Shelby AND Cleveland County have a 150+ year well documented record of racial discrimination against African-American citizens. The late Baptist Minister, lawyer, playwriter, lecturer, businessman, politician and author Thomas Dixon, Jr. of Shelby-raised during Reconstruction-wrote three of his many novels; The Klansman, Leopard Spots and The Traitor about the racial happenings in Shelby and Cleveland County as well as the people involved using different names and locations as his inspiration. Later generations of Shelby and Cleveland County leaders practiced terror, violence, discrimination and retaliation in large doses to maintain economic and political white supremacy and segregation here all the way up through the 1960s. And from the 1960s through to this very day dividing and conquering the black race has been the economic and political MO of choice to continue for those who continue honing the skills of corruption as a substitute for overt racism. The disguise of “Plantation Politics” I call it.
Anybody raised in Cleveland County, like me, recognizes this when we see it. Very, very few will call it what it is though. But, I will. And I do. Knowing and telling the truth is the only way to identify problems. And identifying problems for what they are is the only way to fix the problems as we find them. It is officially called “continuous improvement.” Ignoring and denying problems is called “stupidity.” And the leadership of the City of Shelby are full of that. And I am about to prove it to you.
Mr. Willie Green is a former NFL football player with two Superbowl Rings. Mr. Green last played for the Carolina Panthers, married a local girl, moved to Shelby 25 years ago to raise his family and become an honest businessman after his football playing days were over. Mr. Green has been a giving member of the community and especially the Black Community whose leadership has abandoned Mr. Willie Green when Willie began to challenge the economic discrimination that he began to encounter with the City of Shelby.
Mr. Willie Green, whose economic success began in earnest with his successful football career discovered that the City of Shelby’s Ten-Year Masterplan called for a public-private partnership to develop a Sports Complex. For Mr. Green’s experience with sports at the highest levels, this was right down his alley. And, compared to Mr. Green, there was no better choice than Mr. Green to take this acknowledged plan to fruition. So, he set out to do his due diligence to develop a flagship Sports Complex for Shelby as well as springboard this to a chain of sports complexes across the state, region and eventually across the nation.
The problems Mr. Green was confronted with in this potentially lucrative endeavor was two-fold. Greed and jealousy because those at the top of the local Shelby social standings did not think about this themselves. And, secondly, Mr. Green was African American. Thusly the two parts of the two-fold problem multiplied each other and Mr. Green’s ambitions to operate as a businessman with equal standing in the all-white business community had to be stopped at all costs. So, the “powers that be” who run Shelby and Cleveland County do what they always do when they face competition.
First, the old time “Shelby Whispering Campaign” was launched against Mr. Willie Green. He was labeled a Muslim. He was alleged to be a person that would bring in the inner-city slum kids into his Sports Complex by the “millions.” He was labeled an opportunist who wanted the Shelby white taxpayers to pay for everything, including large amounts of cash that Mr. Green would allegedly pocket for himself. Lots of things that white in-crowd businessmen actually do on a regular basis.
Eventually things escalate and Mr. Green files a lawsuit against the City of Shelby and the City Council over the Sports Complex that is still ongoing.
Then, Mr. Green purchases some property at the intersection of Main Street and East Dixon Boulevard. Mr. Green had read that the City of Shelby lacked housing across the spectrum of habitation. High end to low income housing. Eventually Mr. Green decides to build high end housing on this property and submits a Zoning Change Request to accommodate his project to construct high end multifamily dwellings.
As this project of Mr. Green’s was potentially in conflict with some of the white owned builders, including one or more on the Shelby City Council, the City Council, under dubious methods and means deny Mr. Green’s Zoning Change Request, MAKING Mr. Green the second zoning change request to be denied over the past five years. The other Zoning Change Request was submitted by Mr. Scottie Webber. Another black man. Meaning that only two such Zoning change requests were denied among the many submitted over five years and the only similarity in the denials was that both Mr. Green and Mr. Webber were African American. All other requests, including those of white City Council members were approved. Also note that the simple fact that only two zoning change requests were submitted by African-American men over the past five years in Shelby should tell you something!!! All by itself.
Now that Mr. Green is not building multifamily dwellings on his Dixon Boulevard property and his children-star athletes in their own right, all encouraged to participate in athletics and without a proper facility (Mr. Green, his kids and a few of their teammates were run off from practicing on a field at Gardner-Web, likely because of racial profiling and systemic racism-obviously a major component of life in Cleveland County)-Mr. Green purchases some astro-turf and other items so his kids and their team mates can work out and practice on the property that Mr. Willie Green personally owns with no Zoning Changes required. Easy-Piesy, right??? Wrong!!!
The City of Shelby, without any formal request by anybody and without specifying any particular location, except for the story told by Shelby City Manager that “somebody” called him saying a “person” who owned a “vacant lot” in a residential neighborhood that just happened to be zoned exactly like the Dixon Boulevard-Main Street property that Mr. Willie Green owns was about to build a “nightclub” or a “personal sports complex” on that property and it would be in compliance with all of Shelby’s zoning, but was not wanted by the neighbors.
So, what did the Shelby City Council do??? They themselves pushed through the zoning change to forbid nightclubs and personal sports complexes on all of Shelby’s residential properties that were zoned exactly like the way Mr. Green’s property is zoned. And, if nightclubs and personal sports complexes are so bad, why did the City Council NOT forbid them in ALL residential zoning classifications.
On top of that, my requests to the City of Shelby for all documents related to the identity of those callers and an exact address of the so-called vacant lot has not only not been provided, they have been totally ignored. Totally ignored and totally illegal as my requests were legally made,
Perhaps I might file a lawsuit against the City of Shelby and Cleveland County too. Cleveland County also has the habit of ignoring public records requests. An those that they do provide are always late and very often documents that have exactly nothing to do with what I actually requested, and requested in writing.
My prediction is sometime and, in some way, the Federal and State laws the City of Shelby and Cleveland County keeps breaking will be prosecuted. And prosecuted in a way serious enough to get the officials and the voters that elect them to change their evil, corrupt and racist ways. Note that, in my opinion, the key word here is “corrupt.” Corruption is often called racism. But when you remove the corruption, I believe racism and evil will be removed too. When everybody follows the law, we will all be better off. It’s too bad that the leadership in the Black Community and White Community too won’t step forward and help in this just cause. To become a “Community.” All of us equal under the law.