If you don’t care about the meeting’s origin story and want to get right to the meeting itself, simply scroll down to the image reading “Jamie Ager for United States Congress” and start reading directly below. Also, please check out this piece by my friend Dalton about his experience and thoughts after hosting the event. I did not read his piece until after I finished this one and I think it’s well worth y’all’s time to read them both if you care about this election.

My political positions in brief: I am an unaffiliated NC voter. I am not, nor have I ever been a Democrat and I’m also not part of any other current political party. My political beliefs do not easily fit within the current framework, but I believe that under our current governmental system we should at the very least have accessible healthcare, affordable food that is safe to eat, reasonably-priced housing, and representatives that work for their voting constituents, not for their wealthy donors.

I also believe that extremely wealthy people and corporations should be taxed fairly so those tax dollars can help US residents and citizens who are struggling. At the same time, I believe that most, if not all, consensual “crimes” (involving only adults) should be legal and that the government should stay out of citizens’ and residents’ business as long as we aren’t causing harm to another person.

These positions don’t seem all that terrifying to me.

Subscribe now

Yet my political beliefs, which align most closely to folks like Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders, are apparently so scary that a group of moderate Democrats felt the need to distance themselves from the candidates running on the Democratic ticket with these platforms immediately after those candidates proved to be incredibly popular in the state of New York.

“But, Betsy, we’re not in New York! We’re in Western North Carolina (WNC).”

Yes. Yes, we are. And I believe that folks in WNC would quite like to see policies that result in more accessible healthcare, affordable housing, and assistance for families who are struggling to make ends meet instead of our tax dollar$ going to fund endless overseas wars, arm foreign countries, fund a domestic police state, and provide tax breaks for wealthy folks and corporations.

I truly don’t understand why anyone in the Democratic party would choose to sign that pledge at this time when it seems so clearly to be a reaction against a very successful and relevant Democratic movement.

You can go here to read the pledge itself. There’s not much to it, but I’m still troubled by a few parts which I plan to unpack in an already mostly-written future post.

On July 20, 2026 I attended a gathering with other local younger progressives so we could meet and talk with Jamie Ager, Democratic candidate for US House of Representatives district NC-11.

It was early this month when the news broke. Jamie Ager, the candidate voted for by 64.7% of NC-11 Democrats who voted in the primary, had signed the centrist Democrat pledge; which appeared to be a distancing response to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates. These candidates are favored by younger progressives and are extremely popular right now in the wake of Mamdani’s many positive changes for his city of New York.

Many of us locally have been extremely upset by this news. How could we vote for someone who appeared to write off the entire progressive wing of the Democratic party? How could we vote for someone who appeared to align himself with folks who didn’t seem all that much more progressive than Reagan Republicans were back in the day? Before any of us were born.

So the more well-connected of us (not me) arranged for a meeting. We planned to ask Jamie the hard questions. We would find out why he’d signed this pledge that felt like a betrayal to so many of us!

But we didn’t. We didn’t ask that. Not that the questions we did ask were easy, nothing is really EASY in politics these days. Not if you want to build alliances and try to make the world burn a little less. Especially not if you want to try and make things significantly better for regular folks, because the system is kinda stacked against us all right now.

As I wrote Tuesday night before I had even read any of Mayor Mamdani’s NYT interview where he said some of the same things…

It’s not as much about ideological ideals as it is about building relationships and finding values in common. Listening to people. Making sure marginalized communities are in the room and are heard as often as possible.

Politics is not about being right (or left), it’s about shared values, building community, and building relationships. You cannot learn from people effectively and they cannot learn from you until and unless you have built a relationship with them.

So, that’s what we did. We met Jamie Ager, we listened to his three main campaign goals and focuses. We listened to him and he listened to us and we got to know each other.

You can read all about Jamie on his website. He seems to be a genuinely kind and caring person. He’s complicated, like we all are; but he appears to truly care, to want to make the world a better place. He also said that he understands that many issues are more complex than they initially seem, which is important to me.

Our society likes to prioritize simplified and falsely dichotomous solutions to pretty much everything. Oh, and those false-dichotomy “solutions” also have to be itty bitty soundbites with no nuance because who has attention spans these days? Who’s going to actually be willing to wrestle with difficult issues while recognizing the complexity of the history, the pervasive perverseness of our country’s past that we (as a nation) don’t really want to spend any time contemplating?

So, I am encouraged that Jamie Ager recognizes the complexity of life.

You can find Jamie’s official platform here. His main three focus points, as stated at the meeting and written from my notes and understanding, are:

1. Hurricane Helene Recovery — Yeah, I mean. Exactly. That’s exactly what a candidate from WNC should be prioritizing right now. Absolutely. Those of us who were here when it hit, who were stuck without cell signals or power for days or weeks, who either lost everything or are close to people who did… there are still local roads that are impassable because of an almost 2-years past weather event. I have friends who still have PTSD responses to heavy rain and wind. We need to prioritize recovery.

2. High cost-of-living — because it’s unacceptable when people can’t afford healthcare, food, rent, or childcare. You cannot have life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness if you can’t afford to live in the first place.

3. The rampant corruption in Washington DC, including Citizens United, is unacceptable. Insider trading shouldn’t be happening because representatives should not be power or money-hungry. We need good representatives from diverse backgrounds making our country stronger. We need caring and earnest leaders to secure our home and help folks afford to live again.

I am encouraged that Jamie Ager appears to truly care about our region and the regular folks who live here.

After hearing Jamie’s top three priorities, we asked some questions.

We wanted to know about funding for Israel and Jamie said he would always prioritize funding WNC over funding a foreign nation. He said we should get out of Iran as soon as possible and that humans should try not to be harmful to each other, a sentiment I relate to as a Quaker. He was also very clear that he does not now and will not in the future take money from AIPAC.

We asked how Jamie plans to balance the needs of rural communities vs urban communities and he said that those needs aren’t really as different as they may seem on the surface. Towns in WNC are still pretty rural and we need to both preserve farmland and have affordable housing policies.

As graduates of Warren Wilson College, Jamie and his wife (who also seems to be a very sincere and kind person) care deeply about the environment. When asked about how he views ai data centers Jamie said he’s skeptical about them and that there needs to be a balance so the data centers don’t harm rural communities and take our clean water. More generally, Jamie doesn’t believe in outsourcing business costs in ways that harm the land, the surrounding community, or any employees.

Jamie is in favor of regulations surrounding data centers, to ensure that they’re good neighbors to their communities, as well as regulations for ai usage in general to help ensure that ai-use is beneficial for humans and that we guard against the negatives. At the very least, he said we need to have discussions so we can try to solve the issues surrounding ai and data centers.

I am encouraged that Jamie values both the environment and open discussions about difficult issues.

Jamie would like us to ask ourselves how we can “be more human” which means being kind, self-aware, better versions of ourselves.

When asked about making a path forward, coming together, or getting through to MAGA adherents Jamie said that he’s not trying to change MAGA minds. Rather, he’s putting more effort into reaching those who haven’t been involved in politics, who’ve become disillusioned with the system.

Jamie also doesn’t primarily define himself as a Democrat.

He said that “Democrat” is pretty far down on his list of identities, which I respect. I didn’t ask so don’t attribute this to him, but I really hope this means he will be willing to call out bad behavior from Democrats as well as from Republicans.

What Jamie did say was that he’s willing to sit down with people of any political beliefs and have a conversation. Like me, he seems to have a natural ability to find areas of agreement with people who otherwise would tend to disagree with him. He told us that he wants to focus on bipartisan concerns and issues that, if solved, could make life better for us all.

I am encouraged that Jamie is willing to have hard conversations with people who disagree with him.

Jamie acknowledged that the system isn’t working well for regular folks and he recognizes the need to be bold and make changes. He also said that he doesn’t want to play into manufactured divisions; he’d rather find where we agree and then work to help as many folks as he can while leaning into our shared humanity.

I am encouraged that Jamie recognizes that the system doesn’t work well for regular folks.

Jamie talked about how he’s made many mistakes in his lifetime and about how he’s grateful for the things he’s learned “the hard way.” He told us that he tries to stay both humble and determined.

When asked about whether he sees any Mamdani-style policies that could be implemented in WNC and if he has plans to tap into the disaffected youth vote, Jamie said that he’s open to suggestions. He also agreed that childcare and healthcare must be accessible.

I am encouraged that Jamie is practiced in learning from his mistakes and that he’s open to suggestions from constituents.

To end with, Jamie assured us that he wants to be accountable. He wants to communicate with local leaders and constituents to make sure that he’s representing us as well as possible. He promised that he will get back to local leaders, unlike Chuck Edwards who has repeatedly failed to respond to the local leaders who were present at this meeting.

And so, I am encouraged.

My Final Thoughts:

Do I think Jamie Ager is perfect? Absolutely not. Nobody is. I do not put people on pedestals because that’s a recipe for disappointment every single time.

But do I think he will make a sincere effort to try and better people’s lives in my community? Yes. Yes, I do.

All else aside, Jamie is infinitely better than Chuck Edwards and we should know pretty quickly if he sticks with his values and stands up to the corruption and waste and lack of care for regular folks that is rampant in politics these days.

Danielle Moodie said this past Wednesday in her weekly Check-In with Jared Yates Sexton (which I highly recommend folks listen to if you have an hour to spare!), that she makes a distinction between a politician and a public servant: “A politician is an actor,” she said, while a public servant “moves from a place of duty and integrity.”

My honest sense of Jamie Ager after this meeting is that he truly desires to be a public servant.

And at this time and this place politically, that’s enough to get my vote.

We don’t need to agree on everything to recognize that we have a great many shared values.

I’m still wary. I’d love to hear more about where Jamie stands on issues that affect marginalized communities such as:

• systemic racism

• bodily autonomy and the right to obtain healthcare (primarily for women and trans folks)

• the right to marry the person someone loves regardless of sex or gender

And part of me does wish we’d asked about the pledge at this meeting, but we had limited time. Also, I will be sending a link to this article to Jamie’s campaign. If he chooses to respond to any of this, I’d certainly plan to share at least my thoughts about his response with you, my readers.

Overall and for now, I’m encouraged.

Thank you for reading, thank you for caring.

~Betsy

No generative ai was knowingly used in the writing of this piece or any of my others. All human, all the time!

In May I had the pleasure of attending the One Book, One Buncombe event with Dolen Perkins-Valdez; author of the novel Happy Land.

Happy Land is partially set during the time of the Kingdom of the Happy Land, an important piece of Henderson County Black history. You can find my previous post about the Kingdom at the link below if you’d like to know a bit more about that history before continuing on with this article:

Although I have since read and reveiwed Happy Land, I must confess that I had not read the book yet on May 16th. So, it was very interesting to read through my notes as I wrote this with regretful tardiness.

Also, you can watch the entire event on YouTube, so if you like video format and/or want to see more than the bits I’m writing about, get on over there and enjoy. It was a great event and I highly recommend watching!

I heard about this event through a Quaker friend (not redundant because I didn’t capitalize the “F”) only a few days beforehand. I didn’t even decide to attend for sure until the night before.

Thus, my eldest daughter, youngest son, and I arrived to the event ~10 minutes early without much of an idea of what to expect.

To start with, the auditorium was packed. We found some seats kind of in the middle of one side, because other than the very edge of our particular side, there were almost no other vacancies.

Soon after the event began, Dolen Perkins-Valdez and *Suzanne Hale took their seats up front, ready to talk about the book and take questions.

*Suzanne consulted on historical aspects of the book along with local historian Ronnie Pepper.

One of my favorite parts of the book’s story is about how Dolen, Ronnie, and Suzanne worked together to discover new information about the Kingdom’s residents and where they came from.

Jumping off from the historical moment, Dolen created characters for people to connect with. She asked herself why the history mattered and how to best tell the story.

To me, the history matters (in large part) because the whole story is, one way or another, related to property rights and owning land; a topic that has an incredibly racist history in the United States — a history that still negatively affects Black families today.

These parts of history aren’t fun, light, or happy topics; but they’re honestly some of the most important parts to pay attention to. When we feel uncomfortable or upset about history, that’s a good sign that we’re actually reading history and not reading mythology or propaganda instead.

Dolen talked about when she first visited the land, the Kingdom of the Happy Land. She spoke of the land’s beauty and magic. She could feel the sacred importance of the land.

Over the years, the way the Kingdom’s story is told has changed. I found it fascinating to think about that and it makes a lot of sense. In the 1870s the narratives were very racist and even falsely accused the Happy Land residents of cannibalism. By the 1960s the focus was on the “nice white woman” who owned the land originally: Serepta Davis. In contrast, the two books that have come out in recent years have focused primarily on Queen Luella (the other recent book was The American Queen by Vanessa Miller).

Dolen spoke about how she focused in part on the audacity of the entire project. After all, Luella became a landowner before most white women had ever owned property. The women of the Kingdom also helped financially support the community through making and selling liniment to folks in the surrounding areas. Looking back to Luella makes sense right now because many of us are wanting to and working towards recovering women’s history.

But the most important thing, Dolen reminded us, is to remember these histories, no matter what the focus of the remembrance is.

I’m going to leave the rest for folks to watch on the video. There was a great Q & A session after Dolen and Suzanne spoke, but it’s been long enough now since I attended the event that I think you’ll get more out of it if you watch the video.

To end this piece, I want to say that the idea of One Book, One Buncombe is fantastic!

It’s so nice when communities have common cultural touchstones for connection, shared interest, and engaging in conversation from multiple perspectives.

My two college-age children have had assigned freshman books at two different colleges. So every student who shares a starting year has something to talk about with their classmates and professors, even if they have nothing else in common.

We have so little media in common nowadays. It’s too easy to watch your own shows, listen to your own music, and read content from your own little corner of the internet — often not even sharing these experiences with the people who live with you.

There used to be less media to choose from and fewer ways to watch, listen, or read privately so it was easier to have shared experiences.

As someone who quite enjoys being able to mostly focus on my own interests, I do recognize the positive aspects of private media, but it’s also nice to have a community with knowledge and cultural references in common.

