As Fayetteville residents process the plethora of information provided at last week's town hall on the fate of E.E. Smith High School, some Golden Bull alumni are asking why Smith — and why now?
The Cumberland County Board of Education voted 5-3 Jan. 11 to suggest the Stryker Golf Course site on Fort Liberty to the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners as a potential site for E.E. Smith, a historically Black high school housed at 1800 Seabrook Road since 1954. (School board member Susan Williams was not present at the meeting.)
Just over three months later, the school system hosted a town hall in E.E. Smith’s auditorium, weeks after holding a private meeting on Fort Liberty with some alumni.
For E.E. Smith alum LaVar Wright, a member of the class of 1995 and the creator of the group “Save Our Smith,” holding such meetings when the board has already indicated its preference to county commissioners is nonsensical.
“There’s no reason to ask us what we think after the fact,” Wright told CityView.
A member of the class of 2000, who asked to be kept anonymous because she has a child attending E.E. Smith, said alumni have been asking for a new school for years.
“We’ve wanted a new school for over 20-some years,” she said. “Nobody’s given it to us, but we wanted it. We still want it. We just don’t want to hand it over just for a handout [from Fort Liberty].”
A proud legacy
E.E. Smith has seen five locations in its lifetime, first opening in 1927 as the Orange Street Graded School and moving back and forth between a variety of locations before settling at 1800 Seabrook Road in 1954, according to Joseph Westendorf, the local and state history manager at the headquarters of the Cumberland County library system on Maiden Lane.
Sharon McNair, a graduate of the class of 1969, told CityView the school has long been a special place for its diversity and welcoming atmosphere.
“It was just a point for everybody to start,” McNair said. “I met kids that I had never met and you just bond over the years, because you come together at one point. Everybody’s supporting the same thing. There was no hostility. We just became a family within a family.”
Outside school walls, the Broadell neighborhood where E.E. Smith is situated wholeheartedly embraces the high school, alumni said, with the school and the neighborhood becoming closely intertwined over the years.
“That neighborhood has been historically Black for decades,” Wright said. Though long-time residents over the years increased their income and moved to other parts of the city, “the neighborhood has always remained [that] way.”
“It has been maintained well, and a lot of that is attributed to the population that goes to that school,” he said.
McNair said she still lives in the Broadell neighborhood but has seen the population change over the years.
“We’re one of those aging neighborhoods. When we first moved out here, the majority, I would say 95% of the people here, were young families,” she said. “We’re an older community now, and I think there would be some sort of need for something that would bring younger families into the neighborhood.”
The 2000 alumna described E.E. Smith as the “heartbeat” of its neighborhood.
“I have classmates older than me, I have classmates younger than me, even including me, that still own addresses right in the area,” she said. “Even when they leave, they keep their address here. They purchase more addresses in the area.”
Concerns continue
Despite the information provided at last week’s town hall, all of the alumni who spoke with CityView said their opinions on where E.E. Smith should go largely remained unchanged.
“Nothing that [Cumberland County Schools Superintendent Dr. Marvin Connelly, Jr.] offered or any of the people presenting in favor of the move changed my opinion about what’s going to happen if the school moves,” Wright said. “It should stay where it is or at least in that corridor.”
McNair said she also is still hesitant about the high school potentially moving to Stryker Golf Course, though she acknowledged some ideas from Fort Liberty, like opening a museum highlighting the history of the school and its namesake, sounded promising.
“We understand that it’s going to be a 50/50 collaboration with the government, so half of the staff is going to have to be hired through the government and then the other half will come from the county,” she said. “How does that piece work, and will some of our teachers be affected?”
McNair said she also worries about students from the Broadell neighborhood having to be bused in or find transportation, how the demographics of the school might change and what will happen to the current E.E. Smith building. Superintendent Dr. Marvin Connelly Jr. promised at Tuesday’s town hall that the existing building would be repurposed, ideally for use as a smaller, specialized school, like a career and technical education academy.
