Will This Rocky Mount Crisis Finally Bring Justice?

“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other’s lives.” -Wendell Barry

I looked for Berry’s wisdom to help me think about Rocky Mount’s financial scandal. I have used one of his quotes all week on the Main Street blog. I’m sure you agree with him; this scandal definitely limits the possibilities of our lives.

Pat Conroy is another literary hero for me. I can’t write about Rocky Mount as beautifully as Conroy writes about Charleston, but I know the city deserves beautiful words and justice.

Conroy Says:

“Memory in these incomparable streets, in mosaics of pain and sweetness, was clear to me now, a unity at last. I remembered small and unimportant things from the past:

the whispers of roommates during thunderstorms, the smell of brass polish on my fingertips, the first swim at Folly Beach in April, lightning over the Atlantic, shelling oysters at Bowen’s Island …

the darkness of reveille on cold winter mornings … blue herons on the marshes … the pressure of the chinstrap on my shako … camellias floating above water in a porcelain bowl …” — The Lords of Discipline

Beneath the numbers and spread sheets of Rocky Mount there are memories, ordinary and extraordinary, that give this city its heart.

If we let ourselves see Rocky Mount as Conroy saw Charleston, in fragments that together make a unity, we will remember why the city is worth preserving, protecting, and believing in.

One day, people will say the city’s worth was never lost, it had only been seized by menacing pirates who manned the helm. This crisis, which has once again drawn the state’s attention, must finally return Rocky Mount’s future free and clear of those tangled in the rigging of their own deceit.