Events like One Book, One Buncombe help foster community connection through shared enjoyment and discussions. A wonderful program that I hope continues for a long time to come <3

~Betsy

To start with, I (foolishly) did not plan to do a write-up of this event. I thought to myself, “I’ll just attend for fun and enjoy myself!” but… it turns out that I only really enjoy attending events if I can write down every random thought that passes through my head. All I had on hand was my program and a tiny little half-sized church pencil sans eraser. So, that’s how I took my notes.

As a Queer *Georgian myself, I knew shockingly little about the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus (AGMC) prior to attending this performance and writing this article. But I am so thrilled that I had the opportunity to hear them perform and that I get to dive into some of their history now! One of the longest-running gay choruses in the world, they truly are amazing and if you ever get a chance to go hear them sing, I highly recommend you take that opportunity.

*I was born in Athens, GA; my extended family is mostly in North Georgia (where I visited summers even when I lived elsewhere); and I lived in Augusta, GA for 11 years before moving to Hendersonville.

Upon arriving at Trinity Presbyterian I sat down next to a couple friends of mine with no real expectations. I have always loved Elton John’s songs, though I mostly know his older stuff: basically the Greatest Hits of his Goodbye Yellow Brick Road era (I acquired Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on vinyl as a high schooler). Then I skipped the 1980s and went straight into the The Lion King era because, as an elder millennial, I adored that entire soundtrack.

After a brief introduction by Reverend Karla Miller of the First Congregational Church of Hendersonville, the Chorus members began to enter. I know someone else spoke next, but I wasn’t yet taking notes and mostly just marveled at the amazingly shiny jackets and shoes the singers were wearing. Sequins for days in purples, reds, pinks, golds…

The men went straight into “The Bitch is Back” with a bit of seamless “Saturday Night(‘s All Right for Fighting)” in the middle. The accompanist was on piano, very appropriate for Elton John arrangements, and the singers were dancing in place, mostly using their hands to raise up the positive energy that would stay with us throughout the concert.

The group was much larger than I’d expected, with over 100 members signing up for this trip according to a lovely Facebook post by one of the singers. As a musician myself who’s both played and sung in (much smaller) ensembles it was impressive to me how in-tune and complementary their voices were with each other. There’s a feeling of strength and connection when all the tones and harmonies fit together with every note and voice perfectly in place. Check out the AGMC YouTube page if you’d like to hear some of their singing for yourself!

Their next song, “I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues” was lovely. I always forget about this one and I enjoyed the AGMC version immensely. “Your Song/Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” was such a powerful combination! “Your Song” is one of my all-time favorite songs in general and I came very close to tears during this one.

“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” was sung acapella by a smaller group directed by the assistant conductor, David Artadi-Beno, who also arranged the version they sang. The harmonies were spot-on beautiful. Then the entire group moved on to “The One” which was a song I’d never heard before. It’s a love song: “when stars collide like you and I” with lyrics also about freedom, a theme that showed up in several songs.

Freedom to love. A freedom that we all should have, especially in a country that claims to be the “land of the free.”

“The Last Song” was another I’d never heard. The director, Donald Milton III, introduced it to us, letting us know that it was written about a father who reconciled with his son who was dying from AIDS. By the time the Chorus arrived at the second half of the refrain, I could see people all around me dabbing at their eyes.

I can’t believe you love me

I never thought you’d come

I guess I misjudged love between a father and his son

By the end of the song, I had tears falling from my eyes as well. It was beautiful and haunting and relatable to anyone who’s feared the loss of their parents’ love.

Next was “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” which is one of my favorite Elton John songs. I acquired that album from a rummage sale as a teenager in the 1990s when people were literally giving away their vinyl, and listened to it many times on my turntable. I used it to make mix tapes. This song serves a reminder that some people aren’t worth our continued time or effort because sometimes they just want to use us for their own benefit. When really, we are worth so much more than how they’re treating us and it’s time to move on to something better, even if it may appear on the surface to be less shiny.

We are valuable. All of us!

Then. THEN. Kenny Julmisse-Suggs took the microphone and it was like he’d walked straight out of The Lion King soundtrack to start off “Circle of Life” in the most amazing way — his voice strong and incredible. This was the first song that received a standing ovation. “Wow!” is what I wrote after procuring a tiny church pencil from the pew in front of me and underlining his name in my program. Folks on drums and shakers joined in for this and the next couple songs.

That’s when I started taking notes.

“Shadowland” was next. It’s a song from the 1997 stage adaptation musical The Lion King. I had not heard the song before because I never branched out from the Disney film (it was one of my main focuses as a tween, y’all), but I did recognize a theme from the Disney movie that was used as inspiration for this song’s melody. It’s not directly written by Elton John, but it’s adjacent and hauntingly hopeful.

The soloist, Dywahn Bethea, sang beautifully and this song also ended with a standing ovation from the audience. These lyrics stood out to me the most:

And where the journey may lead you

Let this prayer be your guide

Though it may take you so far away

Always remember your pride

“Always remember your Pride.” — a different pride in The Lion King storyline, but similar. Because both prides are about community and belonging.

Queer Pride is about belonging by living authentically within an accepting community.

To finish out The Lion King music, either another small group or the same one from before, I couldn’t tell, came forward to sing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” This time their gorgeous acapella harmonies were so deep that it sounded as though they had added instrumentation! This is another of my favorite Elton John songs and the small group’s performance was fantastic.

“Hold Me Closer” was the next song, another that I hadn’t heard. It’s a recent (2022) collaboration between Elton John and Britney Spears, which is very cool and I wish I’d heard it sooner! I am, of course, very familiar with “Tiny Dancer” which is what this song is partially based off of and I liked those bits the best. According to Wikipedia the song also has elements from “The One” and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” but I didn’t pick up on those in the moment.

The next soloist, Zach Burgess, had a voice that fit “Rocket Man” perfectly. I think his voice went better with the song than Elton John’s, if I’m being totally honest; and I’ve listened to Elton John’s version many hundreds of times. It sounded so good and when the lower ranges of the Chorus took over from the soloist, their deep voices contrasted beautifully with Zach’s higher register. The theme moved from high to low and back again in a way that’s difficult to describe, but it felt so satisfying to my ears!

“Someone Saved My Life Tonight” had a beautiful blending of voices that brought power and truth to the lyrics. So many of us in that room have been in a place where our lives have been saved by someone else or where we’ve saved someone else’s life. “Sweet freedom…” Getting out of that bad situation, reclaiming oneself, one’s life, and one’s music/creativity!

The harmonies at the end felt as deep as the ocean. All the voices coming together evoked feelings that could only come from a live musical performance given by people who have all been through their own unique process of coming to love and live as their genuine selves.

The soloist for “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” Jim Macknik, stepped down to the mic out front wearing a fabulous purple jacket, as shiny and sparkling as his voice was bright and uplifting. I was entranced as they all sang, “I thank the Lord for the people I’ve found.”

Finding good people, good community, is priceless. Even the act of showing up helps Queer people feel safe, as the Director reminded us.

That welcoming and communal message continued on with “Chosen Family” a powerful LGBTQIA+ anthem written by Japanese–British singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama, recorded with Elton John, and released on my birthday in 2021. We heard two soloists this time: Josh Woods and Clint Thornton. This is another song that I wasn’t familiar with, and I loved it.

This song was sung directly to the audience. Sincerely meant and felt as all the members of the Chorus looked around, singing the words directly to each of us individually.

We could all feel the kindness, love, joy, and connection radiating out from the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus: “Hand me a pen and I’ll rewrite the pain… You are, you are my chosen, chosen family!”

Everyone in the audience stood: clapping, cheering, thanking!

The final song came after we heard some words from Maralee McMillan about the Roger Smith Concert Series, which is what this performance was part of. Maralee started this series in order to honor her late husband Roger Smith’s life and his values. All performances in the series are FREE to everyone in the community and the series is intended to showcase “music that brings diverse people together in joy, peace, and acceptance.”

I must say that the organizers and performers and supporters certainly achieved that goal with this concert!

“I’m Still Standing” was such a joyful song to end with. It felt personal, hopeful, optimistic. A row of singers danced down the aisles to stand in front with choreography that eventually the director raised us all out of our seats to join in, moving our bodies and raising up our hands to the sky.

As the singers vacated the stage walking past where I was standing, they waved and shook our hands and gave hugs. We made hearts from our hands and thanked each other. I don’t think I could ever adequately describe the energy in that sanctuary, how powerful and positive it felt. It became so clear how connected we all are. How much we need each other and how much we need human kinship.

Acceptance. Love. Pride.

It means so much to those of us in the Hendersonville Queer community that the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus (AGMC) came out to perform in our little town!

Thank you to all who were involved: All who sang, all who organized, all who attended! You were amazing. As the artistic director said at the end: this performance was absolutely a gift from Atlanta. The AGMC brought us energy, joy, hope, courage, and strength! We reflected the positivity back, adding some of our own energy in this reciprocal exchange.

The first time the AGMC visited us here was before I moved to the area, in 2019. It was right before the first ever Hendersonville Pride Picnic, in part to celebrate that we finally had a Pride event here!

As (I believe) Maralee said when she spoke earlier: “No one should have to hide who they are just to stay safe.”

That’s true in small towns as well as in big cities. We should ALL be able to exist as ourselves without fearing for our safety.

If you’d like to help help support the Roger Smith Series, you can send a donation by check to the First Congregational Church; 1735 Fifth Avenue West; Hendersonville, NC 28739. Be sure to write on the check that your donation is to go to the funding of the Roger Smith Series.

If you’d like to support the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus you can donate here!

Thank you for reading and for being present on this planet <3 You are valuable and worthy simply by existing as a human being and you deserve to be loved and cared for as your full, whole self.

Much love and happy Pride Month,

~BarefootBetsy

This post is 100% human-written and edited <3

At that time, the downtown Hendersonville library had a wonderful shelf for recently returned books that still needed to be shelved. That shelf was a brilliant little microcosm of the entire library and by perusing the titles there, I could see what topics and books other folks in the community were interested in at any given time.

Without the aid of that naturally community-curated shelf, I may never have discovered a thin unassuming volume of solid black with no dustjacket. The title was embossed on the front in a fancy, but easy-to-read script: A Brief History of The Black Presence in Henderson County by The Black History Research Committee of Henderson County with Gary Franklin Greene.

That exact cover is pictured below (apologies for the poor quality, I didn’t save my original photograph and had to screenshot it from Goodreads, where I manually added the book + cover photo in 2021).

You should still be able to find this book at the library and I highly recommend checking it out if you’re local! If you’re not local, or if it’s not available, here’s a website that contains entire chapters of the book itself, plus more supplemental links and information that have been added since the book was published in 1996.

This book was fascinating and filled with information. I was particularly interested in the chapter about the Ninth Avenue School. I’d recently done a years’-long deep dive into the history of the Schofield Normal and Industrial School in Aiken, SC; which was started by a Philadelphia Quaker woman (Martha Schofield) during Reconstruction and was attended by the first Black doctor in the state of South Carolina, Dr. Matilda Evans.

But what fascinated me most, was the story of the Kingdom of the Happy Land. You can read even more background about this story at the links found here.

So come along with me as I tell you about my very first experience hearing Ronnie Pepper tell the story of the Kingdom of the Happy Land, several years after I first read the story! If you’d like to experience his storytelling yourself, please check out this recording of Ronnie Pepper’s recent history presentation at UNC Asheville.

I arrived on the afternoon of April 20, 2026 at the Zirconia Library Branch, which was much smaller than I was expecting. I love tiny spaces and this little library, set back from the road and easy to miss if you aren’t looking for it, was lovely and cozy!

I took my seat by the projector as Ronnie walked around, talking to people. He doesn’t know me, as far as I know, but I’ve heard only great things about his work locally and was excited for the program to begin.

He started off with an exercise that I won’t spoil here, but it illustrated how our brains like to skip over things that we aren’t looking for. Things like Black history, and in that case we’ve actually been deliberately conditioned to not see it. A similar realization, years ago, is why I’ve always focused my history teaching on marginalized voices, first-person whenever possible. The mainstream understandings of history are everywhere and don’t need highlighting as much as the stories that aren’t told because they don’t fit within the mythological narrative.

Ronnie said that because we, as a society, don’t regularly talk about Black history predating slavery, we also don’t tend to think about it. By not thinking about the origins of US slavery we are missing a large piece of the context of US history, which affects how we view what came after.

Like the Kingdom of the Happy Land.

Basically, from 1865-1873 around 50-60 emancipated Black people arrived from Cross Anchor in Spartanburg County, SC. Kings William/Robert and Queen Luella’s last name was Montgomery and Ronnie mentioned that local historians are still looking for descendents with that last name. It’s believed that the group traveled up the Buncombe County Turnpike, “the winding way.” They may have traveled that way previously while enslaved, which could explain how they knew which way to go.

This migration was during Reconstruction and Black folks, at the time, often had “labor contracts” with low or no pay. The Freedmen’s Bureau tried to help for a while, but the Black folks of South Carolina were so successful politically that it really freaked out the local white folks. So white rifle clubs rose up and began to terrorize Black communities throughout South Carolina (especially by the Georgia border, as many of the rifle clubs originated in Georgia).

Men from these rifle clubs would march around threateningly through South Carolina majority-Black towns or would show up at polling places to threaten or even attack Black people or anyone else who was voting Republican (Note: Post-US Civil War-era Republicans were the anti-slavery and pro-Reconstruction party).

The resultant 1876/1877 election compromise effectively ended Reconstruction in the South.

The “race riot” or (more accurately) “massacre” I am most familiar with occurred in Ellenton, SC during the 1876 election. The former Ellenton townsite is now part of the Savannah River Site near North Augusta, SC and I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the townsite many years ago as part of a tour group.

Knowing some of that history, it makes perfect sense why a group of Black South Carolinians would want to get away from the violence and threatening atmosphere, leave “jobs” that weren’t paying enough if anything, and build a better life for themselves and their descendents.

