WFAE will add three journalists to its newsroom in June to cover race and equity issues.
The journalists are part of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to cover under-reported topics and communities.
Gracyn Doctor and Dante Miller will cover race and equity issues as part of a new team that will help transform the way WFAE covers communities of color and issues of equity.
Maria Ramirez Uribe will work for WFAE and the Spanish-language newspaper La Noticia to report on Charlotte’s Latino community. This is the second year that the two organizations will share a Report for America corps member.
Charlotte is made up of a lot of different neighborhoods.
One of those neighborhoods is Grier Heights, a historically Black neighborhood. The area is filled with history, but also is planning for its future.
In this episode, we answer the following from a listener:
“What happened to Grier Heights? Founded by a former slave, it was once a thriving neighborhood of working- and middle-class black families.”
How did Grier Heights get started?
“It actually started with Sam Billings,” said Monika Rhue, the director of library services and curation at Johnson C. Smith University.
“He was a former slave, and he bought about 100 acres of land, farmland, and with four houses began what they call Grier Heights. Grier Heights, early on, was what they call a farming community. And then that was around maybe 1890s.”
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A lot happened this year.
The COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 presidential election. This summer’s protests and a reckoning for racial justice.
It will be a year we will never forget.
WFAE has been there reporting on everything from President Donald Trump’s impeachment in January (hard to believe that was still this year, right?) to the approval and arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines in December.
Our staff of editors and reporters identified the biggest stories in the Charlotte region. Below are some of the biggest events we followed in 2020.
QCityMetro
On March 3, North Carolina saw its first case of COVID-19.