the primary sponsors of House Bill 250, a legislative initiative that sought to provide refrigeration units and safe food storage facilities for smaller retailers, such as gas stations and corner stores, to sell fresh, nutrient-rich and locally grown foods. In the first few weeks of a new legislative session, new and 111 returning lawmakers alike experience an influx of office visits from a wide array of community groups, lobbying firms, corporations and small businesses, constituents and general visitors to the public space that is the Legislative Building. Especially for newly elected representatives and senators, this can be an overwhelming time, with lots of individual and group interests to consider; and although party affiliation and the issues on which new lawmakers ran, can often dictate who will visit their offices first and frequently, they are bombarded with visitors hoping to shore up alliances on a variety of core issues. Taking office just four years after the 2008 recession in one of the state’s hardest hit districts, Representative Holley would face the difficult task of representing a socio-economically diverse district, that included stagnant wages, declining employment opportunities and rising long-term underemployment against a backdrop of rising living and housing costs, limited affordable housing resources, deteriorating infrastructure and transport links, and emerging food deserts, in a newly Republican-controlled state House of Representatives (Ball 2012; Raleigh Department of City Planning 2018; Severson 2012; Sims 2012; Smith 2014). It was in this first term from 2012-2014 that her working relationship with the North Carolina Alliance for Health first began. While the General Assembly seemed inclined to conduct research on food insecurity across the state and offer suggestions on ways to combat the widening issue, many of the findings support the already existing programs and mandates, advocate for the review of current regulations and tax codes, and the policy recommendation offered few tangible, and more importantly, fully-funded, options (Hoban 2014; Legislative Research Commission 2014). Though this research committee was the first step in a long process toward establishing a funded mandate, which is a piece of legislation that not only requires action on the part of the state, but also provides the funding to carry out said action, it would become part of a multi-year, multi- session bill creation that would take the joint efforts of the Alliance for Health, Representative Holley, and a number of other key actors to successfully pass a bill providing grants for small businesses to expand their food offerings to include nutrient-rich and affordable fresh food. As the legislative session was in full swing, the Prayer Breakfast on 1 June was to offer blessings and spiritual guidance for HB250’s next series of legislative hurdles – having cleared initial floor and committee votes, the bill not only needed to be turned into a law, but it needed financial support. Given the Republican domination of both chambers in the General Assembly and the Governor’s office, securing adequate funding was at the mercy of the powerful Speaker of the House, Appropriations chairs in the House and Senate, and the influence of any powerful lobbyists and liaisons from such departments as Commerce and Agriculture, who had good working relationships with the Speaker and his leadership team. On an almost daily basis, a lobbyist or volunteer would stop by Representative Holley’s office to share the latest whispers on the bill’s funding prospects and to hear what information she may have heard from friends across the aisle, and this kind of daily pressure wore on her after a while. It was a daily tug of war – back

112 and forth with the owners of the purse strings, with some days bringing good news that they would receive as much as five hundred thousand dollars allocated for grants and administrative support for the pilot year, and other days hearing that the program was cut altogether. On behalf of those walking all across the legislative campus, from office to meeting, committee hearing to floor vote, attempting to shore up support for the bill’s successful, funded appearance House Bill 1030, the final 2016 Appropriations Act, Representative Holley wanted to begin the day with some words of encouragement (North Carolina House of Representatives 2016): This morning, I want to talk about something a little different. We talk about the bills all the time, but I want to talk about the spirit – the spirit of an organization like the Alliance for Health. And because of the Alliance, we are able to accomplish [a great deal] – it takes a spirit of compassion, or caring, and it takes a level of skills to fight for issues that are important to the community. Now, I could get up here and I could talk about all the statistics: what a food desert is, a mile in an urban area, 10 or 15 miles in a rural area; we could talk about the child that goes to school but hasn’t has had breakfast and is hungry; we could talk about the mother that has to make the decision whether to buy groceries this week or to pay rent; we could talk about poverty in general, and all the effects it has on society. But it’s people like the Alliance for Health that are trying to fight these issues and to help us as a nation to be better people and to solve our problems. For me to stand here and tell you that a child goes to school hungry hurts my heart… and in this country, [that] is aplenty. We need to put things in perspective – in a country that is as rich as we are, being the nation that we are, we have to do what we can to put a safety net down. Now, we cannot provide food for everybody forever – I’m not an advocate for that. I’m an advocate for self-sufficiency. And a lot of the things you’ll see people doing – a lot of the work that the Alliance for Health is doing – is to get people to be self-sufficient [and] to help teach people to eat health[ier]. Thank you – thank you for your advocacy. Thank you for your service. Because you are the unsung heroes, and everyone in here is here because they care about this issue. And as long as you care, I’m going to care. And I feel like we got a posse and we can fight some battles and get some things done.” The program continued with a short presentations by Larry Newlin, from Peaceful River Farm located in southern Orange County, in which he spoke about a variety of core issues facing the agricultural community in the state. He highlighted the need to encourage young farmers, with both instruction and financial support, to secure a continuation of the rich agrarian history of North Carolina, and to ensure the wide availability and variety of fresh, local foods. Speaking of his wife’s battle with lymphoma, Newlin and their family farm has now widened the scope of their work to include programs on healthy eating, linking the importance of nutrient rich foods with combating illness and extending longevity. He told the audience of his farm’s working relationship with smaller retailers, such as those who would benefit from HB 250, emphasizing the importance 113 of providing support for those who want to bring resources to some of the most underserved parts of North Carolina. He spoke, “We are farming sustainably – forty of our most distressed counties are rural. They’ve suffered from manufacturing loss [and the] tobacco industry going downhill, and so we think that the farming industry is a way to reinvigorate. We have provided food for the Saxapahaw General Store, which is one of our local corner stores, and they tripled their produce sales by having a cooler by the register. So we think that there are ways that we can make things happen” (Newlin 2016). Colonel Paul Conner, Commander of the 4th medical group at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, located in Goldsboro, a town about an hour from Raleigh, spoke about the link between soaring childhood and adolescent obesity rates and the future health of the military recruitment process. Colonel Conner called for a multifactorial approach to dealing with the growing health crisis by teaching better eating practices and increasing the availability of healthy foods. He pointed to the Center for Disease Control’s report that states that nearly 1 in 5 young men and women between the ages of 18-25 are overweight or obese in North Carolina and unable to serve, and weight-related issues for currently serving military members, their families and veterans now accounting for nearly one billion dollars of the military’s budget as justification for this call (CDC 2016). He encouraged the audience to “think locally, grow locally and provide locally,” advocating forand endorsing a continuation of the work carried out by groups like the Alliance for Health and the General Assembly’s special committees and bills to address food deserts and insecurities.

Larry Newlin, Bishop Ward, Colonel Conner and Representative Holley gather on the auditorium stage next to a map of food insecure regions of the state and discuss HB 250’s prospects in the upcoming Appropriations Act.

This prayer breakfast did not align specifically with one religion, but rather sought to encourage and support those advocating for the eradication of food insecurity. In keeping with

114 the spirit of the day, Bishop Ward spoke about the religious and spiritual belief that access to food and good health were divinely ordained rights. She bowed her head, invited the others to do the same, and ended the event with a benediction: Let us pray. Loving God, we give thanks for your provision for our lives. We give thanks for the health that you have given us to be present this morning, for the food that we enjoyed, for the realizations that you provide for all of our needs. And we ask that you would strengthen us to be your people, to live the concern that we have for all people in graceful and caring ways. Help us to maximize the resources that we have to be teachers and mentors and exemplars of wellness. Help us in our communities of faith, to live beautifully and well together. We pray for every person in North Carolina that lives in a food desert, for those who have no access to healthy food. Use us, we pray, for provision of this simple and profound need of all who live. We give you thanks, the giver of every good and perfect gift” (Ward 2016). As the last moments of the prayer lingered across the auditorium, the sense of gratitude and duty were both palpable, in equal measure, as the attendees were simultaneous called reflect on their own points of access to food and their economic background and also challenged to think of the multitude of ways that their work improves the lives of others across the state. Handshakes and hugs were shared with those sitting nearby, and as the crowd began to dissipate, the speakers and organizers for the event gathered near the front of the stage to discuss the success of the morning and to update each other on their next plans of action. After her final goodbyes, Representative Holley and I walk together from the Museum over to the Legislative Building, a short five minute distance away. Even as it is only now 8:30am, in true North Carolina form, the sun is already beaming and the air is quite thick, so we both carry our overcoats and handbags in our hands as we walk through the main doors.

View of Museum of History from the Legislative Building gallery level. 115

Legislative Building front entrance, adorned with the North Carolina state seal.

We make our way into the Legislative Building, smiling at the front desk attendants and nodding to the two armed and uniformed security guards, and walk through the first open area to the back corner of the building. The offices of each member of the House and Senate, the standing committee hearing rooms, press conference spaces, leadership offices, caucus meeting rooms, and various administrative rooms are spread across two buildings – the main Legislative Building, first housing the General Assembly in 1963, and a second building, the Legislative Office Building, with additional office and meeting space to account for the growing support needs of the legislative branch (North Carolina Legislative Services Commission 2014). The basement contains two popular restaurants, frequented by many state employees from nearby office buildings, visitors and legislative staff alike. The first and second floors are divided into four main quadrants, offering open air courtyards with fountains, benches and tables. They are popular locations for the hectic and vibrant lobbying day events and student poster presentations on various legislative or North Carolina themes, while at other times, they are a place of quiet respite from the buzz of committee rooms and the House and Senate Chambers. The second and third floors contained the larger conference rooms, leadership offices with larger footprints than the standard member offices, and the House of Representatives and Senate formal voting Chambers, with accompanying visitors’ gallery perched just overhead, which allow members of the public to view the discussions and votes during each session. Representative Holley’s modest office was located in the back corner of the second section of the main Legislative Building. In the standard sized offices in the Legislative Building, there is a small reception area with a large desk used by the Legislative Assistant, also known as an LA, the person tasked with handling the administrative and day-to-day needs of the office, and

116 often another small desk or table, used by the occasional intern, student research or other invited guest. An inner office door separates this reception area from the legislator’s personal office, which also housed a large desk and smaller furniture chosen by the person occupying the office. Each office is personally decorated by the person holding this office, with the help of their LA, with walls covered by posters from the legislator’s home town or voting district, fresh flowers or potted plants in various corners of the offices, memory walls adorned with travel and personal photographs, hidden coffee makers and microwaves, and even a few space heaters or fans to compensate for the poor insulation of this older building. The red, white and blue of both the United States and North Carolina flags were always incorporated into the design, with others such as the rainbow inclusivity, commemorative Prisoners of War and even on occasion, local county or city flags all making their way into the overall design.

View of 1200 Court of the Legislative Building.

Entrance to Office 1213, Rep. Holley’s office for the 2014-2016 legislative session.

Representative Holley and I had just a few minutes to catch up on the Prayer Breakfast, about who was in attendance, her words of encouragement for the crowd and the messages delivered by the other speakers, before she needed to be in the Auditorium upstairs. After joining the Delta Sigma Theta sorority during her time as an undergraduate13, Representative Holley maintains an active role in her local chapter, saying that her involvement is part of an extraordinary duty she felt when joining the group that was founded on her own university’s campus in 1913 (Delta Sigma Theta Incorporated 2017). It would naturally follow that taking part in an organization that is so deeply committed to community, service and to each other lasts long after their pledge is made during their collegiate career, and Representative Holley was one of

13 Hereafter referred to as the Deltas. 117 seven Deltas serving in the General Assembly at the time. In wearing the bright crimson and cream, the identifying colors for the sorority, and other identifying emblems of the Deltas, such as their tote bags, shirts and sweaters, pins and other jewelry adorned with their Greek letters, the group is an easily identifiable and impactful group, referring to themselves as the ‘Red Army.’

Ranging from young graduates to senior alumnae, hundreds of Deltas attend the 2016 Delta Day opening session, including speeches from the leaders from the House and Senate, Delta members in the General Assembly, legal scholars and activists.

Member looks over extensive 2016 Delta Day activities and information packet, that included the Delta’s schedule, copies of the official legislative calendar indicating all scheduled committee hearings and bills before the legislators that day, and tips and topics to discuss with legislative members.

118 The core tenets of sisterhood established in this organizations extends beyond the college campus, as the idea of bettering one’s community that is so deeply rooted in the Black sorority is often cited as one of the main contributing factors to their wide range of political involvement, from commemorating the long history of the political work of their foremothers of the organization, through joining in on legislative day activities, fundraising and volunteering on a wide range of campaigns, to their ultimate decision to run for office (Broome 2017; Coley 2018; “Dr. Bobbie Richardson, a Lifelong Educator” 2019; Erica for NC 2018; Holley 2016; Smith 2018). Representative Holley is joined in the General Assembly by six fellow Deltas, Representatives Jean Farmer-Butterfield, Bobbie Richardson and Evelyn Terry, as well as Senators Angela Bryant, Gladys Robinson and Erica Smith. The morning always begins with a welcome and a prayer, delivered by local Delta alumni and chapter members, and general greetings and remarks are delivered by leadership from both political parties, including the Speakers of both chambers, Chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, House Democratic Leader, and the state’s Delta Alumni Coordinator. Each legislator then took turns greeting the crowd, which included many of their constituents, and informed their sorority sisters of the key legislative issues of the 2015-2016 legislative sessions. Taking one or two issues each, the Delta representatives and senators elaborated on the bills that were passed in the 2015 long session, the procedures left to ensure that the laws and initiatives are now funded in the 2016 short session, any potential roadblocks to securing that funding, and the likelihood of passage into the final Appropriations Act. During each short presentation of around ten minutes, the Representatives and Senators fielded questions from the audience, ranging from interest in their sponsorship or advocacy for certain topics, ideas about improvements to the existing legislation and, at times, frustration and dissent about the difficulties facing the progressive lawmakers operating within this deeply conservative legislative period. Each legislator varied in their presentation – some using PowerPoint, while others spoke from prepared notes or from their own thoughts, standing firmly at the podium or sometimes and walking across the stage, allowing their body’s gesticulations to emphasise and animate the issue at hand - but they all conveyed a clear message of inspiration and encouragement for the Deltas present for the lobbying day. After the opening session, the Deltas were given time to attend both pre-planned visits with party, committee and House and Senate leadership and also to drop in on their own representatives, and as argued uniformly by the seven Delta legislators, these meetings inform a key part of the legislative process. On many core issues, legislators often get a flood of communication from the general public – emails, letters, social media posts, phone calls and office drop-ins – as an expression of support or disdain for a particular bill. On such issues as state support for police body cams, the environmental clean-up process for coal ash dumped into waterways by a major energy company, requiring photographic identification at the time of voting and the revision of House Bill 2, the infamous bathroom bill, Senators and Representatives would 119 instruct their Legislative Assistants and interns to take a tally of those for and against. This kind of informal measure of general attitudes about issues would be frequently taken into account when making a final decision to vote either way on a bill. This reveals an important, and often overlooked, point of contact between constituencies and their government – the distance between a citizen, their representative and that representative’s vote is sometimes as short as a Facebook post, phone call or office visit away, and harnessing this power would influence politics, both in North Carolina and across the United States, from this legislative and election cycle. With this power in mind, and to maximise this limited, but significant, time in each other, the legislators gave clear instructions to the Delta alumnae on the kinds of questions and topics to address with those they were scheduled to meet, and encouraged them to confidently and boldly offer their feedback, criticisms, support and own ideas, as this legislative body only exists because of the work of the people. Charged with spreading their influence across the General Assembly, the morning session wrapped up around 9:30 so that a formal group photo could be taken along the red carpet lined indoor steps of the Legislative Building, followed by two and a half hours of lobbying of legislators by the Deltas. Representative Holley stood alongside her sorority sisters for the first few photos and then she and I hurried back to her office in time for her own scheduled meetings of the day. She knew to expect several waves of Deltas coming through – some of her close girlfriends from her local chapter, many of whom would be her constituents, as well as several others who are interested in the progression of House Bill 250 and wider economic insecurities around under and unemployment, transportation and education, all House Standing Committees on which she served.

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Each Delta serving in the General Assembly addressed the crowd, each offering thanks for the important work to be done over the course of the day and several discussed their own legislative initiative. Senator Smith discussed redistricting and Representative Holley discussed food insecurity.

The Delta legislators were also joined by Anita Earls, a prominent progressive legal scholar and future NC Supreme Court justice, who discussed issues of voter suppression, gerrymandering and the current legal cases brought against the conservative leadership of the state. Chair of the Legislative Black Caucus Representative Garland Pierce welcomed the Deltas and spoke on key legislative issues. Republican and Democratic, and male and female colleagues alike understand and respect the influential presence of groups like the Deltas visiting the Legislature to speak on behalf of a number of topics and issues facing the African-American community.

Arriving back in her office around 10am meant that we had about an hour until her next scheduled commitment – a meeting with Habitat for Humanity of Wake County – followed by time for lunch with the Deltas and a House session to begin at 2pm. Representative Holley and I sat down in the chairs usually occupied by visitors to her office, took a deep breath and began to chat with Lee, her Legislative Assistant, about the opening session. I asked her how she felt about 121 the two speeches and how they relate to one another, prompting her reflection on the concept of advocacy and representation. She seemed equal parts excited and exhausted, a bit jittery from caffeine provided by her third diet coke of the morning and from the energy she gleaned from public speaking engagements that allowed her to interact with other passionate and politically active people. She took a sip and tilted her head back, resting it against the cement block wall. She closed her eyes, drifting away for a brief moment, knowing that this would be the last opportunity to be on her own, albeit with her two office employees, for the remainder of the day. We left her to sit quietly for a few minutes, closing the office down and walking around the corner to make a cup of coffee in the employee break room. Lee and I chatted about the office schedule and how we could best divide up the day’s office responsibilities. He was gracious in allowing me to be away most days, to sit in on committee hearings and floor sessions, to travel with our Representative to her meetings away from the office and to conduct research in other offices. I was happy to spend time in the office to cover phones and emails and to greet incoming office visitors, as this time and space offered particular insight into the day-to-day workings of a legislative office, to understand the kinds of interactions that happen in that physical, digital and symbolic space, and to familiarize both myself to the people who exist in the Legislative Building, and them, to me. We decided that he would take an early lunch so that I could greet the large groups of Deltas coming in for meetings and overhear their discussions in the very tight space her office provided, review the bills to be discussed at the 2pm House session and have a quick bite to eat before heading to the House gallery.

Members attending the Delta Day walking across a bridge leading to the HBCU Solidarity Rally.

122 Facing the results of years of declining enrollment and specific legislative efforts that have reduced financial support for HBCUs, and thus “have threatened the very existence of their beloved alma maters.” the Deltas have established a fund focused on providing additional financial support for these colleges and universities within the states of Virginia, North and South Carolina, mobilizing alumni of these universities as well as general members of the organization, raising over $30,000 in its inaugural push (Lewis 2016). The formal fundraising effort within the Delta Sigma Theta organization, called the HBCU Initiative, stands alongside similar efforts by other members of the Divine Nine, the group of nine historically black sororities and fraternities (National Pan-Hellenic Council 2019). Working together, these organizations have mobilized more than just their dollars – they have widened an already extensive and expansive network of university alumni, a group inclusive of business owners, educators, artists, athletes, news personalities, and parents of students enrolled at these universities, among many others, who are all interested in maintaining what they believe to be a vital part of African-American educational, social and political history. Because of the deep roots of these organizations, with generations of men and women from the same family joining the Greek organization or attending the same university as their relatives, sometimes both, the Divine Nine group holds a particular kind of power and impact within the African-American community. When issues concerning the health and future of the black community arise, this group is known to organize and activate its members in large numbers.

