Key local figure
Foushee worked 21 years as an administrative officer for the Chapel Hill Police Department, served on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools board from 1997 to 2004 and on the Orange County Board of Commissioners from 2004 to 2012. She has represented North Carolina's Fourth District in Congress since 2023.
Source: U.S. House of Representatives: About Congresswoman Valerie Foushee
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Foushee spent 21 years as an administrative officer with the Chapel Hill Police Department, from 1987 to 2008.
Foushee was elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools board in 1997 and served until 2004, pressing for equity in the schools. It was the first of the local offices she held over 25 years in local and state government.
Foushee served on the Orange County Board of Commissioners from 2004 to 2012. Her official House biography says she was the first African American woman to chair the county commission.
The board voted unanimously to develop a solid waste transfer station at the landfill site, following its Solid Waste Advisory Board's recommendation, over objections from Rogers Road residents. The landfill was then expected to fill in 2010.
People: Mike Nelson · Robert Campbell · Valerie Foushee
Foushee had left the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after two years and returned later to finish, graduating in 2008 with a degree in political science and African and Afro-American studies. She was by then an Orange County commissioner.
A coalition of Cates's family, historian Danita Mason-Hogans and community members proposed renaming UNC's Student Stores building in his honor. The building had not been renamed as of 2024.
People: Nate Davis · Valerie Foushee · Danita Mason-Hogans
The Chapel Hill Public Library hosted a webinar in which family and friends, including state Senator Valerie Foushee, a first cousin of Cates, reflected on his life and on the failures that followed his death.
People: Valerie Foushee
The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the killing under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act and its cold-case initiative for racially motivated killings before 1980. Cates's cousins Nate Davis and Valerie Foushee welcomed the review.
People: Nate Davis · Valerie Foushee
On the 52nd anniversary of his death, UNC dedicated a black lectern-style marker near the spot where Cates was stabbed, with an inscription from the University and the Town of Chapel Hill. Speakers included Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Congresswoman-elect Valerie Foushee for the family, student body president Taliajah Vann and BSM president Julia Clark.
People: Valerie Foushee · Kevin M. Guskiewicz
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