“We’re Walking Proud and Talking Loud Because We’re the New Black Joes!”: Community Leadership and Tenants Rights in Asheville’s 1968 Rent Strike

In 1967, black residents of Asheville’s public housing complexes issued a challenge to the Asheville Housing Authority. Proclaiming “we are human and we want our freedom,” tenants demanded a new relationship to the institution that governed their lives in this southern Appalachian city. ¹ The Asheville rent strike began in 1967, and with this campaign, low-income black residents punctured the oppressive political and social dynamics of the city that had rendered them invisible. With this strike, tenants articulated claims for justice based on a recognition of their dignity and a correction to unfair treatment. Despite the power of institutionalized racism and the dynamics of paternalism, black tenants flipped the script to challenge the deeply ingrained system of white paternalism that structured their daily lives. Ultimately, tenants at Hillcrest and Lee Walker Heights challenged the very nature of black leadership in Asheville, North Carolina, by taking on the city government. That this protest would result in a small victory is a testimony to what it might take to fully uproot racial paternalism and a recognition that the story is not yet over. ²

Today Asheville is considered a “top tourist attraction in the South.” According to a 2016 New York Times article, Asheville is “renowned for its creative spirit and progressive ideals.” Tourists can marvel at the early twentieth century Art Deco architecture of the quaint downtown, they can sit by the roaring fire of the world-renowned Grove Park Inn, and they can sample a wide assortment of locally brewed beers. In fact, tourists can pedal around downtown on a brew-cycle, drinking beer, singing songs, and viewing the locals. It is no accident that Asheville now calls itself “Beer City USA.” ³ Yet, tourist pamphlets and glowing newspaper reviews promoting the Biltmore Estate and tubing down the French Broad River ignore the social history of this Appalachian city. Indeed, one wonders if the Asheville Chamber of Commerce intentionally disconnects the present state of the city with its historical past.

The field of Appalachian history is quickly transforming as scholars are turning their attention to the history of African Americans in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Building on the groundbreaking work by John Inscoe and William Turner, historians are revealing a significant black presence in what was previously seen as a white region. ⁴ Historians also challenge the assumption that Appalachia should be seen as a rural place. Cities like Knoxville; Johnson City; Louisville; Charleston, West Virginia; and Chattanooga are now under consideration. ⁵ However, if scholars are challenging notions that the southern Appalachian region was racially pure, rural, and stuck in time, it is now time for scholars to deepen our understanding of the role of black protest in shaping the urban politics of the region. ⁶

In addition, a focus on larger cities leaves out an experience more common than not. We might ask, what can be learned from looking in smaller places? ⁷ Does our understanding of the persistence of racism and racial inequality expand when we look outside the larger metropolitan centers? At first glance, Asheville is a small city in the southern Appalachian Mountains. For almost a century, the city has been a tourist destination and as tourism became more important to the local economy, other types of industry have faded. One hundred years ago, Asheville could include cotton mills and tobacco rolling factories as places of employment. Now, the low-wage service industry geared toward tourism dominates the economic landscape. Tourism in Asheville results in a white front of the house and a black or brown back of the house. As a result, the city appears to be white. The downtown streets, the restaurants and coffee shops, and the outdoor recreation spots are full of white workers and white tourists. ⁸

Yet, this overwhelming blanket of whiteness is more a reflection of the power dynamics of the city than demographics. It turns out that Asheville has an African American population that reflects the national average of 13 percent. This number has decreased over the past several decades but has remained steady with small fluctuations between 10 and 15 percent. Over the last hundred years, black residents have become more and more invisible in the public face of the city. Tourism, urban renewal, and the persistence of black disempowerment have all contributed to the process of disappearing black Asheville. A full telling of this story is too complex for this essay, but I will attempt to tell a small piece of this history. ⁹

The Asheville rent strike was set against a national background of heightened civil rights protest, urban rioting, and the federal government’s war on poverty. Whether working with the federal government in community action programs (CAPs) or local Housing Authorities, tenant activism was a critical component of a new direction in civil rights politics, a direction that stressed public claims for self-determination and recognition of poverty as a persistent component of American capitalism. In large cities like New York, St. Louis, Baltimore, Durham, and Oakland, tenants drew on a wide variety of community-based institutions and black political networks. Without this historic social apparatus, tenants in Asheville operated at a disadvantage. However, in the mid 1960s, these tenants became part of a statewide initiative to end poverty and help the poor gain access to state and local resources. In this way, federal antipoverty programs created the conditions for tenants to be seen and to be heard. ¹⁰

In cities across the United States, deindustrialization played a pivotal role in igniting the black freedom struggle. Job losses associated with deindustrialization and the movement of employment from cities to suburbs galvanized black working people, and those experiences often served as a bridge to the black freedom struggle. However, in Asheville, the centrality of the tourist economy resulted in both a structural lack of opportunity and an absence of significant leverage. While tourism did create jobs, employers preferred not to hire black workers for visible jobs in hotels and restaurants. At the same time, black residents understood that local business leaders relied on an image of positive race relations and peaceful race politics to keep the tourists coming. As cities across the United States exploded in the late 1960s, threatening to destabilize the peace could become a powerful political weapon. ¹¹

Politics in Asheville followed a pattern in Appalachia of patronage, paternalism, and “the intertwining of economic self-interest and political influence [that] worked to maintain the status quo.” ¹² This history of white paternalism and patronage politics directed by old-boy networks, built from political dynasties and strongmen regimes, limited the abilities of civil rights activists fundamentally to change the conditions of black residents. Youth led protests like those initiated by Asheville Student Committee for Racial Equality helped facilitate municipal desegregation, but left many racist practices in place. In other southern cities during the years following World War II, African American churches fueled significant black protest, but this was not the case in Asheville. Black ministers took a more conservative route and mostly warned against challenging the status quo. ¹³ Democrat Party syndicates like “the Burdette-Green-Nettles” organization, individuals like powerful city managers Pat Burdette and Weldon Weir and organizations like the Central Asheville Association, and the Chamber of Commerce cemented a complex web that brokered resources and employment. In this heavily segregated city, black elites tended to function as mediators between white and black Asheville. In tandem, the tourist economy developed a pattern of personal service employment that tied black individuals to whites in such a way that to challenge the power structure was to challenge the economic well-being of black communities. ¹⁴

