As the U.S. Open golf tournament gets underway in North Carolina today this story from last week deserves some attention.
MIDWAY, N.C. — If a hard rain falls on the North Carolina Sandhills this week, it could temporarily halt play at the U.S. Open golf tournament at Pinehurst.
It also might wash away the dirt Randy Thomas has packed in the driveway of his home a couple of miles away, leaving his septic system to leak raw sewage into his front yard.
Midway is one of five predominantly black communities tucked amid the area’s well-manicured golf course communities, often to the extent that they appear as doughnut holes on maps. They exist in a governmental no-man’s land, without sewer lines, garbage service or sometimes even water lines.
The people that live in these forgotten enclaves provided much of the manual labor that built the areas multiple golf courses, but they have received little in return. Today the 500 residents of these communities live just minutes from upscale golf communities.
Follow the rutted roads to the east end of the neighborhood, take a sharp right up a sandy embankment and you’re onto a paved cul-de-sac with $500,000-plus vacation homes that surround a manmade lake and members-only Pinehurst Beach Club.
And this from the NY Times.
The 500 residents of these unincorporated enclaves are close enough to point out sewer lines that run past their properties en route to new developments, or to watch garbage trucks trundle past without stopping.
Activists are working this week to bring attention to this despicable situation.
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