One day after the Bull City celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., displaced residents of one of its most marginalized communities served up their own brand of civil disobedience by disrupting a city council meeting. 

“You go eat at fancy restaurants every night, and we are eating macaroni-and-cheese cups!” shouted Ashley Canady, president of the McDougald Terrace residents council. 

“We tired! We fed up!” yelled another Mac resident.

Another: “This is supposed to be the city of medicine! A bunch of hypocrites. We gone turn this up!”

“This is your last term!” another bellowed at Mayor Steve Schewel.

The residents were escorted outside the council chambers Tuesday night, where they continued their protest.

Sunday marked the third week that more than 300 McDougald Terrace residents have been staying in hotels. On January 3, Durham Housing Authority officials relocated the residents due to safety and quality of life issues that include elevated levels of carbon monoxide, mold, lead paint, pervasive sewage problems, bed bugs, roaches, and the unexplained deaths of three infants between November 20 and January 1. (The state medical examiner ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning as a cause of death, but state pathologists have not yet said what killed the infants.)

Prior to Tuesday’s outburst during the council meeting, Schewel said he knew there were several in attendance who wanted to speak about the Mac.

“That is not on our agenda,” he said, adding that it was not on the council’s agenda on January 3, either, though some 50 people shared their concerns that day. Schewel promised to meet with the residents after the meeting, which “won’t be long.”

A half-hour later, the meeting ended, and Schewel allowed the residents back inside to speak.

“Well, I thought that I would meet with folks afterward and we’d be able to have a good discussion,” Schewel told the 20 or so residents who filed back in. “Clearly, that’s not enough for people to be satisfied, so let’s hear from everybody.”

“I’m not going to have yelling out in this meeting” the mayor added after another outburst. 

Canady, who has been lauded as a hero by city officials, told council members she was disappointed, hurt, and pissed off. “And I’m not going to apologize for my behavior,” she said.

Canady told the council that babies living at the hotels with their parents are eating the same high-sodium foods every week.

“We have babies going into cardiac arrest from eating so much sodium,” she said. “While everybody else is at home eating good, we have residents still stuck in hotels eating the same thing every day.”

Canady added that some of the older residents staying at the hotel have been transported to the hospital for treatment “because they’re tired of eating the same thing. They can’t keep eating it.”

(DHA general counsel Carl Newman could not be reached for comment on Canady’s assertion that some McDougald Terrace children living in the hotels have suffered cardiac arrest.)

Canady said while residents are awaiting repairs that will make their homes habitable, they see housing authority officials spending money for new trucks and new cell phones for their employees. “Didn’t they just give [DHA CEO] Anthony Scott a raise?” she asked.

“But Durham is woke, right?” she chided.

Canady said her children are not going to eat macaroni-and-cheese cups for another week.

“And if I have to disrupt every city function, every county function, I want it,” she said. “Because if they disrupt our lives, we ’bout to disrupt theirs. We had to go outside and raise hell in order to speak. Enough is enough!”

Canady looked out into the audience at her fellow residents and called out to them: “Durham tell ’em! Enough is enough! We fed up, and we are what?

“Tired!” the residents answered.

“We what?”

“Tired!”

Contact staff writer Thomasi McDonald at [email protected]. 

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