Yet, despite these obstacles, black tenants in Asheville followed in the direction of the Black Power Movement and the National Welfare Rights Movement as they emphasized the connection between economic and racial inequality, and the need for black political power. Tenants rejected white paternalism and openly demonstrated their understanding that institutionalized racism prevented black upward mobility and economic security. They accepted some assistance from allies but rejected the tendencies by many sympathetic blacks and whites to speak for them. They also demanded equal representation based on their citizenship and their economic role as consumers. ¹⁵

Scholars now recognize how consumption issues and material resources like housing, employment, and public assistance ignited civil rights protest in the late 1960s. Yet, while the southern desegregation and nonviolent direct actions of the 1950s and 1960s carried a moral weight along with a legal challenge to segregation and racial violence, activities like rent strikes and protests around welfare issues were less well received and have been misperceived by history. A partial explanation for this is that these events radically critiqued fundamental practice of democracy and the system of capitalism. ¹⁶ In addition, the identification of urban African Americans with theories of “the underclass” tended to depoliticize the ways some scholars understand the black freedom struggles of the era. ¹⁷ When CAPs came to Asheville, resident activists “turned the social policy process into an extension of civil rights activism.” ¹⁸ Galvanized by the war against poverty, these activists demanded a place at the table. ¹⁹

Asheville is a small city in Western North Carolina; it functions as a “metropolis” for the mountain regions and is the seat for Buncombe County—one of the largest counties in North Carolina in the 1960s. However, according to a 1967 report done by the North Carolina Fund (NC Fund), “Asheville presents a shocking contrast of wealth and poverty.” In the late 1960s, a high percentage of African Americans and whites lived below the national poverty level ($3,000 annual income). Housing segregation, and lack of education and employment opportunities, combined to keep African American residents confined to impoverished neighborhoods and low-paying jobs. Likewise, in Buncombe County and neighboring Madison County, white residents experienced great rural poverty. In 1960, Madison County ranked ninety-fifth in the state in income. ²⁰

Beginning in the 1950s, social, economic, and environmental forces in southern Appalachia pushed thousands of families off their farms. In Madison County, where a small number of families ran the county by controlling resources and doling out patronage, traditional cash crops like tobacco and dairy farming supported fewer and fewer people, resulting in widespread poverty. ²¹ Strikingly, the percentage of white residents of Madison County and of African American Asheville residents living below the $3,000 annual income was virtually the same. ²² For both groups, poverty was reinforced by poor housing. In Asheville, 36 percent of all residents lived in inadequate housing; in Western North Carolina, nearly 50 percent of the housing units lacked indoor plumbing. ²³

After World War II, residents and officials began to address seriously the housing shortage that shaped Asheville. Lack of an effective housing code resulted in hundreds of substandard housing units. Low-income African American and white families had trouble finding decent housing; a 1948 Welfare Department study revealed that many families had to double up to find shelter. Black veterans, in particular, were affected; they could not take advantage of low-interest GI loans, since the only homes they could buy were not up to government standards. ²⁴

Even after identifying lack of housing as a social problem in the city, a decades-long urban redevelopment project actually widened the gap between black residents and civic power. Neighborhoods that had provided strong bonds of community were bulldozed to build highways through town or provide investment opportunities to increase municipal tax values. ²⁵ When more than forty homes in West Asheville were razed to make way for a bridge, city officials agreed that it was time to investigate new funding sources to build low-income public housing. ²⁶ Hillcrest and Lee Walker Heights were the first such public complexes built in Asheville, they housed African Americans, while Pisgah View was built for whites. Contrasting with stereotypical images of massive, vertical, block style apartment buildings, all three of the complexes were two story apartment buildings built on a horizontal plane. Lee Walker Heights, tucked into the hills of the South Slope neighborhood south of Biltmore Avenue, provided 96 units. Pisgah View Apartments provided more housing with 250 units. This complex was in a remote part of West Asheville, hidden up above the French Broad River and the Asheville Motor Speedway. Down the river, in fact perched on the edge, was Hillcrest, a complex with 234 units. ²⁷

Identified in a government report as an “isolated island in an isolated ghetto,” Hillcrest illustrated some of the more disturbing and destructive trends of urban redevelopment in the 1960s. Surrounded by highway on two sides and the French Broad River on the other, the community was effectively shut off from the rest of the city. ²⁸ The combination of neighborhood clearance and displacement cost African Americans in Asheville significant capital as the number of black-owned businesses fell dramatically and property owners lost their homes. As in many U.S. cities, the victories won by activists in the early 1960s did not address the deprivations and inequalities created by long-term structural processes like urban renewal. ²⁹

Yet, the isolation that removed tenants from the public life of the city also nourished their activism. These new urban spaces provided a favorable context for the development of a black equity-oriented political culture. ³⁰ The Hillcrest Tenants Organization saw opportunity when federal and state antipoverty programs came to Asheville. Working with The Opportunity Corporation (TOC) of Buncombe and Madison County connected the tenants to a regional antipoverty network that assisted with money and activist training and supported the nuts and bolts of community organizing. The presence of federal antipoverty programs justified, if it did not encourage, their protest: conditions and incidents that might have previously been seen as a problem with a neglectful landlord were now understood to be violations of tenant rights. In 1966, tenants developed community organizations at all the public housing complexes with the help of TOC, each called a local CAP. ³¹

TOC was the child of both a statewide initiative and new federal programming. In 1964, Governor Terry Sanford created the NC Fund, an antipoverty, nonprofit organization partially funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Initially inspired by Michael Harrington’s exposė, The Other America, Sanford imagined this nonprofit corporation would arrest widespread poverty and the cultural values and social problems that went with poverty. By 1966, NC Fund’s George Esser declared that the purpose of the fund was to “strengthen and expand the democratic process itself at all levels, so that all our people can play an active part in the shaping of their own, and the nation’s destiny.” ³²