Identifiable by their signature colors, Greek letters and university logos, hundreds gathered in Halifax Mall, located just behind the Legislative Building

As part of a week-long effort to bring attention to Senate Bill 87314 – an effort to lower tuition rates at five North Carolina universities, three of which were HBCUs, among many other provisions regarding the rates of accepted students rates, a potential freeze of tuition fees, scholarship opportunities, and a review of the current names of universities – a rally was organized in opposition of the bill, scheduled to coincide with the formal discussions on SB 873

14 Hereafter referred to as SB 873 123 taking place in the Senate chamber. Labeled the HBCU Solidarity Rally, black alumni representing each of North Carolina’s eleven open HBCUs, Divine Nine members who attended predominantly white institutions15, and members of the black community at large joined news personality Roland Martin, Delaney Vandergrift, Chapter Leader of the Million Hoodies Movement in Greensboro, members of the Legislative Black Caucus and the North Carolina NAACP. From atop a stage, these media figures and activists discussed the bill and its potential to wreak havoc on these five chosen universities, in an effort to energize those in attendance to call, email and lobby their legislators to vote against the bill (Martin 2016). SB 873 was created by Senator Tom Apodaca, Western North Carolina’s most powerful legislator and known as “the enforcer and lead tactician for the new Republican majority,” which regained power following the 2010 midterm elections (Binker 2016). Using the North Carolina Constitutional power given to the state to oversee the public university system and citing lagging enrollment numbers as justification for the bill’s creation, and in consultation with the University of North Carolina16 Board of Governors and heads of several, but not all, universities within the UNC system, Senator Apodaca created SB 873, which included several provisions: to freeze tuition rates for students within the UNC system if they graduate within four years; to review the current cap on the number of out-of-state students accepted within the system; in line with the Morehead-Cain, a highly regarded merit scholarship at UNC-Chapel Hill, to establish the Cheatham-White Scholarships at North Carolina Agricultural and Technological State University and North Carolina Central University, two of the state’s largest and most thriving HBCUs; to consider changing the name of these institutions, eliminating what, for many, are historically symbolic and important names; and, in what was deemed the most potentially devastating section of the bill, a provision that would lower the cost of tuition to $500 per academic semester for in-state, or North Carolina residential, students and $2,500 for nonresident students, an action that would have begun as early as the fall semester of 2018 (North Carolina Senate 2016). Many found the language of the bill concerning overall university budgets reading for example that “the Director of the Budget ‘may’ increase the base budget of The University of North Carolina ‘to cover the cost of lost tuition revenue for that fiscal year,’” as a calculated and pointed effort to both reduce university budgets so dramatically as to cause major cuts to programs, academic and administrative staff, potentially to the point where several of North Carolina’s most historic universities would have to shut their doors forever. This would include the state’s oldest university in the western region, Western Carolina University, and four universities that sought to educate black and indigenous students who were once refused entry to the state’s PWIs, namely Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, Winston-Salem State University, and UNC Pembroke, which was originally known as Pembroke State College for Indians

15 Hereafter referred to as PWIs. 16 Hereafter referred to as UNC.

124 (Geil 2016; Lynch 2016; Michaels 2016; North Carolina Senate 2016). As the emcee for the rally, news commentator Roland Martin spoke with a panel of political and legal experts on his morning show News One Now ahead of his appearance in Raleigh, highlighting the potential conflict and financial imbalance that could occur when cutting tuitions fees, supporting these schools through the general UNC system funds, but not writing the legislation so that it requires any specific allocation of funds in future appropriation bills (2016). He argues, First of all, legislatures have been cutting funding from colleges and universities. Now, all of a sudden, they’re going to say, ‘Oh, we’re going to use money from the general fund to replenish these funds. But they cannot tell another legislature in the future what to do. If you’re a university, you can’t sit here and go, ‘Oh, I hope they pass the money and that we get funded. You’re literally on a year to year budget” (Martin 2016). The names of HBCUs hold a historically and socially important space – names like Elizabeth City State and Fayetteville State denote more than simply their location, but rather their own attempt at establishing authority as an inclusive and important educational entity in their own right. Gilmore argues that SB 837’s “purpose is to rename four of the five campuses. That goal is presumptive, ignorant, and, frankly, racist. The state’s HBUs began as Jim Crow schools, funded by the state to train black citizens. They educated women alongside men and, despite the shame of segregation, became the best state-funded system of black education in the nation,” (2016).

Representative Holley spoke on the House floor in support of the HBCU students, staff and alumni who were concerned about the future of their institutions. 125 The rally kicked off around 5pm along the Halifax Mall, a large green space located surrounded by the State Government Complex, which includes the Legislative and Legislative Office Buildings, and the Education, Revenue, Archdale and Dobbs buildings, housing the Departments of Public Instruction, Revenue, Public Safety, Agriculture, Insurance and the Utilities Commission (State of North Carolina 2019). An iconic site within the state’s history and government, as a site for many public gatherings like protests, events for children and families and the annual legislative barbeques during each long and short session, this space served as a fitting location for such an important and timely rally. The rally mimicked much of the style of the morning’s opening session, with a wide range of speakers offering information about the bill, putting forth variety of takes on the issues presented in SB 873, and called on those in attendance to do the grunt work of contacting their representatives, visiting their offices, flooding their inboxes with opposition emails, and posting across every social media platform about their individual and collective concerns about the bill. Encouraged by both the intense heat and a curiosity about the response in the Senate and House Chambers, I decide to head to the House Gallery to see how the conversations taking place on the record address the concerns of those protesting mere metres away. When a legislative body is as lopsided as the House of Representatives was in 2016, with Republican representatives occupying 74 of 120 seats and who, together with the Republicans in the Senate constituted a supermajority, could override any veto from the Governor, discussions and votes within the House chamber often became procedural. The House Republican leadership shored up most of their votes before even arriving in the House Chamber and rarely, at least publicly, encountered widespread dissent within the party. Speeches and other protestations on the House floor became symbolic gestures, documented in the public record and media coverage of the proceedings, but often did little to persuade those with the power to vote on the bill itself. This day, however, the conversation was greatly influenced by the groundswell of opposition. A coalition had seemingly formed, ranging from the public and community groups leading the rally outside to the more formal opposition by the five University Presidents and others within the higher education community. On that voting day at least, those speaking out against the bill, both outside and inside the legislative chambers, including Representative Holley speaking on the record above, meant that the influence of the voices of those opposing the bill persuaded the bill’s sponsor and House and Senate leadership to table the conversation for the time being and refer it back to its committees and members of origin. What was considered a short-term success only fueled the fiery passion of these education advocates, having spread awareness to a wide network of community groups, including the already politically engaged Deltas, Divine Nine and HBCU alumni as well as the general public who are interested in preserving these key pieces of Black, North Carolina and American history.

126 As the day was wrapping up, and the evening receptions were due to begin at any moment, I went back to the office to check with Lee to find out his planned time of departure and to find out if he was intending to attend any of the receptions. Because the galleries located above the House and Senate chambers are usually open to the public, any time that either body goes into an evening session, the building will stay open beyond its regular hours. This means that citizens, lobbyists and other civically engaged persons would walk through the building, pop in to offices to schedule meetings, voice their opinions, ask questions, among other requests, and it was a commonly accepted, though not required, practice for Representatives and Senators to leave their office doors open. It is then common for Legislative Assistants to remain in the office well into the evening, when the House and Senate go into night time sessions and they are needed to cover for this public presence, and to sometimes also provide information for their Representative or Senator on certain issues or bills. As an integral part of the workings of the legislative body, it is very much accepted and expected that staff members, and often interns, will attend many of the receptions hosted by key organizations, companies, donors and influencers. Some groups were known for their exciting lobbying days and receptions, which might have treats such as the donuts and biscuits circulated by Krispy Kreme and Bojangles, two North Carolina based food brands, and the buzz was always humming about the creative, cocktail fueled events put on by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission. That evening, there were three planned events: the 27th Annual Legislative Reception with the UNC Chancellor and the Regional Education Briefings, both held at different areas within the Museum of Natural Sciences and the NCAA, the national collegiate sports regulating organization, would host its Annual Legislative Reception at the Museum of History. Lee and I both agreed that we would stick around for a bit to cover the office, and I used that time to catch up on my wealth of notes on the day. Feeling tired from the day’s schedule, I decided to go home. After all, this was but one of many days left on the legislative calendar, and there would be many more receptions and parties and floor votes to come. *

Like Gluckman, I am calling this “a typical sample of my field-data” and offer each portion of the day’s events as ‘social situations’ as they both describe particular events and highlight the work and relationships of multiple key informants, groups and institutions, and also relate to one another and my subsequent chapters (1940). I contend that there tends to be a stagnant and often repeated approach to the study and understanding of politics, both in popular conversation and in the media, seeing politics simply as a set of situations in which liberal and conservative leaders, organizations and voters battle each other, for power, for law making and judicial powers, and to execute a vision for the country they best see fit. The recollection here challenges the idea that political life can be reduced to a set of actions carried out within the legislative walls, like the creation of bills, inter and intra-party negotiations, votes and legal declarations, and proposes 127 instead that it should be seen as an interconnected and influential set of experiences and situations that bring together personal, professional, cultural and historical reflections and practices; and in seeing these as overlapping entities, always connecting to and changing and influencing one another, we can begin to investigate the means by which certain political, racial, gender and class-based structures both exist and maintain themselves. The following chapters will explore the lives and careers of some female politicians, their executive and legislative initiatives and bring together the ways in which these hectic days in this active political environment greatly affect their personal and political lives. Days like this are quite common within the legislative calendar, and yet remain extraordinary examples of just how the multiple facets of personal life overlap with professional and political work of my informants. The Republican supermajority in the North Carolina General Assembly and the conservative leanings of the United States Congress at the time meant that progressive political leaders knew that their legislative initiatives could be overridden, ignored or even stolen by their counterparts across the aisle; and the intentionality with which my informants needed to act with every event, rally, meeting and legislative initiative provides a compelling site of exploration into the ways that perceived powerlessness was transformed into a space where success could still emerge. There was a duality to life as a progressive in the General Assembly – while the Democratic caucus often felt politically powerless, there existed a sense that by building coalitions within the party, and at times across the aisle, with lobbying and community-based groups, utilizing and mobilizing such public and impactful mechanisms as activism and organizing, issues could still be addressed and that legislative achievements could be reached. In recalling the events of 1 June here, I have sought to reveal some of the sites at which a sense of political and social power is reclaimed by my informants, and that this closeness to particular topics would be continued throughout the legislative session and electoral process. Exploring alternative routes and sources of power would emerge as a significant site of exploration for my research. They can be seen in the photographs presented in the preceding chapter that show the variety of topics covered and ways of gathering to express one’s concerns and support and ways in which people find meaning in political gatherings; throughout this recollection of events, where lawmakers interact directly with their colleagues, constituents and community and social groups to address pieces of legislation that are up for debate and vote at that time; and in the subsequent chapters that tell the stories of individual female lawmakers, their approach to and experiences within their role, and their most important executive and legislative initiatives.

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129 Chapter Five

Revisiting the question posited in Chapter Two that asks, “If we think of public servants as community stewards, how do the women working in the politically progressive community navigate through the expansive world of legislative work as representatives both of and for a particular community,” Chapters Three and Four work through this question by exploring the lives and careers of my main informants, making their way through everyday activities, interacting with their communities, both professional and personal, and as they try to balance their own individual visions and political desires with those of their party, their workplace and their community at large. These two chapters will also continue this conversation: “What do their tasks, travels and experiences tell us about what it means to be a politically engaged woman in this modern legislative environment? In other words, what does their day look like, with whom or what do they interact, how do they carve out moments for themselves or for their families, and in what ways do their personal and political lives overlap?” * I first met State Auditor Beth Wood17 at a joint fundraiser thrown by Representative Holley and her good friend and former House seatmate, Duane Hall, who also represented a portion of Wake County. The fundraiser took place in front courtyard of the Melrose Knitting Mill, a newly former warehouse space that had been converted into a multi-storey special event space and also housed a ground floor Mediterranean themed restaurant adored with lush interiors, imported tiles, luxury textiles and mood-setting lighting. As the sun set over the Raleigh on that Tuesday evening, a mere three weeks from one of the most contentious and consequential elections in United States history, the gathering of government officials, major donors, local philanthropists, family and friends enjoyed cool drinks and passed hors d’oeuvres, mixing and mingling underneath the twinkling lights that hung above. Standing all around the large fountain which added an extra touch of extravagance to the space, the attendees had reached well over a hundred at first count, and were welcomed by the two hosts for the evening, as well as general greetings offered by the numerous elected officials in attendance, and were even treated to a special performance by Randy Jones of the Village People, a Raleigh native and high school classmate and long-time friend of Representative Holley. The front courtyard of the Babylon was chosen as the location for this fundraiser because of its large yet inviting space, mix of seating and standing options, complete with its own oversized bar, outdoor screens and designated area for musicians and DJs. Dressed in a bright robin’s egg blue cardigan and a pair of her signature stiletto heels, Beth seemed to command the room, effortlessly moving from speaking to individuals and groups gathered around the space, and offering a listening ear and a friendly voice that instantly put

17 Hereafter referred to as Beth or Auditor Wood.

130 those around her both at ease and in awe. Appearing on the same ballot as President Obama and North Carolina’s first female governor, Beverly Perdue, Auditor Wood had received my vote in my first major election cycle, and I was ecstatic that now, eight years on from that major milestone in my own life, I would not only have the opportunity to do so again, but to also get to know the woman beside whose name I had twice before filled in bubbles to elect. The temperatures cooled a bit as the darkness of night-time crept in, and dozens of supporters happily remained in the space, enjoying the steady flow of drinks and good company. Remembering that I had expressed a desire to meet Beth, Representative Holley locked my arm with hers and walked us over to where Beth was standing and using her hands and arms to help emphatically tell a story that made the others around her roar with laughter. Beth stopped her story, enthusiastically reached out to Yvonne, embracing both her and now me, and warmly inviting us into the circle. Introductions were made around the circle of six or so, and I was grateful to now see that among us were several of the community donors and friends of Yvonne with whom I had been introduced before. Some were familiar with my work and eagerly awaited updates on my findings so far, as during our discussions, Representative Holley suggested that I meet with Beth, perhaps in her office that is also located downtown, just on the other side of the State Capitol Building, a few blocks and a five minute walk from the Legislative Building, to see how she could become involved as well. We exchanged phone numbers and it was agreed that I would call her scheduler first thing the following day to schedule our first meeting. A licensed Certified Public Accountant18, Beth was elected as the North Carolina State Auditor in 2008 and re-elected in both 2012 and 2016. She is the first woman to hold this office in its 150 year history, and having served in both the State Treasure’s and Auditor’s offices for many years prior to her election to this position, as well as working in the private industry, she brought nearly two decades of accounting experience to this top role (Office of the State Auditor 2018). In 2013, she was named among the “Most Powerful Women in Accounting” by CPA Practice Advisor, one the country’s leading resources for accounting and tax professionals (Sparkman). Her 2016 election was not without controversy, as she only led her opponent by nearly 6,000 after the first count on election night, triggering the request of a recount. The recount was completed a month later and she was announced the winner with 6,054 votes (Campbell 2016; NC State Board of Elections 2016). The many glowing commendations of Beth’s campaign often touted her personal background and impressive professional accomplishments as the necessary foundation for the person who would hold this prominent role within North Carolina state politics. PoliticaNC posted an endorsement of her re-election campaign by saying, “Beth was raised on a farm in eastern North Carolina and learned early how to manage a budget and the importance of being true to the values of honesty and integrity. With North Carolina’s $19 billion state budget, Beth is acutely

18 Hereafter referred to as CPA. 131 aware of the necessity of running a tight ship to make sure waste is identified and government is at its peak efficiency,” (2016). Because of her role as the chief auditing officer for the entire state budget and expenditures coupled with her varied background in and out of the corporate world, I was fascinated by the career trajectory that would take a young girl from a farming community to being sixth in the line of succession to the governorship. Beth has said this of the State Auditor’s office: “We are the taxpayers’ watchdog. They’re sending billions of their tax dollars into Raleigh to spend on operating our state government. There’s another twenty one billion in federal income taxes that we send to Washington DC that comes back to the state of North Carolina in the form of grants. We are all contributing to those monies and the State Auditor’s office is the only eyes and ears that the citizens of the North Carolina have over how those tax dollars are being spent” (2017). With this in mind, I was very much interested in observing the ways in which a woman in an elected role would lead the extensive accounting work done by this significant state office and interested in how this kind of role that sits within the state’s executive branch relates to the experiences of women working in the state legislature.

Please watch the first short film entitled “Conversations with Beth.”19

Traversing the state I rang Beth’s assistant Renee, who kindly shared with me the Auditor’s extensive schedule leading up to Election Day. Renee and I settled on a time the following week for a sit-down with Beth a week after our introductions at Representative Holley’s fundraising event. After clearing the airport-style security downstairs in the historic Revenue Building, I made my way to Beth’s office and anxiously awaited my chance to see her office space. Having spent time in a variety of governmental offices through internships and tours, in seeing the multitude of ways in which these offices are usually decorated in television and movies, and after just meeting her in person the week prior, I was prepared for the usual ornate fixtures and furniture that adorn governmental offices mixed with the kind of personal effects often included within one’s office. Approaching Renee’s oversized desk, small sections of the glossy, deep cherry finish of which could be seen peeking through the piles of paper, folders, books and office supplies, I was greeted with a warm smile, a strong handshake and an offer for a cup of coffee while I waited. I accepted the offering, and as Renee went off to retrieve the drink, I sat on one of the leather seats that faced the large, deep coloured wooden door that separated Beth’s office from this general lobby space, staring out of the large and bright windows that faced the State Capitol Building. I could hear Beth on the phone, her faint replies to the person on the other end occasionally breaking through my meditative state to catch my attention. I finished my cup of coffee and adjusted my

19 “Conversations with Beth” can be found online here: https://vimeo.com/317499987/119d904fee.

