Hundreds of citizens have signed a petition to keep the name Daniel Brooks attached to a new housing complex in High Point. The African American minister who saw High Point in its infancy was a pillar in the community.
He was memorialized by the creation of the Daniel Brooks Homes, a middle-class development built for Blacks in 1942. The aging buildings were recently demolished to make way for a new mixed-income housing development to be named Legacy Ridge.
Pastor Angela Roberson asked the High Point Housing Authority to retain Daniel Brooks' name three years ago, after voters approved a $6.5-million bond for the new development. Questioning the lack of community involvement in this public/private partnership after years without response, she launched the “Daniel Brooks Keepers of the Name” petition.
“If I — little old me who's not sitting on anybody's board, not in any type of governmental agency — I can do a petition and get 390 people to say ‘Yes, keep the man's name,' how is it that you all just decide in a room that you're going to change it to Legacy Ridge,” asks Roberson.
Roberson will speak before the city council at its next meeting.
*Editor's Note: A previously published version of this story indicated there would be 246 multifamily rental units in the redevelopment plan. Only 100 of those are slated for the Daniel Brooks site. The remaining 146 will be at a different location.