In his inaugural speech in 1964, President Johnson outlined his vision for a national war on poverty. Influenced by the NC Fund and its administrators, the Johnson administration antipoverty legislation also sought to develop community action as a way to involve local people and make local agencies more responsive to their particular needs. The Economic Opportunity Act (EOA), signed into law in August 1964, required “the maximum feasible participation of the residents of the areas and members of the groups” supported by the CAPs. ³³ The NC Fund immediately directed its CAPs to apply for federal funds. Asheville’s TOC was one of those eleven CAPs. ³⁴

TOC intended to extend services in selected target areas. Its application for funding listed support for a family planning clinic, neighborhood and community centers in the city and in the surrounding county, child development centers, and career counseling. ³⁵ These projects reflected the goals of many reform-minded city leaders, and at first, it appeared that TOC would follow the direction of those leaders. This was certainly the case in other cities that implemented War on Poverty Programs. However, when TOC staff started to move beyond providing services to foster “maximum feasible participation,” tensions flared. Staff members chafed under the authority of director Ora Spaid, who chose to placate city leaders rather than directly challenge unequal power distribution in Asheville. ³⁶ In many ways, Spaid was in an impossible situation. Early on, it was clear that the city government tolerated TOC mainly because it brought federal money into the area to help the rural white poor; in fact, its earliest proposal asked for support for segregated neighborhood centers. When it became clear that TOC was focusing attention on urban African Americans, problems arose. City leaders had not expected TOC publicly to address issues like racial inequality or the continuing segregation in the school system. ³⁷

Despite these conflicts, TOC began to build relationships with tenants in Asheville’s several public housing complexes. TOC offered an opening in local politics for poor and working-class residents to shape the direction of these government programs, and very quickly, these CAPs began to reflect their specific interests. Inspired by the presence of the new programs, in 1966, Hillcrest tenants met to discuss the impact of impending urban renewal plans and to share complaints about maintenance problems and bad treatment by Asheville Housing Authority (AHA) staff. Hillcrest resident Mrs. Betty Smith recommended that Carl Johnson, “the man with the most mouth at Hillcrest,” be pulled into the organization; he quickly became a leading figure in the Hillcrest Community Organization. ³⁸ Johnson, recently retired from his job as a nurse’s aide and morgue technician at the Veterans Administration hospital, had lived at Hillcrest for five years, and had a reputation for getting things done there. ³⁹

In many ways, Johnson exemplified the kind of leadership that Asheville political leaders feared. Looking back, NC Fund field operative Bob Walker remembered the special position Johnson occupied; Johnson was a fierce advocate for poor people and gave “voice and power to black people in Asheville such that with very little blowing of the trumpet the walls came tumbling down.” Johnson was soon elected president of the Hillcrest Tenants Association and, with the help of TOC, opened an office at the Hillcrest Community Center. TOC courted Johnson, and while he agreed to serve on the board, he would not accept a paying job with TOC, reasoning that he did not want to be “easier to control.” ⁴⁰

White city leaders were used to working with elite African American business leaders and black ministers who were not interested in rocking the boat. In fact, many black ministers discouraged their congregations from involving themselves in the movement, and local progressive organizations agreed with local political leaders that race problems should be solved in local ways, on local terms. ⁴¹ Johnson challenged assumptions about black leadership in Asheville. Now tenants were staking a claim to local leadership and stepping outside their place to do so. Historically, the class dynamics of black Asheville determined who would be seen by the white elites as leadership and who would remain invisible. Normally, employment and resource brokering happened on an individual basis, oriented toward individual benefit rather than community advancement. ⁴² Bob Walker, a CAP official, described Asheville “as characterized by a patronage system, black and white bootlicking, and notorious for not recognizing and acting on its own problems.” ⁴³

By 1967, staff members began working with grassroots organizations in the three public housing complexes: Hillcrest, Lee Walker Heights, and Pisgah View. ⁴⁴ Starting with a press release in 1967, Hillcrest tenants challenged the mainstream black community leadership:

Favorite pastimes of those in our community who would divide us, is to determine who the leaders are and decide who among us is responsible or irresponsible (by their standards). Sometime before it gets hot, those know-it-alls better learn that a city like Asheville has leaders all over the place.

The tenants issued a warning to both the black and white power structures: “We’re coming but our heads ain’t bending low, we’re walking proud and talking loud because we’re the New Black Joes!” ⁴⁵

In the fall of 1967, the Hillcrest Tenants Organization circulated a leaflet outlining their grievances. Residents protested the ways that their quality of life was constantly undermined and downgraded by the AHA; they complained of commodes that leaked into kitchen sinks, overflowing dumpsters, having to wade through mud and standing water whenever they left their front stoops, and broken windows and appliances that were never fixed or replaced. Some tenants reported moving into apartments that had not been repaired or cleaned. New tenants were told repairs were coming, but nothing would happen; upon leaving, they would be held responsible for problems predating their tenancy. ⁴⁶

Residents knew that, though they lived in a publicly assisted housing complex, they should not have to live in dangerous and unhealthy surroundings. Tenants wanted real maintenance; they charged that the manager of the three housing complexes, Carl Vaughn, was more interested in “planting roses outside the buildings” than fixing leaks, bad drainage, and structural problems. The unequal relationship between tenants and management, they argued, was dehumanizing. It violated their rights as citizens and reinforced their subordination to white control and surveillance. Tenants’ lack of visibility meant that their issues could never be heard and their situations would never be seen,

We all want freedom, and now, for ourselves and our neighbors. We are sick and tired of our so-called friends, keeping their feet on our necks. Asking us to quit when we’re in great pain, suffering great indignities. ⁴⁷

Continuing with the analysis of the dynamics of paternalism, they described the position of manager Vaughn as that of a “plantation overseer.” Tenants believed that the problems at public housing could be solved, but not under then current management. ⁴⁸