132 handbag, pulling out my fieldnote diary and research information guide to provide Beth, and her office legal team, with some more context for my research. She stepped out of her office, dressed in a formal suit with another pair of towering heels. We greeted each other with a hug and she motioned me to the chairs located right in front of her desk. She quickly organized some papers that had been strewn across her desk, offering apologies for the state of her otherwise impeccably organized and decorated office space. Her large, L- shaped desk was positioned so that she was either facing the door that opened toward Renee’s desk when working on her writings or reading briefs and projects, or she was facing the continuation of the large and bright windows that face the State Capitol Building. She had a number of photos of her husband, her siblings, her parents and her nieces and nephews. There were also a few awards positioned on bookshelves and window ledges around the room that were awarded because of her professional and political achievements. There was also a prominent wall hanging commemorating her time as an accomplished shag dancer, a partner- style dance set to beach music, hailing from the coastline of our Southern neighbours (Yarborough n.d.). Her large office also held boardroom-type desk for meetings with her team of fellow accountants, lawyers and administrators who carried out the many projects, audits and reports produced by the Office of the State Auditor. Flanked by the national and state flags, and anchored by the state seal of North Carolina, which reads Esse Quam Videri, "to be rather than to seem,” Beth was ready to open her office and travel schedule to me, and I was keen to see her work, her campaign and everything in between (Wiley 2006). Attempting to juggle the schedules of my main informants that now included ten new events on her calendar, Beth agreed to me traveling along for a number of her upcoming speaking engagements – a meet and greet for elected officials at a community college in Salisbury, just over two hours to the west, a presentation at three different Rotary clubs scattered across the state, a legislative breakfast hosted by a neighbouring county’s Democratic Party, and several office meetings concerning an extraordinary auditing project that would be the first of its kind in state history. * As the hometown of North Carolina’s first female Senator, Elizabeth Dole, Salisbury is mostly known within the state as the home of popular Southern favourite Cheerwine soda and the headquarters for Food Lion, a major grocer across the Southeastern region. The city’s visitors’ guide boasts, “Formerly a frontier town, Salisbury has been touched by some of the greatest names and events of American history. George Washington visited the town during his southern tour in 1791. Daniel Boone grew up exploring the country outside Salisbury before he blazed trails in the wilderness. Andrew Jackson studied law in Salisbury before being admitted to the North Carolina Bar. The city was also home to a famous Confederate prison now surrounded by a historic national cemetery. Salisbury boasts a growing arts community, four colleges and a diverse group of business professionals” (Visit Rowan County 2019). This was a fitting location for an 133 important engagement with a large swath of her constituency – the diverse crowd of students attending one of the largest and most financially accessible tertiary education resources in this part of the state (Office of the President 2017). Public officials, especially those who are currently in their chosen office and who are running for re-election, face the difficult task of balancing their work and campaign commitments. Every hour spent on the road headed to another part of the state for a presentation meant time away from her duties as the State Auditor, and without the financial resources to hire a driver, it usually fell to Beth to drive herself to events. When I first arrived at her office to prepare for our drive to Salisbury, located two hours southwest of Raleigh along Interstate 85, I was surprised to see Beth step out of the passenger’s seat of her own car. I lowered my window, and she said, “Here, come park right here!” motioning for me to park in her usual spot, right next to the parking space designated for the Secretary of State. Thankful that I did not have to pay the high daily rate of a downtown parking lot, I quickly began to realise that she may ask me to drive. Her beautiful black sports car was a far cry from the sensible Volvo to which I became accustomed to driving, and feeling quite nervous already about the day’s trip, I wondered how I would shake my anxiety and deliver us both safely to our event. She shared with me that she needed to place several phone calls and do some reading before we arrived at the college, and wondered if I might drive us that day. I obliged, feeling both worried that I may wreck this stunning car while also relieved that her tasks would allow me the freedom to focus on the road. She agreed to drive us out of the busy downtown area, for which I was most grateful, and after stopping just a few minutes into the ride to fill up the gas tank, we were on our way to Salisbury. Beth chatted away on her phone, asking for updates on various projects from her leadership team and dictating notes and assignments to her staff on the other end, and speaking with her husband about their upcoming travel plans for a long weekend of dancing and golfing once the election is over. After nearly an hour and a half of non-stop calls, she hung up her phone and tucked it away in her handbag. She looked up to see the green highway signs that we passed and was delighted – or possibly surprised – that we were already nearly there, both a compliment of my nervous driving skills and a recognition of the work that she had accomplished in the time that ordinarily would have been lost while behind the wheel. She passed the remaining time making notes on a report in between closing her eyes for a few minutes of rest. When we arrived on the campus of Rowan Community College, we were both surprised by the expanse of the campus, with great brick buildings spaced out by open green space, sporting fields and large parking lots for the nearly 20,000 students that attend annually. The student centre was located in the middle of these buildings, an ideal meeting spot to house the student organizations and resource offices, as well as a large cafeteria where students could purchase food or prepare and reheat their own lunches and sit together at large tables. We were

134 greeted by the organizers for the event, escorted to a long line of tables set up for each local and state candidate that accepted the invitation to join the event, finally reaching Beth’s table among the middle of the pack. She was placed among a small group of people running for a variety of offices across Rowan County boards and departments, including Veleria Levy, an African-American woman running for the Board of Commissioners. A first time candidate, active county democratic party member and frequent national and state campaign volunteer, Levy seemed ready to chat with the other candidates for the school boards, city and sheriff’s offices and students alike, paying close attention to the concerns and ideas presented to her by the range of students she would encounter over the two hour meet and greet event. Her desire to lead Rowan County was made clear by her depth of knowledge about the schools and colleges in the area, the entrepreneurial opportunities in this growing region and the pressing political and social issues to be addressed on the ballot in the November election, shown both through her impressive resume on her campaign materials and the energetic ease with which she spoke. I could see her eyes light up as Beth walked in, the same keen interest in connecting with a magnetic and commanding state official that I saw in the gaze of nearly everyone with whom Beth comes in contact during these types of speaking engagements. I helped to unpack the few campaign materials Beth brought along with her – some small flyers known as palm cards that contain the basic information about a particular candidate’s platform and resume, and other small business cards with the Auditor’s office contact details – and stood beside the table as Beth went to greet the other candidates. Nearly all of the other candidates in attendance recognised her, eagerly extended their hand to greet her, and as they exchanged hellos and the office for which they were running, most seemed very keen to receive the advice and support of the twice elected official. In this instance, particularly for the other female and left-leaning candidates present, of which they were just six or seven, Beth was the success story – the woman who well-educated, had long served in her job as an accounting professional, learned a great deal from her time in various roles within state government, the transformation of this extensive personal and professional history becoming sixth in the line of succession to the governorship as the capstone of this extensive personal and professional trajectory. Better still, her impressive electoral and executive history was only bettered by her ability to relate to the students present that day. Conversing seemingly non-stop with young and older students, some first time voters and others having participated in the voting process in years prior, faculty and staff members who stopped by, and the other candidates who wanted to discuss the major audits in the pipeline, nearly an hour and a half into the event, Ms. Levy walked over to Beth and said, “You’re a pro at this! I certainly need to learn more from you!” Beth smiled from ear to ear, wrapped her arm around Ms. Levy’s shoulder and said, “You got this girl! They’re loving you too today!” This small exchange between the two broke the ice and for the remainder of the event, they had lively discussions about a gamut of issues facing the state and country at 135 the time, traversing between such North Carolina-centric topics as the bathroom bill and the possibility of requiring photographic identification in order to vote, to the wider national conversation about racism, misogyny, immigration and health care rights that stemmed from the presidential election. Although Ms. Levy quite openly expressed her gratitude at seeing another woman successfully run for office and competently lead a large department, the unspoken connection between the women highlighted a significant part of representation – the importance being able to see and imagine one’s self within a particular context. Though her position as a Black woman running as a Democrat in a largely white, rural county would present an obstacle to her successfully winning her election, in this moment, Ms. Levy was happy for the opportunity to meet and talk with the first female Auditor. She wondered aloud if she, too, could assume office and make history within a governmental body that was also largely white and male. Beth spent the remaining time chatting with the staff and students who dropped by the event, which took place during the busy late morning to lunchtime rush. Some staying for an extended period of time to discuss the work of her office, while others shook her hand and picked up some campaign materials on their way to class or lunch, those who interacted with Beth seemed grateful for her presence as the only state-wide officer to accept the invitation to appear in person, remarking on the ‘long ride down from Raleigh,’ and expressing their commitment to voting for her in a few weeks’ time. As the event approached its finishing time of 12:30pm and Beth appeared to be deeply engrossed in a conversation about school funding with a young male candidate for the local school board, I walked over to thank the staff who organised the event, two young women of colour who worked in the student services centre and who felt the responsibility to get more of their students both engaged in the political process. For these two, this engagement did not stop with the goal of registering students to vote, particularly those who were turning 18 and for whom this would constitute their first election cycle, but rather encompassed a multi-pronged approach to getting their students better connected with the real people behind the titles, to whom they entrust the local and state tax dollars, school systems, social services, laws and regulations, among many others. This event was part of a series of events aimed at meeting this goal, and would continue with debates, roundtables and other meet and greet events both during this election cycle and those to come. Beth soon joined us, offering warm thanks and friendly embraces for these two organisers, who reiterated their gratitude for attending this event in person. After one final wave to the others packing up their things, and a handshake to a small group of students walking in as we left the building, Beth and I both quickly scurried toward her car door, eager to take a breath after a successful morning of dialogue and idea sharing, and to take off our high heeled shoes and suit blazers. I drove us to a nearby Subway restaurant, where we chatted over our sandwiches, the same meal that she has for lunch nearly seven days a week, and after being recognised and

136 greeted by two local police officers and a local businessman who were also enjoying their lunch, she and I reflected on the community college’s event. Often, campaign volunteers or campaign managers serve as stand ins for busy elected officials, especially those like Beth who must balance their executive and election duties on a regular basis for the eighteen to twenty four months leading up to a major vote. As surrogate personal driver that day, Beth thanked me again for driving and attending with her, and speaking with students about higher education and the political process more broadly, and acknowledged the privilege of the depth of support she has from volunteers and friends, like me, who can accompany her to these events in a way that allows her to continue the important work she must carry out on a day-to-day basis. We made our way back to her car, put in her office address into the navigation system, and headed back to Raleigh. * “Good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to be here, I appreciate so much the opportunity to talk with you. What I’d like to do this afternoon is to spend some time with you talking about the office of the State Auditor – talking about who we are, what we do, who we do it to and get rid of the some of the misconceptions about the North Carolina Office of the State Auditor. So one of the main misconceptions about the office – and I heard one or two people were supposed to be here today and they’re not – people have a tendency to shy away from me when I walk in the room.” (laughter) “Because people think I audit your tax returns. And that is the not the case.” A man in the room playfully jumps in, “You don’t?” (laughter) “I don’t, that’s that mean ‘ol Department of Revenue. That’s who audits your tax returns. The State of North Carolina – it costs forty-three billion dollars a year to run our state government. Forty-three billion dollars a year. And we all finance that operation every year. So there’s two pots of money, federal and state. The state pot is worth twenty-two billion dollars, we take in eleven billion dollars a year in personal income taxes that we all pay, that’s half of the state’s budget right there. And then, every time we make a purchase and we pay sales taxes, we pull in another six billion dollars. So y’all think about me every time you make a purchase (laughter) – that’s Beth Wood, the State Auditor, she told me about those monies. And then if you own your own business, another billion dollars. So that’s eighteen of the twenty-two billion dollars in just three line items that we all are directly affecting every day. And then, there’s another twenty-one billion dollars that comes in federal grant money – money for clean air, for transportation, Medicaid, food stamps, that’s simply money that we pay in in federal income taxes. It goes to Washington DC, and then they allocate it back down to North Carolina. Twenty-two billion dollars. Well, my job – the state auditor’s office’s job – is to audit that 43 billion dollars a year, and report on if those monies were reported properly, if the transactions were reported properly. But I think more important to you and I: Did someone waste my tax dollars? 137 I wish I had good news. I don’t.” – Auditor Wood, Presentation at Wallace Rotary Club, 3 Nov 2016.

As an “organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world,” the Rotary Clubs of America keep their members connected to local policies and political figures throughout the year (Rotary Club of Wallace n.d.). Inviting officials like Beth to share more about their offices, their role within government and to answer questions and concerns from their members, local branches like the Wallace Rotary Club reach out to elected officials across multiple levels of government and party affiliations to carry out presentations during their weekly, bi-weekly or monthly meetings, offering a unique and vital point of contact with engaged constituents. The above introduction was one that I heard, nearly word-for-word, at the beginning of each of Beth’s presentations, at three different Rotary club meetings across the state, at a talk at a continuing care retirement community in Durham, on her monthly radio show “An Eye on the State” broadcast on WHSA, the nation’s first public station owned by a HBCU, and at a candidate forum at a major black church in our home county (Shaw University n.d.). She knows these statistics like the back of her hand, so much so that she rarely prepares notes for these kinds of presentations, allowing the information to flow with the similar ease that one would expect when telling a childhood story. This introduction represents a path through which she expertly balances Southern charm with professional knowledge, navigating a particular political space in which elected officials are expected to be approachable yet aware, sociable but also sophisticated. Here, I argue that this harmony between the relatable figure and well-informed professional is disproportionately burdensome for women, of whom this and many other audiences expect a particular kind of female political figure who is likeable without being a know-it-all, agreeable but also an expert (Fisher 2016; Hackman 2016; Kurtzleben 2015; Newton- Small 2016). At this particularly presentation, taking place during the coffee and dessert portion of the lunch meeting, the audience observes Beth at her finest blend of the two – drawing several laughs and side comments amongst the attendees while sharing her extensive knowledge of the state budget, engaging their interest with charisma and anecdotes, and facts and figures. After I began driving us home from the luncheon in Wallace, where men outnumbered women in the room nearly two to one, an imbalance repeated in most speaking engagements I attended with her, I asked Beth about being a woman in such specifically male-dominated spaces. I asked her about her early days working in the financial sector, and if my imaginations of male- domination, in the composition of the office, the management, the clientele, and even in women’s fashion trends and office attire were correct. She had experienced many forms of disguised and explicit mistreatment, the most alarming of which was a case of sexual harassment that happened while serving in the private sector in the late 1980s. Sharing this story, and

138 recalling the exertion of control through the use of physical and psychological force that would keep her from reporting, she was happy that the industry seems to have moved in what she deemed to be the right direction by including more women in leadership and managerial roles and increasing consequences for those found guilty of misconduct. The conversation then shifted toward her most recent trip to the Legislative Building where she was scheduled to testify before the General Assembly. She said, “You know I always like to coordinate my outfits and love a great pair of shoes and matching lips(tick), and that day, I had on this fabulous peach coloured suit jacket and found a stunning lip colour that was just perfect… I felt really confident in how I presented myself and how I looked, which was important because I already knew that the work was there – the months and months of audits were up to snuff, so to speak, and I wanted to go down prepared in every way. So anyway, I walk in and greet several of the legislators, and some of those hugs and handshakes linger a little longer than they probably should have. And when I sit down – you know how it’s set up, with a table positioned just across from this long line of legislators – the Speaker calls the Committee to order, thanks everyone in attendance, and then he turns to me and starts off ‘well, thank you Madam Auditor, for being here today. And may I just say, that’s a lovely shade of pink you’re wearing.’” She turned to me, made a blank facial expression that simultaneously conveyed a disgust at these words but also a complete lack of surprise about the encounter, and continued on with telling me about the major audit – one of the largest of its kind in state history – they presented that day, without missing a beat. The matter-of-fact kind of recollection of this incident reveals the extent to which a sense of normalcy is given to misogyny within this environment; that it has become as embedded a part of the setting as the ornate furniture and state flags.

The power of personality and privilege During our filmed interview, I asked Beth about the above incidents of sexism in particular and the response more broadly to women in leadership roles, her reply to which surprised and intrigued me: The perception about women in finance and in state government - It’s been not as difficult a path as I thought it would have been [for me]. Maybe it’s because of my own strong personality, and my passion for what this office does and what I believe we can do to serve the citizens of North Carolina. I find myself being well received by the General Assembly, men as well as women. […] We have been well received, well respected, and have built a lot of credibility for what the office is putting out. Again, that might just be some of my own personality – my Dad taught me I could be anything that I wanted to be, I’ve always been a go getter, I’ve never sat in the backseat and waited for opportunities, I’ve sort of jumped out there and found my own. So I’ve sort of ploughed the path, if you will, but the role in state government, the role of a female elected official, has not been nearly as difficult as it might have been.” 139 I then asked if she believe that this positive reception and easier path was unique to her office in particular; and more specifically, asked if she had observed any differences in the ways that some of her female colleagues have been treated: “As far as a difference from the other females on the Council of State, or women in the Legislature, we all have strong credentials. They’re PhDs, they’re lawyers, and so, there’s a background, if you will, of support. And that may speak to women getting that education, women getting those credentials, because it certainly made the path a lot easier bringing those to the table with you.” Having spent time with women in a variety of local and state roles, some of whom felt that they were approached, listened to and ignored because of their gender, I was eager to hear if Beth felt that her womanhood initiated particular kinds of conversations with or issues presented to her by her constituents: “When I speak [before a crowd], we talk about the audits we have concentrated on as office. Medicaid is certainly one of those, simply because it’s one of the biggest spends in our state government. Because it’s an entitlement program, if it has cost overruns, if it has budget overruns, if there’s wasteful spending, then the money gets sucked out of education. Those two are in constant competition. So I speak about those a lot, and when you basically talk about a particular topic [frequently] then it rings a bell in people’s minds when you’re in front of them. I have people approach me constantly about where they think they’ve seen Medicaid fraud or people that are on Medicaid that shouldn’t have been. When we put an audit out, our audits are electronically published, so they’re on our website, and people are learning about that, and it can get some notoriety in the news media. I don’t think that my gender really constitutes bring a particular topic to me as much as what I’m talking about will spur the thinking of somebody who’s in the audience. And I do get some of my best topics from getting around the state and speaking to people and talking about what we can do, what are finding, and then again, like I said, it spurs people into thinking about things that they think the State Auditor needs to know and take a look at.” Partly a recognition of her own power, personality and autonomy, and, I would argue, partly a personal mechanism for coping and surviving as the first of her kind in this role, doing so alongside, or in charge of, mostly men, her responses here that she allows her work to speak for itself highlights several important things. First, alongside the other progressive women on the council of state that have impressive educational backgrounds and work experience within their department prior to rising to the top position, Beth points out the preparedness that many women must bring with them when standing for elective office. In the cases of State Superintendent of Public Schools June Atkinson, whose story follows, the unsuccessful campaign of Secretary Clinton and many other women across the state and nation, the election of their opponents, who lack such extensive credentials, can point to this imbalance in expectations placed on women that are not necessarily extended to men. Beth’s recollections above highlight a

140 focus of many female politicians on their own work, their regulatory, statistical and legislative outputs, and reluctance to challenge the gender or racial prejudices they may encounter. It is a tough process not only to acknowledge these unfair encounters, but to attribute them to wider, systemic sexism, especially when any recognition of such – or worse, the expression of normal, human behaviours like crying that most often fall into the female side of the gender dichotomy – can then be weaponized against a candidate in the media, political advertisements and embedded within political speeches and debates (Banwart 2010; Kruse 2015). Although the work of the state auditor does not necessarily map onto perceived ideas about women’s work in a more straightforward way, as they can be in a legislative arena, as argued in the chapters that follow, I would maintain here that in order to combat concerns about her trustworthiness and aptitude to do this job only previously held by men, Beth must expertly navigate both the wider sexist perceptions about a woman’s ability to serve as a chief executive and the lingering sexist perceptions about women in the financial sector more broadly. Lastly, it also reveals the comfort and confidence that is given to those for whom a seat at the negotiating table feels secure. As this chapter and the following chapter will interrogate, whereas many women are preoccupied with the fight for any presence within that political space, for others, the position within the political structure, especially as elected executives of major departments, is primarily a reflection of their experience and capabilities. Although certainly not the architect of structures in which favourability belongs to men, there is a privilege that exists within political framework that allows certain female politicians to feel a greater sense of belonging – that their seat at the table is increasingly more secure, that they can work hard to maintain it, and in doing so, ensure a sustainable future on which others like them can build; in this case, Beth’s broad expertise and long-term success that has brought her to this particular executive table will allow other women to follow a foundation on which to develop and advance. As shown in a number of elections, from the top of the ticket down, and the continuing battle over voting district barriers, candidate recruitment and fundraising, and the support of the general public for women in political roles, there remain all too many challenges to these significant steps toward gender parity in elected roles. * In some ways, as North Carolina crept into the spotlight as a key battleground state, somewhat reluctantly after the attention had only recently gone away following the national and international press coverage of the HB2 debacle, it felt as though the election could not come soon enough. Pundits began to draw the road to the White House as a path leading firmly through our state, and with it, financial resources poured in for candidates to buy additional yard signs and bumper stickers, advertising popped up across our television and computer screens, the voices of former governors, senators and even President Obama boomed from our radio speakers urging us to support candidates, bonds and amendments, and both presidential candidates, their running 141 mates and a slew of their political allies and celebrity friends spent time in all four corners of the state in an effort to motivate people to show up on election day. Though the primary season commenced nearly two years prior, because of the revamped interest in North Carolina thanks to its Electoral College delegates, in many other ways, the election felt as though it had really just begun. Having spent nearly ten months in the company of the state’s most politically active, I was eager to celebrate what was poised to be a history making evening alongside a community of progressives, who were inspired and hopeful, yet collectively fatigued from an election cycle like none other most had ever seen. Donned in a black dress printed with red, white and blue fireworks and confetti that were placed about it like small yet bold patriotic polka dots, with my jewelled lapel pin in the shape of a donkey, the symbol of the Democratic Party, placed over my heart, I walked into the Raleigh Convention Center to celebrate alongside the other North Carolina left-leaning voters and party supporters, who were also decked out in the Americana- themed attire, gathering together in large ballrooms, facing large screens, waiting with anticipation to see the first of the evening’s results begin to pour in from the states along the East Coast. My Mom and I arrived after the final polling locations had closed at 7pm, though in the major cities across North Carolina, many voting sites stayed open later to accommodate those who had arrived in time to vote, but found themselves waiting in a long line. The Democrats who were running for the Council of State rented out the Rye Restaurant, located in the hotel adjoined to the convention centre, and we slowly made our way to the back room, collecting cocktails, nibbles and scores of hellos along the way. Walking through the final set of door, we found a large room with mounted televisions and several large round tables filled with the family, friends and supporters of the candidates, and luckily, the first table we reached had two open chairs and the others were filled with Beth, her husband and a few of their friends. With her usual warmth and energy intact, I was somewhat surprised at the bit of nervousness that flowed in place of the usual ease with which she spoke. Scanning the room, and recognising the Commissioner of Insurance, the Secretary of State and the Superintendent of Schools, the anxiety seemed to permeate the entire group. The excitement over Secretary Clinton’s possible win that appeared on most social and news media based on the final polling conducted in each state slowly began to shift into uneasiness brought on by exit polls that showed the result to be much narrower than once thought. The night rolled on, and across the map of the electoral votes allocated to each state, one by one, states moved from a faint blue indicating their slight Clinton-lean moved to a bright red, indicating that they had been won by the republican nominee. The laughter and conversation mellowed into a low-level buzz, with most conversation only happening during the commercial

