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Narrating a Racial Crisis 35 actions. This was not an issue of race; quite frankly it was an issue of character. With regard to any outside investigation of these maters: when we met with the representatives of the NAACP, we were informed that all complaint ensuers who came to the NAACP were referred to EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.19 He concluded by assuring council that the EEOC was looking into the complaints , which he believed sufficed for an outside investigation. Thompson asserted: “we have a police department that has a solid record not just of equal opportunity and fairness but a solid record of affirmative action.”20 Turning Martin Luther King on his head, Thompson asserted that the controversy did not have to do with the skin color of the complaining officers, but with the content of their characters. He assured city council and the citizens of Fayetteville that their rights were being protected; he reminded the audience that the EEOC was looking into the complaints, which he believed was the type of third-party investigation that the leaders of the NAACP requested. He concluded: “We have a police department that has a solid record of affirmative action.” Thompson’s rebuke of the NAACP set the stage for Milo McRae, a seventeen-year veteran of city government who traced his Fayettevillian ancestry to the antebellum period. As the drama unfolded, McRae played the role of the hard-liner. He was an enormous man who spoke with a distinct eastern North Carolina drawl and often antagonized black leaders.21 Unnerved by the NAACP’s accusations, he fired back. McRae had missed the previous meeting because his wife had undergone surgery. After reviewing a video of the meeting, he sought to explain to the citizens what was really going on: “I saw you all on TV trying to discredit him [Jim Thompson] by saying he knew about these things. Certainly he knew about them if he took part in the discussion, but he did not know the specific cases they were talking about.” In reference to black city council member Frederick Walker, McRae said: “I think he wants Mr. Thompson’s job. I saw another one who would like Chief Proctor’s job. I mean maybe we should fire all these guys and let these council members take over their offices.” He scolded his black colleagues and the NAACP for “trying to smear the Fayetteville Police Department.” He closed by saying: “Mr. Mayor, I personally would like to make a motion, I would like to make a motion that we ask the three officers involved if they would permit us to print all this information. If they won’t, then I think we need to talk to Mr. Boswell [the city attorney] about going ahead and doing it anyway. . . . I believe what I’ve seen substantiates the investigation by the police department, by the city manager, and I think everybody in this town needs to know who’s right on this and who’s not right.”22 Although many Fayettevillians associated him with the city’s racist past, his appeal to 36 conjuring crisis the EEOC as “politically neutral” draws attention to major changes. In sharp contrast to the massive resistance of the 1950s, he was willing to give this federal agency the authority to decide this dispute.23 Though McRae had raised the stakes, as he attempted to widen the sense that the NAACP had run afoul, black council member Frederick Walker challenged him by presenting a substitute motion that would order the city manager to release “all relevant information” about the three officers in question , of which the results would be “binding on the City staff and the affected departments.”24 With the substitute motion on the table, council debate intensified as the meeting passed midnight. Council members Janet Chaney and Gerald Hodges backed McRae. They added eloquence to his point as they attempted to be less polarizing in manner. As a professor of political science at Methodist College, Chaney argued that “we are elected representatives of the citizens and we certainly have a responsibility to do our part in governing the city.” After a “very careful reading” of the documents, she concluded: “We have seen evidence of a tight ship in the police department . . . we have an outside, unquestionably unbiased agency, the EEOC, already coming in to investigate this. . . . I don’t see discrimination. I see unhappy employees and...

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