The Hillcrest tenants’ meetings attracted residents from other complexes. Soon, Lee Walker Heights developed their own tenants’ organization. ⁴⁹ At first, the tenants tried to work with the housing authority. In the fall of 1967, tenants met with AHA director, Dr. Joseph Schandler, and two other AHA commissioners, to explain that they had been making requests for improvements for several years; because nothing had been done to address their complaints, the tenants’ organization felt that the next step was to speak directly with the AHA board. Dr. Schandler promised that, if he saw evidence of wrongdoing, “there may have to be a personnel shake-up in some maintenance and management positions within the authority.” Tenants were told to expect action soon. ⁵⁰

On November 8, Dr. Schandler and Lowell Solesbee, AHA maintenance supervisor, did a spot tour of some Hillcrest apartments and found the complaint level to be very low. Tenants knew this was wrong, given the long list of complaints they had collected. They asked how it was possible for Schandler to see the problems if he only looked at the exteriors of their homes. According to one tenant, “This made us hot as hell. Right away we decided to do something about this stuff.” ⁵¹

Tenants began to build momentum toward action within their housing community. The newly established Hillcrest Teens Association published coverage of Hillcrest discussions in its newsletter. The front page of the November 17, 1967, issue asked critical questions about the leases at public housing, pointing out many questionable rights held by management: that its representatives could enter at any time without permission and could remove possessions without notification, and that rent could be immediately increased but any decrease due to unemployment or salary decline would take two months to enact. Tenants challenged the legality of the leases. Newsletter writers dared their parents to consider: “[D]o you realize that when you signed your lease you agreed to deny yourself of any all legal and moral rights that are even afforded a criminal of the highest caliber?” ⁵²

Next, the tenants’ association asked TOC to bring seasoned organizers to town to facilitate training. From the perspective of one longtime black resident, outside help was crucial, since most of the residents supported the strike but had little experience in movement organizing. There were no institutions in place that could help tenants with planning their actions and outreach. There was enthusiasm and momentum, but residents had very little on the ground experience in organizing campaigns. Where would meetings be held? Who would take notes? Who would find chairs? TOC’s relationship with NC Fund gave tenants a more direct entrance into the larger world of black protest. In Durham, NC Fund’s mobilization against poverty was attracting effective black grassroots activists like Howard Fuller and Ann Atwater, and NC Fund-supported Operation Breakthrough had taken on housing and voter registration. In fact, earlier that summer, Durham had exploded over issues of city housing policies. Led by United Organizations, African Americans mobilized hundreds of city residents to challenge and protest discrimination, neglect, and lack of adequate housing. Residents threatened that “Durham will be another Vietnam” or Newark. Learning quickly, Hillcrest tenants soon threatened that “they would get Durham on the city” if their demands were not met. ⁵³

At the end of November, Atwater came from Durham for a week. She advocated an assertive style of grassroots politics that the tenants desired, and she was very effective at encouraging tenants to engage in direct action. ⁵⁴ Black Power activist Fuller also visited Asheville and led a daylong workshop, at the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), on neighborhood organizing. As Johnson remembered it, the power structure was alarmed enough to send plainclothesmen and police officers to the meeting. Fuller returned a few more times, meeting with Johnson and Bob Brunk, the representative from TOC. Although Fuller’s involvement with the organization was more advisory and symbolic than directly engaged, his presence was enough to make local and state authorities nervous. ⁵⁵ Brunk remembered meeting with Fuller several times at the Holiday Inn restaurant and “There’d be two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) people on his tail, one FBI guy on my tail and an SBI on both our tails, listening, watching, were we planning an insurrection.”

Forty-two days after the first formal meeting with Schandler, tenants met to vote for a rent strike. AHA commissioners were invited to that meeting because it was important to the tenants to engage in open and democratic proceedings. They hoped that the commissioners would want to hear their grievances and respond accordingly. Instead, Schandler requested a meeting with a select few; tenants refused since this violated their ethic of collective participation and instead held a mass meeting. Schandler did not show up and in the end, the only commissioner in attendance was Joseph Wilkins, an African American businessman not trusted by tenants, who called him an Uncle Tom. Spaid, from TOC, was there and after hearing the grievances agreed that tenants had legitimate cause to strike. ⁵⁶

Almost immediately, the AHA responded by diminishing the claims made by tenants. Schandler, interviewed by the Asheville Times, told the reporter that more maintenance men had been hired and that he and the AHA commissioners “seemed pleased with Vaughn’s services and with all the improvements he has brought to public housing in Asheville.” The tenants needed to be patient and, he suggested, a little more appreciative of the efforts made by AHA. ⁵⁷

The AHA assumed tenants could be pacified with a few more temporary maintenance workers. This was not so. As tenants elaborated their grievances and developed strategies to support the strike, they expressed a protest politics that reaffirmed their rights as citizens and challenged the race and class politics that rendered them invisible in Asheville. The tenants’ organization circulated a leaflet at Hillcrest that set out their complaints. Claiming that “the Negro has been served skunk on a platter for so long half dressed, the time is now for him to be served steak,” the group grounded its complaints in a militant language but also a language of consumerist citizenship. In the leaflet, tenants argued that, since they paid the rent and the board members were merely appointed by the mayor, their interests should, at the very least, have equal weight to the interests of the AHA board. They questioned why residents had no input on how the budget was formed. At minimum, tenants demanded a tenants’ council with the ability to address the power asymmetry of the current tenant/AHA relationship. ⁵⁸ The tenants described their choice to strike as a way to “demonstrate our worth to let them know we are men and women and not children.” ⁵⁹

While the rent strike challenged traditional relationships between black tenants and the city, it also revealed some hitherto invisible local dynamics between black residents. Class conflict fueled by the politics of patronage played a divisive role among black residents and prevented the kinds of intraracial cross-class coalitions that made protest politics successful in other cities. The case of Magnolia Whitesides, assistant to Carl Vaughn, illustrates the divisive nature of paternalism. Mrs. Whitesides was a member of a prominent Asheville African American family and she had a long career at AHA. She worked as assistant to Carl Vaughn, who ran the day-to-day operations for the three complexes. According to the tenants, Vaughn was the only official to whom tenants had access; however, to communicate with Vaughn, they had to go through Whitesides first. When tenants complained about things like hot water heaters and stoves blowing up or kitchen cabinets falling off walls, they claimed these were often met by harassment and threats from Whitesides. ⁶⁰

