Page 61 - A Narrative of the History of Roanoke Virginia

appropriation and turning it into “a regular race issue,” while another predicted the
bond vote would be carried explicitly because “the negroes have expressed
themselves against it.”

After reading about their reactions, Richard R. Jones, pastor of the city’s black First
Baptist Church, told those gathered at another rally that the time had come to
demonstrate African American disapproval by demanding improvements to black
neighborhoods and rejecting the bonds.

Black voters, however, made up only about 25 percent of the electorate and posed
no real threat unless a significant number of whites joined them. Roanoke’s white
voters, by contrast, pushed for postponing the bond vote until after citizens elected a
new council or the current council appointed an independent “advisory board” to
oversee funding for projects. When officials refused to delay the vote and claimed
that the city charter did not permit an advisory board, numerous business leaders
spoke out against endorsing the bonds.

The president of the Roanoke Real Estate Exchange, for instance, blasted the
decision and accused the street committee of misappropriating previous funds.
Peyton Terry, the city’s most successful native businessman, argued that thousands
of dollars had already “‘been largely wasted’” by the current municipal government.
And Tipton T. Fishburne, president of Roanoke’s National Exchange Bank,
suggested that an influential member of the street committee had used past
allocations to improve streets only in his ward.

In the vote that followed, however, the town’s volunteer firemen crowded the polls to
encourage voters to endorse the firehouse appropriation along with the other bonds,
and few property holders dared ignore them. Black voters’ attempt to kill the
appropriations fell flat, and most of the issues passed with at least 80 percent of the
vote.

The approval, one paper reflected later, ushered in an “era of extensive
improvements” and showed the rest of the state that Roanoke “had ceased to be a
large country town.” In the municipal elections that followed two months later, all the
candidates who had spoken out against the advisory board lost their seats.

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Next installment deals with another new city charter, 1890 annexations and a board
of public works to oversee improvements. Additional improvements to bring the city
th
into the 20 century as vibrant, conscientious city that cared for its citizens and finally
the cleaning up of the cities infrastructure ills.