By Alex Bass
Alex.bass@triangletribune.com
DURHAM – Having deep Durham roots is one thing. Being funded in a manner aligned with programming goals is another.
Living in Chapel Hill might not have helped Angela Lee during her 12 years as the Hayti Heritage Center’s executive director. Declining finances in the most recent fiscal years opened the door for the Center’s overseeing St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation Board of Directors to part ways with Lee on May 14.
Reasons for Lee’s abrupt departure – one and a half months before the end of the fiscal year, and during the Center’s ongoing 50th anniversary celebration – have been sources of confusion and consternation since the Bull City heard about the change.
“It could seem that way from the outside,” board chair Tarryn Henry said. “From the inside, we are also considering what sort of impact this year has on the future.”
Recent 990 forms reveal declining assets.
For the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2022, the Foundation brought in $729,872 in grants and contributions. That total decreased the following year by more than $200K to $523,274. Relative to total net assets, the Foundation – located at the same address as the Hayti at 804 Old Fayetteville St. – dropped from $3,263,857 to $2,975,575, respectively, for the same fiscal years.
“We have to lay the foundation before we could build up,” Henry said. “This is our foundation year.”
Interim executive director King Kenney, Henry said, is not a candidate for the permanent position, despite his Durham roots being an attractive quality for any aspirant. The national search for Lee’s successor could take nine months, with the ideal being having someone in place closer to the first of next calendar year.
In the interim, Kenney’s directive is to provide steady leadership by which current and future personnel can optimize the Center’s programming and preservation goals, including fundraising, about which Henry was frank. “I would love to have a representative from one of the Black Wall Street families on the board,” Henry said. “I would love to have a Black developer who has been really intentional about the spaces they buy in Durham.”
James Montague, president of F7 International Development, addressed the latter. “I would bring a perspective of being able to understand the importance of keeping the culture in place and the people in place,” he said. “It’s not just that we’re doing it because we’ve got to. We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Montague, whose corporation has partnered with the Durham Housing Authority on creating affordable housing, said he first learned of the change Tuesday, and has not spoken with Henry or anyone else.
He added that the city of Durham’s Hayti rezoning proposals, against which Hayti Reborn and other community partners have rallied, reaffirm the urgency of the moment for having a community-invested developer at the table. “You have to be able to see kind of down the road what happens if you don’t do it right,” he said.
The board, in announcing Kenney’s appointment last week, released a four-points plan for the Center’s next 50 years, including $1 million grant funding to be dispersed to selected artists. Making these things happen requires money and wide-ranging influence.
Henry identified a prospective, Durham-rooted collaborator. Henry McKoy, Hayti Reborn’s co-founder and director emeritus who worked in Joe Biden’s presidential administration and as a North Carolina assistant commerce secretary, was the keynote speaker at an April 4 rally against the proposed rezoning.
“We need more people like him on our board that can move the needle in ways that aren’t typically seen at a public level,” Henry said. “That’s not the only thing. But we do need people who can raise money.”