The Davis place, the Oakland Inn, was owned by Colonel John Davis until he died in 1859, shortly before the War began. Oakland was a stopping place along Buncombe County Turnpike, an Inn for folks passing by.

After the Civil War ended, the Colonel’s widow, Serepta Davis, was living in the plantation home and struggling to keep up the house and land.

So it may have seemed to be a literal answer to prayer when a sizeable group of people showed up and offered to clean up her land in exchange for pay. Money that they used to partially cover the cost of purchasing 180 acres of the land by 1882, the year Luella and Robert were granted the deed. The rest of the money appears to have come from liniment sales, produce sales, mine/railroad work, and deliveries.

The King and Queen owned their Kingdom!

Ronnie talked about all the work local folks have done to find the land in the first place. For a long time, nobody knew where exactly the Happy Land was located, and most folks weren’t sure whether it was true or just a story passed down. Ronnie told us that they’re working on getting a historical marker and have found a graveyard.

Apparently if you walk along the Palmetto Trail, which runs from here to the Atlantic Coast, you will pass right by the land of the former Kingdom.

The community grew to several hundred residents in the 1870s, but then the economy changed. With the completion of the railroad it wasn’t as easy to make money at the rural Happy Land as it had been previously. More Happy Land young folks moved their families to be in or nearer to the surrounding towns.

Eventually, of course, the land was sold; and the money from the sale was reportedly used to create a trust to care for a Montgomery family member. The sale wasn’t about profits, and neither was the community. “It’s about the relationships.” Ronnie said.

One chimney remains standing on the land (scroll down to see a photo here) and on the same page with the chimney photo you can read about an archaeological dig from last year. It’s very cool! I recommend checking it out.

As with so many things in history, especially African-American history, there are many unknowns in this story; but so much has been learned even just since I first read the story!

Some of my own thoughts regarding history generally:

One of the beautiful things to me about studying history is that we are always learning more as time goes on.

People often, I think, view history as a set of facts that are unchanging and completely known about and that center around dates, places, and names. But the truth is that the most complete history would be made up of as many different-perspective experiences as we could gather together into the narrative.

We will never have a truly complete view of history because that would require an impossible knowledge: basically the experiences of every single person who lived through every single event.

Learning multi-perspective history can be a bit like a treasure hunt for puzzle pieces. Those pieces then create a more 3-dimensional understanding of the world generally instead of a flat “understanding” that centers just one or maybe two perspectives (generally with US history the mainstream perspectives will be those of white men, with sometimes a white woman or two).

History is a sort of road map for how and why things are the way they are now. We can look back at where we came from, what happened, and determine where we made some extremely harmful wrong turns.

And wrong turns can only be corrected if we acknowledge their existence in the first place, so we best get to it!

~Betsy

Please email or message if you have corrections. No ai was used in the writing of this or anything else on Betsy’s Substacks. This and all other work here is the intellectual property of Betsy Alger who does not consent to having it run through any sort of ai generator.

This was, of course, the same day as the Hendersonville May Day Strong: Workers Over Billionaires event so I basically went straight from the May Day event back to my house and then headed out about half an hour later to the Front Porch Conversations.

The weather was a little sunnier in the afternoon, but sadly not much warmer. Still, the light sprinkles of rain from earlier had completely vanished and our hosts had a lovely house with a beautiful backyard that felt both homey and welcoming. We had plenty of room to mingle and grab finger foods (shoutout to Foxy Otter Catering for some of the platters that were pleasing to both the eye and palette) before the event began.

I sadly did not get any photos, but that’s because the event, food, and fellow attendees were so interesting that I didn’t even think to pull out my phone.

Note: Any commentary in italics is my own and all links are of my own finding, which means they may not fully and accurately reflect the opinions and beliefs of the speakers at the event. Links I share are invitations to learn more about some of the issues we discussed. I always learn a lot by writing these pieces and by doing the research to find reputable and accessible articles for further learning and I hope the links benefit my readers as well!

Subscribe now

We settled into our chairs in the backyard as Preston Blakely, Mayor of Fletcher and all around interesting person to talk to (one of my highest compliments!), stood up and welcomed us all to the event.

Preston talked about how he’s been organizing front porch talks like this one. He’s running unopposed as the incumbent candidate this year and so can spend some extra time supporting his fellow candidates in Henderson County. Preston brought up the recent NC Supreme Court Leandro decision that stripped previously promised funding away from lower-income NC school districts.

He reminded us that “hope comes with action” and that we need to organize, vote, and defend democracy!

Lynne Russo, current NC House candidate for district 117, stood up to briefly speak next. She talked about how important it is for us to focus on local candidates and issues as things continue to fall apart on the federal level. She reminded us that North Carolina is currently 46th in the USA for teacher pay, so 45 states pay their teachers better than we do and only four have worse pay.

Lynne would like to focus on the school vouchers issue (recent news about that here) and address the lack of care for public education that seems to currently be endemic in Raleigh. Lynne said that she supports Mary Ellen because she “leads with common sense” which we certainly need more of in our elected officials. Lynne talked about how our state government is too busy banning books in Chapel Hill and talking about firing squads to even get a state budget passed.

Then Mary Ellen Kustin took the stage, I mean porch <3

Mary Ellen talked about her desire to put children first and how she’s run for school board several times because this is important! She first ran in 2022, when the role was still considered non-partisan; but in the years since it’s become partisan in Henderson County, with candidates here recognized as being part of a specific party on the ballot.

Mary Ellen wants public schools to be safe for all students, no matter who they are. All teachers want to see their students succeed and to be seen.

“Strong public schools are foundational for democracy” in part because critical thinking is so important when choosing governmental representation. School budgets are an issue Mary Ellen plans to tackle because it’s vital to pay teachers fair salaries so students can have thriving teachers who aren’t worried about paying their bills and can stay in their position long term.

As a member of the school board, Mary Ellen promises to advocate for more funding; both locally as well as from the state budget. Currently, around 60% of our county’s school funding comes from Raleigh, ~10% comes from the federal government, and ~30% comes from local taxes. The folks running against Mary Ellen appear to be nervous about what books children are exposed to and don’t want to ask for more funding for our schools, which doesn’t bode well for providing a quality education to all of our children.

A member of the audience, Tom, spoke up. He said that we don’t need to have kids in the school system to recognize the importance of strong public education and teachers who care (and who also get paid fairly!). He then asked Mary Ellen:

Q: How does all the new housing in our area affect local schools?

Mary Ellen’s Answer: Due to the inequality of funding within Henderson County, many of the new developments are concentrated in the areas that have the more well-funded schools, yet all schools in the county should be well-funded in similar ways. She’d like to see the county using the buildings we already have, some of which are not being used. There are overcrowding issues that need to be addressed.

Q: Another audience member asked how Mary Ellen would address the growing problem of immigrant/Hispanic families feeling unsafe, as he’d heard from an informal poll of folks from those communities. He asked how she would help address those communities’ concerns and help keep children safe from the trauma of ICE raids.

A: Mary Ellen informed us that, although 15-20% of the Henderson County population is Latino, ~30% of students in Henderson County are Latino. So this is a very important issue to discuss for our wider community. She told us about a great migrant education program where the schools here collaborate with schools in Florida to help students still graduate on time when their families move after apple season is over. Mary Ellen stated that she would take a stand against ICE ever being at schools or bus stops.

Gina Baxter, Councilmember, added to what Mary Ellen had already said: Strong advocates of safety for ALL people are important at every level of local government. Supporting policies that protect residents and keep them safe is “not a radical one-off” but rather needs to be a network or system for making positive changes.

Q: Another audience member asked what can be done now that the Department of Education is dissolved (fact check: the Department of Education still technically exists and is currently hiring new people, despite having been severely hollowed out over the last year) and what can be done about North Carolina vouchers taking so much money away from public schools.

A: Mary Ellen said that vouchers are a lose-lose situation and that the phrase “school choice” is “1984 speak.” Vouchers severely undercut public education funding and the income cap was eliminated. So even though vouchers are made available to poorer families first, they often can’t afford to pay the difference, so the voucher funds often end up going to people who are more well off (and often go to those whose children were already attending private schools). Private schools can legally discriminate racially and are not required to provide necessary services for disabled students, discriminating on that basis as well.

Mary Ellen talked about growing up in Columbia, SC in the 1990s and hearing about how much better public schools were in North Carolina vs South Carolina. NC had solid school funding at the time with good teacher salaries, but that funding and those salaries have continued to fall over the years, starting around 2010, showing a lack of care from the NC General Assembly for our teachers here in North Carolina.

Q: Where do we go to most effectively voice concerns about protecting our kids?

A: Divide and conquer, because we need to address safety at all levels. Mary Ellen mentioned the Public School Strong group as a common-sense response to the “Moms for Liberty” nonsense. She recommended that we send comments in multiple formats when providing a public comment to the school board: speaking out loud at the meeting AND also putting it in writing via email or even snail mail.

Q: An audience member who immigrated from Brazil said that it can be overwhelming to get involved and asked how we can make it easier.

A: Mary Ellen reminded us that it’s good to start small. Nobody can do everything so we should do whatever resonates with us the most. We can get together with neighbors and meet them where they are. The largest group of voters in North Carolina are unaffiliated and Henderson County Public Schools are the largest employer in the county — so people of many different political backgrounds are involved in and working for the public school system here.

We can post on social media and do whatever work resonates most with us: Hosting gatherings, getting to know people, or joining groups like Public School Strong or Moms Demand Action.

Basically: Pick something interesting. Getting involved in any way is helpful!

Q: The next question was from a retiree who’s new to North Carolina. They asked whether there are nurses in all the public schools and how vaccines and infectious diseases like measles are handled in the public school system here.

A: There are nurses in every school and vaccines are required for attendance unless a family has a religious or medical exemption. Measles rates have, thankfully, gone down for now. Blue Ridge Health clinics, which was started to serve migrant workers, has clinics in some of the public schools. Schools with Blue Ridge Health clinics usually have medical personnel at the school who can examine sick children and even call in prescriptions.

Q: Mary Ellen mentioned a then-upcoming group chat folks could join for parents of neurodivergent (ND) students and the next question asked her to elaborate on that.

Personal note: as an Autistic person myself, I super appreciate that Mary Ellen uses the term “neurodivergent” both properly and confidently!

A: Legally the public school system is required to support all students of varying support needs so Mary Ellen would like to discuss with families how the schools can best support their ND students. Sometimes there’s bias involved when teachers recommend assessments and there needs to be both oversight and open communication with families so that the Henderson County Public Schools can better serve neurodivergent students.

Preston Blakely ended the conversation by thanking us for attending and asking us to consider where else these discussions might be held in the future: maybe at a public park or other public location, to make these events more accessible and to more effectively meet folks where they are.

All in all, this was a great event, I’m glad I attended, and I encourage folks to attend conversations with candidates and elected officials any chance you get. Being able to actually talk directly to the people who are local and care about local issues is so incredibly valuable for our communities as well as for our representatives.

If we want to have a say in what our elected officials do, we need to communicate with them.

Thank you for reading and for caring about what happens in our little town/county!

~Betsy

Subscribe now

As I approached the event, nearly 15 minutes early, I noticed that there was still plenty of parking though a small group of folks had started gathering already. With nearly ten minutes until 11am, the small group went to stand by the road where cars immediately began honking in support!

In the main part of the park, Tennesee Ernie Ford’s voice soared through the air, singing about loading 16 tons all while getting ever deeper into debt to the company store.

Because, the truth is that the USA has never been all that great about protecting workers’ rights:

From the horrific working conditions in 1800s sweatshops to the anti-worker policies at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory (whose fire inspired Frances Perkins to work tirelessly for workers’ rights, eventually becoming the first female presidential cabinet member as Secretary of Labor). To the horrors that befell the young women known as “Radium Girls” who painted radium-infused numbers on clocks during WWI and many, many other exploitative histories that may be less dramatic but are no less important. Marginalized populations have always faced the largest risk of being exploited while simply trying to work a job and make a decent living.

The Henderson County Democrats, Progressive Alliance of Henderson County (PAHC), and Persist of Henderson County were well represented! The Democrats had an informational booth, Persist provided the tent and sound system for the speakers, and there was a food drive sponsored by both PAHC and Persist (which ended up collecting over 200 pounds of food for the Interfaith Assistance Ministry’s (IAM) food pantry!).

By 11:05am, just over 60 people had gathered in the park. Tom from Persist welcomed us all to the event and introduced local activist and organizer, Holly, who started leading the small but enthusiastic crowd in some chants:

“This is what solidarity looks like!”

“Billionaires don’t run the show; we, the people, say ‘hell, no!’”

By 11:15am there were nearly 70 people in attendance including several small children with their parents.

Tom reminded us all that, while these events are important for visibility, it’s much more important what we choose to do after the event.

Lori Hendrick of the WNC Central Labor Council spoke first.

Lori talked about her work as a union nurse at Mission hospital and about how workers fought in 1886 for an 8-hour workday because they wanted their lives to be their own. With an 8-hour workday, workers could have time to organize for a just society as well as spend time with their families and in their communities.

Lori supports a labor force that’s free from the threats of ICE and AI. She would love to see medicare for all and protections in place for workers who speak out against bad bosses. She spoke about Molly Zinker, a nurse who was recently fired unjustly from Mission Hospital as an example to try and silence nurses who have been speaking out about unsafe working conditions.

She’d like the owners of Mission Hospital, Healthcare Corporation of America (HCA), to recognize that if they fire one nurse, a thousand more will stand up! They’ve planted a seed of resolve, not disposed of dissent.

HCA’s NET profit for 2025 was $6.78 BILLION and yet Lori says they continue to treat workers poorly. This is a business that could afford to both pay and treat their workers well. Yet, the issues continue. Corporate greed places “profits over people” and when a healthcare company values money over patients this literally puts lives in danger.

Lori called on HCA to reinstate Molly Zinker’s job, to staff units with enough nurses to safely handle their caseloads, and to protect patients.

