Walnut Tree, NC For nearly 40 years, the town of Walnut Tree, in North Carolina’s Stokes County, has experienced municipal underbounding, or a systematic denial of incorporation as explained in The Persistence of Political Segregation: Racial Underbounding in North Carolina. When Walnut Tree was developed in the 1970s through the use of mortgages by the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) to incentivize African American homeownership in the South, many residents already renting in the town of Walnut Cove moved to Walnut Tree to buy their own homes with the understanding that they would soon be incorporated back into the Town of Walnut Cove.
Despite this understanding, residents in Walnut Tree remained an unincorporated extraterritorial jurisdiction, having to pay twice the price for water and sewer services compared to those living inside of Walnut Cove despite the water being discolored, smelling "like rotten eggs," and containing excess minerals. Additionally, Walnut Tree residents endured an unauthorized shale gas probe and were denied emergency services, street lights, sidewalks, and most of all, political representation. |
“ 'We wanted to be annexed so we could have clean water and have the service that was actually promised to us. But it was also a civil rights issue, they did not want a black person on their board in Walnut Cove.'' ”
-Ada Linster, one of the first property owners in Walnut Tree
The Fight for Annexation
Because of the disparate treatment and exclusion residents of Walnut Tree were enduring, they decided to petition the Town of Walnut Cove for annexation beginning in the 1990s. Walnut Tree residents were denied annexation and incorporation time and time again while other, predominantly white, developments such as Kingswood and Laurel Cliffs were annexed.
Although many tried to claim that those subdivisions were granted annexation and Walnut Tree was denied annexation for financial reasons, the Town was found to have spent over $300,000 providing water and sewer services to Kingswood after annexation in addition to paying for the street lights, road maintenance, garbage collection, and emergency services that Walnut Tree would also require. Additionally, it was noted that the Kingswood and Walnut Tree areas were the same geographical size, and Kingswood was less densely populated, meaning Kingswood required a larger amount of per person spending compared to Walnut Tree. Furthermore, despite Walnut Tree residents petitioning for annexation multiple times and pleading for help fixing the issues with their water to no avail for decades, the Laurel Cliffs subdivision was unanimously annexed only two months after petitioning. Thus, it seemed to the residents of Walnut Tree that it was their race that was the basis of their exclusion. |
" 'At some point, you just have to ask why... Is it the color of our skin and not the content of our character that has kept us out all these years?' "
-David Hairston, President of the Walnut Tree Community Association
Justice Through Incorporation
Finally, Walnut Tree sought outside help in their fight for annexation and inclusion. With the help of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, they petitioned for annexation one more time in 2016. The Walnut Tree Community Association worked diligently gathering the signatures of Walnut Tree property owners for the required documentation, but when they presented the signatures of 75% of homeowners, as mandated by North Carolina statutes, their petition was denied with the town manager falsely claiming that they needed to have 100% of property owners' signatures. Once this issue was resolved, the petition was sent to the Town of Walnut Cove Board for a two-part vote--one on the sufficiency of the petition for annexation and the other on the actual annexation. During the first vote, the mayor was forced to cast a tie breaking vote and said, " 'as for annexation, it's a no,' " even though they were not yet supposed to be voting on the actual annexation at this time.
Seemingly out of options working with the Town of Walnut Cove Board of Commissioners, the Walnut Tree Community Association, in partnership with the UNC Center for Civil Rights and represented by K&L Gates, sought legal remedy for a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Feeling the pressure of a looming lawsuit, the Town of Walnut Cove decided to unanimously vote for annexation and bring to an end the decades-long fight against the exclusive geopolitics of municipal underbounding for Walnut Tree. |
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“ 'This means the world to us... to be included in a town we love dearly.' ”
-David Hairston, President of the Walnut Tree Community Association
" 'I feel thankful for this moment, and I'm finally at peace.' "
-Ada Linster, a named plaintiff in the lawsuit