Storyline
How the Chapel Hill Town Council changed in 1992 and 1993: Joe Herzenberg’s guilty plea for failing to file state taxes and the council’s censure, Art Werner’s election as mayor pro tem, Roosevelt Wilkerson’s resignation over a letter signed with the mayor’s name, Barbara Powell’s appointment and Herzenberg’s resignation.
In briefIn August 1992 council member and mayor pro tem Joe Herzenberg pleaded guilty to willful failure to file state taxes; the council censured him and urged him to resign, and he gave up the pro tem post but kept his seat until September 1993, resigning while the county verified petitions to recall him under a local act the legislature passed that July. In September Roosevelt Wilkerson resigned over a letter sent on the mayor's letterhead with Ken Broun's signature, and the council appointed Barbara Powell in his place.
Read the full storyRead the 11 eventsAll storylines
Read the events and sources below.
No works in the index are currently linked directly to this storyline. The works below provide background on Politics & Government.
On August 10, 1992 Chapel Hill Town Council member and mayor pro tem Joe Herzenberg pleaded guilty to two counts of willful failure to file state taxes, for $800 in 1989 income tax and $600 in 1990 intangibles tax. He received a six-month suspended sentence, a $500 fine and five years of unsupervised probation and was ordered to pay the back taxes; state revenue officials said he had not filed an income tax return since 1978. On August 24 the council adopted a resolution drafted by Mayor Ken Broun and Art Werner censuring Herzenberg and saying it was in the town's interest that he resign. Herzenberg gave up the post of mayor pro tem that afternoon, apologized to the council and residents and said he would not resign, telling them his voters should decide.
On September 14 the council unanimously elected Werner mayor pro tem to serve until December 1993. The same day Roosevelt Wilkerson, a two-term council member and the council's only Black member, resigned after the town attorney reported that a letter on the mayor's letterhead bearing Broun's signature, sent without Broun's knowledge, had been faxed on July 20 to United Church Homes in support of a 40-unit elderly housing project tied to his church, New Covenant Christian Church. The Daily Tar Heel reported that Wilkerson admitted signing Broun's name; the district attorney said he saw no basis for prosecution. On October 28 the council unanimously appointed Barbara Powell, a Chapel Hill native, to Wilkerson's seat; council members had said they wanted to restore a Black member.
In 1993 both towns sought the power to recall elected officials. On February 2 the Carrboro Board of Aldermen took up a charter amendment like Chapel Hill's, and on March 1 the Chapel Hill council voted unanimously to ask the General Assembly for a recall amendment; at Mark Chilton's urging it barred recall votes from early July to late August, when many students are away, and allowed no more than one petition against an official every six months. The legislature ratified the local act for both towns on July 16. Within a month a Chapel Hill resident began circulating petitions to recall Herzenberg, and on September 16 he delivered 2,694 signatures to the Orange County Board of Elections; at least 2,211 valid signatures were needed, and the board had verified about 1,956 when Herzenberg resigned a week later. On October 25 the council nominated all 11 residents who applied for the seat, planning to appoint on November 8 the nonincumbent who drew the most votes in the November 2 election to serve until the new council was sworn in on December 7. By November Lambda had thanked Herzenberg on its front page and said he would go on working for gay civil rights.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 11 dated events in the chronology →
Background reading on Politics & Government. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.
Albert Coates's own account of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina, which he founded, subtitled 'out of a classroom in Chapel Hill' and published in 1981. The 303 pages trace the institute's history and its role in educating North Carolina's public officials.
William J. Billingsley's history of the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 North Carolina statute that barred known Communists from speaking on state campuses, and the fight over it at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The subtitle sets the scope: race, politics and the public university in sixties North Carolina. It treats academic freedom, anti-communist movements and free speech in the state. University of Georgia Press, 1999, 308 pages with eight pages of plates.
Reviewed in Academe (2000), The American Historical Review (2001), The Journal of Southern History (2001), Journal of American History (2001), The Journal of Politics (2001).
Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns III on the 1950 Democratic Senate primary in North Carolina, in which Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina, lost to Willis Smith after a campaign marked by race-baiting. Primaries, elections and race relations in the state are its subjects. Published by UNC Press in 1990, 356 pages with illustrations.
Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (1991), The American Historical Review (1991), Journal of American History (1991), The Journal of Southern History (1992).
Ruth Blackwelder's study of political and intellectual leadership in Orange County and North Carolina from 1752 to 1861, published in Charlotte by W. Loftin in 1961. Topics include state politics and government, intellectual life before the Civil War, and county genealogy. It runs 216 pages with illustrations and a bibliography. Part of the Wall Local History Collection.
Francis Nash's history of Hillsborough in colonial and Revolutionary times, first published in 1903 and reprinted in 1953 by Edwards & Broughton with an index and a sketch of the author. Topics include the Regulator Insurrection of 1766 to 1771, the Revolution and local genealogy.
Howard E. Covington Jr.'s biography of Albert Coates (1896-1989), the law professor who founded the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina and led it through its early years. Topics include Coates as a law teacher and the institute's history as a center for the study of public administration in Chapel Hill. Published in 2010 by the University Library at Chapel Hill, 322 pages with 32 pages of plates.
Warren Ashby's biography of Frank Porter Graham (1886-1972), president of the University of North Carolina from 1930 to 1949 and later a United States senator. Published by Blair in 1981, x and 386 pages with sixteen leaves of plates and a bibliography.
Reviewed in The American Historical Review (1981), Journal of American History (1981).
Hugh Talmage Lefler and Paul W. Wager's history of Orange County across its first two centuries, 1752 to 1952, prepared for the county's bicentennial. It covers government and politics, biography and the county's families, and doubles as a genealogical reference. Published in Chapel Hill by the Orange Printshop in 1953, 389 pages with illustrations and an index; this copy is a later reprint.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1954).
Michael Thomas Smith's biography of Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick, the University of North Carolina chemistry professor dismissed in 1856 after he declared support for the antislavery presidential candidate John C. Fremont. Published by University of Delaware Press in 2003, 216 pages with illustrations. Topics include abolitionists and dissenters in North Carolina, the antislavery movement in the state, and the university's biography before 1962.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2005).
The papers of Willie Person Mangum, 1792 to 1861, a lawyer, judge and United States senator from the part of Orange County that later became Durham County. Five volumes of correspondence published by the State Department of Archives and History beginning in 1950, arranged by date from 1807 to 1894, with illustrations, portraits and folding maps. A source for antebellum North Carolina and national politics, the Whig Party and the Mangum family.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1951), Journal of American History (1951), The Journal of Southern History (1953), Journal of American History (1953), The Journal of Southern History (1954), The Journal of Southern History (1955), The Journal of Southern History (1957), Journal of American History (1957), The American Historical Review (1957).
Address by Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough on 24 August 1924, marking the parish's hundredth anniversary. Printed in Durham in 1925 at the vestry's order, with a foreword by the rector. Cheshire discusses George Micklejohn, William Mercer Green and Moses Ashley Curtis.
Sources and research tools for this storyline. Research guide: Follow an event across several accounts.
More to discover
The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.
