The Town of Carrboro celebrated the renaming of Carr Street during the Braxton Foushee Street Dedication on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 .
Braxton Foushee is a local civil rights leader, a current Planning Board member, and the first Black member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen (now the Town Council).
Braxton Foushee has never met a stranger. He has friends everywhere in NC.
Braxton is a lifetime NAACP member and is still a branch stalwart. He helped bring needed progress to Carrboro after being elected as the first Black alderman in Carrboro in 1969 and hasn’t missed a chance to exercise his right to vote since first becoming eligible more than 60 years ago.
Born in the tight-knit Northside neighborhood, his family can trace their local roots back to 1865. He vividly recalls the Jim Crow South and, along with many of his close friends, made valiant efforts toward the expansion of civil rights, providing comfort and human dignity to all.
The street renaming in his honor was proposed last fall on Oct. 17, 2023, when the Council heard a request from Dave Mason, president of the Lincoln High School Alumni Association, Pat Mason and Herman Murrell Foushee. The Council voted to approve the street name change on Nov. 29, 2023. The change became official on March 27, 2024.
Carr Street is named for Julian Carr, a noted white supremacist. The namesake of Carrboro, he was an active and influential participant in Jim Crow era efforts to create a system of racial segregation. A Truth Plaque at Town Hall reads, in part: “Although the town continues to bear his name, the values and actions of Carr do not represent Carrboro today.”