142 breaks interspersed between the segments of election coverage; sometimes those pauses were filled with channel changing between local and national news outlets. The buzz carried on until 10:53pm, when the state of Florida, and her twenty-nine electoral votes, was called for Clinton’s opponent (McCarthy and Phipps 2016). The room fell silent. The North Carolina Council of State has been a fairly mixed group in recent history. In 2008, the Council of State had a majority female composition for the first time in history, with women holding six of the ten positions, including the governorship at the helm, and Democrats outnumbered Republicans eight to two. 2012 ushered in a Republican governor joined by three additional conservatives, moving the split to six-four in favour of Democrats. Often the top of the state ticket – the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, who campaign together, but are elected separately – will influence the balance for the rest of the Council. With the very tight race in 2016, the sitting Attorney General and Democratic nominee Roy Cooper would go on to win by only 10,357 votes, accounting for less than 0.22 percent of the overall votes (NC State Board of Elections 2016). As the results rolled in, it became increasingly clear that nearly half of the Council positions would not be decided that evening, with gaps as wide as 20,000 those as narrow as a few thousand, leaving room for the possibility that the counting of absentee or disputed ballots could tip the scales in either direction. Though outside the required 10,000 or fewer vote threshold required to request a recount, the attorney general and insurance commissioner were all too close to call, the governorship and Beth’s races were within this threshold and would most certainly be contested by their opponents (Campbell 2016; Jarvis and Bonner 2016). As Beth huddled in at the table with her husband, siblings and nieces and nephews, refreshing the Board of Elections website for the latest precinct results, I searched across the room, looking for hope while bracing for other expressions of disappointment. I could see Superintendent June Atkinson20 gathered around her phone, encircled by her campaign manager and a few others, watching as the gap slowly widened between her vote tally and that of her opponent. One of those around her gently took the phone out of her hand, and I watched as the Superintendent stood motionless, as if the rush of thoughts, emotions and reactions were too much to process at once and stillness was preferable to the alternative. The momentary expressionlessness gave way to tears, which quickly spread among her supporters stood close by, and soon thereafter, to me as well. In this minute, I knew only two things – that it was time to go home, even before North Carolina’s final results were called, and that I desperately wanted to include the Superintendent’s experiences in this project.

Please watch the next short film, “A Conversation with June.”21

20 Hereafter referred to as June. 21 “A Conversation with June” can be found online here: https://vimeo.com/317500292/9a870d5c43. 143 “From Manteo to Murphy”: The technical aspects of executive work and the Trump effect The day after the election, I woke up just before lunchtime, and without making a conscious decision to do so, immediately began to check the results. Although I had finally fallen asleep around 2am, delayed by the haze of celebration turned confusion that seemed to linger into the early morning hours, I quickly scrolled past the national results to shield myself from the deep disappointment and held my breath to check the result of Beth’s race. I was happy to see that her lead had risen a bit from the night before, and decided to send her a quick text message saying as much and to thank her for including me in so many of her campaign stops and allowing me into her office for the weeks leading up to the election. She replied just a few minutes later, no doubt due to the continuous stream of messages and phone calls from many different friends and party members offering similar tentative congratulations. She told me that she would not know the results for sure until at least November 18th but that I should expect a call from Renee to schedule a lunch for just the two of us to debrief and unwind after the unexpected turn of events. We met a few weeks later on December 2nd at 18 Seaboard, an upscale restaurant in a trendy, train depot conversion space in Downtown Raleigh ideal for power lunches with governmental leaders and a traditional Southern-style Sunday brunch alike. As we sat down, our first ten minutes were a steady stream of polite but repeated interruptions by people wanting to offer their well wishes and encouragement for Beth, whose election had still not yet been confirmed when we sat down to lunch. After spending the first half of our time together on her race and the ongoing recount, we shifted to discussing her friends, the fellow Democratic women of the Council of State – State Treasurer Janet Cowell, who decided not to run for a third time so that she could pursue other interests outside of state government (Binker 2015); Elaine Marshall, who beat NASCAR legend Richard Petty to become Secretary of State in 1996 and has held the position since, winning by the largest margin of any Democrat running for state-wide office in 2016 (Ballotpedia n.d.); and June, the incumbent State Superintendent of Schools who lost her re-election bid in surprise fashion (Hinchcliffe 2016). Having seen June at a number of events over the course of the campaign cycle, I shared with Beth an interest in meeting June and she kindly offered to reach out on my behalf. I asked Beth to hold off on reaching out for me, out of respect for the major transition she had to make in a relatively short amount of time. We agreed to make contact in the new year, allowing the dust to settle a bit and for June to adjust to life again outside the halls of the Department of Public Instruction. I was catching up on the local news reporting on the election outcomes and became particularly interested in the kinds of transition our local governments, state agencies and federal government would face in moving from the Obama era to that of his successor. One reporter interviewed June, documenting this transition of power and leadership to her surprise

144 replacement, during which June was deeply reflective, contemplating both her time in office and what her life post-public service would bring. “June Atkinson walked around her office last week, marvelling at the mementos she has collected during her years as North Carolina's state superintendent. Among them, flowers and notes from colleagues and a 100-pound statue of a young girl, a present from her husband to remind her that she works for the children. In a few months, it will all be gone. After 40 years at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction – the past 11 as state superintendent – Atkinson will soon be out of a job. ‘I was really very saddened and shocked that I lost the election,’ she said. ‘But life goes on, and as my minister said in church, hang in there and press on, and that’s my motto.’ Atkinson is the longest-serving state superintendent in the nation and the first woman in North Carolina to hold the job. She lost to Republican Mark Johnson, the second-youngest state- wide elected official in the country. Johnson is a lawyer and school board member in Winston- Salem/Forsyth County Schools. He received 50.6 percent of the vote in the Nov. 8 election. During an interview at her office last week, Atkinson shifted between moments of sadness, sometimes crying as she spoke about leaving the job she loves, and moments of frustration as she recalled comments Johnson made during the election, some of which she thought were unfair. ‘I have two pet peeves. One is it bothers me when people swim in the swamp of ignorance or swim in the swamp of dishonesty,’ Atkinson said. ‘It bothers me that my opponent would say disparaging things about people here in the department, that they are incompetent, that there are a bunch of bureaucrats here who don’t work well. I don’t take that personally because I know what it’s like to run for office. It’s the first time, however, I’ve run for office when I felt as if my opponent was dishonest in what he said.’ The two have not spoken about the election outcome, Atkinson said, and she doesn't know what she'll say when the time comes. She promises a smooth transition when Johnson takes over in January, but it's clear the transition will be tough.” (Hinchcliffe 2016) Beth had been in touch with June to let her know about my research and to ask if she would like to take part in some way. June quickly agreed and sent along her contact details through Beth’s scheduler. After a brief phone call, June agreed to meet for lunch the next day. As I walked into the cafe, I looked around for the Superintendent I had come to know as a student under her purview more than a decade prior, and later, as a voter who had chosen her in three election cycles – a petite woman in a bright coloured suit, heels and pearls. After failing to see this version of the Superintendent, I noticed a much more relaxed woman dressed in jeans and a sweater, comfortable flat shoes and no elaborate jewellery walking toward me with a warm smile and an extended hand. She said, “You must be Skyler – I’m June.” We ordered our lunch and stood to wait for it by the counter, with a few passers-by recognising June and offering their gratitude and support through hearty handshakes and a few hugs. We quickly sat down in a booth near the corner, immediately leaning in to both our food 145 and each other, talking about a variety of political and social issues like we had been friends for years. She had the kind of ease we often come to expect from our best political figures – the comfortable flow of regular conversation backed up by the power and depth of knowledge. She navigated between a range of topics and emotions, at times seemingly nostalgic, sharing the many student achievements reached under her tenure with great pride, and other times frustrated, articulating her displeasure at being unseated by a figure much her junior, in nearly every definition of the word. We spent a few hours together, discussing her long career, her personal life and travels with family and friends, the difficulties of the past election and her plans for the future. The most immediate of these plans was to enjoy a trip to Europe – Italy and Spain were the two main destinations for their wine and food offerings, but she and her closest girlfriends were planning to add a country or two as time and interest permit – so I knew that it was important to sit down for a filmed interview as soon as possible. We consulted our calendars and decided to meet just a few days later, this time at her home, to recount some of these same stories, and to dig a bit deeper about others, on camera. A career educator whose background in business education led her to a master’s degree, a doctorate and thirty-five years in the classroom and the Department of Public Instruction, the state agency “charged with implementing the state's public school laws for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade public schools at the direction of the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction,” June was first elected to the Council of State in 2004, making her the first woman to hold the office of State Superintendent in its then-136 year history (NC Department of Public Instruction 2019; June Atkinson Committee n.d.). In addition to the Raleigh-based INDY Week’s 2016 endorsement that read, “Given her outstanding record, Atkinson is the clear choice,” June’s re-election was supported by every major newspaper in the state’s six largest cities, the North Carolina Association of Educators, the National Organisation of Women, numerous other civic and community organisations, including several centred around the education of students of colour (The INDY 2016; June Atkinson Committee n.d.; NC Association of Educators 2016). Though a typical month would always include the meeting of the State Board of Education, the rest of the month would be filled with community forums, school visits, education conferences and other administrative meetings, with important time allocated for “traveling from ‘Manteo to Murphy,’ as we say in North Carolina, or from ‘Ellerbe to Eden,’ to meet with teachers and to see students and to see education in action,” (Atkinson 2017). June shared with me that the best preparation for holding a position at this level was a deep knowledge and understanding of the multiple facets of a department. She said, One piece of advice that I would give any woman wanting to run for state-wide office is to be flexible, and learn as much as you can about the office and prepare yourself for that role. I’ll never forget talking to a co-author of a textbook, and I said to him, ‘You know, I’ve been very

146 lucky in my life.’ I was trying to decide if I wanted to get a doctorate degree, and I said to him, ‘You know, I don’t need a doctorate for the job I [have],’ [and] I never saw myself in another role other than that role. And he said to me, ‘June have you ever thought that the reason why you may have been lucky is that you were prepared for that job?’ So my advice, for young people is to prepare yourself for that job. For example, if I were advising someone who wants to run for state superintendent, I would advise that person to make sure [they have] a doctorate, and […] teaching experience, and […] administrative experience. So I would say, the advice is, prepare yourself for the job, because you never know when you will be lucky, or it will be destined by providence, that you will be in that state-wide office,” (2017). All of this preparation, depth of knowledge and longevity in her field, she felt, was trumped by Trump. * Approaching the end of my list of prepared questions, I knew it was time to ask June about the election and its outcome. I hesitated to ask her about this because even three months out from the results, the disappointment was still quite palpable. I paused, took a deep breath, relaxed my shoulders, and asked June, “Can you tell me a little bit about this past election season, and um, the outcome, and how that’s kind of now changed your – the next part of the arc of your very long career?” She paused, took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders and replied, “Okay well, in the 2016 election, I lost to a young man who had taught for two years and who was on a local board of education. During the election, I received the endorsement of every single educational group that endorsed. I received the endorsement of every single newspaper in North Carolina. I received endorsements from groups outside public education. So when I lost, I was surprised that I lost. I believe that my opponent got several votes – and it was a very close election – got votes because of the coattails of Trump because the state superintendent’s race is a down ballot race22 and when you get down ballot, if you are a Republican, people to tend for the Republican candidate. There’s also an edge to being listed first on the ballot. I was not listed first on the ballot. All those little minor components added up to my losing the election. So I was surprised, disappointed, and my feelings were hurt. But, in knowing life, you have to pick yourself up and go to the next phase of your life. I’m doing my best not to think and to do ‘I wish I had,’ or ‘I shoulda, coulda,’ as the saying goes, to not look back and try to move forward in what will be my next phase of life.” In thinking through experiences of these two prominent North Carolina female leaders, they seem to suggest that in order to hold some of the highest offices in North Carolina state government, women have to be well-known, well-liked, well-spoken and well-behaved; yet, at

22 A race is considered ‘down ballot’ when it appears below several other major offices. In 2016, the State Superintendent was listed twelfth. 147 any point, they could face a very narrow win, despite having major endorsements and nearly a decade of solid performance in that role, or a very narrow defeat, replaced by a less qualified person, aided by the swell of misogyny permeating political culture from the top of the ticket down to last elected official on the ballot.

Learning to connect “The other piece of advice is – learn how to connect to the emotions of people. If you cannot tell a story, and if you cannot appeal to the emotions of people, your chances of winning a race will be lessened. So be able to find ways to touch the hearts of people. And when you’re able to touch the hearts of the people, it will be much easier to open the minds for you to be a winner in a state- wide office.”- June Much like the commitment to connecting with every voter across the state drove Beth to attend a community college meet and greet, June deeply valued the connection between herself and her constituents, attempting to bridge the gap between perceptions of elected officials and her day to day reality. She told me about a kind exchange with one of the employees of a greeting card store: “I remember going to a Hallmark shop here in Raleigh, and the lady behind the desk said, ‘Oh, you’re June Atkinson the State Superintendent, and I see you in here and I’ve told my friends that you’re just a common person.’ And so, that’s what I would like people to know – my life has all the same responsibilities as a typical person.” As the first women in their respective roles, Beth and June find themselves carrying out the delicate balance between approachability with strong and proven subject expertise, highlighting an unfair, yet persistent set of gender biases facing women holding elected offices. Exploring the educational and career pathways that have led to their election as state-wide officers reveals the complicated relationship between the practical and psychological impacts of this line of work. Examining the hectic agenda of running for re-election while still holding that office and being both expected and required to maintain high quality work, creates a kind of stress that is acutely felt by women, upon whom a specific set of gendered expectations are placed. It is imperative that we explore the paths that led them to elected office, the experiences and encounters they have faced, and how hierarchical structures affect their ability to carry out their elective duties.

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149 Chapter Six

“The thing I want people to know the most is that it’s not about me. And I ran on that, I believe that in my soul. That what I do is not for me. I am the vessel that is being used to implement change and do wonderful things in my community or to prevent bad things from happening in my community, which is what the [North Carolina General Assembly] has been more about. But I have been able to do some positive things, and in doing so, I had to give up maybe some of the accolades and be a little bit more low key, it was fine. Let someone else take the lead […] was fine because it wasn’t about me. I do it truly for the community.” – Yvonne Lewis Holley, 2017 As a constituent of District 38 and a past campaign volunteer for Representative Yvonne Lewis Holley23, it was a natural fit for my research to spend a significant amount of time with this local legislative leader. Having worked for twenty-five years across state government, and retiring from her position as a Procurement and Contract Specialist in the Department of Administration, Yvonne began to seek public office, first running for the state House of Representatives in 2012 and winning re-election in 2014, 2016 and again in 2018 (Committee to Elect Yvonne Lewis Holley 2016; Ballotpedia 2019). Yvonne’s candidacies have been covered in a number of media outlets and posts by key progressive organizations. The Editorial Board of the Raleigh-based News and Observer said this about her in their 2016 endorsement edition, Yvonne Lewis Holley, 64, is the incumbent in this east Raleigh district, and the opposition of Libertarian Olen Watson III isn’t going to deny her another term. Holley, a retired state employee, is a member of an old Raleigh family that included, of course, her father, the late J.D. Lewis, for decades a personality for Capitol Broadcasting. Holley is effective, and she reaches out to her constituents. She recognizes that as a Democrat there’s a limit to what she can accomplish on Jones Street, but that doesn’t keep her from trying and getting things done to help her district. That’s the best she can do, and she’s doing it, and wins our endorsement without hesitation,” (2016). Also connecting to her family history and local roots, PoliticaNC, a group founded by independent, female activists based in Wake County, wrote this in their endorsement: “Growing up she watched and learned from community leaders and her father, JD Lewis. Lewis was also Director of Minority Affairs for WRAL-TV. JD Lewis, an iconic broadcasting legend, host and editorialist on WRAL TV, contributed significantly to the positive dialogue between polarized sectors during an epic time in the nation’s history. The dedicated work of her father, community leaders, business leaders, and institutions resulted in significant growth and development in our state. This influence has followed her throughout her commitment to community service which has included work in education, health, financial, youth development and political advocacy.

23 Hereafter referred to as Yvonne.

150 Coupled with more than three decades in government, her aggregate experience has placed Yvonne in a unique position of leadership to address our community’s collective concerns. This has impacted her belief in the power of people to speak the truth, fight for what is right and work to affect the issues that impact them — namely, jobs, education and a robust business environment. Yvonne believes that ‘healthy dialogue’ is a lost art in today’s political climate and she hopes to bring that back to the State House.” (2016)

Please now watch the final short film, “Conversations with Yvonne.”24

In viewing the careers of women like Yvonne, June and Beth side- by -side, different experiences directly related to the race and gender of political figures begin to emerge. Yvonne tells us about three key aspects of her time as a state legislator in this film and in the above quotes – first, her desire to represent her community and the broad range of people, institutions and ideas that this entity contains; second, the immense pressure put on progressive candidates, overwhelmingly those of colour, who must fashion themselves as elected officials working with shifting borders related directly to their socioeconomic background, and; thirdly, that the ability to have a seat at the table is largely dictated by one’s position both as a racialized and gendered political figure.