By 11:23am there were over 75 people present to hear the next speaker, though the weather was not any warmer and the sun remained hidden behind clouds.

Tom reminded us that the Trump family has made over $4 billion since the 2024 election. This video (there’s also a transcript at the link) is an interesting look at how the Trump sons and son-in law have been making some of their ever-increasing money.

Ann Robinette, Henderson County Democratic Party Precinct Chair of Pisgah View, was the next speaker.

Ann spoke about her history following in her father’s footsteps as a proud Democrat, the oldest continuous and still-active political party in the world. She characterizes the Democratic party as being humanitarian, patriotic, compassionate, focused on social justice, and committed to diversity — all are welcome!

Democrats support the first amendment of free and open expression, and remains a party that stands for the people within a free and democratic nation!

The local Democratic party in Henderson County wants to see livable wages so that residents can afford housing. They support public education that teaches all of history, including the difficult bits. The local Democrats support affordable/accessible healthcare for all — which is something they’re currently working towards — and they seek to protect all of our voting rights without partisan gerrymandering.

Ann asks that we all consider volunteering with the Democrats in order to flip some seats come this fall!

Ann reminded us that activism is a collective action where we all have our important roles to play so that nobody burns out. She shared the Parable of the Choir: “A choir can sing a beautiful note impossibly long because singers can individually drop out to breathe as necessary and the note goes on.”

That is how social justice work can be done in a sustainable way as well.

Tom stood up and announced that “Persist has dropped the veil of non-partisanship because we are all partisans now!”

Paul Weichselbaum of both Persist and the Progressive Alliance of Henderson County (PAHC) spoke last.

Paul talked about why we showed up on May 2nd. The Progressive Alliance (PAHC) was started in January 2017 in response to Trump’s first presidential election to “demand effective and moral representation by elected officials…” through regular postcard parties during which participants write postcards to their representatives in order to communicate directly how we’d like them to represent us, their constituents.

Note: The next Postcard Party will be on May 15th at Trailside Brewing from 4:30-6pm. Trailside Brewing is located at 874 Lennox Park Drive; Hendersonville, NC.

For many years before Trump’s first election, local resident Catherine Lynch led vigils at the Historic Henderson County Courthouse in support of immigrants. The PAHC joined in with those vigils after it was formed.

An always-present vigil sign read: “Thank an immigrant if you’ve eaten today.”

Immigrants have always faced additional struggles with obtaining workers’ rights and having safe working environments with fair pay. They often work in essential roles within our food systems and construction — so are integral to feeding US residents as well as keeping our infrastructure strong.

Immigrants have faced throughout US history due to issues such as racism, language barriers, and unfamiliarity with the country. Now, with the rise of ICE and the increasingly anti-immigrant policies of our current administration, immigrant workers are at even more of a disadvantage.

We do not often see the labor that goes into creating the things we buy or the people who provide that labor. Human labor creates wealth and without human labor, none of us would survive.

Paul reminded us that Trump does not actually represent the working class of the USA. Trump has never been part of the working class and, rather than supporting workers, Trump spends time disempowering working communities by consistently enacting policies that empower corporations and billionaires, the mega-wealth class.

The PAHC advocates for many things and you can find a record of past postcard party suggestion sheets at this link. Paul went through the archives and found 15 past suggestions that directly address core labor issues. PAHC has often worked with Just Economics, a local organization that specifically advocates for working people in our region through their Living Wage Campaign.

Living wages are not just beneficial to employees either, living wages also benefit employers by encouraging worker retention and raising both workplace and customer satisfaction.

PAHC also works closely with Public School Strong of North Carolina to address issues within the school district. Current issues include teacher shortages, due in large part to NC teachers being some of the lowest paid teachers in the United States.

Paul then called on the Democratic Party to step up and be better about workers’ rights. Because even though the “Republicans are the party of the exploiters, super-multi-billionaires, corrupt Trump-pardoned scammers” the Democratic Party also has its own billionaires whose interests may or may not be aligned with the interests of everyday people.

“Democrats used to be for making labor visible and empowering workers.” Paul wants us to ask ourselves whether that’s still the case, and if it’s not how can we help the party support workers more effectively again?

PAHC is currently seeking some postcard suggestion writers and welcomes any folks who are interested in writing more suggestions that center workers and labor rights issues.

Getting solid representation is especially important as our (NC District 11) Congressman Chuck Edwards — Mr. McDonalds-franchise owner, company store economy, monopolistic corporation supporter — is facing an ethics committee inquiry.

Paul finished by encouraging us to get involved with the many local organizations (linked in this article) who are focusing on supporting the working class and labor unions. “Let May 2026 be a new beginning, for all of us and for all workers!”

Tom then closed out the speaker portion of the event by encouraging everyone to remember that the minimum wage is shockingly low and has been for a long time. He asked us to take a look at the food collected for local families in need (because they aren’t being paid a living wage) and thanked us all for showing up!

Holly began a chant as the group, now just over 60 people, moved back towards the road to the sound of supportive honks from passing cars, including one huge truck.

“Tax the rich!”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

“When we fight, we win!”

“We want healthcare, not wealthcare!”

“People over profits!”

“Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go!”

“Workers over billionaires!”

At noon, Holly thanked us all for being present and folks started to disperse.

A League of Women Voters member reminded us that we can find up-to-date info about our representatives on the League’s website.

Thank you all so much for reading and for caring about the rights of our most vulnerable populations — all part of the working class!

A huge thank you, also, to everyone who spoke at the event. As always, please let me know if you have any corrections <3

Much solidarity to you all!

~B.

Always written by me without any input (output?) from GenAi.

The day began on a chilly fahrenheit note, low-30s after the previous day’s highs of 80+, but the sun was shining brightly and by 1:15pm the air had warmed to a balmy 59 degrees. Except when the wind blew. Then it felt positively Arctic, especially in the shade.

On my way to the No Kings Day 3 Rally/Protest, I discovered that many of the smaller roads nearby were closed for construction: Ashe Street, 4th Avenue, Maple Street….

Which made me think of “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”: an old Twilight Zone episode that I believe everyone should watch. Or rewatch. How easy it can be for us to turn against our neighbors, instead of focusing on the actions of those who would have us turn on each other.

So I was pleased to hear speaker after speaker at the rally talk about inclusivity, coming together, working towards a better life for everyone, standing up for marginalized people, finding the issue we are most passionate about to get involved with, and being there for our neighbors.

Contents, because this write-up got a little long:

1. A Brief Look at Some Critiques (294 words)
2. My Arrival (220 words)
3. The Crowd (326 words)
4. The March (251 words)
5. The Musicians and Speakers (1,248  words)
6. What Next? (451 words)

1. A Brief Look at Some Critiques

If you follow many Black women online, you may have heard some pretty intense critiques of these No Kings Day rallies/protests. If you haven’t, please consider seeking them out. This one is great to start with. Here’s another one if you want more! Both are fabulous folks to follow in general, solid critiques and analyses of current events grounded in historical knowledge and lived experiences.

We generally need to listen to people who have been doing this work for generations because they didn’t have a choice. People from groups that are currently and have been historically marginalized have incredibly valuable perspectives that we can benefit from listening to and learning from. Especially when it’s challenging.

I want to briefly focus on the part of the critiques about how this gathering together regularly cannot be all we do.

These gatherings help so much with morale, with feeling less alone, with connecting to our community members; but we cannot allow this kind of gathering to become everything. We have to determine what else we feel passionately about and then do something tangible to help make those situations better.

Consistent and effective activism is often not very visible.

What it is… is mutual aid, it’s volunteer work, it’s giving someone a ride, loaning someone a tool, giving something away instead of selling it…

It’s learning and/or teaching multi-perspective history, writing grants, legislation, letters, books, articles, zines/educational pamphlets…

It’s knocking on doors, listening to what other people care about, talking to others about issues you care about, being present with the people in your community…

Activism is the imagination to dream up a better way of living, of being, of caring for each other while actively working to make that better imagined world into an actual reality.

Subscribe now

2. My Arrival

When I arrived at the Hendersonville, NC Grove Street Courthouse, it was 1:23pm. The parking lots I could see were packed with cars. I was lucky I found a spot, running later than I’d planned from the road closures.

When I got up the hill, I saw a huge crowd already! One of our local clergy-members was leading a protest singalong on the steps of the courthouse, which surrounding folks enthusiastically participated in.

“No one’s getting left behind this time!” Between songs, chants would break out.

The energy was intense, uplifting, and focused. Signs declared opposition to Kings in the US, stated clearly that the Epstein files should be released, that the people involved in those crimes be held accountable. Many other signs called out fascism in our government and stated the need for free and fair elections.

Note: All US patriots should be against fascism, anti-fascist, as were our parents and grandparents during World War II.

“War” lyrics chanted over by the courthouse floated around to me as I crossed the street to get a better view of the crowd, which grew rapidly from a steady stream of new arrivals starting around 1:44pm.

(War) h’uh

Yeah!

(What is it good for?)

Absolutely (nothin) uh-huh, uh-huh

(War) h’uh

Yeah!

(What is it good for?)

Absolutely (nothin’)

Say it again, y’all

---

3. The Crowd

I saw children, teenagers, young adults, and adults of all ages represented. This was in contrast to the last events when there weren’t nearly as many younger folks. Henderson County’s median age is 47.2, according to this research company so we skew a little older here anyhow and it was very encouraging to see the spread of ages that showed up this past Saturday!

At 1:57pm, before folks marched from the new Grove Street courthouse I checked out the crowd by the old Main Street historic courthouse to see how many folks we’d be joining after the march. There was a substantial crowd waiting, many with chairs and locations all staked out. The medic tent was already there, of course, and the stage was all set up!

Now, I’m terrible at crowd estimation, which is one reason why I don’t rush to get my recaps written/published. I like to rely on other folks to do that part of documenting events. But estimates I’ve seen so far have floated numbers from 5,000 to 6,000 which is pretty darn impressive for a little mountain town of 15,000.

You can see an overhead drone photo of the crowd here if you scroll down to Henderson County, and many other crowd and sign photos here.

4. The March

By 2pm, I was back to 3rd Avenue to see the folks march up the hill from Grove Street to Main Street.

“Show me what democracy looks like!”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

It took five minutes for the front of the line to reach the historic courthouse and it took ten minutes longer for the entire crowd to arrive. Fifteen minutes total for the everyone to make the 3-block walk.

“No ICE, No KKK, No Fascist USA!”

That timing (I believe) means the crowd filled many more than the 3 blocks between the counthouses. Especially if you count the folks pictured above who waited at the historic courthouse for the marchers’ arrival.

Drums and whistles accompanied the chanting and marching. As the marchers continued arriving, folks from the old courthouse stage sang “This Land is My Land” now with More Cowbell! And I noted a few more signs in the crowd declaring that “The Epstein Files aren’t in Iran!” and “Big Fan of Human Rights,” as we all should be. “Fight for the soul of Democracy!” “No ICE!”

At 2:15pm, the last of the marchers arrived near the courthouse and those up front were invited to step in closer so that everyone could try and fit into the one block.

Which was well worth fitting into because the speakers and singers were amazing.

5. The Musicians and Speakers

Sue, from our local Indivisible chapter, welcomed everyone to the event! After letting everyone know the lay of the land a bit (where the medic tent was, a reminder to not engage with any counter-protesters, etc.) Sue spoke about the SAVE act’s potential voter purges (should it pass) and the importance of affordability and equity.

The crowd responded by shouting in agreement, clapping, blowing whistles, beating drums!

Sue mentioned the importance of organizing in our community through groups like Indivisible, as well as other groups and organizations that you can find links to in part 6: “What’s Next.”

Holly took the stage, introducing a local singer who graced us with “America the Beautiful” before Elizabeth McCorvey shared some impressive singing and banjo playing. Everyone sang along with the choruses of “They’ll Never Keep Us Down” by Hazel Dickens (1st link = video, 2nd link = lyrics).

I walked around a bit during this part of the event, but not much. I have a bit of a superpower when it comes to walking in crowds: usually I don’t have any problems getting around in super crowded areas, so when I say that the courtyard by the courthouse was packed, I mean it was PACKED. I could not get through the people crammed into most areas, which has never happened to me before.

Local Baptist Pastor and Marine Veteran Francisco Gonzalez spoke first. You can listen to his talk at the link above. Below are my impressions from my notes taken in real time:

“We don’t bow to kings!” Francisco gave a shout-out to all veterans who fight for freedom as he talked about how “freedom dies the moment we start believing we need a king.” He spoke on the divisiveness and domination of White Christian Nationalism, how it creates an oppressive fear, weakens democracy, and has led to the separation of families. He reminded us that we are all Americans, we are all human beings. “When dissent is labeled as unpatriotic, we lose our freedom, and this is how Republics fall.”

He also said something with a phrasing that I loved because I hear a lot of folks say things like, “This isn’t who we are.” but… if you know much U.S. history, you know that actually this country has often been racist and oppressive in the past as well as in the present.

Francisco said instead, “This is not who we’re supposed to be.” (which somehow isn’t in the video above, but I specifically wrote it down immediately word-for-word so I’m keeping it in here!)

He also reminded us that we are not powerless. That we can “call back to our nation’s highest ideals” as we “stand with undocumented people, veterans, and… marginalized people.” We “deserve leaders for all people” and, regarding the Epstein files: “leadership that answers to all the people.” “Truth, transparency, and accountability!”

Holly and Kelly led the group in a new chant, which the crowd enthusiastically joined in with! A call and response:

Call: "Stop protecting pedophiles!"
Response: "Stop blocking the Epstein files!"

Next up was the folk duo, Friction Farm! They sang a lovely and uplifting song called “Louder Than Guns” which you can hear them play at this link.

David LaMotte, a very cool-sounding guy who you should definitely consider reading more about here, spoke next. You can watch his talk at this link.

David spoke about how there’s “no hero coming to save us.” But that’s okay because the Declaration of Independence states that “power derives from the consent of the governed” and “we withdraw our consent” when the government does things that are immoral, wrong, or illegal.

