Market House: Fayetteville council OKs approval to repurpose racially sensitive symbol

The Fayetteville City Council approved a long-awaited proposal to repurpose Fayetteville’s controversial Market House at its Monday work session.

The proposal seeks to tell a more complete and accurate story of the building where enslaved people were once sold, through the use of public art; written and digital materials; and a change in some of the language on a plaque at the site. 

The recommendations were made by an ad hoc committee that grew out of public meetings and surveys that involved more than 500 people, in a process managed by the Fayetteville-Cumberland Human Relations Commission. 

The many participants were volunteers, said Semone Pemberton, chairwoman of the commission, who presented the recommendations alongside Milette Harris, vice chairwoman.

What to know:Fayetteville council votes on Market House future

“This wasn’t just a quick resolution, this wasn’t casually undertaken,” Pemberton said. “It has been a commitment of hundreds of hours of discussion and labor. This was not a fast process. It deserves forward motion and the community is ready for it to move forward.”

The City Council appeared to agree, voting unanimously to move to the next step: That involves pulling together historians to round out an accurate picture of what happened at the Market House, which sits in a roundabout in the heart of the city’s downtown. 

Harris said under the proposal, public art would be placed at the four corners of Market House Square. The art, she said, would range from abstract to the spoken word to visual art and will be “commissioned by people here in Fayetteville.”

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She asked, “Who can better tell our story than those who work here in Fayetteville? And we have a large art community.”

Later, she said that, while the focus of the historic information would be the Market House’s impact on African Americans, the public art would encompass other diverse cultures that make up Fayetteville.

“We don’t plan on leaving anyone out of what we’re trying to do,” she said.

As for telling the Market House history, Harris said: “I know a lot of people don’t do social media. But social media is the way to go.”

She said that history from the site would also be conveyed through QR codes, and platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

A change in wording

The repurposing proposal also seeks to change words on a plaque that was added to the Market House in 1989. The plaque, written by a committee chaired by late educator Dr. W.T. Brown and late journalist and historian Roy Parker Jr., represented a prior attempt to address the building’s difficult history. The plaque can only be seen by people who enter the Market House’s arches.

After a quotation by Fayetteville author Charles Chesnutt, who was African American, the plaque begins: “In memory and honor of those indomitable people who were stripped of their dignity when sold as slaves at this place.” 

Harris said the new proposed language would change the words to, “enslaved, sold as slaves, at this place." In another sentence that refers to “suffering and shame” of the enslaved, the word “shame” is replaced with “strength,” Harris said.

Harris said: “Language is important. Terminology is important.”

Mayor Mitch Colvin praised the change in language and said a new plaque should also be more prominent. He said the changes and the other ideas to convey the history give the Market House purpose.

Councilwoman Shakeyla Ingram, who represents District 2, thanked the volunteers involved in the proposal. She said the commission should partner with an effort toward an African-American history museum, to which the city has committed $450,000. The museum, a joint city-county effort, would relay Black history by highlighting the city’s Black voices.

Councilman Johnny Dawkins of District 5 suggested that the commission, in addition to engaging Fayetteville State University, Methodist University and Fayetteville Technical Community college on the history programming, also partner with the N.C. Civil War & Reconstruction History Center, which has dealt with many African-American scholars. 

Once a city symbol

Fayetteville’s Market House is on the National Register of Historic Places. For decades it was used by the city, media and other local sources as a symbol for the city. But in recent years, the City Council has moved steadily away from that association because of the building’s connection to chattel slavery. 

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In 2020, the city removed it from its seal, having already eliminated it from its letterhead and official documentation, and having removed the seal from the council chambers in 2016.

The city also spent millions replacing its fleet of rollout trash carts that included the old seal with the Market House.

In 2021, city officials enlisted help from the U.S. Justice Department to help it figure out how to handle the historic structure going forward — while community opinions ranged from leaving it as to tearing it down, with a spectrum of other ideas in between.

The debate has been particularly sensitive and fraught for a council that in 2019 elected eight Black council members out of 10 seats. The council voted in the spring of 2021 to repurpose the building. 

The building’s historic designation, however, limits how it can be modified. 

Councilwoman Yvonne Kinston from District 9 asked Harris about the proposal’s idea to make the Market House exhibits compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Harris said one way was to make sure exhibits shown on the building’s second floor, which is accessible only by stairs, are duplicated on the ground level. 

Colvin added that specific design questions would be handled by the professionals later, and Monday’s vote was about a consensus to move forward.

“This is exciting news, that we at least have an idea and a concept,” he said. 

Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.