A ‘short’ session and an election – the summer of 2016 Living a mere ten minutes away from my family home, I began and ended many days of my fieldwork at Yvonne’s downtown Raleigh home, familiarising myself with the spaces and faces she regularly encountered. I drove over to her house in late March, finding her car in the driveway, just in front of a table surrounded by chairs and of chaise lounges, and with matching red and cream coloured cushions. I could hear some chatting as I walked down the driveway, and soon saw Yvonne sitting at the table with a neighbour who lives a few streets over. As she was out for a walk, this neighbour saw Yvonne and decided to stop in to discuss the most recent special session that was called by the Republican leadership to implement House Bill 2. The formal short session was due to begin in just a few short weeks, and although there were standing committee hearings and her own office meetings to attend, this was one of only a handful of afternoons left to enjoy the breeze under her carport, with just her dog, her radio and her own thoughts. I watched in admiration as Yvonne was quite calmly handling the wrath of her constituent who was speaking in a raised voice with gesticulations to match, clearly very upset by the recent enactment of HB 2. After seeing me approach the driveway, her neighbour finished with a brief goodbye, saying to Yvonne, “I know you’ll do what you can!” We passed each other along the driveway, and as she

24 “Conversations with Yvonne” can be found online here: https://vimeo.com/317500512/7ff2928cd9. 151 walked back to her home, I sat down next to Yvonne and greeted Moses. Yvonne looked up at me and said, “And that happens to me almost every day.” While all state Representatives and Senators are required to live in the districts they represent, there’s a special kind of closeness between Yvonne and her community, due in some part to its size – contained all in the same county with a dense population – but due in large part to the community’s ties to her family and, in particular, her father, J.D. Lewis, a long-time broadcaster at North Carolina’s largest local television station, WRAL-TV, and among the first African-Americans to hold such a prominent role in Raleigh and its surrounding areas. He was an important figure for Black families, reaching their homes every evening to deliver the news, bringing not only a flair for storytelling but as a representation of Black excellence and prominence in a post-Jim Crow North Carolina. In a nod to this desegregation of public and entertainment spaces, such as dance halls and music venues, her father hosted a popular weekend dance television show, where local teens of all backgrounds could come to the WRAL studios and dance to the latest songs. Yvonne even hosted a dance-themed fundraiser last election cycle, once again bringing together constituents, activists and donors of diverse backgrounds for a night of unity and entertainment. Having become accustomed to interrupted lunch conversations, being approached in the hallway or having a neighbour drop by, I asked Yvonne during our filmed interview, “What’s the experience like having the tag on your car [required license place that includes the state seal, her chamber of the General Assembly and House of Representatives seat number] or going to the grocery store and being there for an hour and having people walk up to you–” Through laughter, she interrupted me, saying, “–You mean having no privacy and no life?” As we both laughed, she continued, You know, I’d say that’s probably been the most difficult thing to deal with. I have had a couple of experiences where people have literally followed me through stores to have a discussion after Christmas, when you’ve done bad bills, you know, they want to give you a piece of their mind. But it’s always constructive, but it’s also intrusive sometimes. I don’t mind a little bit, but you know, sometimes it is a little bit overwhelming, the lack of privacy. By me representing Raleigh, and the Legislature being here in Raleigh, the people here in my community are more aware of what’s going on in the General Assembly. So they want that daily dialogue. I’m able to come home at night and I’m able to participate in a lot of community activities, even when we’re working in the General Assembly. So it gives me more opportunities to be up close with my constituents. And my district is compact, so physically I don’t have to do the seven or eight counties that some people have to do. I don’t even know how they do that.” This kind of persistent presence at churches, community centres, business launches, political rallies and more can really run you ragged, and I would often not realise just how exhausted I was until many days after a very busy stretch of events I attended alongside Yvonne.

152 Although you cannot formally fundraise from the biggest donors until after the session, as Yvonne shared, being so close to the Legislative Building means that she is expected to be an active part of the daily life of her constituency, creating a kind of schedule crunch that many of her colleagues from other parts of the state simply do not have. This is an overlap between the legislative session, presence within her constituency and the campaign season can create a great deal of stress and exhaustion and sometimes leads to struggles with her physical and mental health. When she finds herself already fighting what she believes to be a difficult and, at times, impossible battle in her day job, Yvonne confided in me that it is often very hard to put on a happy and energized face to go meet with constituents, who not only want to discuss that same taxing job, but to also want to be energised and motivated to do their community work by their community’s leader. I asked Yvonne about what has surprised her most in this role and what she would like more people to know about her to which, she replied, There are a lot of things that the constituents [have brought to me], problems and situations that have arisen that I was unaware of. The homelessness and the people in the hotels, the families in the hotels, is one of these issues. I had not realised how many people had become invisible and had fallen through the cracks. My career has basically been business and commerce and economic development. But the needs of my community now are food and housing. And I’m upset that we’re having to go back and fight for things that should be understood and should be a given by now, if we had things like living wages and respect for people. I think there’s a lack of respect for people in general now. So I feel like my job is to kind of pull as much together as I can and connect people – that’s all I can do. And when a bill comes up, I do whatever I can to make sure those bills have something that protects my community or that enhances my community. If I can get something in the budget that will benefit them, I work very hard to do that.” * Similar to the emergence of HB 2 as the General Assembly’s attempt to exert its control over local government, Senate Bill 881 was created by State Senator Tommy Tucker, a Republican representing Senate District 35, to prevent the school board in Union County, which sits within his district, from suing its county’s board of commissioners, the local level legislative body tasked with allocating county tax funding to the various departments including public schools (NC Senate 2016). A few years prior, a fight had erupted between the two groups , with the school board arguing that they were chronically underfunded and needed to take legal action to ensure enough money to carry out their duties, a viewpoint shared by other school boards across the state that were also considering this same action (Bell and Helms 2014). Because the ongoing battle spawned subsequent appeals and similar legal steps in other counties, the bill was being put forth to the Senate and House in the summer of 2016 and many of the bill’s ardent supporters, as well as the opposing voices like Yvonne, stood before their colleagues to speak out for the official 153 record (Ball 2016). Using a Steph Curry metaphor that got everyone’s attention, Yvonne likened the proposal to unfairly changing the game at that late stage. She began, “Now, we know we’re all in the middle some basketball [playoffs], and [lot of fans are] upset because that guy, what’s his name? Steph Curry… he can make some three pointers.” Particularly in this late summer session, when the Republicans had grown comfortable in their supermajority and had shored up enough support for any measure before it even reached the floor for the formal vote tally and had used their veto overriding power several times before, floor speeches often became a formality, rather than any kind of impactful speech that would change the outcome of the vote. For this particular vote, many of her colleagues, who were comfortably ignoring the successive floor speeches that had become like background noise, were reading on their phones or tablets, chatting with one another or staring blankly ahead. As soon as she uttered that opening line, she had them hooked. There was laughter across the floor and gallery, and with that command of attention, she continued her analogy, likening the disgruntled, anti-Curry crowd to the group motivated to put forth this bill. She carried on, So somebody says, ‘Well, let’s change the rules of the game, I don’t like three pointers. So we’re going to change the rules of the game so that three pointers are no longer allowed. Well, the coach may be out, you may have a couple of players injured, but you’re in the middle of the season, and in the middle of the game. And that’s where we are here, with this legislation. Those people were voted in to do something for their county and to represent their school boards, and you’re now trying to change the game on them in the middle of the game. That’s not fair. And I don’t think we should be supporting this. We need to let the vote go down as it should in 2016.” Although she was unable to sway any significant number of Republican votes – the measure passed its third and final reading by 79 to 35 in favour of the moratorium – the visible and sensory shift in the room was palpable, with Republican leadership using a procedural tactic to stop the open period allotted for comments shortly after her statement. She looked forward to these moments – the ones that allowed her colleagues to see and hear her, in her own words, told with the kind of personal tenor that reveals who she is both as person and politician – that fosters a unique kind of relationship amongst her counterparts. People listen when she speaks, and although the extent to which that translates into tangible legislative outcomes, the relationship and respect building that occurs in these moments means that she can call on this power when negotiating on behalf of her bills and constituents. Becoming part of committee or party leadership, securing important fundraising goals and campaign support, and having the general backing of your constituency are all among the many ways that these women measures their success, but one of the most apparent places for achievement as a legislator is simply turning an idea into a funded law. This definitive yet often ellusive task that sits

154 at the heart of life as a legislator is all but a given when your party is in power, where securing the necessary votes and leadership support are much easier to come by; but during this era of conservative leadership, I wondered how women like Yvonne, who are working within wider racialized and gendered structures, including with her own party, committees of which she is a member and the House of Representatives structure at large, while battling the financial aspects of state political life, inclusive of relatively low pay and struggles to fundraise, and juggling family, community and network obligations, carve out spaces for themselves and find moments of success. As seen with the success of House Bill 250, analysed in the chapter to follow, and the ongoing discussions about affordable and accessible housing interrogated in chapter six, without these key moments of performance, where her colleagues stop and take notice of her vision and voice, she would not be able to effectively exist within this political environment. * By law, sitting legislators like Representative Holley, which includes the women and men who are already in office and who are running for re-election, cannot accept certain financial support from donors, such as political action committees25, lobbying groups and institutions and even some large private donations, until after the final gavel drops and the legislative session is legally finished (Ballotpedia 2019; NC State Board of Elections 2019). This is to prevent donors and special interest groups from ‘buying votes,’ or at least the image of such, and although there are other forms of achieving the same result, as I sometimes saw from a few very persuasive lobbyists, the codification of strict guidelines around giving to candidates often means that they use their own private funds, or family funds, to pay for their campaign needs. This already eliminates many others who would wish to run – even for Yvonne’s relatively small campaign, as she Is in a district drawn specifically for a left-leaning candidate to win, she has raised at minimum, $24,009 to pay her campaign manager and treasurer, help cover radio and television ads, the designing and printing of yard signs and palm cards, food and drinks for events, transportation to and from her big events, lunches and dinners to thank her volunteers, among the myriad of other events and tasks associated with a legislative and election year (Ballotpedia 2019). In addition to the stress of fundraising, Yvonne must maintain a level of visibility at a variety of events, both within her condensed district and across the region and state. As the legislative session drew to a close in late July, Yvonne and I sat together at her home, sometimes around her dining room table and occasionally under the carport during those nice times when the temperature would allow, stuffing envelopes full of campaign materials along with donation requests to be sent to both small and large donors. Once we had exhausted every mailing list of past contributors, campaign supporters, Democratic Party members, PACs, women’s groups, churches and businesses in the local area, I would sometimes sit with her to offer some moral support when she picked up the phone to make the oft dreaded financial

25 Hereafter referred to as PACs. 155 solicitation call. As a thank you for that support, and as a means of widening my research network, Yvonne took me as her plus one to dozens of the fundraisers she was hosting and those of her colleagues and friends running for office as well. We spent the latter half of the summer sweating our way through backyard barbeques and sipping drinks at swanky events in exclusive venues; perhaps the nicest of these was indeed her own fundraiser, co-hosted with then-Representative Duane Hall at Babylon. After leaving a morning meeting of a local organisation that deals with the homelessness of children and families, on whose Board of Advisors she is an active member, I was relieved to hear from Yvonne that she, Representative Hall and their campaign staff were planning to arrive at the evening’s fundraiser space early to set up and that I was not needed. Delighted to be in attendance as a supporter with no hosting assignments to greet guests, gather their donations and contact details or hand out nametags, I went home to rest and catch up on my field notes, as the week had already been quite busy and it was only Tuesday afternoon. With November 8th only three weeks away, the final push toward Election Day meant every day was filled with fundraisers to help shore up some final financial support, rallies with the major candidates to energise voters and the regular office duties of our executive branch officers like Beth and June. As it is sometimes want to do, the summer temperatures lingered well into autumn, and although there had been a slight dip earlier that day, I decided to wear a long, sleeveless dress made of a multi- coloured, flowy material and carry a light sweater for after sunset. Arriving just a few minutes after the start of the event, I should not have been so surprised that parking options were already quite limited. This was, after all, one of the newest hot spots in a great location, so the fundraiser was likely to be very popular. Walking up to the entrance, I could see a group of about twenty people stood by the tables set up in order to check attendees against the RSVP list, with any newcomers quickly added to the Representative’s campaign mailing lists. Tickets for the event began at $50 and could go up from there when additional donation amounts were added. Though seatmates, good friends and Representatives from opposite ends of the same county, there was more than just a geographical gap between the fundraiser’s hosts. There was a good deal of overlap between the political supporters of the two, with both Representatives taking in similar amounts from PAC, business and lobbying figures in attendance; the separation between the two existed in the demographics of their other supporters and constituents in attendance. Yvonne told her supporters, many of whom could not afford the high price tag to come along and donate what they could. Much like the coalition built by the Obama campaign, and many other people of colour to run for office in the 2016 and 2018 elections, Yvonne knew that to reach her fundraising goals, she would need to encourage her supporters to give $5, $10 or $20, anything they could really. Donation by donation, she would buy the materials she needed in small batches – 1,000 palm cards one week, 250 yard signs the next,

156 delaying updates to her website so that she could pay the people who would assist her in distributing materials and attending events on her behalf – grateful for those to those for whom $10 is a sacrifice, but who trust and believe in her enough to support her campaign in whatever way they can. I was happy to find Yvonne and her co-host making their way through the attendees, offering bright smiles, shaking hands and giving out hugs, connecting to the near one hundred friends, colleagues, community advocates, legislative staff members and campaign volunteers who have supported them and their candidacies. Pausing her conversation to greet me, Yvonne walked toward me in a bright blue suit that nearly matched the sparkling pool and fountain positioned in the middle of the courtyard. She brought me into the group and explained my role as researcher, campaign supporter and friend, and while I continued to chat with this small group of supporters, Yvonne slipped away to greet a new group of people arriving, a hosting manoeuvre she has mastered that allows her to gracefully move from one group to the next. After a bit of time away, taking some photographs, and chatting with her classmate Randy, I found Yvonne again and asked her how the night was going. She leaned into me and whispered that by her early estimations, she would only take in nearly half of what her co-host would. My jaw must have dropped at that time because she carefully held onto my right arm and said that it’s all part of “understanding the game.” Putting it that way, she told me, would allow her to free herself from chasing unrealistic goals, from comparing herself to others who seemingly had a far easier time raising larger amounts of money, and to then refocus her energy and attention to the areas she could control, the money she could access and to the communities she could help. Despite their closeness as colleagues and friends, competition for financial support between legislators does exist, particularly within densely populated counties like Yvonne’s, where several electoral districts exist and on behalf of which many of the female legislators serve. Yvonne’s statements here are an acknowledgment of the gender and racial dynamics at play – despite having served for the same length of time with similar standing within the party, the outcome of the fundraiser is starkly different for each representative. Yvonne faced the uphill battle of tapping into this wider pool of funds because men, as the largest group of donors in the country, are more likely to give to other men, while also acknowledging that African-Americans and women were less likely, and at times less capable, of donating such resources. The disproportionate amount of money female candidates are able to raise in comparison to male candidates is staggering, and is one of the most fundamental roadblocks to women finding success in elections (Ackley 2018; Barber et. al 2016; Overby 2018). Women donate more money than men to female candidates, and this was particularly true of the 2016, when sixty percent of Hillary Clinton’s donors were women, and in the most recent midterm election in 2018 (Gold 2015; Newburger 2018; Zernicke 2018); however, there is still gap between the financial resources of many female candidates running for office and the financial support their male 157 counterparts receive. I asked all of my informants about the difficulty of fundraising and June’s response was particularly relevant, given her recent loss. I remember someone who said to me when I asked, ‘How much money do you have to raise for an election?,’ their reply was just, ‘More than your opponent. My opponent raised more money and he was really strategic [in his use of that money]. Statistics show that more money is given to men per person than money given to women, so women have to open their pocketbooks to other women because that’s very important. And women have to recognize that other women running for state office will not be in competition with you – there has to be more collaborative support for women who want to run for office. We have to support each other. And if we support each other, then women have a much better chance of being in state-wide political office.” * When election night came and Yvonne securely won her district by nearly eighty-five percent of the vote, her gratitude at another chance to make a major legislative push was slightly tempered by the boundaries of the district itself. Her district and twenty-seven others were deemed to have been illegally drawn to pack a high percentage of Black voters into specific districts to dilute their votes just a few months before the election (United States District Court 2016). Having already gone through the process of redistricting when she first ran in 2012, which made it difficult to campaign and garner local support as her constituency fluctuated following the 2010 census, she knew that this would mean another adjustment to the district in which she would run (North Carolina General Assembly 2019). A similar ruling found the state’s Congressional districts to be unconstitutionally drawn as well and the ongoing saga over district boundaries continues today (Doran and Murphy 2018; Bonner 2018). Writing about the redistricting case for the New York Times, Jacobs states, “Since their takeover of the state’s General Assembly in 2010, Republicans have devised district maps and pushed through voter identification laws that have prompted a series of high-profile court cases. In a state that retained literacy tests until the 1970s, the potential for disenfranchisement of Black voters is at the core of the continuing debate. The state’s Republican politicians have defended the strict voter ID rules by saying they’re meant to prevent fraud, including unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter impersonation. Now, the possibility of a different sort of election fraud has gripped the state,” (2018) This pressure of redistricting – the shift in the fault lines of their districts that, in such a densely populated, urban district, could be just one street or one neighbourhood away from winning or losing an election – directly affected Yvonne and her progressive colleagues, as these districts were drawn as such to target Black voters, who largely vote for Democrats, and many of whom are represented by Black elected officials.

158 I sent a text to Yvonne the following day to see how she was spending the final few hours with her daughter who flew in from New York to help with the final days of the election. Her initial reply was simply, “Heartbreaking. Stressful.” A few days later, I checked in again on November 11th, because I began to hear grumblings across social media that the Republican leaders, unhappy with the surprise victory of several left-leaning judges that helped tilt the state Supreme Court to the left, would call an extra special session. Calling for this special session under the guise of providing additional financial relief and resources to the parts of our state devastated by Hurricane Matthew, Yvonne shared with me that the legislative leaders were considering a move to add two additional judges to the Supreme Court who would be appointed by the outgoing Governor who had just narrowly lost to his Democratic challenger. In the wake of national disappointment among progressives and the shockwaves sent throughout the entire country, Yvonne was furious, and called it “power grabbing at its best.” Though the provision to add additional justices was removed, the special session ultimately did include a number of moves to shift power away from the governor and into the hands of the legislative leaders who retained their positions: “HB17 [gave] the state Senate authority to confirm or reject the governor’s selections for Cabinet positions, slashe[d] the number of political appointees the governor can have from 1,500 to 425, move[d] some authority from the State Board of Education to the Republican elected last month as schools superintendent, Mark Johnson, and prevent[ed] the governor from appointing members of the boards of trustees for UNC system schools,” (Jarvis 2016). The session did not end until December 21st, and for Yvonne, these additional weeks spent in limbo down in the House chamber while still reeling from the election fallout where many of her colleagues and friends lost their re-election bids, meant that her Christmas season was usurped by stress, disappointment, and moments of real anger. I woke up early on the 23rd of December to finalise my own Christmas shopping that had also been usurped by the goings on downtown. I poured my second cup of coffee in a travel mug, hoping it would provide an additional boost I would need to battle the holiday rush, and received a message from Yvonne that read, “Would you like to go to breakfast or lunch? I’m pushing through the depression and trying to get in the Christmas spirit?” I ran a few errands and then met her for lunch at 1pm. We sat and talked for hours, attempting to process the year – the session, the campaign, Election Day and all the fallout. We exchanged some small Christmas gifts, including a Christmas sweater and matching hat for her dog, and a wreath made of magnolia leaves adorned with a holiday bow my Mom made to hang in Yvonne’s kitchen. Later in the evening, Yvonne sent me two pictures – one of Moses in his new outfit and the wreath beautifully displayed above her dining room table – and said, “I’m tickled. It feels like Christmas.”

