Durham Will Likely Make History this Year by Electing Its First Black or Latina Woman as Mayor

When Durham Mayor Steve Schewel announced in late May that he would not run for re-election, he said he wanted to spend time with his not-yet-born granddaughter.

After decades of public service, the mayor said he looked forward to new adventures. But for some political observers, Schewel’s decision looked like an attempt to make room for the candidacy of pioneering judge and lifelong Durham resident Elaine O’Neal, who announced she was running in late January.

O’Neal seemed to have some degree of support from Schewel; in 2018, he appointed her to co-chair the city’s inaugural 17-member Racial Equity Task Force, which spent nearly two years studying wealth and the economy, criminal justice, health, environmental justice, education, and public history through the lens of race before releasing last summer that called for the reform of systemic racial inequities for a healthier, more inclusive city.

O’Neal quickly emerged as the frontrunner. Then, things got interesting. On August 13, the last day of candidate filings, city council member Javiera Caballero threw her hat into the mix just before the noon deadline.

Schewel promptly endorsed Caballero on social media during the last weekend in August.

“Her care for the people of Durham is immense. Her vision for our city is radically inclusive, and she has shown that she knows how to make that vision real,” Schewel wrote on Facebook. “She has the quality that I think is most important in a mayor. That is, she can pull people together—unite us—to get big things done for our community.”

Schewel’s predecessor, William “Bill” Bell, the Bull City’s longest-serving mayor endorsed O’Neal on social media that same weekend.

“Elaine was born in Durham and has lived here her entire life. She knows Durham and its people but, just as importantly, the people of Durham also know Elaine,” Bell wrote, adding that O’Neal’s “resume and experience are impeccable and provides the qualities we need in our next Mayor, especially during these critical times of Durham’s development.”

This week, Caballero told the INDY she began “pondering” a run for the mayor’s seat after Schewel announced his retirement. She says her work as a council member has prepared her to take on mayoral responsibilities, and she discussed with her husband and children a potential campaign and the challenges of governing if elected.

“It’s particularly hard for moms, and even more so during the pandemic,” Caballero says. “Yet I believe experiencing these stressors has made me more resilient and ready for this role.”

Caballero says her own experiences motivated her to seek higher office.

“I think about people I know that are so often left out of our policy solutions and am driven to make Durham more equitable and inclusive,” she says. “I know how isolating and frustrating it is to not be able to access resources due to language or cultural barriers. I remember my mother [navigating] so much and how people treated her. I never want anyone to be treated that way. We all deserve dignity and respect.”

Even though she already has a seat on the city council, Caballero says as mayor she will be able to set the tone and agenda, while being uniquely positioned “to convene many different voices to help solve our biggest issues.

“The affordable housing bond is an excellent example of what the power of the mayor’s office can do,” she says. “During the pandemic we have seen how the mayor’s role and responsibilities were vital in keeping Durham safe. Durham had a mask mandate in place weeks before Governor Cooper implemented one statewide at the beginning of the pandemic.”

Caballero says she has “tremendous respect” for O’Neal and the “deep relationships” that she has built throughout the years all over the city. She says if O’Neal is elected, she will work closely with her “on shared priorities.”

The council incumbent says her candidacy “is about uplifting the voices and stories of working-class people in Durham” and implementing policies that work for all in a growing city that has become a destination point for immigrants and young people.

Caballero was first appointed to the city council in 2018 when Schewel was elected mayor. Like O’Neal, she made history in 2019 when she became the first Latinx person elected to Durham’s council. 

Caballero’s road to a historic victory was a trial by fire, paved with personal and xenophobic attacks. Her campaign exposed uncomfortable, sometimes ugly rifts between the city’s African American and Hispanic political communities. 

Failed city council candidate Victoria Peterson accused Caballero—falsely and without evidence—of being ineligible to hold office for not being a U.S. citizen. Caballero’s family moved to the United States from Chile when she was a child.

Just before the election, filmmaker and activist Rodrigo Dorfman ruffled political feathers, ostensibly on Caballero’s behalf, when he submitted a heated missive to fellow Latinx activists accusing “elements” of the Black political community of being against “any” Latinx representation on the council. 

Caballero’s level-headed response offered a stark contrast to the ensuing fracas.

“This firing squad right now is not useful … it gets us nowhere in the long run,” she said at the time. “Eyes on the prize, people.”

O’Neal shares similar views to Caballero on equity and inclusion, but says, first, she wants to help unify the city.

The retired judge says she’s never seen Durham as polarized as it is today.

“We’ve always had issues in the community, but we’ve never been fragmented like this,” she told the INDY. “It was always about compromise and building on the road to improvement. But now it’s ‘your way or the highway.’ That’s not the Durham I grew up with. I remember a more diverse downtown in the 1960s and ‘70s. It’s never been about one race, or one class of people. You saw everybody. I’ve never seen us this divided.”

O’Neal grew up in a working-class home in the West End. She graduated from Hillside High School and then walked across the street to N.C. Central University, where she earned her undergraduate and law degrees. She was 32 in 1994 when voters elected her as the county’s youngest district court judge, and she later became the first woman to serve as chief district court judge. Following her runoff victory in 1994, she was never contested in her seat again until she ran for superior court judge in 2011. Again, she became the first woman elected to the position.

