ACORN’s organizing in Southeast Raleigh.
Tarboro Road in Southeast Raleigh is so close to the big “downtown renaissance” that, whizzing by on New Bern Avenue, you’d assume it was part of it. But it isn’t, says Mae Stephens (above left, with ACORN organizer John Comer), who lives a block away. Instead, it’s a hangout for prostitutes and drug dealers and was the site of a murder a few weeks back — the guy was shot nine times, neighbors say. More below.
A curiosity: There’s a boarded-up house on the west side of Tarboro Road about three doors up (north) from New Bern. Stephens — newly elected president of a small, newly reorganized ACORN chapter — would like the city to help residents turn it into an after-school center for kids. In between the house and New Bern, however, there’s a city recreation facility, the Tarboro Road Center. It’s got a gym and a meeting hall. The day this protest occurred, a Saturday, I went inside and there were exactly two guys playing basketball, and the meeting room was being set up for a wedding reception. Other than that, it was empty. Need to check that out again.
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ACORN members would also like a stronger police presence in the area, in the first place to slow the speeding traffic down on Tarboro Road itself so it’s safe for kids to cross. That Saturday, there were three police cruisers in the Tarboro Road Center’s parking lot. They’d been assigned to watch the ACORN protest.