159 “A seat at the table” - The intersectional experience in elective office One of the most striking statements Yvonne made to me was about the relationship between the history of race in the United States and the current state of political and social culture. She shared with me that she felt she had to go back to her youth and the early days of her career when she was one of the only Black people in her office, and to think through the survival tactics and strategies she employed to combat racism. That training – that unique training from growing up in the 60s – [helped me] understand the role that people play. I understand that, in the 60s, if it wasn’t for the Black Panther Party and Malcom X and that movement, people would not have listened as much as they could have to a Martin Luther King. They each played a unique role in that process. And they all knew it was all for the same goal and they let each other play that role. So you have the one with the big stick and then you have the non-violent one who’s talking about reconciliation. And all of them were fighting the same battle and there was a mutual respect. So even now when they talk about Reverend Barber, ‘oh he says too much! he says too much!’ [to me,] he plays an integral role of reminding us every day of the morality of the bills and things we [produce]. Do they hate him for it? Yes. Do I love him for it? Yes, because he brings it to our attention. So if they don’t want to deal with Reverend Barber, come to me. Because I have that same philosophy, the same belief, I just handle it a little differently. Or if you don’t like the way that I handle it, then go to someone else who has a different role that plays it a different way. But – let’s work together, because we have options too, and we vary in our own cultural experiences. A younger person, a millennial – we did not teach our children about racism. I did not equip my daughter to do some of the things I had to do because the times were different for her. Now, I’m having to go back and say, this is how you do it. That’s the thing that hurts my heart. I’m having to educate my intern to say, this is how you do it. I’m having to go back and teach our history to our children. I wondered why my parents never talked about the hardships they went through, [but it was] because of the hardships they didn’t want for my generation. And I didn’t teach my child because I didn’t want it for her generation. But now, that generation is being exposed to some of it and we’re having to pull them in and educate them so that they can handle it. And decide what role they will play in this battle. And what kind of part will they be in this struggle.” When viewing this kind of self-awareness regarding the impact of racism in light of the difficulties in securing financial resources for campaigns, the ongoing issues of redistricting, and the battle while in office to have both a presence within key committees and the power to take the lead on party and legislative issues, it becomes quite clear that this seat at the table is not so secure. Whereas Beth speaks with great pride and confidence about women’s abilities to reach across the aisle and negotiate to find pockets of compromise among political leaders, women like

160 Yvonne face these more regular occurrences of vulnerability and erasure. Crenshaw writes this of intersectionality and its approach to grappling with the complexity of living at the meeting point of multiple forms of oppression: Black women are sometimes excluded from feminist theory and antiracist policy discourse because both are predicated on a discrete set of experiences that often does not accurately reflect the interaction of race and gender. These problems of exclusion cannot be solved simply by including Black women within an already established analytical structure. Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated. Thus, for feminist theory and antiracist policy discourse to embrace the experiences and concerns of Black women, the entire framework that has been used as a basis for translating ‘women's experience’ or ‘the Black experience’ into concrete policy demands must be rethought and recast.” (140) As the dialogue around feminism and antiracism fail to fully capture the complexity of life as a Black woman, it becomes vital that we view the lives and careers of Black female political leaders through such techniques as ethnography to begin to capture the uniqueness of their experiences. With the number of women serving in political office skyrocketing across the country in response to the 2016 election, I would argue that maintaining an active female presence within government requires particular attention to the multiple areas of political life – a commitment to recruiting qualified candidates, succouring their campaigns from the beginning through to Election Day, and sustaining this support while they are in office. For Black women’s experiences in particular, it is more critical than ever to assess the daily routines and regular interactions, fundraising roadblocks and campaign strategies and legislative initiatives and successful bill passages all experienced and carried out by Black women to analyse the multimodal impact of both racist and sexist structures embedded within political culture that impact their ability to lead and succeed. Invoking the stories of the Civil Rights era from her youth and the spirit of Shirley Chisolm as a key figure who paved the way for her and others like her to run for and win elective office, Yvonne seeks to bring together this awareness of black historical moments as sources of strength and confidence within this discriminatory environment.

Finding community in one another At many points throughout my fieldwork, the political landscape felt unfamiliar. The shocking language once thought to be said behind closed doors was plastered across television screens and newspaper headlines (New York Times 2016). Both my informants and I looked for sites of refuge, those areas where our voices were heard, our ideas were validated and our work was valued. For my informants, this often meant their own community. This thesis’ concern with community stems from many roots – from the repeated use of the word by politicians, donors, the media and constituencies, in discussing the term and its 161 persistence in the political realm, the relationship between community and their political leaders themselves, and my own interest in reflecting on the roles and ways in which these women, nearly all of whom represent me, in the many manifestations of the word, serves as examples for and of their communities. Community here means physical spaces such as a neighborhood or workplace, but also the kinship ties developed through the employment of community as a symbolic term, connecting people through a mutual and vested interest in one another. Community also stands in for such large concepts as gender and race, as the women working within this political environment often see their roles and work as being in and of one another’s, tying one woman to the many others, and in the case for Black women, forever shaping, influencing and linking their work to the greater narrative of all Black political figures as well. I asked Yvonne directly how she would define community. Community can be the country. Community can be the state, and I do see the state as part of the community. But when I speak of this community, I am speaking of my particular constituency, the district which I live in, which is very multicultural. It’s probably one of the most diverse districts in the county that I’m in, and I must represent them all, and I try to represent them all and think about them when we’re doing legislation because it’s real important that you think about how this will affect this population. But community also includes the African-American community because I feel there, I have a personal responsibility. That I value it, and I bear that, having been a child of the 60s and 70s and [what was] fought for through the Civil Rights [Movement]. So I accept that responsibility. I do represent African-Americans and I try to make sure that they have a voice, whether they’re in my district or not. So that’s a community within itself, that’s part of my cultural community. Then there’s my neighbourhood, and my immediate community. It all depends on the setting and the environment that we’re in, but we’re all connected. And until we begin to see each other, and see the similarities, we’re going to continue to have problems,” (2016). In thinking about the professional limitations Yvonne, June and Beth have faced, and the continuing battle to balance self with work, family, community and career, often finding it difficult to separate these various realms in any substantive or sustainable way, and the weight of the burden to represent these multiple communities as well as themselves, in a variety of capacities, I then began asking just how they find sites for leadership, power and influence inside as well as outside of this formal political structure? Yvonne finds the implementation and funding for House Bill 250 and its ability to provide space for and access to affordable, healthy foods in food deserts across the state incredibly gratifying, the process around which is discussed in depth in the following chapter (NC House of Representatives 2016; Holley 2017). For June, this was apparent in the great pride she took in recalling the dramatic improvements to literacy achievement, increasing the graduation rate from 68% at the start of her tenure to an all-time high of 86% in

162 2016, greatly expanding the career and technical education offerings in public schools, with the number of students now holding business industry credentials topping more 155,000, and ensured greater support for educators and public schools across the state (Atkinson 2017; Billman 2017; NC Department of Public Instruction 2016). Beth finds great accomplishment in the wide range of audits and resulting regulatory improvements made in her previous eight years at the helm of her agency, including overseeing the compilation of a complex and multi-dimensional audit that would offer the first ever complete and in-depth review of the Medicaid program in all of North Carolina’s one hundred counties (NC Office of the State Auditor 2017; Wood 2017). All three women were vocal about the importance of linking their ability to overcome repeated examples of sexism and racism to reach unprecedented statistical outcomes for the students, families, taxpayers, local governments and agencies across the state of North Carolina. During our filmed interview, Beth shared more with me about the sexual harassment she experienced in her early days as a CPA. She stated, There were a couple of issues, when I was in a CPA firm. There were no women partners in the particular office that I worked in. In fact, there were three offices in the eastern part of the state and there were no female partners, and it didn’t look as if there were going to be any, anytime soon, early on in my career. I did find that when I was with the CPA firm, I had two instances of sexual harassment. And I was scared to death to go tell anybody about it because I thought it would come back and be my fault. I’m a female. I like to dress up. I like to be attractive, and I work on that, and I felt like the mindset would be she was asking for it. She’s a female and this is one of the reasons why we can’t put females out as supervisors or a manager or even a partner, because they’ll run into this constantly. As I was trying to move up in the corporate world, I did experience two (more) instances of sexual harassment by clients, and I was afraid to go back and tell those that I reported to because again, I thought it would be used against me and not allow me to move up that corporate ladder. As I moved on in my career, I just made sure that that was not going to hold me back, and I stood up to the situations I encountered like that and I moved on. Eventually, our profession is very inviting of women CPAs and so the profession itself has changed a lot since 1984 when I graduated from East Carolina University. It’s changed a lot and more women are accepted. But I absolutely – I absolutely – encountered and endured some of that early in my career.” June echoed a similar tale of mistreatment in the workplace, sharing more about the examples of sexist behaviour from her colleagues within state government. From her extensive history working within the Department of Public Instruction and as its chief officer for twelve years, she often recognised that this process of trustworthiness that women working in the department experience was directly linked to the silencing of women’s ideas and outputs, and actively worked to remedy this while in her leadership role. She recalled, 163 I have found in my work, typically speaking, a woman has to prove that she is trustworthy before she is accepted. The woman has to prove that she can lead, that she can administer, that she can support and that she can bring about change. And so a woman has to prove herself; where I’ve found that men who have won a state-wide political office are automatically found to be trustworthy until they do something that makes them not trustworthy. I found as a state-wide political holder, and as a woman, that I had to work really, really hard to gain the respect and the trust of my colleagues, of people in the Department of Public Instruction, local school officials and the general assembly. I knew that, and so I tried very hard to gain that trust. I did that by saying what I would do and then taking steps to make that happen and to have follow up. The other thing that I found different is that men, for the most part, are able to speak their minds and then to change their minds, whereas women, I have found, were considered harsh if they were as direct as I have seen men be. So I felt as if I had to be more tactful to find ways to get my point across, in ways that would not be direct, or that would make people turn in a different direction. The other thing I’ve noticed as part of a state-wide office is that in meetings with people – when you’re meeting with males and females – and a female makes a really good recommendation, if that is at the beginning of a meeting, then that female is ignored, or that suggestion is ignored. Then there will be lots of discussion, and then a male will make that same point and everyone hops on that to say, ‘oh that’s a great idea!’ So one of the things I tried to do as a state Superintendent, when I see that happen – and it’s happened to me lots of times – to come back to say, ‘Well you know, John just brought up the same idea that Sally did about fifteen minutes ago, so I guess our discussion has helped to see how viable Sally’s idea is.’ For these women, their work within the party, influencing and encouraging other women to run for office, supporting and endorsing the campaigns of new and returning female candidates, and working with them either as fellow members of the Council of State or as governmental colleagues across the various branches and levels of government, was a major part of their platforms as candidate and their working structure as executives. These similar experiences generate a shared sense of community, one that encompasses the wealth of different situations in which women may find themselves that all stem from the white, patriarchal methods of exclusion, harassment and mismatched treatment of men and women embedded into the framework of governmental agencies. As Chapters Five and Six have explored the passageways along which these women have formed their personal and professional lives, leading them to hold some of the highest positions within their respective branches of government, it is immensely important for an analysis of political life for female candidates, particularly for women of colour who seek elected office, for whom specific racial and gender tropes abound, and whose folding seats at the table are even

164 more vulnerable to collapse. For legislative leaders like Yvonne, the persistence of food and housing insecurities in her district means that bills that directly address these issues are given a great deal of her time and attention. During the interviews conducted for her short film, Yvonne emphasised the impact of both race and gender within the legislative space. It is an integral part of every day. Every day, someone reminds me I’m a female. And every day, somebody reminds me I’m African-American. In some way or another. It’s subtle. Nothing is in your face, but it’s there. It also affects how we [as legislators] interact with each other and I’ve tried to bring attention to some issues. Let me tell you the biggest thing – and the biggest thing is with the food desert bill.”

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167 Chapter Seven

Summers in the South can be brutal. Though linens and cottons replace the tweeds and wools of the fall and winter months, the air is thick and travels through even the lightest of materials, clinging to your skin like a sticky substance. Being a public servant in the summer months is a delicate balance between respecting professional dress codes and trying desperately not to faint from the heat. The North Carolina State Legislature even includes mention of the dress code in its rules of order passed in each legislative session that, while requiring jacket and ties for men and a suitable professional equivalent for female members, leaves room open for less rigid and heavy clothing in the summer season (NC House of Representatives 2017). With their busy travel schedules and hours spent in their offices, committee rooms and House and Senator floors, any free moment that lawmakers can have during this season is spent seeking some respite from the noise, the stress and the heat. I passed many hours under Yvonne’s outdoor carport, enjoying the breezes that pass through the open walls, the cool winds of the outdoor ceiling fans and a glass of something cold. Yvonne’s home is part of Raleigh’s racial, social and economic history. Founded in the 1960s, her neighbourhood, Madonna Acres, sits on a thirteen-acre plot of land located in downtown Raleigh that borders St. Augustine’s College, one of the state’s most preeminent HBCUs (Raleigh Historic Development Commission 2017). It was the first of its kind in the capital city that was developed by an African American for African Americans and housed Raleigh’s growing middle and upper- middle class families, including Raleigh’s first Black Mayor, foremost entrepreneurs and educators and the region’s first African American television broadcaster and editorialist, her father, J.D. Lewis (Committee to Elect Yvonne Lewis Holley 2016). Yvonne’s house is beautiful and large, a split-level home that she purchased from her parents to keep the home inhabited by the Lewis family for another few decades, at least. It is tastefully decorated with Southern and African art from her many travels and personal acquisitions, with several large bedrooms, an office and an open kitchen and dining area that invites many people, myself included, to stay well beyond any meal we consume together. It is the kind of home that holds three generations worth of stories, dinner parties, holidays, births and passings and visits from friends and family; and now, in its new life as the base for its district’s Representative, it captures new stories from the campaign trail, of tough and disappointing days at the General Assembly, of legislative victories, and wishes for future law-making success. Sitting with Yvonne and Moses, the three of us each stretched out on our own long lounge chair, allowed me to see another side of her life. Away from the hustle of the meeting and campaign circuit, and the bustle of the Legislative Building, we could sit, sometimes for hours, frequently with snacks for ourselves and treats for Moses, often working on administrative tasks, like filing paperwork, stuffing fundraising invitations or campaign materials into envelopes

168 emblazoned with her official campaign logo and sending materials to her community contacts. We found ourselves discussing the heaviest political topics and our weekend plans with equal vigour. In this space, we would give advice to each other, with her offering me the kind of wisdom only a long-time professional woman and working mother would know, and me putting forth ideas on how I would like to see my home district grow in the coming years. I would listen to her conversations with constituents who would stop by to discuss local issues and ideas, noting how focused and engaged she was, even if she was hearing the same complaints and suggestions over and over again. You could see how she was both Representative and friend, in equal measure, attentively addressing constituents new and old with the same kindness and patience one usually reserved for friends and family. Just as her parents had been founding members of the Madonna Acres community, who had a level of prominence and a reach to the larger Black community across Raleigh, she wanted people to know she was that listening, she heard them and she would continue to work for them; that this home and its inhabitants were accessible, compassionate and hard-working. She and I would swap stories about the time we both spent, forty years apart, at William G. Enloe High School, the first secondary school in Raleigh to integrate in 1962, less than a decade before she became a student at the school (Wake County Public School System 2018). As the breeze floated by us, we would debate the social and political topics being addressed in the General Assembly at that time, and it was here that she revealed her biggest worry for her district – that the revitalization of her downtown district would only continue to widen the gap between the haves and have nots; that without mindful expansion that considered the needs of the current residents and sought responsibly to bring in new home and business owners, the long-term residents who inhabit large parts of the district would be edged out, with nowhere affordable left to go. For her, this was mostly grossly visible through food and housing insecurity. I spent much of my fieldwork in these kinds of intimate and personal spaces of my informants, learning about their daily routines and interactions, the kinds of connections and networks they maintained both personally and professionally, and wanting to examine the relational nature of the private and the public in their lives. As public servants, they serve as researchers of their own community, exploring the impact of their positions as state actors whose work maintains and intervenes in the economic and social structure of the family; and through this professional exploration of the home, they found that compounding insecurities, such as economic, job, food and housing, all take on a number of different forms and are much wider reaching than statistics may show. In the absence of any specific work being done to target families facing these insecurities, the number of citizens living in poverty will only continue to grow. 169 Yvonne provided a home base for much of my research, serving not only as one of my key informants, but also offering physical spaces in which observation, participation and interviews took place, chief among them being her home and this very carport. * Just two weeks shy of election night, I sat at home on a seemingly quiet Tuesday afternoon. My phone rang and State Representative Yvonne Lewis Holley’s name came up. I smiled, eager to know what funny story she had for me this time. We had already spoken on the phone a couple of times that day, discussing her schedule for the week and beginning to make plans for the election night event – a finish line to the most exhaustive and laborious election cycle that either of us could remember. I answered and immediately knew she was sitting outside at her home, as I could hear the faint sounds of passing cars, her dog’s bark and the spinning fans that hung above her. I was expecting her usual jolly greeting, but her regular “hey girl!” was replaced by her eagerly inviting me to join her at Senator Elizabeth Warren’s speaking engagement at a local women’s college later that evening as her plus one. I happily accepted the offer, spending the next several minutes deciding what to wear – rallies and campaign events were often quite casual, but when attending alongside an elected official, you are often seen as an extension of them, as some form of campaign manager, personal or administrative assistant or even sometimes one of their colleagues. The main icon that separated Yvonne and I, besides our age and height differences, was that she always wore her House of Representatives lapel pin, adorned with the North Carolina State Seal, and which allowed her access to restricted spaces. I decided on a rather standard business casual, top and trousers combination, with sensible shoes and a sweater, because at these kinds of campaign events, with big speakers whose travel plans are inevitably delayed, you never know how long you may have to wait and in what conditions. I did wear one of my favourite tops, though, with a great pop of colour – after all, I was hoping for at least a selfie with Senator Warren, a personal and political hero of mine, and a future President of the United States in the eyes of nearly everyone in attendance. When I pulled up to Yvonne’s driveway, I was greeted by her dog’s friendly bark and inquisitive approach. Distractedly returning Moses’s welcome, I almost missed the presence of Bobbie Richardson, District 7’s State Representative, one of Yvonne’s office neighbours in the State Legislative Building and one of her closest House friends since Representative Richardson joined in 2013. As is customary during the busy legislative session, representatives and senators from out of town often forge friendships with local reps with whom they socialize, enjoy dinners and carpool to events and fundraisers. Representative Richardson, Yvonne and I waved goodbye to Moses, and then hopped in Yvonne’s SUV, adorned with her state House of Representatives special tags and license plate, headed toward Meredith College to join the other progressive elected officials, students, members of the public who were lucky enough to snag the limited

170 tickets earlier in the day, and national and local press, all of who anxiously waited to hear the Senator speak in person. What began as the chance to see a political A-lister come speak in my hometown in what had recently been branded as a key battleground state, turned into an important moment for my research. Yvonne lives just a short 5 minute drive from the state legislative building, and as we drove by the building on our way to the college, she and Representative Richardson began to chat about their days, how campaign season was going for each of them, and what kinds of people and interactions they would soon encounter at the event. After a bit of small talk and catching up, Representative Richardson turned to Yvonne and asked, “So how are you feeling now this close to election day?” After a deep sigh and pause, Yvonne replied, “You know, I just want one day that I don't have to do anything for anyone else." She replied back, “You know I hear that! It’s just so much going to all these fundraisers, and especially the ones outside my district.” Yvonne nodded along, saying “yep, that’s right” as her colleague went on to speak about the difficult nature of fundraising, hosting events and trying to maintain a presence in the community in the days leading up to November 8th. We pulled into a drive through window, ordered something quick and unhealthy, a common habit during both a legislative session and election season, and Yvonne turned the conversation to her recent “victory” in the NC House.

