The votes had been counted and the surprising result was in: Alexandra Valladares had won the coveted People’s Alliance PAC endorsement for Durham School Board over an established, beloved incumbent and long-time People’s Alliance (PA) member.
It was a big moment for Valladares and her supporters. She was poised to become the first Latinx person on the school board. But the endorsement, it soon turned out, wasn’t quite what it seemed.
In many ways, the People’s Alliance PAC endorsement is vital in Durham politics. It comes with an army of volunteer campaigners and carries with it the prestige of the area’s most powerful and prominent progressive organization in this Democratic stronghold. The organizations are split by the PAC’s electioneering and the People’s Alliance’s issue-based grassroots work. All members of the People’s Alliance are members of the PA PAC and can vote on endorsements.
The PAC’s endorsements tend to have a ripple effect, looked to by other organizations, including media like the INDY, for a sense of who possesses progressive bona fides. Its roughly 1,200-strong membership, many of whom are active citizens, is a powerful force in down-ballot state and local elections where endorsements carry particular sway.
The alliance has accrued unmatched local power since its founding in 1976. It has fought for both candidates and causes, including the successful push for a $15 minimum wage for city employees. But in some ways, the alliance is a victim of its own success, reckoning with an increasingly prosperous city that’s still plagued by racial inequity, creating a divide in the organization and the area as a whole.
With her endorsement sealed, Valladares thought her long night was over. But she learned there was some kind of hiccup at the PAC’s January endorsement meeting—the vote apparently wasn’t finalized after all, she tells the INDY.
Someone had decided there needed to be a recount, and Valladares was asked to wait. And so she did, humiliated, agonizing over what was happening in a room that had gotten tense and cold toward her. She looked at the mothers with children in tow who had come to support her now forced to wait even longer before they could go home after the grueling, hours-long endorsement process at a meeting of more than 600 people—the largest PAC meeting in the group’s history.
Valladares didn’t want to wait. She didn’t want to wait for a recount of an endorsement in her bid against a white incumbent, Steve Unruhe, with close ties to the organization’s mostly white and longest-tenured members. At 38, she thought Durham schools needed its first Latinx member, a representative who could speak for a school community that’s 33 percent Latinx. For her, they couldn’t wait, either.
Valladares also believed she had built up goodwill within the powerful local PAC in her time volunteering and organizing with them since 2015. She wanted to take a shot, working hard to develop relationships with the other grassroots volunteers and collaborating closely with them to earn the endorsement.
Ostensibly, that’s something the group could have celebrated, too, especially once she won the hard-fought endorsement. She is a woman of color, from the working class, and a Durham public schools graduate. She was looking to organize and shake up the status quo on behalf of brown people in a Durham school district that has struggled with the gaps between students of color and their white peers. What could be more progressive than that?
In what should have been one of Valladares’s proudest moments, the sullen look on the faces of the leaders who had told her after the wait that she had, in fact, won the endorsement tarnished her victory. The nasty comments and sideways glances that came afterward—towards her and her mother, she says—created a tense dynamic. Then, several prominent members of the allegedly progressive PAC organized a campaign for the incumbent, endorsement be damned, and sent around a widely circulated letter touting him. Despite their best efforts, Valladares still easily won the election in March, and now serves on the school board.
Valladares says her candidacy was a threat to what some white liberals think the proper role is for a person of color. She says she began to feel “othered” in People’s Alliance meetings, even by other people of color.
“Somehow I think being able to have a seat at the table and become electable has threatened a lot of notions,” she says. “I think there is something to be said about the kind of help that is people staying in their place and helping them” versus people of color taking on a leadership role, she adds.
An “old guard” versus “new guard” dynamic—one that also reflects power dynamics and, for some, implicit racism for the historically white group—has developed within the People’s Alliance, something that leaders acknowledged in interviews. It is also reflected more broadly in the Bull City as racial tension mounts. Durham city and county are seen as increasingly unequal for people of color, critics within Durham’s progressive political circles say, as the city’s upscale development becomes a hotspot for homebuyers, new jobs, and trendy restaurants catering primarily to white people.
The question of who benefits and who is in power also emerges with the PAC’s bank account. Every candidate that has received the PAC’s endorsement since 2017 has contributed substantial sums, according to an analysis of campaign finance filings from the State Board of Elections. So far this year, contributions from People’s Alliance PAC endorsees represent about 75 percent of its total $46,807 budget. All of the candidates—100 percent—who contributed since 2017 are also PAC endorsees.
But campaign money, which is not an explicit requirement for the People’s Alliance or Durham politics, is just one form of how wealth and privilege manifests. Critics say Durham’s power brokers are using the language of liberal values without giving people of color the one thing that would truly foster change: access to power and wealth.
Omar Beasley, the chairman of a different local PAC, the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, says that Durham’s version of liberal values hasn’t done enough for Black residents.
