To begin its meeting on Wednesday, the Chapel Hill Town Council held a moment of silence for long-time Chapel Hill community member Edith Wiggins, who died on Sunday, April 4.
Wiggins, who retired from the council in 2005, lived in the town for decades and helped usher in many changes as an elected official and community leader. She moved to Chapel Hill for graduate school in 1962 after being raised and going to college in Greensboro. As the social worker remained in the area, she became more and more involved with community activities and assumed new roles in various organizations.
Voters elected Wiggins to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education in 1979 and she served for eight years, helping oversee changes in redistricting and enrollment. She then became even more involved with the university community, serving as the director of UNC’s Campus Y before becoming the first Black Vice Chancellor and Dean of Student Affairs in 1994.
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Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware (CPBD) again called for a Black to be appointed to Chancery Court following President Biden’s first round of historic judicial nominations in the federal courts.
Nominations included Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The group tied to translation services company TransPerfect has been calling for diversity in Delaware’s courts, and has been joined by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Pastor Blaine Hacket of St. John African Methodist Church.
Currently, Black Delawareans account for 15 percent of the judiciary and more than 21 percent of the total population.