The Passing of House Bill 250 First introduced in the House of Representatives, one of the two legislative bodies that make up the North Carolina General Assembly, as a study bill in 2014 and brought to the House floor for a vote in 2015, House Bill 25026 sought to provide refrigeration and safe food storage options for smaller retailers like gas stations and mom and pop corner stores to sell fresh and local food as alternatives to the often preservative rich and unhealthy pre-packaged foods that are sometimes the only options for families living in food deserts, or areas with little to no access to nutrient rich foods (Gallagher 2011; US Department of Agriculture n.d.). Nursing homes, retirement communities, schools and neighbourhoods were first brought to Yvonne’s district in urban Raleigh because of the access to grocery stores and shopping centres, and when these businesses left in just an 18 month span, District 38 became North Carolina’s newest food desert. After working alongside the other local, county and state leaders representing these districts to negotiate bringing back national chains but finding only limited success, Yvonne began to formulate a new strategy. Yvonne knew she had a major issue in her district, and in understanding that addressing it would take a multifaceted approach, she set out to study any and everything she could about

26 Subsequently referred to as House Bill 250 and HB 250. 171 food deserts. From academic scholars, community-based organizations and media outlets, she learned that the national definition affected the ways in which the United States Department of Agriculture could and could not be a positive conduit for changing the trajectory of food insecure nationwide, finding out just who is affected by these kinds of deserts in North Carolina, what, if any, current legislation addressed the issue, what organizations are already in existence that provide assistance to the insecure, and what parts of the puzzle were still missing that could radically transform the food landscape across her state (Ahluwalia et. al 1998; Blanchard and Matthews 2007; Laraia et. al 2009; Walker et. al 2010). She heard stories from her neighbours, the people she sat next to at First Baptist Church, from family and friends who read about the vacuum left by the grocer closings, and she experienced it herself – driving three minutes down the road to see the abandoned store, “for rent” signs scattered across the boarded up window, with her own eyes (Sims 2012). She reached out to a few organizations that were already heavily involved in this work, including the Alliance for Health, NC Food Bank, Interfaith Food Shuttle, the Raleigh Farmers Market, curated by the state’s Department of Agriculture, and smaller, pop up food markets and community, church and school-based food pantries, trying to understand how any government assistance would offer some financial relief or add any political weight to the overlooked, but quickly growing, social issue. She told me the story of her interest in food deserts one afternoon over lunch. She began, Let me tell you the biggest thing – My community, we lost two grocery stores prior to my going into the General Assembly, and one of the first things I did [after joining the House] was [to say to myself] ‘What can I do to get some grocery stores to come into my community? Is there some kind of bill? Can we offer some kind of incentives?’ Because that’s the first I had ever heard of a food desert. And then I found out that it wasn’t just my community, it was the whole state, and a national problem, that some communities don’t have access to healthy foods and grocery stores. At the same time I was putting the bill out there, I was calling grocery stores, I was calling people to try to see if I could get them to come and put a store in my community; and if they could not, why not? You know, what were the barriers that were in the way? So I began to do this research. I started a bill within the General Assembly that had several parts, and the moment that I started the bill, people started coming out of the wood works, quietly. First, I got African-American people from the Department of Agriculture who came over [to the legislative building] to talk about how this could be a good opportunity because a lot the minority communities were hurting, so we could partner and do some things. Then health organizations began to come – the American Heart Association, the Alliance for Health, the YWCA, the YMCA, food co-ops… all kinds of groups came to me, wanting to talk about this problem. And we began to realize that it was more than just my community and I needed to really bring some attention to it.

172 I was unable to get my bill through [as a standalone act with funding for its implementation]; but what I was able to do by communicating one-on-one, doing researching, educating representatives as to what a food desert even was, I was able to get a study bill at first.” Yvonne got to work almost immediately, formulating a strategy to reach all 169 of her General Assembly colleagues. As someone raised to believe in the power of community, and with a real recognition that having an office comprised of only herself, her legislative assistant, Lee, and an occasional intern meant actual time and attention constraints, she sought the assistance of several local non-profits and health lobbying firms to visit the office of every state senator and representative and explain the benefits of the bill using data and maps that outlined the areas of poverty and food deserts in their own district. Thinking of the fourth and fifth branches of government as inclusive of such entities as the press, the people, community groups and experts, it would follow that she lean on the institutional and policy knowledge held by such a group to help not only develop her own knowledge of the subject and language used concerning food insecurity, but also to develop strategies to enact the bill (Hilgartner 2000; Jasanoff 1998; O’Brien 2016). This consolidation of expert knowledge meant that she had formed a coalition of supporters, who would walk through the halls of the Legislative Building and the adjacent Legislative Office Building for months on end – Moms with their children in tow, dropping off pages and pages of information on the health benefits associated with having access to healthy and affordable foods for the legislative assistant to pass along their boss; lobbyists in suits and ties, shaking hands with legislators, and being ushered into the small offices, hoping that their 10-15 minute meeting could provide enough information on the potential rural economic development and small business job creation to influence support of the bill; community organizers, wearing matching t-shirt sand pins donning their group’s mission, hoping that the visual impact of their presence on designated action days would reverberate around the buildings and spark conversation about food insecurity. The Legislative Building is an open access space – as a public building open seven days a week, offering tours to the general public, the building is a popular destination for school groups who use the visit as a teaching tool for young learners and important site for people interested in having a front-row seat to politics in action, as it offers an open gallery above the House and Senate chambers (NC Legislative Services Commission). As an intern, I went into the office every morning between 8:30-9am, hoping to get a fresh cup of coffee from the morning’s first batch and to check Yvonne’s email and daily schedule before she arrived. Most mornings, as I approached to unlock our office door, I was met by at least one, if not all of the members of the HB 250 lobbying team; or as Yvonne dubbed them, her ‘food desert ladies.’ Led by Betsey Vetter, Regional Vice President of Government Relations for the American Heart Association, and Morgan Wittman Gramann, Managing Director, Sarah Jacobson, Healthy Foods Access Coordinator, and Starrlett Johnson, Obesity Policy Coordinator all for the North Carolina Alliance for Health, this 173 group coordinated the day-to-day promotional efforts on behalf of HB 250, taking on formal meetings with Senators and Representatives that Rep. Holley could not do herself, sitting in on committee hearings related to the bill, organizing daily office drop ins to share information concerning health statistics and economic growth projections, and planning a formal State Lobby Day in May (NC Alliance for Health n.d.). Morgan was our usual visitor, popping into say hello and to let us know that she and the team were about in the building, signifying a persistence and passion for the issue that had grown so close to Yvonne and her legislative agenda. Some days, her greeting was jovial, revealing her enthusiasm at the bill’s progress as more legislators agreed to vote in favour. At other times, however, she would take a decidedly more sceptical tone, especially as the legislative session progressed and it became more and more apparent that the bill’s funding would be one of many pawns in the political chess match that is the State Budget. The daily reminder of the bill’s ebbs and flows impacted Yvonne greatly – with the Republican super majority in the House, meaning they had enough votes to pass any legislation they wanted and could override any Gubernatorial override, Democrats had very few legislative victories, especially when it came to increased funding for so-called ‘social programs’ such as the Healthy Corner Store Initiative; and with so much of her time, attention and energy having been given to this project, it felt as though it was her one and only shot at solving the one of the most pressing issues both in her district and state-wide. This collective and targeted strategy took several months and garnered much support on both sides of the aisle, but there were still insufficient votes to pass it successfully in both state houses. After some thoughtful consideration, Yvonne enlisted the help of a white colleague – Representative Pat McElraft – who is one of the highest ranking Republicans, one of the highest ranking women of the House. Due to her stature in the legislative body, her support of certain social causes often earns the respect of and subsequent endorsement by her fellow conservative colleagues. In recalling the steps it took to move the bill into law, Yvonne told me that she had to relinquish control over the bill’s future, hoping that the vocal Republican support of the bill would ensure its passage. She said, “After I took the initial weight, I had to literally give the bill over to the Republicans… and when they began to champion the bill, [I had to] sit, kind of in the background, to let them fight the battle in the committees that I was not in. And that was a little difficult, sometimes, to not be in the forefront [and at the table]. But I had a team now of people who, a year prior, didn’t even know what a food desert was, [who were now] fighting to get some food money for these stores. I had to let it go to get it done.” Once Yvonne was able to get Representative McElraft on board, the Speaker of the House soon followed, and the program was given $250,000 for its pilot year. Although that is only one- fourth of the original ask, Yvonne was ecstatic with its success; and while she knew that the publicity from the passage would not necessarily be focused on her, she was disappointed, albeit

174 not so surprised, that the media coverage went almost exclusively to her republican counterparts. From the conservative think tanks like the Civitas organization across the spectrum to the more neutral and left leaning publications like the Raleigh News and Observer, the media accounts that followed the successful passing focused on the white, mostly male faces attached to the final product, rather than its Black, female legislative creator, the multitude of minority and female-led organizations which lobbied and championed the bill, and the many diverse faces that the bill itself would later touch. * It was also under Yvonne’s home carport that I first met Marie27, a woman in her late 30s, who is the mother to three school-aged children and, due to long-term relationship violence, had become homeless in recent months. She was bouncing her young family from one extended-stay hotel to another in order to find the best nightly or weekly rate. Marie regularly sought the advice and care of Yvonne and would share the daily difficulties associated with attempting to house her family after leaving a living situation that left physical and emotional scars on both her and her children. She escaped one form of abuse to find herself stuck in another, relying on the uncaring nature of her boss at her minimum wage job and the unsympathetic owner of a hotel that could turn her out at a moment’s notice.

Tackling Homelessness on the State Level Community Action Targeting Children who are Homeless, hereafter referred to as Project CATCH, is a Raleigh-based non-profit that works with families like Marie’s, to provide physical and mental health screenings for homeless children and their families (“Learn more – Project CATCH” 2017). Operating as an arm of the Salvation Army, Project CATCH’s clients are referred to the organization by the Wake County public school system, city and county police departments, homeless shelters, church organizations, among others that address housing insecurity and its resulting trauma. From June 2015 to June 2016, Project CATCH had 664 incoming referrals from the aforementioned groups, conducted 808 screenings and made 2,715 referrals onward to other services, including mental and physical healthcare, afterschool tutoring and school assistance, speech and mentoring classes, job assistance and family services. There are hundreds of families moving from hotel to hotel, shuffling between family member’s couches, sometimes to the backseat of their cars, to the streets and public parks of Raleigh and Wake County, and camping on patches of land across. Through a series of interactions with school administrators and counsellors, law enforcement, social services, both state and community run, or family and friends with knowledge of local resources, many of these families are now receiving care from Project CATCH (Gargan 2018; Hui 2017; Paisley et. al 2018).

27 This name has been changed to protect the identity of this informant. 175 In a promotional video for the More than a Roof program, an initiative founded by Project CATCH to specifically address the needs of families living precariously in hotels, Kim Konderla, an Outreach Case Manager shares that, “Families that are living in hotels are facing very specific barriers in finding housing, and maintaining their own wellbeing as well. Children that are moving all over the place are not able to form those healthy attachments, either with people or their things, because they’re always having to leave things behind,” (2017). Living in a state of homelessness means that families are not only sometimes leaving behind physical possessions, but it breaks a psychological sense of belonging to both place and space and all that those contain (American Psychological Association 2018; Guarino and Bassuk 2010). As argued by many psychologists and practitioners, the impact that this kind of fissure has on young people, their relationship to their parents, to authority figures, to their education and much more, requires specific kinds of assistance that cater to their developmental and health needs (Digby and Fu 2017; Lindsey 1998; Powell 2012). The directors, case managers and volunteers at Project CATCH became increasingly more concerned after mapping the locations of the extended-stay hotels and seeing the full extent to which this problem blossomed following the economic crisis of 2008, and the bulk of the hotels housing the insecure were in District 38, Yvonne’s district. Despite her tangential familiarity with the issue through her relationship with Marie, Yvonne was horrified at seeing the rapid increase in the number of families experiencing this kind of insecurity within her district. The necessity to act was clear, with the number of families in need exceeding the capacity to help them, as made clear in CATCH’s promotional materials by their partner, Sharon Mitchell of the Catholic Archdiocese of Raleigh, who shares, “I think all of us would agree that we’re always inundated because there’s always more people that need help than there are funds to help those that need it. By HUD’s definition, hotel families would not be considered homeless. I can’t tell you what it means to a child to know every day when I get off the bus, this is the place where I’m going to come to. I don’t have to wonder where I’m going to be tonight” (“More than a Roof” 2017; US Department of Housing and Urban Development 2009). Yvonne’s strategy was becoming clearer – in addition to expanded funding for services, regulations that would insure the inclusion of affordable units in future building projects, and better protection for vulnerable families against rising prices and unfair rental policies, the legislative definition of homelessness needed to change; and in turn, access to services would open up for hundreds, if not thousands, of housing insecure adults and children. Along with learning about the wide-reaching work that is done by these agencies, Yvonne was heartened to learn that the collaborative nature of this work mirrors much of her own – that they use and pool resources, that services can be linked and work in tandem, and that these localized examples of strategic and effective partnership could hold the potential to be used to

176 help aid families across the state. It is here, in this point of collective achievement, that she found some potential policy objectives; however, this issue came to her attention more formally as she was in the depths of fighting for funding for House Bill 250, and in a climate where funding for initiatives deemed to be “social programs” was contentious, at best, Yvonne knew that it would be incredibly difficult to get support for both legislative initiatives at once. For any housing-related bill to have a fighting chance in that conservative environment, she needed to be able to build a similar coalition of community groups and volunteers, endorsements from building and construction developers, and other lawmakers, among many others, and she simply could not afford to divide her attention at that point in the legislative calendar. Progressive leaders at the local and county level are gaining traction in urban areas with respect to combating insecurities at large, and she had hoped that in the next and subsequent legislative session, her fellow state- level legislators would see a chance to do the same with housing insecurity, particularly when framing it as a way to help address homelessness, in its many forms, across the entire state. Homelessness, the lack of affordable housing and the physical and psychological issues around housing insecurity now stand alongside a litany of insecurities that plague working, low- income and unemployed people, and will require a great deal of work carried out both in and outside of the legislative walls, through the physical, political and emotional labour of practitioners and political figures alike. Legal scholar, educator and Raleigh News and Observer long-time columnist Gene Nichol so eloquently writes, “Part of the reason, no doubt, is that poverty statistics are just that — numbers. Data from tedious reports. Ripe for the forgetting. But poverty isn’t just a number. It’s a draining of the body, a wound to the soul. Amid such plenty, it is a wilful marginalization, an infliction of demeaning indignity. It divides and diminishes, as it rejects. It is a regime of harm that ought to be rendered plain, incapable of being ignored,” (2013). Yvonne’s determination to solve the food and housing crises crippling so many women and families both in her district and across the state is tempered most enduringly by her own understanding that the grip of poverty is so strong; its force may be her legislation initiatives’ perpetual undoing.

Intersections and Images – Black Femininity in (Political) Action Much like Crenshaw points to the seminal women’s studies work titled All the Women are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave when seeking to break the tendency to singularly describe racial or gendered experiences that distorts Black women’s experiences, and how Collins theorises on the controlling images that dictate the perception of Black women in popular culture, this chapter explores the overlapping impact of race and gender in this legislative process. In examining the relational way that race and gender work in this field, always operating in tandem and influencing one another, that leads to a particular way of viewing and experience 177 each phenomena and identity, both Crenshaw and Collins’s work overlap in a significant way for Yvonne and her Black, female colleagues (Collins 72-82; Crenshaw 1989; Hull et. al 1982). Black women who run for political office today embody this intersectional meeting place of overlapping oppressions and quite often encounter obstructions or limitations as a result. Yvonne understood that outside organizations and her colleagues alike would see her as a particular kind of ally or representative – that her femininity was tied closely to an image of a mother and caretaker, as imaginations emerge of her as a sort of Black nanny or community mother who exists in churches and neighbourhoods across the state and has been represented countless times across fictional platforms. In this example of HB 250, Yvonne shared with me that she experienced these understandings of Black femininity on two levels – both in the way that she has been viewed and in the ways in which people served through such legislation are viewed. First, she has come to recognize that there is often a different way that lobbyists and organisations approach her, looking to her as a Black Matriarch-type figure, whose maternal attributes would make her a more sympathetic and supportive representative to approach rather than her male colleagues, Black or white. Viewing Yvonne within this image of the Matriarch, they would find a commanding, controlling figure, whose presence, speech and stature would all demand a kind of attention and respect. Yvonne, too, played into this matriarchal archetype, often reminding the female lobbyists and organisations like Moms Rising, the Alliance for Health and Project CATCH that there is a reason why this particular bill would “come from and for women – we are all mothers and carers and need take care of these families that so badly need these foods. And if it doesn’t come from us, who will it come from?” This notion, that care and compassion must drive the effort to care for and raise healthy children, can be attributed to a specific kind of gendered knowledge and experience which is most closely associated with motherhood and maternity. Yvonne also said that these controlling images impact the formation of policy, particularly in the cuts to funding for any and all social programs in this deeply conservative environment. Hearing how her colleagues and their supporters would speak of recipients of social programs in committee hearings, in the press and even in the lunchroom, stereotypes about Black and minority families led to a prejudicial approach to constructing and implementing bills. When first beginning this piece of legislation, she was very much interested in her own diverse district and in helping other districts whose constituencies mimicked hers in demographics, incomes, housing types, and so on. She also knew, from the teachings of her foremothers, through her own activism work beginning in the 1970s at Howard University in the nation’s capital, and through her decades of community organizing in Raleigh, that many Black women lives were not only affected by key pieces of legislation, but also that the legislation’s success often depended upon their leadership in both formal and informal institutions (Collins 2006; Livingstone 2004; Wilson and Wilson 2013). She recognised the stereotypical way in which the working poor are viewed – mostly as a group of

178 low to no income earners, comprised of majority non-white families, led by single mothers, dependent upon financial support from a host of state-sponsored social programs, like the welfare queens and Jezebels depicted in Collins’s text. Yvonne knew early on in her time in the House that these controlling images translated into legislative inaction on a host of other social programs, seen especially through the reduction in money given to public schools, affordable housing, job training and growth for low to medium-skilled workers, among a host of others (NC House of Representatives 2016); and that along with the transition of HB 250 being her initiative to one belonging to her conservative colleagues, the faces of those who would be served by this legislation would change as well. House Bill 250 was born out of one of her district’s greatest needs, the evidence of which Yvonne drove by every day – empty, overgrown strip malls, once anchored by national grocery chains and flanked by large, nationwide businesses and smaller, locally-owned shops, now all standing empty, save for the ever-growing flora and fauna that now called this property home. She sought a sustainable, long-term solution to food insecurity for the thousands of food insecure families living in District 38, including her own family that now lived much further from the closest grocery store due to the closings. Her subsequent taking up of housing insecurity too spawned from the needs of her constituency, hundreds of whom were moving around from extended stay hotels, temporary stays on the couches and in the living spaces of family members, and sometimes even the streets and wooded areas across the district. Although these insecurities were uniquely urban issues in her district, Yvonne knew that they touched others across the state and therefore legislation enactment would be a numbers game – the number of supportive votes needed required support from her conservation colleagues. To get more Republicans on board, she needed to show that those who would benefit from the grants provided in HB 250 and any future bill on affordable housing and expanded social housing projects were not simply the stereotypical image of poor minorities in urban areas who were being given a series of handouts by the government, but also that this issue touched urban and rural white working class families as well. Yvonne’s encouragement to her team of professional and volunteer lobbyists that they reach every legislator with information about the food insecurity in their district was part of this two-fold recognition, one that works quite differently from her colleagues: while legislative action is always a numbers game – in that each bill requires a set number of votes in order to pass, and sometimes that means building a coalition of support from both sides of the aisle – the battle is further complicated by particular biases around race, gender and class that plague Black and female lawmakers whose political convictions and identities link not only them, but their work and actions, to these understandings and perceptions of race and gender. In the same way that community groups found a sympathetic character in Yvonne, her tie to the legislation meant that associations and stigmas around and assumptions about the legislation were made before conversations about the House Bill 250’s full contents ever took 179 place. Because of their consistent physical presence, with employees and volunteers attending hearings, votes and meetings on a daily basis, lobbying groups like the Alliance for Health, the American Heart Association and Moms Rising were well-known throughout the General Assembly. The causes for which they spoke often required funding, including bills aimed at shifting the physical and mental health of North Carolinians like HB 250, and this meant that conservative legislators and committee staff were reluctant to support their efforts. Combining the financial component with the existing prejudices about social programs and welfare, any bill written in the similar vein of HB 250 that would benefit low-income people and cost a great deal of money were almost non-starters. With this in mind, shifting the conversation away from the stigmatized label of ‘social program’ was as much a strategic move for the bill’s preservation as it was a robust critique of the systemic biases that follow female legislators, and those of colour. Yvonne shared with me that she knew this would provide the perfect opening for a co-opting of the message – shifting the face of the bill from a single-mother led, poor Black family living in Southeast Raleigh to a two-parent, low-income white family from a small town in rural Cleveland county, Republicans, whose legislative composition is mostly white and largely male and whose voters are largely white, low to middle income earners, would see the benefits to their districts and sign on to support the bill; but equally as significant as their support would be their presence within the narrative surrounding HB 250 and anything concerning access to affordable housing. Those in power often carry the loudest voice in mainstream media, and the exclusively male members of leadership, of both parties, were the first to be chased down by reporters and lobbyists for comment, regardless of their role in the creation or campaigning for the bill. Here, not only would the white, male members of committee and party leadership get to show their support for a “feel good bill,” in Yvonne’s words, but they would also get the chance to be the public face for its contents. This points to the systemic erasure of groups of people from legislative narratives – as shifts in representation happen incrementally throughout the process of a bill becoming a law, the voices of women and people of colour fall to background.