He reminded us that we are a “movement of inclusion” vs the exclusion on the Right — we need to be a movement of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Then David specifically welcomed folks with “diverse voting records.” He continued: “Those of you who have come the farthest to get here today, thank you for making that journey. It’s courageous, there is a place here for you!”

He encouraged us to have more faith in each other, to not let ourselves be convinced not to trust each other. (Speaking of “The Monsters are Due On Maple Street.”)

David reminded us that we came together as communities after Hurricane Helene. We took care of each other. His community really showed up for each other and I recommend watching the video linked above to hear those stories directly.

“That’s what community looks like!”

Hope, he said, when deep, says that we can do better; and it’s worth the work. Love, when deep, is caring for each other and protecting our neighbors. It’s not just “being nice.”

“Protest works” because it “keeps us hopeful… and is a door to organizing, showing up and doing the work.”

Enthusiastic applause!

Holly and Kelly then led everyone in another new call and response. People seemed to respond well to the new chants!

Call: Money for schools and education!
Response: Not war and occupation!

The sound on the courthouse steps from the crowd was a thunderous roar that made my ears hurt a bit as they joined in on the next chant:

“Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go!”

After that intense raising of energy, the final speaker, Councilmember Gina Baxter stood to address the crowd (1st link = her FB page, 2nd link = a partial video of her talk).

Gina was comforted to see so many people she didn’t know in the gathering. A resident since she was a child, she remembered standing up locally in solidarity with marginalized populations in years past, when only a few folks were involved.

Standing up in 2016, protesting against the 287(g) ICE agreements with local law enforcement, and later in the year standing against HB2, the anti-trans bathroom bill that lost NC money and support leading to the eventual repeal of the bill.

Gina had us all thank the organizers with a round of applause because they’ve provided a space for us to come together. She reminded us that “protest won’t save us” but it is a “launching pad to organize.” She recognized that we’re tired, many of us have been fighting for equal rights for years or even generations.

Then Gina quoted Ursula Wolfe-Rocca:

“Find the thread you want to pull.”

Gina gave a shout-out to several different local groups and shared what issues they work with! She directed folks to find the group or groups working towards issues they feel most passionately about. You can find her list (as well as other local organizations) listed just below in Section 6.

All the musicians present stood up and joined together in an original song written just for Hendersonville. It was a call and answer with the refrain: “We Are One Mountain Strong!”

Then Holly stood up and reminded us that we can’t just protest, we also need to get out and vote. The event is nonpartisan, but the Democrats are present to talk if you’d like to volunteer and help to flip some seats. She encouraged us to stay motivated and keep going before thanking us all for being present!

At 3:14pm, the crowd began to disperse.

6. What Next?

Councilmember Gina Baxter listed several organizations folks locally can get involved with. Some of these groups are National so may have chapters or groups in other areas as well. I’m going to include the groups that helped organize the event, plus one other that I’m familiar with and that covers an important issue that the others do not.

Symbol Key:
*organization Gina mentioned
+helped organize the NKD 3 event
#organization I personally recommend looking into

*Siembra, NC — ICE Verifier trainings. “Siembra NC was born in 2017 in response to Trump’s war on immigrants and the gap in support and resources for the broader Latine community in North Carolina.” (Siembra’s “about” page)

*Moms Demand Action, Hendersonville — Gun safety. “Moms Demand Action is a grassroots movement of Americans fighting for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence.” (National MDA website)

*Henderson County Democrats — Flipping those seats and running for local elections! Here’s their Facebook group you can join if you’d like to stay informed and/or get involved that way. In the spirit of transparency: I’m not a huge fan of the DNC, and I am not a Democrat myself, but I’ve found the local Democrats to be genuinely kind and caring folks.

+*Hendersonville Pride and *PFLAG Flat Rock/Hendersonville — Nonprofits (Pride is local, PFLAG is national) that both focus on LGBTQIA+ issues, which are particularly important right now as anti-trans and anti-gay laws are being introduced and passed at an alarming rate. Hendersonville Pride also has a Facebook group to join to stay informed!

+*Henderson County NAACP — Hosts and plans local in-person events, has a local Facebook group you can join to stay informed. Nationally: an “interracial American nonprofit organization created to work for the abolition of segregation and discrimination in housing, education, employment, voting, and transportation; to oppose racism; and to ensure African Americans their constitutional rights.” (Encyclopedia Britannica)

+Indivisible Henderson County, NC — Local organizing generally (thank you for helping organize this event!), regular in-person meetings! Plus a Facebook group where you can stay informed!

+Persist of Henderson County — A nonpartisan grassroots local group. They have a Facebook group and keep folks informed as well as helping to organize local events (thank you all!).

+Progressive Alliance of Henderson County — In-person gatherings, postcard parties to contact representatives, connections with other local groups, Facebook group to stay informed, community education, and a monthly newsletter about local happenings.

#Carolina Abortion Fund — A nonprofit focused on keeping abortion (which is healthcare) accessible in both North and South Carolina. For more information about what’s happening with abortion laws currently, please check out and consider subscribing to “Abortion Every Day” a Substack newsletter written by Jessica Valenti.

Thank you so much for attending, organizing, participating, and reading about the Hendersonville, NC No Kings Day 3 event!

What are you going to do next? I bet it’ll be fantastic, whatever it is! Because however you can get involved to make the world a better place in a way that makes your heart sing, has to be fantastic <3

Much love,

~Barefoot Betsy

Copyright Betsy Alger, 2026. No ai was used in writing this.

Ever since the moment I heard about this new Field & Kitchen place over in Laurel Park by YAM, I’ve wanted to stop by.

This is an honest accounting of my first visit, please enjoy coming along with me!

“Field & Kitchen is a nonprofit shared-use kitchen and mini food market, proudly serving Henderson County and Western North Carolina. Our doors are open to support local growers, farmers, food entrepreneurs, locavores, and community health initiatives. When our food community thrives, we all do.”

~Field & Kitchen’s website page: The Kitchen

Volunteer information is at the bottom of this post, please scroll all the way down to see it!

Subscribe now

When I first saw Field & Kitchen’s posts on Facebook, their concept of “pay what you can” for a fresh and healthy meal sounded wonderful! As a small business owner, I know how challenging it can be to balance making a space both financially accessible and financially sustainable.

Both accessibility and sustainability are important!

So, intrigued, I set off to try their build-your-own-bowl-bar as soon as I could get out to their side of town. To find out what they’re serving at any given time, check out Field & Kitchen’s Facebook page, which is kept fairly up to date and features some delicious-looking photos!

Upon entering the restaurant I was greeted warmly by Rene Hernandez and Christina Schnabel (pictured below, left to right).

They were both friendly and helpful, very willing to answer questions and explain how everything worked. Christina showed me around the space and explained some of their programs while I waited to place my order.

Financial Accessibility

First, Christina told me about their free veggies program through Caja Solidaria, made possible through support from a United Way grant.

This program makes me so happy! For several years in the past my family depended on a food bank that offered bulk foods, fresh veggies, and day-old breads to anyone who came in. If you wanted to get the more shelf-stable boxed or canned items you had to prove income (difficult for us because we didn’t have any regular employee paychecks at the time), but the availability of fresh veggies was the best part for us.

So often when you live with food scarcity, you end up with the cheapest and least healthy foods that take a toll on your overall health; which is just one reason why programs like this are SO incredibly important!

The produce Field & Kitchen has available is mostly organic and looked very fresh!

Next I learned about how they usually have dog and cat food available, thanks to a partnership with Blue Ridge Humane Society; plus menstrual products available through a partnership with Project Dignity.

Programs where you can take what you need on an honor system when you’ve fallen on hard times are essential. It often takes a long time to get approved for income-based help and a family’s financial situation can sometimes change unexpectedly in ways that make it extra-difficult to get approved for more official assistance.

Government assistance also has these horrible “cliffs” whereby if you make just a little too much money you can lose your benefits and then suddenly not be able to afford food or healthcare or rent because the gap is too wide between what you were getting and the little bit extra you’re getting paid that put you over the “approved” threshold.

Financial Sustainability

So, Field & Kitchen is clearly making good, fresh, organic food financially accessible!

What about the financial sustainability piece?

Field & Kitchen provides a space where local producers/vendors can sell value-added products. These items have set prices, which helps keep everything going and provides extra support for our local economy and small businesses.

Field & Kitchen also offers a fully licensed shared-use kitchen so small local food producers have a space to create their culinary masterpieces without the financial burden of setting up their own licensed kitchen.

More about the kitchen from Field & Kitchen’s website:

“Shared-use kitchens like ours are part of a broader movement toward collaborative, shared-economy models that spark innovation and build community. By providing affordable access to professional facilities and fostering connections among local foodmakers, we’re helping a new generation of entrepreneurs bring their delicious, culturally grounded creations to market, right here in our hometown.”

A Little Bit of Both: Accessibility and Sustainability

Having learned about their various other programs, I eagerly turned my attention to the bowl bar!

The bowl bar looked a little intimidating at first because there were so many options, but Rene and Christina patiently walked each new customer (including myself) through the process and building my bowl ended up being a wonderful experience!

My bowl was filled with so much fresh, delicious food by the time all the toppings were added and I ordered a fresh blueberry and banana smoothie to go with it.

Payment for the bowls is by the honor system, you check yourself out with either cash or card payments. If you can’t pay anything or can only pay a little bit, that’s fine! If you can pay a little extra to help cover the cost for folks who can’t pay full price, that’s great!

I think the honor system for this is fabulous because nobody will feel embarrassed if they can’t pay anything or much. It also means that folks who want to give more generously can do so without feeling stared at or awkward. Financial disparities can be tricky things socially under the best of circumstances and our increasingly hyper-capitalist society doesn’t help.

It’s always lovely to be in a space that prioritizes community, accessibility and relationships: Field & Kitchen hit the mark with all three for me!

After slipping my money in the jar I sat in a comfy chair with my bowl, my smoothie, and my book; thoroughly enjoying myself and the food. It was quite unseasonably warm outside; but inside was cool, calm, and chill.

I had chosen to top my bowl with squash, beets, microgreens, and hemp seeds; plus some of their maple-dijon and tahini dressing, which was deliciously tangy! My bowl provided plenty of food for two meals, so I took the remaining half to go when I left.

I highly recommend checking out Field & Kitchen. Create a bowl you’ll love, pick out some fresh veggies, buy some local goods, and be welcomed as a valued customer and member of the community no matter what you’re able to afford!

Spaces like this are both valuable and rare!

Thank you for coming along with me, I hope that you’ll be able to stop by and support Field & Kitchen yourself sometime very soon!

Please comment below if you have anything to add to what I’ve written :-)

~B.

Field & Kitchen is currently open to the public Monday-Friday from 11am-2pm and they are located at 1620 Brevard Road, Suite 20; Hendersonville, NC 28791.

“At Field & Kitchen, we’re cooking up a healthier, more localized and connected community.

“We exist to make healthy, local food more accessible and to help the folks growing and making that food thrive. By offering affordable access to shared kitchen space, cold storage, and retail opportunities, we help local farmers and food entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses—and we help our neighbors fill their plates with fresh, seasonal foods.”

~Field & Kitchen’s website page: About

Another way to support Field & Kitchen is to volunteer. The folks I met seem like they’d be wonderful to work with and it’s such a welcoming environment!

I didn’t plan to write about this event. I mainly attended to support my friends who organized it.

But I did take notes so if you would like to know my impressions of the participating candidates, please read on. You can also watch the entire thing here if you’d rather do that!

Personal Views Disclaimer: I’m biased and I won’t pretend not to be. However, I respect all of the people who got up on that stage. We need more good people running for office in every party! I also agreed with them all more than I disagreed, which is great news for them because I am one of those elusive and increasingly numerous Unaffiliated Voters.

One candidate absolutely blew me away and is obviously my favorite (read on to find out which one!), but I have done my best to be accurate and fair to each candidate.

Subscribe now

Upon arriving I was extremely pleased to see not just Democrats on stage, but also a Libertarian candidate. I dabbled in Libertarianism *for a bit from around 2002-2008. It was good to be reminded both of our commonalities as well as our differences.

*before I learned more about the systemic inequalities that are endemic in US society and became anarcho-socialist-ish.

I was disappointed, however, that no Republican candidates attended.

Invited but not present were Jamie Ager (D), Chuck Edwards (R), and Adam Smith (R). Click their respective links to learn more!

In attendance we had Lee Whipple, Paul Maddox, Dr. Richard Hudspeth, Travis Groo, and Zelda Briarwood (who’s my favorite and it is my extremely-biased opinion that you should read my notes under her name even if you don’t read anyone else’s 0.0).

That is the order in which they introduced themselves so that is the order in which I will summarize my notes.

Reminder: This is not a full accounting of their positions, so I’m including links to their websites/social media. My random asides are italicized.

Here is a YouTube link to the entire program if you’d prefer to watch it for yourself, which I do recommend. It’s 2 hours long.

Lee Whipple (D), a civil engineer who knows about building infrastructure. He clearly loves to learn and is passionate about getting across or “winning” the narrative to really engage his constituents. He graduated from Georgia Tech, which is cool because my brother is also a Tech grad.

Disappointingly (to me) Whipple doesn’t believe that we should try for any kind of healthcare reform until/unless the Dems get a majority in congress and a president who won’t veto a healthcare reform bill. I think he’s trying to be practical, but I also think the time for practicality is past.

Whipple supports having a minimum wage that’s a living wage based on complex cost of living calculations (which I didn’t really understand). When asked about Helene rebuilding, he suggested that the money for a different road project (I-26 and Patton) might be reallocated for the more immediate needs. When asked about term limits and accountability in government Whipple said he’d like to bring accountability to Trump and work towards ending funding to ICE (I’d love to see it!).

Regarding tech accountability Whipple mostly talked about how misinformation on social media could be combated. He believes that the data centers aren’t going away and thinks we could do some complicated-sounding engineering things to make them less wasteful. He said that the “conflict in Gaza is a nightmare” where Israel has “gone overboard.” He’d like to see the US not sell any more weapons to Israel until the Palestinian borders are open and accessible to humanitarian aid. He is displeased by Jared Kushner’s plan to develop Gaza (as we all should be, IMO).