A look at the organization’s meeting minutes and detailed complaints show the kind of power that Mrs. Whitesides exercised. The majority of complaints came from women and these complaints outlined a long pattern of neglect and abuse. Complaints came in all forms: Mrs. Hopes was told she should keep her small children from tumbling out of the broken windows in her apartment; Mrs. Shaw was accused of being a prostitute (she worked nights and thus kept late hours) and was evicted; Mrs. Nesbitt was denied a better apartment because she had too many children; Mrs. Stoner was threatened with having her welfare check cut off because she complained too many times about the state of her apartment; several women complained of sexual harassment by Vaughn and maintenance workers; and a number of mothers complained that their children were chased off their stoops because Vaughn did not like seeing children playing in the front yards. ⁶¹

In the meetings, women testified to the ways that Whitesides kept the tenants in check and afraid. Tenants charged that instead of reporting their complaints or discovering ways to solve them, Whitesides threatened people with eviction and held their welfare checks. They alleged that she used gossip and false accusations to divide residents. One woman revealed that Whitesides and Vaughn had offered her a bribe to testify against another woman who was accused of selling liquor out of her apartment to minors; the accused said that her only crime was reporting a maintenance issue. Whitesides accused another woman of being an unwed mother and sent her an eviction notice. Vaughn refused to listen to her appeal despite the fact that the woman, though separated from her husband, was married. In this case, Whitesides said the neighbors were complaining about the noise and Vaughn called her a prostitute, despite the fact that there was no evidence of either charge. ⁶²

At one particularly volatile meeting in December 1967, supporters and opponents of Whitesides faced off. Tenants who had experienced harassment and unfair treatment demanded that she be removed; a contingent of tenants headed by Mary King countered that she should be protected. King was also a defender of Vaughn, and she reported that at least one hundred families supported them. Tenants’ ire was stoked further when Whitesides argued in her own defense that everything that she had done was authorized by AHA. An ally, Reverend Armstrong, voiced his concern that the conflicts between tenants and Whitesides was a distraction from the real issue which was “black against white” and that the Hillcrest Community needed the support of every “Negro organization.” Many of the tenants thought Whitesides was pressured into doing Vaughn’s dirty work and therefore, as a victim of race politics, needed protection, too. According to Carl Johnson, “We felt after hearing her side that we could work with her.” In the end, with calls for unity, tenants put forward a motion to keep Whitesides and it passed unanimously. ⁶³

Probably the most controversial charges against the AHA focused on financial mismanagement and leases. Tenants demanded that AHA account books be opened to public scrutiny and that U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials from Atlanta visit to examine the financial records. They identified practices that were illegal and against AHA policy: tenants who received welfare were often overcharged for their rent and charged for landscaping; tenants got utility bills with no dates or amounts of service and rates; and tenants who inquired or complained experienced harassment and insults or were just ignored. Sometimes tenants received refunds with no explanation. Some people were allowed to pay partial bills and some were not. The issue of the lease united tenants as they identified the ways that the lease appeared to be unconstitutional. The lease was a standard form issued by HUD. It created a scenario in which tenants had no ability to defend themselves if charged with violating terms of the lease. It also allowed management to enter at will, evict tenants without notice, and remove all possessions without a guarantee of recovery. For tenants, this was a clear example of how the AHA kept them vulnerable and dependent. ⁶⁴

Beyond TOC, the tenants had a number of allies from across Asheville. The League of Women Voters (LWV) became observers for the various meetings between the tenants and AHA and led its own investigation into conditions at the housing complexes. After confirming the tenants’ allegations, the LWV became a staunch supporter of the tenants’ demands. The organization agreed with the Hillcrest organization that politics and lack of political representation played a role in this conflict and supported tenant representation on the AHA board. ⁶⁵

The Asheville Area Human Relations Council (AHRC) also provided important support to the tenants. This integrated organization was made up of local ministers and progressive-minded professionals. Representatives from this organization, Charles Lindsley and Hyman Dave, examined Hillcrest’s account books and discovered significant discrepancies. They confirmed what tenants had already charged: that the bookkeeping practices and excessive utility charges were serious problems. While Lindsley was careful not to accuse anyone of taking money, he did affirm that some tenants were being charged money that AHA was not entitled to. When the AHRC brought these findings to the attention of AHA, board members and Vaughn affirmed their own racial loyalties and turned on Whitesides, blaming her for all the problems. ⁶⁶

Bringing the financial mismanagement of AHA to light was significant for the tenants, as it reinforced the legality of their demands and gave them public credibility. Yet, this was only a part of what the tenants sought. The Hillcrest Organization expressed a desire for more visibility and authority for its own leadership. Members drew attention to the lack of credibility of the self-appointed black leaders within the public housing community. Although the city was not interested in dealing with them directly, tenants demanded that the AHA board attend their mass meetings as opposed to small, hand-selected meetings called by AHA. ⁶⁷

AHA leaders showed their desire to manage the conflict with the tenants by finding mediators to speak and negotiate for the tenants. For example, Joseph Wilkins was a local black businessman who owned a successful mortuary. He was also the only black member of AHA. Early in the strike, Wilkins made an effort to attend meetings and listen to tenant demands. However, when AHA attempted to position Wilkins as a liaison between the tenants and itself, tenants rejected that idea. In fact, at the meeting where this was suggested, “tenants erupted in an uproar,” thoroughly rejecting Wilkins’s credibility to represent their interests. Tenants believed that their voices would be silenced by outsiders who benefited from their connections with white elites. They understood that their direct involvement with AHA in the form of representation on the board meant expressing a political voice in the system that determined their lives. ⁶⁸

