The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, the city’s only explicitly and proudly segregated group, will see a change in leadership soon. It’s chairwoman, the abrasive and corrosive chairwoman, Lavonia Allison, is stepping down.
The Durham Committee was formed with all good intentions in 1935, and did the Lord’s work during a time when blacks were legitimately second-class citizens and subject to any number of slights, indignations, and outrages daily. But, like the unions that began when workers were legitimately abused, after those circumstances changed for the better, power became the end.
Allison, who assumed the chairmanship from her husband in 1997, used race-baiting and her overt antipathy to white people as a tool. No white person can be a member of the Durham Committee, unlike the NAACP. That alone is an abomination that should heap opprobrium upon Allison and the group. But no one has the courage in Durham to point that out. One challenges Allison at one’s peril.
An example occurred in The Herald-Sun newsroom when I was managing editor. One of our reporters, who was black, wrote a story that Allison didn’t like. She came up to our newsroom, ordered the reporter into our conference room and began to berate him, calling him a “house nigger” for The Herald-Sun. When I heard the shouting from the conference room, I opened the door to see what was happening. Allison attempted to prevent me from entering.
I’ve attended many school board meeting at which Allison, wearing her trademark leather cap, showed concern only for black children. I was at a meeting once years ago where AIDS was being discussed, and Allison said she was concerned because “lots of black people are dying of AIDS.” A reporter at that meeting asked, “What about all the white people dying of AIDS?” She responded with her well-known angry glare.
This is the Lavonia Allison that everyone is lauding today upon news of her retirement. I say good riddance. Durham, and especially race relations in this city, will be better off without her.