The correlating nature of maternity, community history and care This chapter explores how community-based issues can become legislative campaigns, by tracing the legislative processes, the personal and professional hurdles my informants face, examining the culture existing within the legislative halls, political circles and community organizations and mapping relationships between elected officials and their allies working in the non-profit sphere. As argued by many prominent feminist and historical writers, and in the introduction presented in this work, women have long served as a backbone for the American economic system, particularly true for women of colour, as their work at home and in the workplace, historically and in the present day, supports themselves and their families, while

180 operating a key position within complex financial, governmental and administrative structures; all while often being denied, diminished or hidden away. It is important to note here that almost all of those working in this industry that met with, counselled and gave advice to Yvonne, and sought to include her on their board and in their activities, were all women, nearly half of whom were women of colour. A relationship emerged here, linking the conceptual nature of gender and maternity together with the practical realities of public policymaking, in very specific ways. On several occasions, Yvonne spoke about the role women can and should play in the construction and execution of public policy. Sometimes it was sparked by the frustration she felt when being excluded from sought after committee assignments, other times it was following a trying party caucus meeting where the women were talked over and ignored; and sometimes it was just after we left an event where we had listened to another room full of discouraged voters who felt as though their government had yet again turned its back on them. Yvonne’s recollection of Shirley Chisolm presented in her short film was as though she sought guidance from the foremothers of American democracy, at a moment when the labour-intensive nature of legislative life was at its highest, both personally and professionally. Although the battle over HB 250’s funding is far from over – as subsequent state budgets have dangled the bill’s financing in exchange for or at the expense of other social programs – and the battle to place affordable housing at the forefront of state-wide legislative policy continues as her chief focus, it is this closeness to, and reverence for, historical figures of the past, the desire to keep pushing forward legislative initiatives brought on by and for women, and the feeling of responsibility to the health and wellbeing of mothers, children and families that continue to motivate the work carried out by Yvonne and the other progressive female leaders in North Carolina. The lives and work of the female political figures and social workers presented in this thesis suggest that women continue to be called on to lead particular kinds of legislation not solely based on the constituencies they represent, but also due in large part to the long-standing ideas about gender roles, the kinds of industries and professional work they enter, and the knowledge that is generated by both personal and professional experiences. By focusing on the kinds of legislative initiatives that are taken up by my informants, I am seeking to show the different points at which the concepts and lived experiences of womanhood and maternity influence their work, affect their ability to successfully translate issues into legislation, and the drive their desire continue working within this particular political environment. House Bill 250 shows us that success comes at a price, and the costs to develop of a bill to address housing insecurity exceed what political capital is available within this General Assembly. Just as food and housing insecurity remain as central initiatives for progressive women running and serving for office across the state, it is important to explore the kinds of legislative initiatives that are successfully championed by female political officials, and in particular women of colour, to see at what point their own initiatives or those that may be served by the legislation are co-opted by 181 another person, party or purpose; and to think critically about the ways Black women are seen in a historically-based and sometimes stereotypical way, especially in relationship to the issues for which they are not heard or not allowed to lead.

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183 Conclusion

“As anthropologists looking at the roles and activities of women, we are confronted, from the outset, with an apparent contradiction. On the one hand, we learn from the work of Mead and others of the extraordinary diversity of sex roles in our own and other cultures. And on the other, we are heirs to a sociological tradition that treats women as essentially uninteresting and irrelevant, and accepts as necessary, natural, and hardly problematic the fact that, in every human culture, women are in some way subordinate to men.” (Rosaldo 1974 15) Though written 45 years ago, Rosaldo’s reflections on the academic study of women could have been written today. The persistent strong hold of misogyny and supremacy in global political structures means that women, especially Black women and women of colour, face ongoing discrimination across society. Analysing the experiences of women in office in North Carolina within this political culture and electoral moment through an intersectional, feminist, progressive lens allows us to see the persistence of oppressive structures that limit the electability, growth and legislative success for women, and in particular, Black women. Taking the intersection of race, gender and politics as its core focus, analysing systems of oppression as they affect the personal lives and political work of women working with North Carolina state government, this thesis begins with the theoretical and methodological considerations of conducting Black feminist research in the political field. To think of think through the experiences of politically engaged women and the environment in which they take work and live, Chapter One situates this fieldwork within the body of scholarship about race and racism, gender and feminism, political life and the electoral process. Chapter Two provides a methodological roadmap along which this research followed, arriving at the knowledge and analysis presented in the chapters that follow. Chapters Three and Four help to set the political and social stage – at a time of persistent and vocal involvement by activism communities, it important to document and examine the means by which people become engaged with various parts of the political process. Chapter Three does this by showing the variety of issues that are important to the citizens of North Carolina, the techniques they employ to bring awareness and attention to these issues, and the impact this presence can have on the political decisions of their elected officials. Chapter Four takes us through a day in the life of an elected official, detailing the variety of events, meetings and interactions a single day can hold, and traces how personal history and cultural ties intersect with political life. Chapters Five and Six introduce my main informants, giving a glimpse into the thoughts, experiences and viewpoints of three different female political figures, whose varying identities and personal accounts allow for an exploration of the persistence of racial and gendered stereotypes and structures. Chapter Three focuses on the female elected experience more broadly by bringing forth the story of the state’s first female Auditor and Superintendent. Spring boarding from Chapter Four and its discussion on the

184 intersectional nature of political life for Black female political leaders like Representative Yvonne Holley, Chapter Seven address the particular political processes through which attitudes about minority and female populations inform and influence legislative activity, analysing the steps of bill creation, paying close attention to the ways in which gender and race impact the initial support for the bill, its implementation and funding, and the attribution of success once the process is completed. To conclude, I now make two specific calls to action –for more women in elected office and for additional research focus given to this important and influential group of leaders.

A Call for Female Leadership “I see myself as a catalyst to bring young women of colour and young men of colour behind me. I don’t see myself being a career legislator. I never did. I saw myself as the person between, to fill the gap and to bring someone else along. The old guard – the African-American men primarily – held onto power for a very long time. These were men who did a lot of things in the 60s and the 70s and it was very difficult for them to give up their power and to train some of the younger folks. I had the benefit of being in the room as the child, living in a neighbourhood where there were prominent African-Americans that had roundtable discussions and strategy sessions and I saw the roles that they play, and I saw them argue together in a kitchen, and then the next day they’d go out and they were a united front as they demonstrated and fought for civil rights in this community. What I want to do now is, I want to get some younger people ready and equipped to be able to come into the General Assembly. We need to do that through training. I try to have an intern, because I think I need to expose young people to what’s going on. In the campaign, I try to take young people with me, as much as they would like to be, to learn how to campaign and to get that contact with people and to get to know people. Because it’s difficult sometimes when you’re first getting out there to tell people about yourself and to open up. I find that you do have to do a certain amount of it – to toot your own horn, so to speak – because people have to know what you have done. But you also need to backu0p and let others tell what you’ve done so that you can just tell the issues. I want to be known for the issues and for the solutions I bring to the table, not necessarily who I was. Who I am can be an asset, if I’m someone of the community who has a level of power – a representative.” - Yvonne Beth shared in her film that she hopes “women will take up the idea of running for office ad that women will continue to gain that confidence and to grow and to know that we can be anything that we choose to be.” June echoed her colleagues, saying, “My hope for women in political roles is that our state-wide office holders will reflect the population of North Carolina.” As argued by Peterson, “Suburban white women have historically held tremendous electoral sway, referred to, variously, as the Soccer Mom, the Hockey Mom, the Security Mom, or part of the Silent Majority. … [And they] vote — in no small part because they do not face the same systemic 185 disenfranchisement as many (non-white, non-suburban) citizens” (2016). Black women also hold great electoral sway, voting in very high numbers year after year (Bump 2016; Davis 2016; Democracy North Carolina 2017; Durkee 2016). With these two groups of women present at the voting booth and within the walls of local and state government in increasing numbers, it is more important than ever that the citizens of North Carolina, and the United States as a whole, invest in female candidates, afford them the trust and confidence often bestowed upon male elected officials, and that we take into account the unique positions and experiences of women that must be included at this institutional level. As a result of the 2018 midterm elections, there are a 106 women serving in the United States Congress, representing 23.4% of this legislative body (DeSilver2018). In state-wide offices, women hold 74 positions across the country, and women comprise 25.4% of state legislatures (Centre for American Women and Politics 2019). Although it falls short of June’s vision of governing bodies that fully reflect the demographics of the general public, it is but another step in the direction toward progress, first taken by Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who was the first woman elected to Congress. For Black women, this progress came much later, as Shirley Chisolm was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1968. According to a Pew Research Centre survey, “59% of adults say there are too few women in high political offices. Women are far more likely than men to say that’s the case; so are Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents when compared with Republicans and GOP leaners” (DeSilver 2018; Horowitz et al. 2018). Respondents in this same survey felt that while they would also like to see more women in top roles, both in politics and the corporate sector, they remained attaining gender equality is doubtful and that that men “still have an easier path to the top and that women have to do more to prove their worth” (Horowitz et al. 2018). In the State of North Carolina, there is a mixed bag of results from the 2016 and 2018 election cycles. Based at the all-women’s college located in downtown Raleigh, the department of Political Science at Meredith College has produced a series of reports called the Status of Women in North Carolina Politics that describe the outcomes of the 2014 and 2018 elections. Monitoring the electoral gains made by women across the state, and also noting the reductions as well, the Status report offers a great deal of insight on political trends happening at various parts of state. The 2018 report reads, Since the last Status of Women in North Carolina Politics report in 2015, women have gained and lost ground in terms of elected and appointed positions. North Carolina has approximately 5,000 elected positions and almost an equal number of appointed positions at the state and local level. Women hold less than a quarter of all elected positions and around a third of all appointed positions. At the elected level, this is a slight decline over 2015. The percentage of women candidates running in 2018, as compared to 2014, is lower. The number of counties in which the board of county commissioners has no women serving has increased from 44 to 46 counties.

186 The rural parts of the state, which have been particularly less represented by women in elected office, has lost ground. There are female mayors in each of North Carolina’s three largest cities, and Vi Lyles, the mayor of Charlotte, is an African-American woman. The report also highlights that there are record numbers of conservative women serving in the General Assembly and “the percentage of women serving in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches is higher than the national average for women serving in those positions” (McLennan et al. 2018). Writing in one the state’s largest and most influential newspapers, Lauren Horsch wonders, “Women are half of NC's population, but only a quarter of the General Assembly. What's to blame?” (2017). Just as this thesis was born out of a fascination with the national conversation happening around women and people of colour in the highest offices of state and national government in the mid-2000s, generated at that time by the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, my call to action now stems from a desire to see representations that better reflects the electorate. Still, with the barriers women and women of color face when running for and while holding office, studies such as that from Reingold and Smith show that the presence of Latino and Black lawmakers can help allay some of these prejudices. Acknowledging that changes to policy welfare laws in the mid-1990s added restrictions to the access of federal entitlements and benefits, they write, “One thing has remained constant: race and racial politics have had a profound impact on state implementation of welfare policy. As was the case with A[id to Families with Dependent Chidlren] (Fording 2003; Hero 1998; Johnson 2001; Plotnick and Winters 1985; Volden 2002), the more racially diverse the state welfare rolls (or population), the less generous the T[emporary assistance to Needy Families] benefits and the more rigid the rules and regulations governing eligibility and work requirements (Avery and Peffley 2005; Fellowes and Rowe 2004; Hero and Preuhs 2007; Larimer 2005; Preuhs 2007; Soss et al. 2001). State policymakers, it appears, have responded to or internalized the racial stereotypes, resentments, and fears that shape judgments of welfare recipients and drive the call for less gener ous, get-tough welfare policy among whites (Dyck Hussey 2008; Gliens 1999; Peffley, Hurwitz, and Snider man 1997; Soss et al. 2003). There is growing evidence, however, that the presence and power of African Americans and Latinos in state leg islatures can offset this sort of racial backlash (Fording 2003; Owens 2005; Preuhs 2006, 2007). In effect, states with relatively large proportions of black and Latino citi zens and welfare recipients would have even less generous welfare benefits and rules if they had not managed to elect black and Latino representatives—and if those black and Latino representatives had not managed to accumulate some modicum of legislative power” (Reingold and Smith 2012 131-2). With poverty rates and economic insecurities continuing to grow across the state, it is more crucial than ever that lawmakers implement progressive policies that attend to the needs of its citizens. Although Reingold and Smith also acknowledge that even when holding a seat at the 187 decision making table, women of colour often face roadblocks when attempting to influence policy (2012 135), I would urge continued scholarship on the impact of women on progressive policymaking to examine the extent to which they can influence policy with the aim of increasing that power in future legislative sessions.

A Call for Feminist and Anti-Racist Scholarship In her work, “Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life,” Tiffany Ruby Patterson explores the particulars of life in rural, black Southern towns through a reappraisal of Hurston’s work. She writes, “Zora Neale Hurston was an expert witness to her time. She imagined, as every great artist does; but she also made it her business to see, hear, and write as an ethnographer does – in detail in depth, and by bringing to bear a deep understanding of human complexity” (2005). Hurston addressed issues such as colourism, sexism and violence within the black community, critiqued the sexism perpetuated by black male leaders, and used specific, localized knowledge and ways of understanding through such methods as language and dialect, music and ritual, storytelling and ethno-fiction to represent and analyse a particular kind of black experience. While some of the other writers and artists of her era feared that by addressing these difficult issues present in black life that it would detract from the wider social inequality project, Hurston refused to shy away. This fearlessness in tackling many tough and taboo topics influenced generations of scholarly work that followed. I deeply appreciate that despite writing in an era when the cultural hub of American black life in America seemed to be concentrated in northern cities, Hurston chose to posit black life in a Southern context, working through such topics as race, gender, class, religion and economics in sites full of rich, black history. Political life is viewed through a variety of lenses. Within scholarship, extensive social science research has been done about governments and regimes, historical political figures and the most prominent ones today, and around the economic and social implications of political and government action. Research on political life across the social sciences should continue paying greater attention women, and in particular Black women and women of colour. Jewel Prestage, professor of Political Science wrote, “Because African American women are simultaneously members of the two groups that have suffered the nation’s most blatant exclusion from the normal channels of access to civic life, African Americans and women, their political behaviour has been largely overlooked by political scientists, who have tended to focus primarily on those actions that conform to the more restrictive definitions of politics,” (1991 89). Seeing a similar pattern in her own discipline, Thomas writes that, “Given the small numbers of Black women in the psychology pipeline and the fact that many of these women may not pursue research careers, there will likely not be enough Black female theorists and researchers to address the many research questions that must be raised in the study of Black women,” (2004 301). She follows this,

188 as I do at this junction in the concluding chapter, that it is imperative that more scholars of all racial backgrounds and gender identities to include this dynamic group of women in their research. At this particular moment in American history, where historic numbers of women are running for office, running major political campaigns, winning elections, influencing power and the trajectory of the nation, it is more vital than ever to understand their experiences, interrogate their daily interactions, and analyse the nuances of a career and life in politics to better understand, and in time, improve, the structures and space in which discrimination and oppression continue to expand. This is a call to students, early career researchers, departments, political parties and governments themselves, to invest in the education of women, the study of women and the production of feminist and anti-racist knowledge. Just as Hurston’s work sought to highlight the historical and cultural complexity of black lives during her time, this thesis presents a thoughtful and nuanced glimpse into the lives of women who serve in political roles, with particular attention paid to the multidimensional forms of labour, service and care carried out by women in this contemporary, political environment.

Beyond This Thesis During our filmed interview, Yvonne took me through the bill’s enactment, examined in her own words throughout this chapter; but the end of that recitation struck me as especially important. She paused, as if to consider the weight of her own emotional response to this particular funding bill, and after gathering her thoughts, she said, There is a very conservative republican organization called Civitas. And Civitas has a newspaper that they send out… well, this summer after we got all this money in the bill and the program is beginning to start, I got the paper and was opening it up, and there was a whole page article on the bill and food deserts! They mentioned my community, they mentioned everything, and yet, they completely wrote me out of the history of this bill. And it’s what African-Americans face – because history isn’t being written by us. So I was written out, completely, about the whole food desert process and this convenience store bill. Did it hurt my feelings? Yes. But the thing is, I know that they know where it started from. And so does my community. And so does everyone at the General Assembly. But it does hurt a little bit – because you aren’t allowed to get credit for what you do…. But getting that money into those communities was more important than my ego. And that’s the kind of legislator that I try to continue to be.” In her reflection here, and in my observations over the short session as the bill’s funding was up for discussion and vote, Yvonne and the others with whom she worked closely revealed many elements of the bill’s formulation process that served to not only show the ways that race and gender are tied closely to political power, but also at which points the narrative begins to shift from one person or group to another – the initial creation of the bill and the reasons why she 189 not only researched it herself, but why others felt they could come to her and would be heard; how the exclusion of women and minorities from key committees means that they no longer have a present voice sitting at the decision making table; the willingness to acquiesce the project in its later stages; and the subsequent news coverage by this particular news outlet, and even several others that don’t have the same ideological tilt, that excluded her from the narrative. Yvonne, Beth, June and their female colleagues embody the complicated interplay between governance and identity, serving both as stand in for a community – in an elected sense – and as an individual who is illustrative of a particular idea of race and gender– in a personal sense – that, when working in parallel, make them compelling subjects for feminist scholarship. * Speaking of future of feminist scholarship in anthropology and the social sciences, Rosaldo and Lamphere declare, “What we can do is give direction to our actions, demand public recognition and public power, and, finally, challenge all the complex stereotypes that assume women to be ‘naturally’ what, today, they are. […] By refocusing our attention, then, we are challenging old assumptions. By treating women’s lives everywhere as interesting and problematic, we hope to loosen thehold of stereotypes that have, unfortunately, shaped our own lives” (1974 15). In my own experience, both in and after the field, I have found that this reorientation – of self as researcher, as subject of study, and the overlap thereof – toward the study of women has provided this thesis with the unique opportunity to sit within a vigorous and growing body of literature on the engagement of women in American politics.

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