Photo by Will Owens

"I've always kept the interest of others in front of me, and I've kept that in mind whether I was holding public office, teaching in a classroom or running a business." - State Senator Howard Lee

Giving Back

One Man's Public Service Journey

 
Most North Carolinians know State Senator Howard Lee as a successful businessman, Chapel Hill’s first black mayor, and a public servant for more than three decades. Lee himself says serving the state the way he has all these years is his way of giving back to the institutions and people who’ve helped him succeed. He says the Graduate School at UNC-Chapel Hill tops that list.

“Because of my experience at Carolina, I have come to believe that there is no finer institution than this institution. It really gave me the foundation I needed to go on and be successful in life,” Lee says.

Lee, who received in April the first Dean’s Award for Significant Contribution to Graduate Education, has given back to his alma mater in myriad ways. He has taught at Carolina’s School of Social Work, where he remains an adjunct professor, and he has served on Carolina’s Graduate Education Advancement Board. In 1993, he also was honored with Carolina’s William R. Davie Award, in part for his commitment to improving communications between the campus and the town during his tenure as Chapel Hill’s mayor.

As a state senator for District 16 since 1991, Lee has focused his legislative efforts on improving North Carolina’s education system, serving as co-chair of the Education/Higher Education Committee. In 1999, Gov. Jim Hunt rewarded Lee’s work in the realm of education with an appointment to the Southern Regional Education Board.

Lee says that giving back to Carolina is simply a matter of principle. “I believe that all of us who receive from the University have an obligation to return that commitment in a way that others can benefit from the experience we’ve had,” he says.

Lee is quick to point out, however, that Carolina students are not the only ones who benefit from a Carolina education. “Some of the finest research is done through our Graduate School,” he said. “The research, for example, that contributes to the economic development of our state contributes to the expanding of minds, which contributes to the discovery of cures for diseases — all of that comes
out of the Graduate School.”

Lee’s personal experience at Carolina enables him to understand the challenge of paying for a graduate education. “Graduate school is not cheap. I experienced it when I first came to the University in 1964,” he said. “I could not have attended without financial assistance.” Lee received a Graduate School fellowship, and the community has reaped the rewards ever since.

Among the first of Lee’s contributions to the community were his efforts to integrate housing in Chapel Hill. After graduating from the School of Social Work in 1966, Lee and his wife, Lillian, went house shopping, setting their sights on a house in Chapel Hill that happened to be in a white neighborhood. Their application was denied. The reason, Lee says, is that they are black.

For more than a year, Lee fought for their right to live in the white section of Chapel Hill. Eventually he won, and Lee says it was that incident that led to the racial integration of Chapel Hill.

By 1969, Lee was running for and winning the Chapel Hill mayoral race, becoming one of the first black mayors of a predominantly white Southern city. His platform focused on the fact that black areas of town suffered benign neglect at the hands of white residents and leaders. Roads in these areas were ill maintained, drainage ditches were left open and public transportation was non-existent, Lee says.

Since that time, Lee has managed his business, political and academic careers, each with an impressive degree of success. He owns and operates Lee Enterprises, which has brought to Raleigh-Durham International Airport many concessions, including ice cream, coffee and sub shops. He also founded (and eventually sold) companies that made parts for cigarette filters, produced records and
manufactured buttons.

In his political career, Lee was Chapel Hill’s mayor until 1975, the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources from 1977 to 1981. In the academic world, Lee has worked for Duke University, North Carolina Central University and his alma mater. But through all his personal successes, Lee says he’s never lost sight of what’s important in life.

“I’ve always kept the interest of others in front of me,” Lee says, “and I’ve kept that in mind whether I was holding public office, teaching in a classroom or running a business.”

In light of America’s conflicts abroad and a struggling economy, Lee says it’s especially important now for him to focus even more exclusively on public service. He also plans to sell his airport concessions business and publish the writings he’s worked on for years. “A lot of people in North Carolina are
going through a difficult time right now, and those of us who are able should do whatever is possible to help them along,” says Lee.

Lee has never been a man who is easily discouraged. In everything he finds a silver lining. He even says of his childhood that he was “absolutely lucky” to have been born poor and black in rural Georgia and to
have come of age during “some of the most depressing and oppressive years” for blacks in America.

For Lee, obstacles represent challenges, and challenges chances to learn. Right now, Lee says, North Carolina faces many such obstacles that it must overcome to keep moving forward. Among the most pressing are health care, the environment and education, Lee says.

“Now that we’re in an era when the legislature is thinking more and more about increasing tuition and putting a greater part of the responsibility on the student, graduate school could very easily be put out of the reach of a large number of students — and I think that would be so unfortunate,” Lee says.

“We must find ways to provide additional resources, and we must urge people to support the Graduate School so that those students outside of the state feel they can find a way to matriculate here without believing they have to sell the kitchen stove in order to attend graduate school.”

- Joshua Myerov

© 2002, The Graduate School, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
All text and images are property of The Graduate School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Contact Sandra Hoeflich at shoeflic@email.unc.edu to request permission for reproduction.