As the strike unfolded, the media publicized violent threats that were being used to support the demands of the strikers. The Asheville Citizen reported that Schandler resigned just days after the strike began because his family had been threatened by an unidentified caller. The article also reported that maintenance men had been threatened when they tried to enter a Hillcrest apartment. Bob Brunk also remembered an atmosphere of violence and intimidation generated by the strike, but from a different perspective: his life was threatened because of his role in supporting the strikers. He recalled receiving phone calls that said things like, “If you don’t quit what you’re doing you’ll find your wife and kids butchered in a ditch tomorrow night.” He remembered the fear of coming home at night and seeing a strange pickup truck parked in front of his house. ⁶⁹ Carl Johnson referenced self-defense when charged that tenants posed a threat in an interview with The Asheville Times: “They [AHA] don’t have to worry about us hurting anybody, unless they try to hurt us and then we’ll do the best we can. We’re not playing a violent game.” Residents who did not take part in the strike had nothing to fear; they would not get “jumped on by those taking part.” ⁷⁰

The climate of fear was exacerbated by how unusual it was in Asheville. Local high school students had protested for equal accommodations and employment in the early 1960s, for example, but those conflicts had been settled quickly, behind closed doors. These tenants represented a new approach to politics and did not ask for changes in the usual way. They bypassed the ladder of patronage and favors of local government. They did not just complain about broken plumbing and peeling paint; Hillcrest and Lee Walker Heights tenants threatened to reveal how the city agency misused its power, misappropriated tax dollars, and, by using an unconstitutional lease, violated the social and political contract that supposedly existed between citizens and city government. At the very least, these actions challenged the allocation of power and resources in the city. Tenants wanted the city to be accountable to them, not the other way around. They rejected paternalistic politics to claim a partnership with local government. ⁷¹

Newspaper editorials responded to this new claim to partnership by denying that tenants were in charge of the strike. The Asheville Times blamed the strike on TOC. The editorial charged that the strike was not necessary and that tenants should have just been patient since, over time, improvements would be made; it was antipoverty workers acting like outside agitators who were fanning the flames. The editor charged that “The whole business is a pretty flagrant example of an antipoverty agency, the Opportunity Corporation in this case, using federal funds to attack another local agency and to disrupt a local community.” ⁷² To address the lack of legitimate coverage, the tenants’ association sent out press releases. In one, the organization addressed its own invisibility and the misunderstandings cultivated by the local press:

We are involved in a move that is asking rights which have been denied us too long, we as do other individuals living in public housing have never been given a means of redress in order to acquire satisfaction in any form or fashion that pertains to basic rights that any family or individual living under a tenant landlord relationship as should be afforded. ⁷³

The tenants knew how important it was for the press and political leaders to keep this conflict invisible. In a letter to the Human Relations Council, the tenants critiqued the press and the power structure that would “keep the news of the negro plight from getting out of the city. If it does, they will not get the tourist and his money.” ⁷⁴

This challenge to the relationship between tenants and the municipal power structure revealed both the nature of paternalism in Asheville and the vulnerabilities of that type of political rule. Asheville has a city-manager form of government, and at the time that position was filled by Weldon Weir. When the strike broke out, he was forced to react. Brunk got called into the city manager’s office one day, and Weir and the editor of the Asheville Citizen tried to negotiate a secret settlement with him. Weir kept asking Brunk what he really wanted, suggesting that Brunk had an agenda. At first, they were polite and friendly, good old boys having a meeting over a misunderstanding. But Brunk stuck to the facts of the constitutional violations raised by the lease. He stressed that the strike was organized and led by local black tenants. Weir grew angrier. He just could not believe that a group of African Americans could organize a significant protest. He wanted Brunk to call off the strike in exchange for some small token of cooperation. For Brunk, the meeting was ludicrous; he had no authority in the tenants’ organization. In fact, he had been kicked out of an important planning meeting because the tenants mistrusted the intentions of TOC. ⁷⁵

Weir was not alone in misunderstanding the relationship between antipoverty workers and the tenants’ group. While the strike drew a great deal of attention, at the outset, the press and city leaders did not pay much attention to the tenants’ actual grievances. Instead, they attacked TOC. For conservatives, this was a chance to show that federal antipoverty programs were misguided and dangerous. The issue was not overcharging for utilities, an unconstitutional lease, or maintenance neglect, it was outside agitators. Schandler invoked racial stereotypes and patterns of paternalism when he charged that TOC had come up with the idea of the rent strike and had encouraged the tenants without giving them proper guidance. He claimed that, prior to TOC, black tenants had a good relationship with AHA. He also claimed that Johnson had an “expense account provided by the Opportunity Corporation and is paid to run here and there to find out how to create this type of difficulty.” ⁷⁶

The politics of paternalism created a complicated relationship between the white power structure and local black leaders, but it also highlighted generational divisions among black activists. Buried in the Hillcrest Organization meeting minutes are a set of journal entries by the unnamed son of an Asheville minister. The entries describe an interaction between father and son and their clashing political views. Given his experience in Asheville, the minster counseled solving racial conflict by cooperating with the white power structure while his son had a more militant view of black self-determination. One morning, the minister woke up his son, a younger man, at 3:30 a.m. and told him that Weldon Weir wanted to meet to “give him what he wanted and solve our problems.” The young man told his father that he could not negotiate for the Hillcrest Organization, that there was no way the organization would back down. As proof, he showed the ministers all the letters tenants had sent to Committee for Racial Equality (CORE), black magazines, and news organizations outside of Western North Carolina. The younger man argued that, for political reasons, they had to keep up the pressure if “we are going to get Black Asheville off its polite back. It’s now or never, come hell or high water.” Rejecting the favor and privileges that Weir could supply, the young man told his father that he would “walk the streets in the cold or try sleeping in a basement before I would sell these people.” He critiqued the political racial norm which meant that the price of being a black man in Asheville was to be exploited by white people. ⁷⁷

The minister acknowledged his son’s position, then complained that he was being pressured to do whatever he could to bring the rent strike to an end. The minister reported being told that his radio show would be taken off the air if he allowed his son to speak on it about the strike. With that in mind, the minister offered to let his son speak in church, explaining to the congregation that his son “was a part of the New Thinking and of course he was of the old day.” ⁷⁸