I wasn’t thrilled that he seemed to see Unaffiliated voters as primarily being folks who are located ideologically somewhere between the Democrats and Republicans. I do appreciate his focus on shaping narratives because that’s something I feel the Democrats haven’t been historically good at.

Whipple finished by reiterating that he knows about civil engineering and is best suited to help us get roads repaired and affordable housing created. He also has a lot of “new ideas” that he’d love to bring to a wider audience. A very interesting person!

Paul Maddox (D) — A self-proclaimed Hillbilly Scientist, Maddox is a professor and cancer researcher. He desires to make this country a better place for everyone and spoke several times about how valuable it would be to build bipartisan coalitions to work together for the greater good of his constituents — specifically Universal Healthcare (yay!). He also seemed interesting and his family goes back several generations in Yancy County.

Maddox believes in requiring employers to provide living wages to their employees and reiterated that he’d like to build bipartisan coalitions to look at these issues. He’s pro-oversight for making sure that the promised, needed, and mostly-undelivered Helene funding gets allocated appropriately to WNC areas. He also emphasized that accountability, minimizing waste in government, and preventing random tariffs leads to greater affordability for consumers.

Maddox, as a research professor, does support ai usage for research, especially cancer detection (note: he was not speaking solely about generative ai — he’s been using research ai since the 1990s). He’s also aware that the increased number of ai-data centers are causing serious issues like spikes in energy costs and deteriorating stream health in Cherokee County.

I was underwhelmed by his response to the Israel/Gaza question. He basically (very paraphrased) said that nobody in the audience was likely to understand the complexities involved and that we just need to talk/listen to each other and live together in peace. Which is a nice thought, but it didn’t really hit for me.

Mr. Maddox enjoys talking to folks with different perspectives. He’s certainly had a lot of practice having those discussions being both a Democrat and a lifelong resident of rural WNC!

He finished by encouraging us all to vote thoughtfully.

Dr. Richard Hudspeth (D) — As his title implies, Dr. Hudspeth is a physician (family practice). He was charismatic, well spoken, and engaging. He’s very passionate about getting Edwards (R) out of office. He’s also passionate about making sure healthcare is accessible and affordable through Medicare for all. He’d like to lower housing costs and believes that congress needs to do their jobs to get WNC our government-promised post-Helene rebuilding subsidies.

Dr. Hudspeth reminded us that the House of Representatives is the most representative branch of our government. He asked us to consider who, of the candidates on stage, would be most likely to beat the incumbent Edwards. I loved his statement about “We, the people, need to take over the government” — which sounds a little more revolutionary out of context than I think he intended.

Regarding data centers, Hudspeth said he will prioritize protecting the environment, increasing government regulations, encouraging diversification of energy sources, and pushing for higher energy costs to be passed along to the tech companies. He’s extremely concerned about the rise of ICE and about the effect of tariffs on everyday USians. He also would love to help improve access to childcare.

In response to the question about Israel and Palestine, Dr. Hudspeth said that we have an “epidemic of violence” and that the US should be pro-peace. He said that he himself is “pro-everyone,” before listing many different groups/countries including both Palestine and Israel. Which… the equivalence didn’t feel great, if I’m honest.

Dr. Hudspeth would like the opportunity to solve problems facing WNC. He also recognized that we may not have another chance, with no time to elaborate on that last point beyond that this is (again) the “most important election of our time” and a reminder that we should vote based on who we think is most likely to beat Chuck Edwards.

Travis Groo (L), the sole Libertarian candidate. He’s very personable and passionate about preserving individual freedoms. He talked a bit about ranked choice voting, which I would absolutely LOVE to see, and the need for strengthening and rebuilding our infrastructure. He spoke at length about Certificate of Need laws restricting access to healthcare.

Regarding minimum wage, Mr. Groo holds very Libertarian stances. He’d like to abolish federal minimum wage requirements altogether and rely on the lack of employee retention at places that underpay in order to organically pressure those companies to raise their wages. I’d be interested to hear whether he’d support or even encourage the setting of local minimum wages based on community agreements or laws from local governments.

Groo considers the $750 checks local folks received after Helene to be an insult (agreed!) and he’d like to investigate FEMA for the way they handled Helene. To improve congressional accountability he’d love to “actually drain the swamp” and fire people who aren’t doing their jobs. He’d like to empower us to care for our own communities and stop the repeating pendulum swing from Democrat to Republican. He said he strives personally to listen for understanding before taking action (something I always appreciate in a person).

Groo loves nature and plans to hold companies, including those who own data centers, accountable for their own pollution. If they made the mess, they should clean it up. His platform has changed somewhat due to current events, but his beliefs and plans are guided by his overarching belief in freedom for ALL. He’s anti-war + non-interventionist and wants the US to stop funding overseas wars altogether, especially in the Middle East where he reminds us there have been conflicts since Bible times.

He hopes to appeal to Unaffiliated voters by being authentic and nonpartisan (which are things I, an unaffiliated voter, do appreciate). He also emphasizes freedom, liberty, and success for everyone. He’s a staunch Libertarian all the way who believes that we shouldn’t hurt others and that we need to actively protect our freedoms and our country.

Zelda Briarwood (D), a working-class candidate and my favorite.

Ms. Briarwood has a career in Public Health. She built her platform based on what the regular people of WNC have told her would most benefit them. She was very clear that her only loyalty, should she be elected, would be to her constituents — the residents of NC-11 — and not to any party. She also had all her statistics printed out and ready to go for maximum accuracy, which I appreciate!

She supports figuring out a way to implement Universal Healthcare as soon as possible. Full stop. I loved how confident she was when saying this. She shared stats about how the rest of the world has Universal Healthcare with better outcomes and lower costs.

Ms. Briarwood addressed minimum wage immediately after Mr. Groo so she brought up the history of US companies exploiting workers, which is why she supports having a required minimum wage. She also briefly mentioned the similarities between current mega-corps and the exploitative robber barons of the past.

Having an understanding of history is extremely important to me in a political candidate. If our representatives don’t know how we got here, how can they make effective changes towards a more positive future?

Ms. Briarwood supports term limits in government and would like to implement more accountability, perhaps by adding another branch of government that would be nonpartisan and could hold both major parties accountable. I love this because both Dems and Reps seem incapable of holding “their own side” accountable in any meaningful ways.

Regarding tech accountability and data centers, Ms. Briarwood brought the stats again! We are apparently already paying for potential future data center energy costs. She pointed out that ai data centers are taking resources that we need for humans and that there needs to be effective regulation for generative ai. (Yes, please!)

Ms. Briarwood built her platform by going around WNC and talking to regular people, centering their priorities and needs. Her platform is not a Democratic platform, but instead is designed to both support and appeal to regular voters across the political spectrum.

Ms. Briarwood’s platform, being built on a solid foundation of actively reaching out to folks from all backgrounds, seems to me to be the most likely to have a solid chance of beating Chuck Edwards or Adam Smith. But also, remember, I’m biased here.

Her response about Israel and Palestine was refreshingly clear. Not only did Ms. Briarwood call the military strikes against Gaza what they are (genocide), but she combined a peaceful “no more weapons” stance with the very important reminder that we, the USA, helped create the horrors over there. We can’t simply stop funding the genocide against Palestine. We also have a responsibility to help rebuild what we’ve helped destroy

Ms. Briarwood was very open about her journey from addiction to recovery, which has informed her work at Red Oak Recovery Center. During her time in the field of public health she has worked with and cared for people of all political persuasions/beliefs.

Caring about all her constituents is foundational for Ms. Briarwood who believes in class solidarity, not partisanship. She concluded by reiterating that her allegiance is to the people of WNC, not to any party and that she wants to be held accountable by her constituents.

Whew! That was a lot, y’all! If you read all of that, I am impressed. Well done!

Thank you for reading and for participating in our political process!

~BB.

I arrived 25 minutes early, at 4:35pm.

The location, Boyd Park, was a new one for me although other attendees remembered past protests held there.

As I watched other early arrivals cross the road to the park, I pulled on my boots and my fleece cloak. It was barely above freezing that afternoon and you know it’s cold when BarefootBetsy willingly wears shoes.

People really started arriving at 4:45 and by 5:06 we had a solid 63 people, which increased to around 70 as time went by.

Passing cars, so many, honked in support. We had well over a dozen folks roll down their windows and shout thanks and encouragement while giving us their thumbs up.

“Thank you for being here!”

“We support you!”

“Well done!”

Most of the attendees outside were older folks, but most of the supportive honkers and shouters were young people, many of whom had children in their cars too.

The nearly-freezing wind was vicious as it whipped around us. I regretted very much having forgotten my gloves. Music from a single speaker in the middle of the space helped keep me moving around the crowd, staying warmer that way. The songs were uplifting, mostly classic protest music from the 60s and 70s.

Attendees stood all around me with signs memorializing the lives lost to the violence of federal agents, just in the past month and a half.

We stayed out there until just after 5:30, when the event ended. By 5:40 I was back at my car. Then I spent the next two hours wondering if I’d ever feel warm again.

Being outside by the street for one hour in 33-32 degree weather was intense. After that experience I am amazed at the resilience of the folks protesting in Minnesota (MN). It was -21 degrees on one of the days when two of our local clergy were in MN to protest.

Boyd Park was a good location. Very visible. It was encouraging to see how many folks driving by were supportive.

Now, a few folks driving past did seem bothered by us being out there, but only one that I noticed actually rolled down their window and started yelling rudely.

That rude sort of response is very weird to me.

I think it’s extremely nonpartisan to recognize the horrors of taxpayer-funded government violence and to remember the private citizens who did not deserve to be executed without a trial. No matter who is in office.

So many have died already.

~BB.

ap·pro·pri·ate

(ə-prō′prē-ĭt) adj.

Suitable for a particular person, condition, occasion, or place; fitting.

1. To set apart for a specific use: appropriating funds for education.

2. To take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself, often without permission: My coworker appropriated my unread newspaper.

The above is more or less what the audience sees projected on the wall of the stage after being seated in the theatre.

We stepped in from the rapidly chilling wind, just beginning to whip up into another winter storm in the WNC mountains, and were transported to an Arkansas summer, complete with cicadas’ screaming.

This isn’t a light play, but it was certainly an appropriate play for Friday, February 6th, 2026. A day during Black History Month when more white people recognized and called out the increasingly-overt racism spewing forth from the US White House.

Which is kind of the opposite of what happens in Appropriate.

Hendersonville Theatre’s Production

This performance was extremely well-acted and very effectively framed.

I believe a good amount of that is because, as part of their character preparation, the entire all-white cast specifically learned about the USA’s racist and anti-semitic history in ways that their characters would never have been able to cope with. The decision to require that education as part of character prep was fantastic.

Upon digging a bit, it seems that other productions of Appropriate often listed a dramaturg(e) as part of the production. In this specific production, the dramaturg (Samantha Jemmott) helped with the contextual learning, so the cast members would have the background to more accurately understand and portray their characters’ lack of knowledge.

The actors’ depth of knowledge about the history their characters strive to avoid and the problematic mindsets they’re portraying adds an extra dimension to the production. The cast members know the implications of the words and actions that their characters ignorantly, and sometimes maliciously, wield.

I believe, based on their performances, that being aware of how challenging it can be to learn about this history also gave the actors empathy for how difficult it must be for their characters to discover disturbing racist mindsets from and memorabilia owned by someone they all grew up with and loved.

Acknowledging or addressing racism, especially when it’s personal, is a deeply complex endeavor.

To add to that, I’m going to quote some words from the director; Guillermo R. Jemmott, Jr.; who wrote a Director’s Note at the beginning of the playbill. Guillermo writes: “Mapping out this world brought up a lot of emotion. It hit hard not just because of the story, but because as an Afro-Latino man, I recognize that this history is not as distant as we think; this violence could have easily been my own story.”

Please sit with the above words for a moment.

As challenging as it is for white people to come to a reckoning with our country’s racist past, which almost certainly includes our ancestors to one degree or another, it’s infinitely more difficult to have to live within a racist system as someone who’s visibly marginalized. I ask that you remember that uncomfortable truth, my white readers, as you continue on in your journey to learn more and to be a better ally.

I’m not going to spoil the storyline, though I talk more about the actual story below; but there’s one scene where one of the adult children is crying and it could be any one of a half dozen things they’re crying about: Racism, history, the children, loss, grief, horror… and that unknown quantity, whatever is causing those tears, is powerful.

And remains unnamed.

Had the character been able to name the topic(s) or feeling(s) causing their emotions, the emotions could’ve been addressed. Instead… as an unknown quantity, it’s unlikely to ever be directly confronted by that character. Perhaps they won’t ever think about that moment of crying again because it’s too painful.

That scene, along with so many others, was beautifully acted and the complexity came through strongly.

The entire production felt real and authentic and so many of the complex dynamics the cast showed us in the beginning were confirmed verbally as the story continued, which was very impressive to watch.

If you get a chance to watch this cast perform this play, please do!

Appropriate just opened this weekend and will run at the Hendersonville (NC) Theatre through February 22, 2026. You can find out more about the show and purchase your tickets here at this link.

The cast for this production will be listed at the bottom of my post.

If you have not seen the play and don’t want to know anything else about it, you may scroll down past the front of the playbill to read my final thoughts or stop here.

The Play Itself

This play is intense from the very first oh-so-casual mention of the “slave graveyard” on the Plantation grounds, a graveyard you have to search for in order to find because unmarked graves for enslaved people were the norm. Then some unexpected and extremely disturbing racist memorabilia makes an appearance, increasing the magnitude of discomfort and conflict.

That increased intensity carries through to the fervent declaration of “No… we’re going home [to New York]! We’ve had enough Southern History for a lifetime!” as though there’s no racism in the history of the Northern USA. (link to Smithsonian Magazine talking about the racist history of the Northern USA) And as if that character hadn’t been gushing about “romantic” Plantation homes just the day previously.