“It’s difficult for me to say Durham is progressive,” Beasley says. Specifically, he says that as Durham prospers, too few city and county contracts go to Black-owned firms, and leaders fail to appoint enough members of the Black community to coveted roles on boards and commissions. Sometimes those divisions are along racial lines, but that can often be complicated by leaders of color who aren’t seen as doing enough for the communities they should represent, Beasley says.
“White Durham is telling Black Durham what to say about Black Durham?” Beasley asks, referring to the People’s Alliance. “We don’t need no white saviors. Give us an opportunity and give us a seat at the table.”
Katie Todd, the president of the People’s Alliance as of this year, acknowledges the tension that has developed within the alliance and the city. She says that while the longest-serving members are mostly white, the group aims to grapple with the power dynamics coming to the forefront. “While these things are true, they’re not necessarily permanent,” she says. “We have been no stranger to the concerns and criticisms levied around the People’s Alliance.”
Todd also says that other PACs and groups will be welcome at the table to help with reforms. “The door has to be open and the room has to be inviting,” she says.
Tensions rise
Carl Kenney, a pastor and longtime journalist who is also a member of the Durham Committee, says the ongoing racial controversy around Durham County’s Black manager points to an incredibly fractious environment. “Right now, we’re seeing the peak of racial tension in Durham,” Kenney says. “There’s a sense that the white liberals in Durham are clouded by their white supremacy.”
At least among the area’s power brokers, it wasn’t always this way. Leaders of the People’s Alliance and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People would meet and hash out shared candidate endorsements at the Chicken Hut on Fayetteville Street in the early nineties, Kenney says.
That changed when the development of N.C. 751 and Southpoint Mall negotiations were underway. The mostly white People’s Alliance had environmental concerns, while the Durham Committee saw an opportunity to create jobs, Kenney says. “This massive political divide [developed] that is incredibly contentious, and in some ways the Black community sees it rooted in race, white privilege, white supremacy, and power,” Kenney says.
Beasley says the struggle within Durham’s various groups—all ostensibly fighting for a more progressive future—will have their own version of what victory looks like. “Power has to be taken away, and when it’s taken away it has to be taken away in a fight,” he says. “Right now, we’re fighting for a piece of power, and I don’t see anybody giving that away.”
Nana Asante-Smith, a PA PAC leader and coordinator, says the organization’s first step in addressing issues of inequity and white privilege starts with acknowledging them. “There has to be an acknowledgment of these issues through a racial equity lens,” she says. “It requires an organization largely founded … as a white organization that needs to be able to relinquish some sort of power.”
Asante-Smith admits that asking anyone to give up control will be a difficult road. “The reality of the situation that exists is we’re still working within politics,” she says. “There’s a commitment [by individuals] to furthering those political agendas.”
Money, money, money
One way the power dynamic within the People’s Alliance has manifested itself is that candidates, many of whom are incumbents, give large sums of money to the organization.
Of the $176,547 the PAC has raised since 2017, more than $85,000—nearly half of the total budget—has come from candidates it has endorsed, according to campaign finance filings. The dollars raised from candidates versus overall donors has gone from 28 percent in 2017 to around 44 percent the next two years. So far in 2020, it’s jumped to 75 percent.
Candidates give anywhere from $350 to $3,000 per election cycle from their campaign accounts. There are some exceptions; in a two-month span in 2017, Mayor Steve Schewel contributed a total of $5,000.
For Valladares, when a PAC coordinator asked for $2,500 following her endorsement, she was shocked. “I was put under a lot of pressure to give money that week,” she says. “I was crushed. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t have this money.’”
Valladares and Asante-Smith later agreed on $1,000 whenever Valladares could give it; she made the contribution in February, her filings show.
Ultimately, Valladares gave the contribution but believes the PAC should develop a process that respects candidates regardless of what they can contribute—for “the next underdog,” as she puts it. “I’m glad there are leaders that have a way to communicate, to value the person more than the money,” Valladares says of Asante-Smith.
Asante-Smith, one of five People’s Alliance PAC coordinators, says the PAC asks for contributions from endorsed candidates in order to fund its operation. That has been a big part of why the group is successful at the ballot box, providing funding for poll workers and messaging for candidates that it believes will advance a progressive agenda, she says. “We raise money, we raise money well, and we raise money effectively,” she says.
Asante-Smith says that the amount of money the PAC asks for from candidates varies depending on timing, strategy, the election cycle, and other factors. There’s no “uniform, concrete” formula, she says.
That said, Asante-Smith says the group knows its history and image as a historically white organization, unwilling to share the spoils of its efforts or acknowledge the barriers to entry for those with fewer funds. She doesn’t believe that candidates’ finances play a role in endorsements—the broader membership, which votes on endorsements, wouldn’t be aware of those details when casting votes, Assante-Smith points out.
