Pinehurst won't talk about what lies next door Mike Bianchi Sports Commentary
Orlando Sentinel June 19, 2005 PINEHURST, N.C. -- It is one of the most cheerful, chirpy telephone greetings you'll ever hear. Doesn't matter what time of day or what time of year, when you dial the number of the massive and magnificent golfing resort that has made this town famous, the receptionist always answers: "Hello, it's another beautiful day at Pinehurst." Unless, of course, you don't have a working toilet because nobody will hook you up to the sewer. This is the part of "beautiful" Pinehurst they don't want you to see because it's ugly and dirty and stinky. In some places, it smells like raw sewage. In other places, it smells like burning garbage. And mostly it just smells fishy to civil rights activists who claim that many of the tiny black enclaves dotting the landscape in this golf mecca have been excluded from the most essential of government services. "You see all these people and all this money coming in here for the U.S. Open, and we don't even have a sewer," says Steve Utley, a lifetime resident of one of the disputed black neighborhoods. "It's like we live in a foreign country somewhere across the ocean, but we only live a mile or two from the golf course. If those golf fans only knew how we have to live." Which is exactly what some lawyers at the University of North Carolina Center of Civil Rights are trying to accomplish. With the U.S. Open being contested at posh and palatial Pinehurst Resort this week, they hope the national spotlight will shine at least a small ray of recognition upon the downtrodden and disenfranchised. The civil rights watchdogs claim that many of these nearly all-black boroughs with names like Jackson Hamlet, Midway and Waynor Road have been purposely excluded from the city limits of the ritzy resort towns -- Pinehurst, Southern Pines and Aberdeen -- they border. On one stretch of Highway 5, for instance, one-tenth of a mile separates Aberdeen from Pinehurst. Located within this one-tenth of a mile on both sides of the highway is the rundown area of Jackson Hamlet. "We're sitting right in the middle of everything and nobody wants to claim us," says Carol Henry, the president of the Jackson Hamlet Community Association. "Sometimes, it feels like we don't even exist." How can this be? How can this possibly be? How can the golf course at Pinehurst No. 2, where the Open is being contested, have an intricate, sub-air drainage system that actually sucks the excess water from the greens, but many poor residents don't have a sewer to suck the waste from their toilets? Because these mostly black neighborhoods have not been incorporated by the cities, they don't have sewers, public trash pickup, paved roads and, in some cases, public drinking water. And get this: Because they are located in unincorporated areas, they can't vote in city elections but are still bound by the city's zoning laws based upon a governmental sleight of hand known as "extraterritorial jurisdiction." "They can tell us what to do with our land, but we have no voice or no vote in how they conduct their business," Utley says. Carol Henry shakes her head when she shows a visitor what has become of her neighborhood. She's 65 now but talks like a little girl when she points to the house where she was born or describes the old two-room schoolhouse where she learned the three R's -- reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. She used to work at Pinehurst Resort as a maid at the Carolina Hotel, the opulent centerpiece of an expansive resort conglomerate that includes eight championship golf courses and was built on the backs of the service workers who once lived in Jackson Hamlet and the other black burgs. "It's frustrating and it's disappointing," Henry says. "We provided the labor to help make this place what it has become and now we're being told that giving us sewers is just not a priority at this particular time. Say what? We've been here 100 years. How long do we have to wait?" The contrast between the place where Henry now lives and the place where she once worked provides a startling juxtaposition in socioeconomics At the Carolina Hotel, the bathrooms come complete with gold fixtures, fluffy towels, lotions and creams. In Jackson Hamlet, the ancient septic tanks are often backed up and one of the residents has somehow acquired a Porta-Potty that sits hidden in the backyard. At the Carolina hotel, they drive up in new Lexuses and dump off their golf clubs with the bellman. In Jackson Hamlet, they drive up in clunky pickups and dump out their trash in a weedy lot across the dirt road from Henry's house. At the Carolina Hotel, you can order the escargot Dijonnaise or the veal Oscar from the lobby restaurant. In Jackson Hamlet, Henry fries up squash grown in the little garden out back. At the Carolina Hotel, the shrubbery out front has been carved and shaped to say "Pinehurst 1895" and the grounds are landscaped with begonias and impatiens of purple, pink and white. In Jackson Hamlet, the grounds are burnished with overgrown ragweed, old tires and abandoned cars. At the Carolina Hotel, there are old photographs of famous guests hanging on the wall. There's one of Annie Oakley, who once taught guests to shoot guns at the resort pistol range. And there's President Richard Nixon playing golf. And Rod Laver playing tennis. And Yogi Berra lawn bowling. In Jackson Hamlet, there aren't any pictures, but there is a petition circulating wondering why the county would spend $367,000 on a new sewer pump station for one of the golf courses "before an entire neighborhood in existence for 100 years is provided with any sewer services." In the lobby of the Carolina Hotel, there is a framed quote from William C. Campbell, the former president of the United States Golf Association. "Pinehurst is more than good golf courses," the quote says. "It is a state of mind and a feeling for the game, it's aesthetics, courtesies and emotions." On the front porch of Carol Henry's house in Jackson Hamlet, she sits in a rocking chair and issues a quote in response to men like Campbell: "They come here and see all the wealth and all the beauty and all the richness of the land, but they don't see us. We're hidden. Why?" At the Carolina Hotel, there are Rolex clocks on the walls, gold chandeliers dangling from the ceiling and a majestic dome on the roof. In Jackson Hamlet, some of the houses don't even have roofs. At the Carolina Hotel, the spa offers a "Pinehurst Kid's Massage" for $40, which, according to a brochure, "will help young spa-goers learn to deal with future stress." And you ponder what future stress they're talking about -- Harvard or Yale? Latte or cappuccino? Hummer or Beamer? In Jackson Hamlet, the kids have nothing to do. The community center has been shut down, the wooden swing set is rotten, the metal sliding board is rusty. All this money and, yet, all this misery. Each year, the golf industry pumps nearly $200 million into the economies of Pinehurst and the surrounding areas. The U.S. Open alone is expected to bring in nearly $125 million into the state of North Carolina. "There's all this economic development, but many black residents have been excluded from even the most basic services," says Anita Earls, a local civil rights attorney. "These people deserve better." On the wall of the Carolina Hotel hangs an old black-and-white photograph entitled "Caddy Master with Caddies." It was taken in the early days of Pinehurst and shows a white supervisor standing in the doorway of the caddie shack, surrounded by several black caddies. Back then, the caddies couldn't use the front entrance to the resort and had to come in the back way so as not to mingle with the white guests. And, now, as you drive through town and see the clapboard houses without sewers butted up against the boundaries of golf course communities filled with magnificent mansions, you can't help but wonder: How much has really changed in 100 years? -------------------------------------------------------------- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