O’Neal credits her success to a community with which she had something “almost like an agreement” and whose members pushed her.

“I love my community because my community loves me,” she says.

From the outset, O’Neal’s run for mayor excited a large swath of voters in the city, particularly among the old guard.

“She’s the voice that Durham needs right now as the head of the city,” Omar Beasley, the former chair of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, told the INDY following O’Neal’s announcement of her intention to run. “She’s Durham born, Durham bred, and during her life she’s seen all the changes, gentrification, the gun violence, and changes in the schools. She saw it as a child, as a young adult, and on the bench. No one will bring the perspective that she brings. She’s seen it all. She is Durham.”

In the questionnaire she submitted to the INDY last week, O’Neal reiterated her top priority: uniting Durham.

“Durham is not harmonious right now,” she wrote. “We need a mayor who can work to unite us while also understanding that the closest to the pain need to be closest to the power. Durham needs to have more listening leaders. My time as judge meant I listened to all sides and assessed it before making decisions; too many in Durham feel like those in power are not listening.”

O’Neal wrote that she has “learned how to cross cultures and understand how to bridge and bring people together for a common cause.” 

After a decades-long career as a judge and dean of N.C. Central University Law School, O’Neal says she’s had to immerse herself in the issues of affordable housing, community safety, and economic advancement for underrepresented communities.

“It is clear that these priorities all intersect,” she says.

The two years O’Neal spent studying those challenges while co-chairing the Racial Equity Task Force were significant.

More than any other candidate, O’Neal proposes a boots-on-the-ground leadership approach. She points to task force community engagement sessions that included translators for Latinx residents and hosting youth-centered meetings to ensure their voices were heard. 

O’Neal recalled how young people at the task force meetings talked about how evictions affect graduation rates and the real-world impact of housing insecurity while balancing school and family responsibilities. 

In the INDY’s candidate questionnaire, O’Neal said her experiences are rooted in being from “the hood,” on the bench as a judge, and a former law school dean. 

“I am able to speak the language of a diverse Durham from the language of the streets to the language of the board room,” she says. “My advocacy is rooted in getting into details that make systemic change possible. I am a problem solver that can address the big picture while also affecting change systematically.”

So far, O’Neal has garnered endorsements from the political action committees of the Friends of Durham and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, which celebrated its 86th anniversary last month.

The Durham Committee PAC cited O’Neal’s 28-year-long career in Durham and praised her deep roots in the community.

“She was born, raised, and educated in Durham and is highly qualified to be the first Black Woman Mayor of Durham,” the PAC’s endorsement states. “She has an extremely long list of honors, awards, and community involvement in Durham. Her leadership and commitment to Durham is well documented. Elaine O’Neal has earned the trust of the community.”

Meanwhile, the influential Durham Association of Educators (DAE) and the powerful People’s Alliance, which has played a formidable role in the election of city and county officials over the past decade, both endorsed Caballero.

Caballero has a “strong vision” for the city as well as “concrete, actionable policies and ability to advocate for those policies at the local level while navigating roadblocks from the state government,” the DAE states on its website.

“She has shown herself to be dedicated to the minutiae of city policy, including in zoning, which heavily affects affordable housing. She has been a crucial voice in organizing and collaborating with others in elected leadership to enact multiple progressive measures in Durham. She is also the best mayoral candidate for DAE to partner with because she has been involved in the development of the Community Schools movement from the ground up, and has actionable ideas on improving and expanding the model going forward.”

Along with O’Neal and Caballero, five other candidates are vying for the mayoral seat. Charlitta Burruss, Sabrina Davis, Jahnmaud Lane, Rebecca Barnes, and Daryl Quick have all revved up campaigns to succeed Schewel.

Two of the more intriguing candidates with potentially bright political futures are Barnes, a Presbyterian minister, and Davis, a social entrepreneur and researcher. 

Although their chances of winning appear slim—but who can fathom the mind of the American voter after millions elected Donald Trump as president and still believe the 2020 election was a fraud?—Barnes and Davis offered thoughtful responses to the INDY questionnaire.

Barnes praised the city council’s ongoing work and listed environmental and climate reforms, public safety, and affordable housing as the top challenges facing the city.

She notes that the Bull City will not become a “Beloved Community” as long as it is beset by people living in the streets and hard-working people are faced with unsafe and unaffordable housing options.

“Durham will need to continue to do all it can to address this important issue,” Barnes stated in the questionnaire. “Smart, thoughtful planning utilizing inclusionary zoning and the city’s own affordable housing investment plan has set us on a positive trajectory but policy doesn’t move as fast as development so we have got to act with urgency on this important issue.” 

Davis, who formerly worked as O’Neal’s campaign manager, describes herself as a centrist Republican campaigning on issues that the GOP has scorned at best and, at worst, obstructed. Chief among the planks in her platform is an increase of $60 million from $6 million in the city’s “Reparations Budget,” along with “substantial increases every year after.” 

Davis, a native of South Florida, told the INDY that she moved to Durham nearly 12 years ago after being drawn by opportunity and the city’s history. She says the downtown district was more diverse when she first arrived.

The GOP challenger says she envisions “Durham creating better environmental, economic, and strengthening opportunities for racial healing among our residents.”

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Follow Durham Staff Writer Thomasi McDonald on Twitter or send an email to tmcdonald@indyweek.com.