But she says that they should still make changes to become more inclusive.
“It’s something I wrestle with as a Black woman,” she says. “I really believe that we as Black people have to be present in the spaces where we want to see change and take ownership. I don’t think that absolves the PA of doing what it must do to address these issues. I believe we’re aware of it. The real question is, what are we willing to do about what we know?”
A school board brawl
When Valladares began to attend alliance events starting in early 2015, she felt inspired. She soon took leadership roles and helped found the group’s Latinx caucus, “Nuestra Gente,” with Ivan Almonte in early 2018. She felt good.
“I was like, this could become a political home,” she says.
Once Valladares campaigned against Unruhe, the tenor changed. Members accused her of “scheming” to get the endorsement, she says.
The pro-Unruhe letter circulated by some PAC members was a tough blow; Valladares felt she had to fight the same organization she had already supposedly won over. “Because this is about the power, then you do see progressive people fighting each other and trying to discredit each other’s work,” Valladares says.
The letter touted Unruhe’s credentials without making mention of Valladares directly. However, it also said, “While it is rare for many of us to support a candidate outside of the PA endorsements, we feel in this case that Steve is the much stronger candidate.”
The letter may have backfired. In response, critical race scholar Ronda Taylor Bullock circulated another letter on behalf of Valladares. She said that even though Unruhe was well qualified, opposing an opportunity for a qualified Latina to sit on the Durham School Board in a majority Black and Brown district would be wrong. “In the historical context described above, signing-on to support a white male over a highly qualified Latina woman is an act of white supremacy,” she wrote. More than 150 others co-signed the letter.
The original letter didn’t explicitly break the alliance’s bylaws but, generally, leadership hopes members don’t collectively organize against endorsees.
“I thought it was very insulting that took place,” Asante-Smith says. “The message they sent on that occasion was very clear: It was that we are willing to defy our own [norms], benefits, and structure for a white man.”
Since then, things have been fraught between Valladares and the group. New rules have been proposed against elected officials taking on leadership roles within the alliance, which Valladares believes target her. She has stepped down from her leadership roles and volunteer work within the group but hasn’t made a decision yet on whether to resign as a member.
Mayor Schewel signed the letter supporting Unruhe. If he found himself in a situation similar to Valladares’s, “I would just think it was politics,” he says.
Schewel has been a member of the People’s Alliance since its inception. He says the group used to be about 90 percent white, which has changed markedly in recent years, and its longevity is a testament to the organization’s strength. Schewel, who is white, says he views his work to push for more affordable housing and a better bus system—among other issues—through a racial equity lens.
“The fight for racial justice is still the most important work that any of us can do,” he says. “It’s been that way for my whole life. It’s the most important work that I do.”
Katie Todd, the People’s Alliance president, says the group is focused on racial equity and has begun a strategic planning process that will find strategies to ensure it’s a more inclusive organization, including racial equity training for its members. “As people continue to move to Durham, we must educate our transplants on the history of what has transpired and how they can be a part of eradicating systemic racism and creating a truly affordable Durham and that all folks have access to the economic opportunities many of us take for granted,” she says, adding, “We have no illusions that we’re not going to make more mistakes.”
It’s unclear exactly how these tensions within the People’s Alliance or the city at large will be resolved, if at all. But given the power the group wields, the answer has dramatic consequences for Durham’s progressive image and the future of the left in this blue bastion.
For Valladares, it’s hard to tell whether the alliance’s traditional power brokers are thinking of the group’s well-being and future or just their own.
“I think Durham being the progressive beacon of the South, we can do better,” she said.
This story has been co-published with Jeremy Borden’s Untold Story newsletter. Jeremy Borden is an independent journalist and researcher in Durham.
Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.
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No one should be surprised that the People’s Alliance PAC did this. They have been doing similar things for years. Why? Because an organization that purports to support and feed democracy is not democratic itself. The PA PAC has not had an election that allows members to replace the leadership in decades. The People’s Alliance itself may be a good organization, but its PAC long ago descended into a tight knit power play dominated by three white males, none of whom have the guts to run for office themselves and all of whom have spent decades behind the scenes hand picking which candidates get endorsed by their PAC. They have done nasty things like this before, attacking people who won their PAC’s endorsement for the flimsiest of reasons in desperate attempts to overturn memberships endorsement, get their way and keep their power. If you want this PAC to be functional again, then for goodness sakes: hold an election and elect new leaders. Get rid of these self-appointed kings. Until then, the People’s Alliance PAC is a sham and they need to be called out for it.
Hi — I just want to leave a comment to say that this article reads extremely thin & lazy. It misses quite a lot of nuance in Durham politics, painting it as the Committee vs. the PA when I believe there’s a lot of gray area not expressed. As an onlooker in the incident described, there was so much more complexity to this situation and this piece does nothing to portray that.