The anonymous alumna said she feels there are potential locations that have not been considered. She questioned why the school system could not consider empty lots on Washington Drive or the site of the former state veterans home — places that would still be in the same zip code. Associate Superintendent of Auxiliary Services Kevin Coleman previously told CityView that Stryker Golf Course was the only viable site school officials were aware of.
“It’s like Stryker Golf Course is literally being forced down the throats of the community,” she said. “It’s as if [they’re saying], ‘Hey, take this and be grateful, or just don’t get anything because no one wants to pour money into this impoverished area.’”
Promising potential
But not every Golden Bull is opposed to the potential move to Stryker.
Councilman Mario Benavente, whose district on the Fayetteville City Council includes E.E. Smith and the surrounding neighborhoods, told CityView he believes a collaboration with Fort Liberty has great potential. Benavente is also a member of E.E. Smith’s class of 2008.
“I’m hoping that we can maximize every dollar possible to benefit our students, which is why I’m most interested in that particular site,” he said of Stryker.
Benavente said he felt optimistic about last week’s town hall.
“I was encouraged by the folks that were in the room either being all the way for it or [for the] folks who are still having a few concerns, their concerns were not insurmountable,” he said. “Their concerns were things that I think could still be addressed while at Stryker.”
He said he was especially excited by the potential of state-of-the-art sports facilities suggested by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue and Connelly’s mention of the target student population of 1,600 students for the new high school.
“I would just love to see 1,600 students more,” Benavente said. “If there’s that many more future Golden Bulls that are going to be produced, [then] that’s something that I’m also looking forward to.”
The school’s current student body president, Kenneth Williams, also expressed enthusiasm for the Stryker site and partnership with Fort Liberty at last week’s town hall.
“Remaining at the current location does not serve the current or future student body and makes our ability to be competitive and future-ready increasingly difficult,” he said. “When it comes to the location, our student body is not concerned about the ‘where’ as much as we are the ‘what.’”
Williams said in a survey of 150 members of the student body, he found that all the students he talked to were overwhelmingly in favor of moving to a new location.
“It is not about what happened in the past or what can continue to happen, but it is simply about what is best for our future, and our future is to build a new school,” he told meeting attendees.
Williams’ remarks were met with thunderous applause.
A heavy-handed approach?
And while some, like Benavente, appreciate Fort Liberty’s strong enthusiasm about moving E.E. Smith to the Stryker site, some alumni say that zeal has been off-putting.
“In my opinion, [the town hall] was more of a kind of bullying [and] selling tactic more than it was about hearing the voice of the community,” the anonymous alumna said. “Some of the language used by the professionals, including the superintendent, mainly — some of the verbage and the language [they used] was almost like when you visit a new car lot and they just don’t want to let you leave without selling you what they want to give you.”
McNair said Donahue appeared passionate, but it’s hard to know what was driving that passion.
“We don’t know if he’s really passionate or if that’s just coming across as what he needs to do to sell us on it,” she said. “I know we don’t really have the last word. I’m very, very happy that they value the alumni’s opinion about what we would like to see with our school.”
Wright said he feels Fort Liberty is “bullying” alumni and community members into accepting the Stryker site.
“Fort Liberty needs us, not the other way around,” he said.
Though he doesn’t trust Fort Liberty’s intentions, Wright said the Save Our Smith group is taking a temporary break while it waits for the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners to make the next move. Chairman Glenn Adams told CityView earlier this month that the board is not prioritizing the E.E. Smith discussion because it must focus on fast-approaching tangible deadlines, like the construction of the Crown Event Center.
“I feel like as long as someone’s in those meetings and at least listening to see what’s going on, our fight is not over,” Wright said. “There’s nothing we can do with the school board. The school board has already done what they can do. The county commissioners have all the power and the authority.”
In the meantime, Wright said, like-minded alumni will step back and hope for the best.
“We’re just going to hold tight and pray that, one, they dissolve this thing with Liberty, and then open up the conversation about other options, to include the location that we have,” he said.
Reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at lsolomon@cityviewnc.com or 910-423-6500.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