The political differences between the father and son were apparent. For the son, success meant something more than token integration; his view of self-determination involved “Black councilmen, school board members, selected by us. County commissioners . . . open occupancy where a man can live wherever his money allow.” He demanded black businesses wherever desired, no more black schools and a better school system overall. He finished with a call for “black pride, love for the black woman-hood, training our children to be proud and that they shouldn’t be ashamed of us and their selves.” ⁷⁹

The language of black power connected the personal with the political as the young man looked toward the future. In one journal entry, the young man wrote,

From now on, let’s go forth correcting these mistakes, by being men and women and looking for the beauty in our own black people, protecting our women with our life if necessary. Teaching our son’s the black women are to be respected, protected, and treated as the greatest persons living because they will be the mothers to our sons. We who are putting our hope of the future in then and there will I feel the Battle is on the move toward change, still not complete but a damn good start. ⁸⁰

The message of self-determination resonated with young people and reinforced a new role for black activism in Asheville. The Southside neighborhood teen association, The Skylighters, came out in support of the strike. They observed that urban renewal in the Southside was displacing black residents at a rapid pace. They voiced concern that soon they, themselves, would be residents of public housing and, therefore, they urged community members to support tenant demands. The Hillcrest Teens Newsletter became an important tool for spreading information about the strike and countering coverage in the press. Youthful contributors like Janet Gaines and Gregory Wright captured the spirit of their peers and celebrated the new opportunities for community empowerment represented by the strike. Gaines was inspired by the activism of her neighbors:

I think that the people of Hillcrest feel that we are in the middle of new and better things to come. I feel that at last they are standing up for what is theirs rightfully, but it seems that the white man thinks that they are trying to be publicized or just get their names in the paper.

Wright wrote about how tenants were modeling new directions for making change:

We are in the midst of the best thing, in my opinion, that could happen to Hillcrest. We are really showing the people of Asheville how easy it is to get something done if you have group participation. We are advancing at a faster pace than I expected we would.

Both writers recognized the heavy influence of white racism in shaping public opinion. Wright offered this paradox:

I believe if we had gone to town and started breaking out windows and tearing up stores they would have said the same thing. The white man preaches that you never get anywhere with violence, but when you try to get something peacefully they still have a lot of stupid remarks to say about it.

Elaine Durham challenged Hillcrest tenants to stand up to the white power structure:

I would like to give three cheers to all of the tenants of Hillcrest, who have gotten tired of being pushed around by the White Man. We are so used to being pushed around by our great White Father, until we get our chance to get as far away from him as we can, which is now, we are afraid. I would like to ask us black people, why are we afraid to fight the white man for our rights? ⁸¹

As the strike went on during the winter months of 1968, Vaughn’s future remained a key issue for strikers. Tenants believed that Vaughn represented the true attitudes of the Housing Authority and, in many ways, he did. He was accused of acting like a racist, petty dictator. Residents complained that he drove through the complexes at night spying on them. In public meetings, he referred to black tenants with racial slurs. He was charged with corruption and with allowing materials and supplies intended for public housing to be stolen and sold off by maintenance workers. In classic form, Vaughn responded by ignoring the accusations. He demanded but did not receive a renewal of his contract and a raise. However, AHA did issue a statement supporting Vaughn and his work. ⁸²

But Vaughn was not just a manifestation of official white racist practices, he also expressed the interests of white residents at Pisgah View. TOC had made some inroads in this complex, supporting a tenants’ organization and helping residents create a day care center. However, white residents had a strikingly different relationship with CAP. They tended to be suspicious of antipoverty programming and, while taking advantage of some of its elements, never utilized the programs to alter power relations fundamentally. For poor whites in Appalachia, and certainly at Pisgah View, cultural values of independence and the desire to be freed from government tied them to white city leaders who opposed government programs. Rather than investing in class-based interests, the tenants at Pisgah View demonstrated a commitment to their racial identity and aligned themselves with the local white power elite. ⁸³

In January 1968, Vaughn agreed to resign, which incensed Pisgah View residents and led them to their own strike. White tenants identified with Vaughn, saw him as an advocate, and overlooked his autocratic behavior. They felt that if there was mismanagement or corruption or a lack of maintenance, it was not their place to get involved. As the Pisgah View tenants’ organization formed its position, interracial tensions between residents came to the forefront. Johnson suspected that Vaughn was instrumental in keeping black residents out of Pisgah View, and that was one of the reasons that white tenants insisted adamant that Vaughn remain. ⁸⁴

Speaking for Pisgah View tenants, Reverend W. L. Crisp charged that Vaughn had always been fair and that TOC was at the root of the conflict. At a public meeting for Pisgah View tenants, the atmosphere was so charged that TOC workers were thrown out of the meeting. Crisp and others declared that if Vaughn resigned it would be a case of “un-American minority rule.” The issue for them was not whether AHA abused its power, but that black tenants had stepped out of their place and were getting preferential treatment. White home owners from the area got involved when they realized that black tenants might be moved into Pisgah View. In solidarity with the tenants, they threatened to withhold their property taxes. Associating the movement of black residents into their neighborhood with a loss in property value, home owners demanded that Pisgah View remain racially segregated. ⁸⁵

At the end of January 1968, the class and race fractures of the city were evident. A political conflict of this magnitude had never before happened in Asheville. In addition, this knot of strikes made public housing a visible and significant political space. No longer on the fringes of city politics, Hillcrest, Lee Walker Heights, and Pisgah View could no longer be ignored. Black and white political interests were now in full view. Hillcrest and Lee Walker Heights residents demanded that their rights as citizens be respected through the drawing of new leases and that their tenancy be respected with decent housing. Pisgah View tenants objected to the removal of Vaughn and demanded that they be involved in choosing his successor. The counterstrike led by Pisgah View so galvanized Crisp that he declared his candidacy for Buncombe County commissioner. Running on a segregationist platform, Crisp promised to fix the problem of “negro, communist, and outside agitation.” ⁸⁶