The adult characters are plagued by generational racism and misogyny in ways that they are ill-equipped to honestly examine, let alone remedy.

The three main characters, adult siblings, take turns insisting that their recently deceased father couldn’t have been racist despite the disturbingly mounting evidence that, perhaps, maybe he was.

Anytime one of the siblings or a spouse tiptoes close to a life-shattering epiphany about their family’s history, the other family members pull them back into the mythology mindset that someone can’t be racist if even a single Black person thinks they were nice.

Besides, even if their father maybe had some racist tendencies, it’s just how he was raised or because “he was an old man.” A “product of his time.” “It’s just his generation.”

The eldest sister, Toni, lashes out with an anti-semitic slur immediately before being confronted with her father’s likely anti-semitism, which she denies vigorously while using increasingly violent language before doubling down on several anti-Jewish slurs against her sister-in-law.

It’s clear to the audience that Toni learned this anti-semitic mindset from her father, but she doesn’t even seem to register the connection until she later sees more anti-semitism coming from her own child. This moment of noticing her child’s anti-semitism seems to horrify her, but she also doesn’t effectively address it. At all.

How can she address her child’s prejudice when she hasn’t even addressed her own?

The children in this play, the next generation, are pulled along confusingly by their parents’, aunts’, and uncles’ alternatingly dismissive, horrified, and minimizing responses to each new racism-based memento the children discover within their late grandfather’s Plantation home.

• No adult sits down with any child to have an honest discussion.

• No adult offers any historical context to help the children cope with the offensively racist items they’re coming into contact with.

• No adult is even capable of examining their own latent, but steadily more overt, racist and violent tendencies.

Instead, the adults nearly all try to prevent the children from seeing anything disturbing, which is not at all successful.

In my work with teaching children history since roughly 2010, I have learned that children want desperately to be taught these shadowy parts of history. I wanted to learn those parts of history when I was a child.

It’s not for children’s comfort that we take uncomfortable history out of schools and curriculums. It is for the adults’ comfort.

Without competent guidance, one of the teenagers discovers that these disturbing racist relics are worth quite a lot of money, and this fact is something the adults even become fixated on, as they continue dancing around the question of why these items might be in their father’s house to begin with.

This play demonstrated over and over again that it was the adults’ discomfort driving their avoidance of providing context or narrative to the children. Such context would have allowed the children to fit the horrifying memorabilia within some sort of understanding, but as it is... the children remain even more ignorant than their parents are.

This ignorance almost results in disturbingly traumatizing photos being put on Instagram.

Without any useful parental guidance about the historical context, it’s impossible for the teens to make informed decisions about how to appropriately respond to such disturbing discoveries.

The adults, meanwhile, are:

• Sneaking alcohol or drinking openly to cope with these new revelations about their father.

• Seeking reassurance from the one Black person their father actually knew.

• Directing their discomfort towards each other and their children in ever-more violent ways instead of honestly confronting the violence inherent in the photos and “souvenirs” their father possessed.

Even more telling is how much these three siblings saw themselves as victims of their own history, despite the fact that at least one sibling was literally a predator who created at least one victim through his own past actions.

Uncomfortable truths indeed.

Final Thoughts

This play was written by a Black playwright, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, incorporating observations about how white people so often respond when we’re directly confronted with uncomfortable truths in our own history.

But we can’t keep ignoring this. We can’t keep hiding from it. We absolutely must root this racist rot out of our lives and out of our society!

As I posted Friday on Facebook upon returning home:

I just watched today how ugly it can get when people attempt to justify racism. Both on stage and in real life.

If you’re local, go get some tickets to Appropriate at the Hendersonville Theatre. Have some conversations. Sit with your uncomfortableness.

Black American history is also white American history. Except we are the villains. We collectively will not be able to move on from this until we CONFRONT IT and stop trying to hide it or make it okay or ignore it.

And it will set us all free when we finally do! That confronting of our racist past (general) we are mostly so scared of doing? It’s the thing that is most likely to help free us all from tyranny.

None of us are free until we all are free 💯

A brief note to parents:

Remember what I said above about it being less difficult to learn about these things as a white person than it is to live as a Black person in our racist society?

That’s true for children too.

A lot of white parents avoid teaching their children these histories because “they’re too young” and parents want to “protect their innocence.” But visibly marginalized families have to teach their children these histories. They don’t have a choice. It is a privilege to have that choice in the first place.

I learned about racism as a young child and am thankful every single day that I learned about the existence of these histories before I was old enough to build up defensive walls.

Please, do your white children the favor of working through your discomfort so that they can learn about these parts of history while they’re still young.

Get uncomfortable, fellow white folks. Start actively learning about the more disturbing parts of our history.

Because working towards having an honest conversation about racism within our families and communities is the very least we can do right now.

~Betsy

All my writings are my own words, no ai was utilized in the writing of this piece or any others.

Cast as listed in playbill:

• Antoinette “Toni” Lafayette played by Tasha Pepi

• Rhys Thurston played by Elias Alger

• Beauregard “Bo” Lafayette played by Mark Reeves

• Rachael Kramer-Lafayette played by Rachel Jones

• Cassidy “Cassie” Kramer-Lafayette played by River Carter

• Ainley Kramer-Lafayette played by Clay Bovender

• Francois “Franz” Lafayette played by Josh Luria

• River Rayner played by Allie Mariotte

  ---

If you enjoyed this piece, you might also enjoy this one:

Stir the Plot Books

Read Books By Black Americans

CW: racism, US history/current events. Also, the book Understanding Jim Crow has a vintage racist image on the cover, which you will see if you scroll to the bottom of this post or if you click the title link below to view the book…

Read more

6 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Betsy Alger

This past week I learned about Green Drinks International (GDI), thanks to the promotional efforts of the owners of our fabulous new Hendersonville restaurant The Local Table!

GDI provides listings of monthly local environmental meet-ups that are open to anyone who’s interested in attending. If you are not local to Hendersonville, you can still potentially find an active group near you by visiting the Green Drinks website. Any group listed on their website must agree to follow the Green Drinks Code and if the other meet-ups are anything like the one I attended on Thursday, they will be well worth your time!

Want to know how the one here went? Read on and I’ll tell you!

The topic for this month was Urban Farming’s Role in Reducing Produce Insecurity and Food Miles. The speaker, Alicia Stump, is one of the owners of The Local Table and is also an urban farmer and co-owner of Stump Farms.

Subscribe now

When I arrived at The Local Table at 5:30 sharp (the speaker was scheduled to begin at 6pm), the parking lot was packed! I found a slightly unconventional parking spot and quickly headed inside. Delicious smells along with warmth enveloped me as soon as the door closed. The energy within the restaurant was full of excitement as people said hello to old friends and conversed throughout the half hour before the speaker was introduced.

The order line moved fairly quickly, especially given the number of people who’d all arrived around the same time (a challenge for any restaurant, let alone a brand new one). I decided to try the beet salad, which was a fantastic choice with a perfect balance of sweet, sour, creamy, and greens! I definitely plan to get it again.

Then the program began!

Pam & Linda of local environmental groups Mountain True & Conserving Carolina stood up first to introduce their organizations and then they turned the microphone over to Alicia Stump.

Alicia spoke passionately as she introduced the topic of food insecurity in Hendersonville, Stump Farms’ role in helping reduce food insecurity, and what the future could look like with increased support of local/urban farmers.

Food insecurity is basically when families don’t have access to enough food or access to food with enough nutrients. This can be affected by pricing, if families cannot afford quality food. Food access can also be affected by availability. Food deserts are a very real phenomenon: certain parts of cities and rural towns have grocery stores with mainly expensive processed foods and very little fresh produce.

The Stump family, Alicia and Kevin, have been farming for 8 years. They started in Houston, TX where there was only one urban farmer at the time. It was a struggle to find any local food options, which hit Alicia particularly hard as a lifelong vegetarian.

Hyperlocal produce comes from around 40-50 miles or less to a farmers’ market, roadside stand, or family’s dinner table. This is a huge contrast to “local” food in a supermarket, which can be from up to 400 miles away. Hyperlocal food doesn’t require a lot of time spent on trucks or gas to run the trucks and it generally has much more flavor and higher nutrient levels because both degrade significantly with time.

When The Local Table brings in products to sell from other farmers and artisans they focus on staying within a 50 mile radius to keep their products hyperlocal, which equals higher nutrition and quality taste.

It’s hard to adequately explain how differently produce tastes when you eat it fresh from a farm vs getting it from a grocery store where it may have traveled hundreds or thousands of miles over some period of time. If you’ve never personally tasted that difference, you can always find farm-fresh produce at The Local Table!

Alicia hated having to get produce at the grocery store, so she and Kevin decided to do something to change their local food landscape. Together with like-minded neighbors and other activists, the Stumps worked with lawyers to get small hyperlocal farms started in the Houston area.

When they moved to Hendersonville, NC it was partly because they loved how strong the community here is, and they not only moved themselves; but they moved their plants in shipping containers. In this new location, within a warehouse, Alicia and Kevin were motivated to grow as many different types of food as they could for as many months out of the year as possible!

In Hendersonville in recent years there haven’t been many local food options available after around September. The farmers’ markets would wind down for the season and that was that. But the Stumps were growing indoors, so they were able to offer brand new things for this area such as CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares throughout the winter and brussels sprouts at the farmers’ markets!

Community Supported Agriculture shares or CSAs are weekly baskets/boxes of produce from a local farm. The cost per item is often significantly lower than if you were to purchase the produce from a farmers’ market and the farmer gets a payment up front so that they can have increased financial stability and can plan more accurately how much to plant for the season.

Joining a CSA is a win-win situation, really!

The four different CSAs my family has participated in over the past nearly-21 years have all required payment up front, we get a variety of seasonal veggies/flowers/canned goods, and the produce is either located nearby or delivered to a nearby location for pick-up. Our CSA in Georgia even delivered every week straight to our door! Our first CSA in Washington State hosted regular shareholder potlucks where we’d all come to the farm and peel garlic or press cider while enjoying all the amazing food we’d all made from our weekly CSA baskets.

CSA veggies are generally seasonal, which means that our bodies are eating according to our local seasons. Many farms that offer CSAs have options for half shares if you only have one or two people in your household or you can go in on a full share with another friend in a small household. Full shares tend to be appropriate for 4-person families, in my experience, and you can always talk to your local farmers to find out what specific options they offer!

When local folks support their local farmers, everyone benefits. Supporting hyperlocal foods means getting fresher, healthier foods and building community through mutually beneficial relationships.

After Hurricane Helene flooded out Stump Farms’ retail shop and urban farm, the Ecusta Market and Cafe helped out by carrying their products. Local businesses helping each other meant that neighbors still had access to nutrient-dense foods even during that rough post-Helene time.

The Stumps have always farmed in urban areas using organic farming techniques.

Currently they use a vertical hydroponics system to grow fresh produce in the back of their restaurant. Their methods maximize their own production, which gives their produce more nutrients than traditionally-grown foods and they grow around 20% faster. To minimize waste they recycle their water, donate extra food to local food banks, create compost, use solar panels, and prepare foods in their restaurant using seasonal menus that showcase their produce.

By modeling how their own small business has successfully implemented composting and recycling, Stump Farms shows that other small businesses can too! They’ve helped set up rain barrels and composting at one of the local schools and may be helping some classrooms set up mushroom grow kits in the future.

Just the act of creating seasonal food and serving it to the community is educational. The Local Table shows the diversity of dishes that can be created from what Stump Farms has grown. Their menus are meatless to more effectively showcase their veggies and are based on what they’ve personally eaten and enjoyed over the years.

When food and menus are seasonal, we (their customers) get an exciting and always changing variety of food. What we eat is directly related to what they or their other producers are growing at any given time.

Learning about the origins of food can help combat Food Insecurity as well. Children who know how food is grown and have little gardens of their own, garden at school, or visit local farms are more likely to eat fresh foods. In the past the Stumps have held tours of their farm and are very open about their growing methods. Farm tours are something they plan to implement again in the future.

To recap:

Ways to support hyperlocal foods:

• Buy into a CSA — this is the most direct way to support local farmers in having stable income and being able to plan their planting for the season.

• Buy from farmers’ markets — another direct way to support local farmers!

• Volunteer at local community gardens — you can help start new gardens and support the necessary work at already-existing gardens. The Stumps donate plants to our local community garden.

• Education — talk to your friends and neighbors about what you’ve learned about CSAs and the benefits and importance of supporting local farmers.

• Build community through food! Get together and have potlucks made with fresh local foods. It’s so much fun and is a great way to reconnect with folks and meet new people in your area!

The more local food there is in an area, the more easily people are able to access food because farmers love to feed people!

Alicia gave a huge thank you to Melody and John, former owners of the sorely missed vegan restaurant 2 Guys Pizza. They own The Local Table’s building and have been lovely supporters of Stump Farms’ mission!

Next we heard briefly from Paulina Jones who’s the environmental planner for Henderson County! Her position is brand new and she announced that the county is now accepting food scraps so that eventually they can give out compost. She’s working towards creating more sustainability at the county level.

Then Emma from Plants for Everyone stood up and announced that they are open for pre-orders right now until February 15th! They have an annual bare root plant sale with affordable prices, so go check out what they’re selling this year if you need some more plants.

Finally, the Environmental Sustainability Board is currently looking for more members! If you live within the city of Hendersonville, NC and have some time and a passion for environmental issues, please consider applying to become a member. You can also sign up for their volunteer email list no matter where you live (nearby is recommended, of course)!

This was such a fun and educational event with fantastic food and great folks in attendance! Join the Green Drinks fun next month on February 12th at 5:30pm at The Local Table to hear about unregulated drinking water contaminants from environmental consultant, Ted Volskay. If you’re interested in learning more about next month’s meeting, you can find more information here.

Thank you all for reading and for caring about your local community!

~B.

