A former Jim Crow district now features two progressive women

 I have only begun closely following the fourth-district primary in the last couple of weeks. Mea culpa: Despite the district’s political isolation in North Carolina, this is one of the most significant primaries being held in the state. National politics has moved on a bit from the battle between progressives and “moderates” (though I think that label is wrong for the progressive Foushee). But the decisions of the fourth district, encompassing Durham and Chapel Hill, have always had symbolic meaning as one of the few expressions of Southern liberalism to be seen in American politics. 

I no longer live in the fourth district and do not plan to endorse either candidate. Rather than adjudicate the disputes being roughly hashed out in the race, I want to say something about this primary’s historical implications. This is a race between two left-leaning women of color in the heart of a former slave state. Orange County, NC, was the location of five documented lynchings between 1869 and 1898. In one instance, the terrorist mob left a grisly note alongside their victim’s body: “If the law won’t protect virtue, rope will.” 

Durham’s history, too, has its share of ugly boils. For many years, the county was dominated by the tobacco and cigarette-manufacturing industries. This alone is a bit ugly. Cigarettes are, in the words of one Stanford Historian, “the deadliest artifact in human history,” killing 100 million people in the twentieth century. It troubles me that the Triangle was built on a carcinogen. Cigarette manufacturing was integrated, unlike the textile industry. But whites had the best jobs and fullthroatedly hated Black people. Jesse Helms won Durham County in 1972. 

I’m not saying Orange and Durham counties have always been racist backwaters. That would be an overstatement. The liberalism of Chapel Hill and its University are real, and we do their history a disservice by failing to acknowledge generations of progressive politics in the community. Chapel Hill has often, in fact, stood out from the South’s stifling conservatism. UNC was founded by Federalist William Davie and was a relatively rare Federalist redoubt in an early republic dominated by Jeffersonians. The area had a Populist congressman in the era of agrarian revolt, strikingly reflecting Chapel Hill’s left-leaning sympathies rather than the interests of desperate white farmers, whose presence was less prevalent in the college town. And Durham became the home of major Civil Rights and Black Power activism during the 1960s, a legacy that continues today. The city has an activist legacy as rich as anywhere in Oakland or Harlem. 

This rich, ambiguous history has yielded striking fruit in the Fourth-District primary. In a district long at war with its own demons, two progressive women are competing to represent the people—all of them, not just white men. I don’t believe in declaring victory in historic struggles. History doesn’t bend toward justice; it’s pliable and subject to the push and pull of human action. But this primary is a tribute to the fact that the “better angels” of central North Carolina are, at present, prevailing over the region’s racist demons. History is not complete. But, at least in this one primary, we’re seeing a testament to the realizability of human hope. 

Well, that may have been a bit grandiloquent. But I do think that the emergence of a true multiracial progressive politics in central North Carolina represents a victory for the aspirations of Southern liberalism. My response to this is a feeling of encouragement and gratification. But I’ll add a provocation: Is it possible that, despite Allam’s socialism and the popularity of left-wing politics here, the triumph of progress is also a tribute to the progressive potential of capitalism? Hear me out, before you throw your laptop at the wall. 

Civil Rights activism by Black people and their allies has been indispensable to the development of a progressive community in central North Carolina. Without Black people confronting the area’s racist, segregationist roots and demanding freedom and justice, the area would still be a bigoted backwater. But, a careful read of our history shows that at least since the 1960s free enterprise has worked symbiotically with progressive activism. As the Civil Rights movement made the South a safe place for northern companies to invest, new enterprises brought wave after wave of progressive-minded northerners of all races to contribute and crosspollinate with the progressive ferment happening here already. Dynamism begat increasing tolerance, and the increasingly tolerant tone of the area brought more economic dynamism. It was a virtuous cycle that helped yield the Triangle we know today. 

The economist Joseph Schumpeter said capitalism caused “creative destruction.” He was talking about technology and industry, but creative destruction also applies to culture. In the Triangle, economic dynamism has helped to destroy the odious culture of Jim Crow and create a new culture that’s increasingly tolerant. Thank heavens for that