In February, things came to a head when AHA demanded that strikers pay their rent or face eviction. While there had been some gains with the resignations of Schandler and Vaughn, the issues of excess utilities, the lease, and corruption had not been addressed. Would the strikers be satisfied with small gains? At Pisgah View, the white tenants capitulated and most of them paid their rents. However, the Hillcrest and Lee Walker Heights residents refused and instead escalated the protest. They sent out their own publicity materials to Senator Robert Kennedy, Secretary of HUD Robert Weaver, Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the Federal Housing Authority, and President Johnson, and they contacted Floyd McKissick of CORE. The tenants also increased their pressure on HUD officials from Atlanta to examine AHA’s account books. ⁸⁷

Finally, the Asheville Human Relations Council (AHRC), an interracial local organization, offered to assist in mediating the controversy. Spaid was backing away from supporting the tenants because of accusations that TOC controlled the strike City officials and the Pisgah View tenants accused TOC of leading the strike, and Johnson was suspected of secretly being paid by TOC to cause trouble. For these reasons, Spaid took TOC out of its previously prominent role in supporting the tenants. He argued that criticism of TOC and federal antipoverty work drew attention away from the strikers’ grievances. ⁸⁸ The AHRC was perceived as a more neutral organization and was therefore able to create some movement toward ending the strike. The board of commissioners agreed to back off from evictions and meet with the Hillcrest Community Organization.

However, negotiating an end to the strike proved more complicated than AHA expected. In late February, AHA installed a new director, W. Jennings Groome, a businessman with an interest in real estate and a local bottling plant. Groome’s promise to do whatever he could to address the tenants’ complaints was met with skepticism from the black tenants and applause from the white tenants. Addressing Groome, one tenant said, “You show us you are interested and we’ll show you we’re interested.” Tenants challenged the board by holding them accountable to the promise of tenant representation on the board. One board member, Eugene De Saix compared the tenants’ activism to Hitler’s tactics. When a strike supporter challenged him, De Saix accused him of being an outside agitator from Durham. ⁸⁹

For the tenants, what was at stake was a public recognition that AHA had done wrong and was now taking steps to fix the problems. However, the AHA board was not willing to agree that the tenants had a legitimate position. When Wilkins stood up to address the board, a number of young black men walked out of the meeting, one of them shouting, “Let’s go, this ain’t nothing but an Uncle Tom up there.” Wilkins spoke to the audience about the strike and argued that, all along, the commissioners had been on the tenants’ side and that the strike was not necessary for the tenants’ complaints to be heard. Mrs. Betty Smith jumped up and interrupted Wilkins to correct his interpretation. At one point, Smith stated, “Our money got rid of Carl Vaughn. You need our money. We will not go off the rent strike until we have had our meeting and negotiation.” ⁹⁰ Finally, it became clear to the board that the tenants would not back down and AHA would have to capitulate to their demands to end the strike. On March 1, the Board of Commissioners met with representatives from the Tenants Association in City Hall. At this meeting, it was agreed that AHA would make significant improvements and allow tenants to represent their constituents on the board.

On March 8, 1968, Hillcrest and Lee Walker Heights tenants voted to end the rent strike and release the rent money from their escrow account. They had succeeded in securing their demand to meet with AHA to negotiate an end to the strike. AHA issued a six-page report that outlined the problems at the public housing complexes and the necessary solutions. Each resident received a copy and the report was posted on bulletin boards. This was considered an important victory, since a written public report stating that AHA would act on tenant grievances was one of the main demands of the tenants’ organization. ⁹¹ Johnson told the press that he “hoped the facts would show that his group was not complaining needlessly, that we did point up facts and were not telling a lot of lies.” The statement went even further by acknowledging the board’s awareness of the problems at the complexes. The board planned a meeting with federal officials from HUD and the Housing Assistance Administration to address the lease, the financial mismanagement with utility bills, and other monetary charges. ⁹²

Later in June, a federal auditor confirmed what the tenants’ association had charged, that AHA was, in fact, guilty of “imbalances in the books, inadequate record keeping, failure to take annual inventories, lack of control over funds, questionable architectural and legal fees and numerous violations of federal and local housing policies.” ⁹³ This report was leaked to the local press, and AHA was forced to address these problems, giving the tenants another victory. ⁹⁴

The AHA also agreed to create a tenants’ council with tenants from all three public housing complexes. At first, tenants greeted this with enthusiasm. By August, tenant leaders could point to improvements at the complexes. Carl Johnson applauded the efforts made by the new executive director to keep tenants informed and solicit tenant views on what improvements to prioritize. ⁹⁵ Over the next few years, the AHA sponsored workshops focused on tenant participation and applied for grants for public housing modernization. Yet, by the early 1970s, the focus of the AHA turned toward building new public housing complexes and directing Asheville’s East Riverside urban renewal project. ⁹⁶ Allied activists focused now on fair housing and the relocation of displaced residents. The voices of the tenants became buried under a bureaucratic maze created by the broadened scope and responsibilities of the AHA. ⁹⁷

Seen in a nationwide context, the demands made by the Hillcrest and Lee Walker Heights tenants reflected the increasing claims made by poor tenants specifically in terms of their right as citizens. In cities across the United States, black activists and antipoverty activists worked together to challenge the unequal relationships public housing tenants were forced into. Locally, tenants identified the racial paternalism specific to Asheville as the problem and, in so doing, issued a serious challenge to the dominant white power structure of the city. Black tenants in Asheville understood something that still resonates today: they saw that the inequalities and obstacles to upward mobility that they experienced stemmed from a lack of political power; it was a politics of paternalism rather than cultural backwardness that kept resources out of their hands. ⁹⁸

The reaction by white tenants to the demands of black tenants revealed how such claims were felt as threats. White tenants at Pisgah View resented the challenge to the small privileges they received from AHA. A more democratic system of tenant representation threatened to make low-income black and white tenants equal in status. Without these locations, set apart from the rest of the city, this interconnected conflict over black leadership, challenge to paternalistic politics, and deep outpouring of white working-class support for the white power structure would have remained invisible. Looking back, we see that the Hillcrest Community Organization had forged a new kind of politics to take and make power where there had previously been none. They had combined a militant language of citizen-based entitlement with a strategy of grassroots community organizing to produce a new challenge to Asheville’s government.