Statewide: Triad region, February 2015

Months of political infighting came to a head with the dismissal of the executive director at Greensboro’s International Civil Rights Center & Museum. Accounts vary on the reasons behind Lacy Ward’s firing in November after seven months on the job, though his restructuring plans upset some of the nonprofit’s directors. No one disputes that the museum has struggled financially since opening in 2010. The center commemorates civil-rights efforts, particularly the sit-in movement launched by four N.C. A&T University students at the F.W. Woolworth lunch counter in 1960. Recent reports aren’t available, but the museum lost $700,000 between 2010 and 2012 and has no reserve. The city provided a $1.5 million loan in 2013 that can be forgiven if the museum raises an equal amount by July. After Ward’s firing, Mayor Nancy Vaughan proposed the city take over management. The board rejected that plan amid accusations that white politicians wanted to control an institution co-founded by black leaders Earl Jones and Skip Alston. “I think the city should financially support the museum, but I do not think the museum’s legacy and future should be under the control of a political entity,” board Chairwoman Deena Hayes-Greene says. She categorizes the situation as “typical nonprofit problems” and says the board plans to hire a new development director, raise more private money and possibly increase the $10 admission price. The museum has received more than $4 million from state and local governments. While its problems have caused racial divisions, the money at stake is minimal compared with Charlotte’s NASCAR Hall of Fame. It has debt of $170 million, even after the Queen City got more than $20 million in relief from Bank of America, Wells Fargo  and NASCAR in January. “We pale in comparison to that,” Hayes-Greene says.