Note: To read my musings while driving to this event and my bias acknowledgement, please click on the link below this note. Be sure to check out the WLOS coverage, which contains some interviews with attendees, and it’s well worth checking out Blue Ridge Now’s showcase of the many fantastic photos taken during the event by local photographer Josh Bell.

Barefoot Betsy

Renee Good's Death Feels Personal To Me

As I drove to the Renee Good solidarity event in my little town today (coverage soon here), I thought about what makes this situation different for me from Charlie Kirk’s murder or Ashli Babbitt’s. Two other deaths that have been invoked repeatedly since Renee Good was killed on January 7th…

Read more

6 months ago · Betsy Alger

Video footage from multiple angles clearly shows that Renee Good was killed as she was politely trying to comply with the conflicting directives of multiple Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. As Renee attempted to pull around the car in front of her, she was suddenly, lethally, and unexpectedly shot three times by ICE officer Jonathan Ross.

Renee is survived by her wife Rebecca, 15 year old daughter, 12 year old son, and 6 year old son. Their grief and pain must seem overwhelming right now.

And that could be my family some day. It could be any of our families.

Which is why around 150 folks in the little town of Hendersonville, NC gathered beneath the violently weeping sky to stand up so that maybe the killings will stop.

Subscribe now

I arrived at 11:50am and the courthouse parking lot was already half full of cars with people inside. Waiting.

I saw two police SUV’s waiting nearby also: one in the parking lot and one across the street. There had been some “joking-not-joking” earlier in the day on social media from some local rando about maybe shooting some attendees with paintball guns.

Rando’s threats were taken seriously and police were notified prior to the event.

The rain streamed down from the sky, drenching me, as I walked up the courthouse’s front steps to the marginally drier space at the top of the stairs.

At 11:53, people began to emerge from their cars, mostly carrying colorful umbrellas. The rainbow umbrellas made me smile, a cheerful sight on a day when even the sky was crying out in anguish about Renee’s lost life.

Lightning flashed as people began to gather in front of the courthouse and thunder bellowed at 11:54.

At exactly noon we were all thanked for being present on this soggy day. The event had begun and so had the chanting:

“No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA!”

As the government is escalating their gunning down of innocent people in the street, we’ve crossed into a type of fascism that the US War Department recognized and outlined back in 1945.

A few cars passing by honked their support as the chanting shifted to, “No justice, no peace!”

Hendersonville Pride board member Dal took the speaker at 12:10 and brought the energy: “How dare they kill our people! Chinga la migra!”

The wind was occasionally fierce and caused several umbrellas to flip inside out suddenly, which was the only violent part of the event.

There was more friendly honking from passing drivers throughout.

In the middle of the event, a local resident told another press person and myself that her friend’s aunt and uncle have been held indefinitely by ICE in Chicago for a month now. People locally are being affected by these emboldened and violent actions of federal agents.

A young person on the steps read aloud Renee’s poem: On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs and we soaked up the words, just as our clothing soaked up the ever-drenching rain.

“No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!”

The Statue of Liberty is still referred to by an official government website as “The Immigrant’s Statue.”

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

But how can a free country also have ominous federal agents roving about and shooting citizens in the face?

Dal calls out: “We do not stand for fascism, for them killing our citizens, or for authoritarianism. We stand for peace and justice!”

The chanting continued, the conversations continued, and we shall continue.

By 12:40pm there were only about 110 remaining in the crowd and by 12:55 most folks were in their cars, heading somewhere dry and warm. Earlier in the event I counted 130 people, twice, with an estimated 20 folks leaving and arriving between my counts for a total of around 150.

Which is an amazing turnout given the challenging weather and the two days’ notice!

Thank you to the organizers at Persist and to everyone who participated!

~B.

This piece was written entirely by me = ai-free

Hendersonville, NC Historic Courthouse just before 2pm on January 3, 2026 — As I approached the courthouse on Main St. the sun shone brightly above and the temperature crept towards 50 degrees fahrenheit.

Not all that different from the cool mid-40s weather in Hendersonville five years ago on January 6, 2021. On that day the windows on my house were being replaced and even from underneath a blanket I was cold physically and felt a pervasive creeping inner chill every time I opened the twitter app on my phone to see more reports of violence and desecration.

Subscribe now

Once I arrived at the courthouse I saw a decent crowd, estimated by organizers to be around 350 people. Attendees gathered around a table with a variety of pins and keychains, choosing from various options showing opposition to fascism and ICE or support of our local Persist group!

I walked to the front of the crowd, talking to some friends along the way as we spotted each other. Truly, I think that’s one of the biggest benefits of these events: being around likeminded folks and networking with new acquaintances!

It can be so encouraging just being around other people who share our concern for our fellow US residents and citizens. People who are aware of and fighting against the astronomical wealth gap, cuts to safety-net programs for our struggling communities, increasing governmental control over what people are allowed to do with their own bodies, and continued normalization of racism and increased violence directed towards US residents and citizens.

“Trump is the real terrorist!” a sign nearby me declares.

The first speaker introduced our local Persist group, which set up this event as well as other local rallies and protests!

Then we heard some powerful words from a New York Times article remembering the January 6th insurrection.

“It was a day that should live in infamy. Instead, it was the day President Trump’s second term began to take shape…. Once Mr. Trump won election again in 2024, despite his role in encouraging the riot and his many distortions about it, it emboldened him to govern in defiance of the Constitution, without regard for the truth and with malice toward those who stand up to his abuses.”

You can read a longer excerpt without a paywall here.

“Workers over billionaires!” the sign bobbed in the distance as the speaker talked about the definition of insurrection.

Partway through the definition, a member of the crowd shouted, “We are pissed off!!!” and cries of, “Yeah!!!” echoed through the space.

The speaker continued, “Congress has capitulated their power by not removing the insurrectionist!” Then the crowd was asked if we’d prefer music next or chants.

The answer was both confident and immediate: “Chants! We’re pissed off!”

The chants were strong and forceful, starting with old standbys like “I don’t know but I’ve been told…” and “What does democracy look like?” “This is what Democracy looks like!” The crowd was fully engaged, smaller than last year’s events, but mighty and loud!

“When human rights are under attack, what do we do?”

“Stand up, fight back!”

At 2:10pm Annie Wentz took the stage to beautifully sing a song with a cheerful tune, but mostly sobering lyrics. The lyrics I managed to write down were: “Oh the king sits in his castle…” and “Well, this is my country too.”

Another sign caught my eye: “Hatred is empowered by misguided ideals accepted by silence.” It felt like nobody in attendance on January 3rd was being silent!

One lone drummer joined in with the singing as Annie moved seamlessly into “This Land Is Your Land” and nearly everyone sang along.

I walked around during the rest of the music, taking in the atmosphere and vibes of the crowd: Solemn determined solidarity.

Then Andrew Aydin, local author and close friend/associate of the late great statesman and civil rights activist John Lewis, took the stage. You can see his entire speech here and I highly, highly recommend watching all of it. The crowd was fully engaged, responding to Andrew’s statements with loud and enthusiastic agreement.

One of my favorite bits was when a driver revved his engine driving past and Andrew responded: “Is that all you got, bro?”

Andrew talked about his experience of January 6, 2021 which occurred after he’d moved back to this area to live in his family home. Andrew spoke of his anger, not because of the physical buildings that were defiled, but because of “what it represented.”

“America is a nation of immigrants. What binds us together are our shared customs. Our shared traditions…. and the shared tradition of the peaceful transfer of power is one of the most powerful and important parts of our nation, of our identity. And that is what was attacked…”

Folks from the crowd joined in periodically in agreement and cheering and sometimes quoting sayings along with Andrew.

"We fundamentally exist under the principle of one person, one vote. And that that vote shall be cast uninfringed upon. Freely. To choose our elected leaders, and the results shall be expected and accepted; but on that day they were not. Fundamentally there is one person to blame: Donald Trump.”

Andrew continued talking about the federal prosecutor’s testimony that was released last week. There continues to be no accountability even though the proof is overwhelming. He then spoke about gerrymandering and how voting is becoming more and more difficult.

He spoke about “we the people” not Democrats, not Republicans. We need to ask ourselves “what do we do? How do we fight back?” Because now this criminal administration has kidnapped another nation’s leader and we must act.

Andrew explained how it was the power of the people who got John Lewis elected. John Lewis went out and talked directly to people in his district, and in that way he was able to beat the establishment candidate. Then he was able to continue standing up for his constituents, for the people who elected him, throughout his career as representative.

The people in office should be working for us, as John Lewis did!

“Primaries matter, folks. March 3rd. Who are you going to choose? Are you going to choose the old guard or are you going to choose the new voices? Are you going to choose the people who are willing to stand up and speak out?”

The crowd called out affirmatively!

Political parties don’t matter nearly as much as what the candidate actually does.

“Are you going to stand up and choose those who stand up to the status quo, who stand up to the establishment, who stand up to the powers that be?”

The crowd’s cheering indicated that their answer was a clear “yes!”

Affordability is a huge issue and Andrew quoted John Lewis: “What good is it to be able to sit at the lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a burger?”

No use. No use at all.

“We fought too long and too hard to go back. So today we stand together… we will stand together, we will fight together, and we will redeem the soul of America!”

Andrew stepped down from the stage amidst the applause.

We are not powerless.

To finish out the event there was a little more music and some more chanting. Annie took the stage again to sing a lovely original work that sadly isn’t in the compilation video. The line that stuck out the most to me at the time was: “No god loves that kind of hate.”

The chanting-leader this time read aloud some of the signs she could see and called them out as the crowd participated enthusiastically.

Then everyone sang the National Anthem and the event was ended.

In my estimation, what matters now is what we do in our everyday lives to make our town and our country a better place.

To help our neighbors.

To encourage those around us who are struggling.

To speak truth, especially when it challenges the existing power structures.

Thank you for reading, thank you for attending if you were there, and thank you for staying engaged in whatever ways you’re able through these exhausting and overwhelming times! Your effort matters <3 YOU matter!

~BB.

To read more of my remembrances of January 6th and to see more screenshots that I thought were worth saving in the days following 1/6/21, please come visit my personal Substack!

Barefoot Betsy

January 6th Rememberings

Here I am at 2:36am writing about the Hendersonville, NC January 6th Remembrance event from last Saturday. Sadly I forgot my notes in the other room and I have a sleepy beagle pinning down my legs so I can only write from memory because I am stuck forever in this position under my dog now, apparently…

Read more

7 months ago · Betsy Alger

Hello and welcome!

I had hesitated for a long time to start this new substack publication because I already had three and that still seems like a lot.

BUT, I realized that I’m also hesitating to write as much about the random things I’m interested in because:

1. I’m personally overwhelmed with the number of emails in my inbox and don’t want to overwhelm anyone else.

and

2. If people have followed me specifically for my local events coverage, they might not want to hear about the many other random topics I find fascinating.

So, with the addition of this new Substack publication, you are welcome to follow any one or all or any combination you’d like of my various publications in order to tailor your very own Betsy Experience. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to find links to all my other newsletters.

Thank you so much for being here! Hit that subscribe button below if you’re interested in following my recaps of local (Hendersonville, NC) events plus occasional reviews of local businesses and performances!

~BB.

Subscribe now

My previous posts providing local event coverage

Note: My most recent post is at the top, scroll down to go farther back in time.

Barefoot Betsy

Trans Day of Remembrance 2025; Hendersonville, NC

November 20, 2025 …

Read more

8 months ago · 1 like · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

Veterans' Day Visibility; Hendersonville, NC

November 11, 2025 — It was a brisk and chilly 45 degree, but sunny, day in Hendersonville, NC as 40 total dedicated, patriotic, and warmly dressed folks gathered in front of the New Grove Street Courthouse…

Read more

8 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

The Local Table: New Restaurant!

This is my own personal headcannon retelling of this story. The details may not all be literally true, and anyone who wishes to add to the story is invited to comment…

Read more

9 months ago · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

No Kings Day 2; Hendersonville, NC

No Kings Day 2 (NKD2) was a rousing success in several ways. Well done for showing up! Getting out into the streets is an accomplishment! Also, as I recount my experiences at NKD2, I want you to keep in mind that we cannot just continue protesting. We have to do MORE…

Read more

9 months ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

Hendersonville, NC Charlie Kirk Prayer Vigil

I'm going to be honest with you all. This was a very difficult post to write and it's very long…

Read more

10 months ago · 4 likes · 9 comments · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

Read OUT Loud National Day of Action

On Sunday, August 3rd, 2025 I participated in the Read OUT Loud National Day of Action event in Asheville, NC organized by Jeannie Rebecca. I volunteered to help cover the very middle of the night shift from 2-4am and ended up actually staying from 1:15-6:45am…

Read more

a year ago · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

Something Rotten!

For anyone who loves the theatre, musicals, Shakespeare, Mel Brooks, and hilarity: This is a fantastic show you definitely should see…

Read more

a year ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

No Kings Day

This is not just about a rally or a protest, this is about a moment in time…

Read more

a year ago · 5 likes · 2 comments · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

February Peaceful Resist Rally Recap!

Hendersonville, NC — On Saturday, February 22nd, 2025 at noon, an estimated between 400 and 600 people gathered in the Historic Courthouse courtyard to hold a Peaceful Resist Rally…

Read more

a year ago · 4 likes · Betsy Alger

Barefoot Betsy

My Word of the Year is.... "LOCAL"

I’d add “in-person” as honorary runner up…

Read more

a year ago · Betsy Alger

My other Substack publications:

All of my writings on Substack are freely available because accessible information written by actual humans is both vital and dwindling right now. I may add a paid subscriber option to some or all of them at some point (because it would be nice to get paid), but I am unlikely to paywall generally out of principle.

*I have my main BarefootBetsy newsletter which is a hodgepodge of my random interests plus (up until now) local happenings.

*Then I have my Parenting Anarchist newsletter with parenting tips and musings from my more than two decades of parenting and informal parenting consulting.

*Finally I have my Stir the Plot Books newsletter for information about my pop-up and special orders bookselling business, plus book reviews!