Sorting Out Rocky Mount’s Priorities: Main Street and Beyond

We all know that things in Rocky Mount are precarious. We know because past negligence has finally caught up with us and pinned its “tail on the donkey,” which now is affecting both our reputation and our future.

We see it in the empty buildings downtown, the projects that fail to move forward, and the daily recitation of names sitting on the City Council that have exceeded “the generosity of their call.” (Bishop Frank Griswold’s phrase.)

We recognize that Rocky Mount is unsettled. Not because this city lacks potential, and not because there are not good people working hard every day. It is because the City Council too often appears consumed by a personal agenda rather than what matters to their constituents.

That Harry Potter line I mentioned recently keeps returning to me:

“You’ve got to get your priorities sorted out.”

When I walk Main Street, I see beauty. I see architecture many cities would envy. I see possibility sitting inside old brick buildings, waiting for somebody with imagination to notice.

There was once a man who regularly attended City Council meetings and he would wax poetic in a deep, ominous voice about the dark shadows hanging over the council chambers. It would make my eyes roll back in my head.

Now, I feel that dark shadow hanging over downtown because the community is uncertain about where Rocky Mount is headed. We have on the Council the “my agenda” group, vocal, often angry, and resentful of questions or any intimation of blame. It has set the tone of doing business where leadership frequently appears divided.

Investors notice uncertainty. Developers notice division. Business owners notice instability. Ordinary citizens begin pulling back emotionally because they no longer feel confident about the direction of the city.

The gradual loss of shared belief may be one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a city. Not anger. Not disagreement.

I once spoke with an older woman on the street who brought me out of my Pollyanna state of mind when she said, “Honey, nothin’ gonna change. It’s always been this way.”

Successful downtowns do not belong to one race, one political group, or even the councilman from a particular ward. They belong to everybody. That is what makes them work. Downtowns survive when enough people decide they have a shared stake in the future.

Business owners. Churches. Young professionals. Retirees. Black citizens. White citizens. Preservationists. Investors. Families. Artists. Restaurants. Shop owners. Developers,

All rowing in the same direction.

That is how cities rebuild themselves.

I think Rocky Mount sometimes forgets that people invest financially where they first invest emotionally.

The reality is that downtown redevelopment requires broad support, financially and politically. No single group can carry the weight of rebuilding a downtown alone. It is simply reality.

The proof that one group holding sway over downtown doesn’t work is to go downtown and walk around. Like the uneven teeth carved out of a pumpkin at Halloween, that’s how downtown looks with too many empty spaces between doors that are open.

Cities move forward together, or they struggle separately. Look what struggling has netted. Look where insufficient leadership has gotten us. Look where having no term limits has brought us. Look how ward-based voting is no longer serving us.

There is a deep issue facing Rocky Mount today. We are still trying to decide whether we see each other as partners in rebuilding this city or as competing camps fighting over influence and direction.

Because when politics becomes more important than stewardship, the whole city feels it. When agendas become more important than outcomes, people lose confidence. When leadership appears untrustworthy, trust erodes.

Without these things, projects stall. Momentum disappears. Good ideas remain trapped in conversations. Buildings continue sitting empty while everyone argues over who should control the future.

Sometimes I wonder if Rocky Mount has become so focused on reacting to one another that we have stopped asking the larger questions:

What kind of downtown do we want twenty years from now? What kind of leadership inspires confidence? What kind of atmosphere attracts investment? What kind of civic culture makes young families want to stay here? What kind of city do we want our grandchildren to inherit?

That is why we need to straighten out these priorities.

These questions matter.

In 2027, we will again have a mayoral election and City Council seats open for debate and decision. Every election is important, but a new mayor, a new councilman or woman in Ward #1, for instance is critical now.

Everybody needs to get involved in the Council Seats up for election because that Council seat is involved in all our city decisions. Pay attention to who may run, and give that $10.00 in your pocket to your favorite candidate for his campaign and skip a breakfast out.

We are experiencing why leadership matters, what a lack of a moral compass brings, how serving rather than feathering one’s own nest, matters. Call it a lack of over sight, negligence, power that has corrupted individuals, it all reaches our businesses, our neighborhoods, and our prospects.

I have walked on some of the streets in our Wards that are struggling. People come out and wonder what this white lady is wanting. I held the hand of an older black gentleman as he mirrored that ‘nothin’ gonna change’ state of things. Awnings damaged, porches sagging, a lack of energy to be found. A dark shadow hovering.

In the year 2026 we should be further along than we are with creating a future. Long term Councilman whose Wards are boarded up have proven it’s time for a change. So stop voting for the same results.

The people I talk with here and there along the way deserve leadership that metaphorically know how to prepare the soil, to plants seeds, water and grow beautiful gardens that will CHANGE the circumstances for people in our Rocky Mount family.

Rocky Mount still possesses ingredients many places have lost: history, architecture, character, identity, and wonderful people who care practically and emotionally for its future.

Rocky Mount needs to get its priorities sorted out.

Less division. More stewardship.

Less posturing. More cooperation.

Less energy spent protecting political territory, and more energy spent protecting the future of the city itself.

Every city carries two versions of itself: the visible one made of streets, buildings, and traffic lights, and the invisible one made of confidence, trust, shared belief, and civic hope.

Perhaps the real challenge facing Rocky Mount now is whether we still believe enough in one another to rebuild not only our downtown, but the spirit of the city itself.

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