Podcast appearances and mentions of bennett place

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, April 26th, 2023. Before we get to the news today… how about a little on this day in history? On this day in history… April 26th. 1514 Copernicus makes his 1st observations of Saturn 1564 William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England 1607 Jamestown expedition makes first landing in America at a place named Cape Henry, in what would become Virginia, but they quickly depart for a better site 1654 Jews are expelled from Brazil - this was known as the “Capitulation Protocol” -According to the terms of the capitulation protocol of January 26, 1654, Portugal decreed that Jewish and Dutch settlers had three months to leave Brazil. Approximately 150 Jewish families of Portuguese descent fled the Brazilian city of Recife, in the state of Pernambuco. By September, twenty-three of these refugees had established the first community of Jews in New Amsterdam. 1755 1st Russian university opens in Moscow 1859 Dan Sickles is acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity - 1st time this defense used successfully in the US 1865 Confederate General J E Johnston surrenders remaining forces to Union General William Sherman at Bennett Place in Durham, North Carolina, ending the US Civil War 1904 General Kuroko leads the Japanese Army against the large Russian force at the Yalu river during the Russo-Japanese War 1968 Students seize administration building at Ohio State - In 1968, two months before Martin Luther King's assassination, students seized the administration building in a dispute over the right of the campus newspaper to criticize the policies of the university president. 1982 Argentina surrenders to Great Britain on South Georgia Island, near the Falkland Islands - The Falklands War was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The conflict began on 2 April, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed during the hostilities. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. 1982 Rod Stewart is mugged, gunman steals his $50,000 Porsche on Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 1986 World's worst nuclear disaster: 4th reactor at Chernobyl nuclear power station in USSR explodes, 31 die, radioactive contamination reaches much of Western Europe And that… was on this day in history. https://www.theblaze.com/news/city-of-chicago-forced-to-rehire-pay-lost-wages-to-workers-fired-for-refusing-covid-vaccine-mandate City of Chicago forced to rehire, pay lost wages to workers fired for refusing COVID vaccine mandate A Chicago judge recently ordered the city to rehire and pay lost wages to workers who were fired for refusing to comply with Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot's 2021 COVID vaccination mandate. On April 19, administrative law Judge Anna Hamburg-Gal ruled that Chicago violated the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act by failing and refusing to bargain in good faith over COVID vaccine requirements for city workers. The city was ordered to "make whole" unionized workers who refused the mandate and lost pay and benefits. The affected employees will also receive 7% annual interest on lost wages. The order applies to city workers, including carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, machinists, and operating engineers, represented by trade unions or by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The judge's ruling does not affect police officers. However, the Fraternal Order of Police has its own pending case before the state board. Lightfoot stated in 2022 that 16 police officers were placed on no-pay status after failing to abide by the vaccine mandate. In response to the judge's recent ruling, AFSCME spokesperson Anders Lindall told the Chicago Sun-Times, "We think it's a strong decision and favorable for worker rights generally." A Chicago Federation of Labor spokesperson stated that the judge's order "defends the rights of workers to have a say in their workplace through collective bargaining." Lightfoot announced in 2021 that all city employees must be fully vaccinated by October and warned that those who refused would face "consequences." According to Hamburg-Gal's ruling, "multiple" city employees were placed on non-paid leave for missing the October deadline, and some were terminated. In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the mayor's office said, "The record before the Administrative Law Judge tells a completely different story. Yesterday's ruling was an erroneous decision that does not follow the law, facts nor importantly the science. We are currently reviewing the ruling and evaluating next steps." Lightfoot, the first Chicago mayor to lose a re-election bid in 40 years, will be replaced by Democrat Brandon Johnson on May 15. https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-faces-growing-pressure-to-release-nashville-school-shooters-manifesto_5216890.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport Officials Face Growing Pressure to Release Nashville School Shooter’s Manifesto Law enforcement officials are facing increasing pressure to release the manifesto of Nashville, Tennessee, school shooter Audrey Hale, with a U.S. lawmaker accusing the federal government of delaying its release. Local officials said that Hale, a female who used transgender pronouns, left behind a suicide note, journals, and other materials. However, none of that has been released to the public, and a motive hasn’t been publicly identified in the case. MNPD “is leading this investigation … any and all information that may or may not be released will be at the direction of MNPD,” an FBI spokesperson told The Epoch Times on April 24. MNPD officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and several other Republicans have also called for the document to be released to the public. The shooter’s notes “could maybe tell us a little bit about what’s going on inside of her head,” Burchett told the New York Post. “I think that would answer a lot of questions.” Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) told the paper that if the documents don’t make it to the public, “then we need to investigate why.” Hale, 28, was a former student at The Covenant School, where she fatally shot three children and three adults on March 27. Hale was killed by police within minutes of the first call of an active shooter. Since the shooting, a range of conservative commentators have publicly called for Hale’s manifesto to be made public and have accused the federal government of delaying its release as part of a coverup to keep the public from knowing about the dangers of transgenderism. About a week after the Nashville mass shooting, a 19-year-old male who reportedly identified as female was arrested in Colorado with detailed plans for several school shootings. Days after the shooting, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said that Hale was suffering from mental health issues and was under a doctor’s care for an unspecified emotional disorder. Her parents didn’t know that she had multiple weapons hidden in the house, Drake added. The Metro Nashville Police Department said in a statement earlier this month that Hale’s writings would be “under careful review by the MNPD and the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, Virginia,” while the “motive for Hale’s actions has not been established and remains under investigation by the Homicide Unit in consultation with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.” From that statement, it isn’t clear when—or if—Hale’s writings will be released. But the department said that Hale “considered the actions of other mass murderers,” without elaborating. FBI officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment. https://thepostmillennial.com/antifa-members-arrested-after-allegedly-attacking-protestors-outside-of-fort-worth-family-friendly-drag-show?utm_campaign=64487 Antifa members arrested after allegedly attacking protestors, police outside of Fort Worth ‘family-friendly’ drag show On Sunday, three members of Antifa were arrested outside of a Fort Worth, Texas family-friendly drag show after allegedly attacking protestors of the event. Samuel Fowlkes was arrested on charges of resisting arrest, search, or transport, assaulting a peace officer, evading arrest or detention, and four counts of assault causing bodily injury, according to booking documents. https://twitter.com/i/status/1650261782542315520 - Play Video 0:00-0:25 What you just heard in that audio clip, was another antifa member being arrested after they attempted to “de-arrest” a fellow antifa member from the back of a police cruiser. Fowlkes, who is being held on $22,500 bail, has been revealed to identify as nonbinary. Meghan Grant was arrested on charges of resisting arrest, search, or transport, and interfering with public duties. Christopher Guillott was arrested on charges of assaulting a peace officer and interfering with public duties. The incident occurred outside Fort Brewery and Pizza, which held the drag brunch on Sunday. In an event description, the brewery stated, "This is the perfect event to celebrate a special occasion with your friends, family, or coworkers, or to simply indulge in a fun-filled day out with your loved ones." The three arrested are reportedly part of the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, members of which are frequently armed at protests and riots. The group is currently advertising its CashApp account on Twitter to raise bail for the arrested members. A CashApp spokesperson told The Post Millennial, "Customer security is our number one priority. Our team takes all security concerns seriously and will take action when appropriate." The group claimed that the arrested members were "trying to aid an injured drag defender." Protect Texas Kids, one of the groups protesting the event, said that Antifa members "were outside assaulting police officers and macing members of [the New Columbia Movement] who were peacefully praying. On to politics… https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/biden-will-veto-mccarthys-debt-limit-package Biden will veto McCarthy's debt limit package, White House announces President Joe Biden will veto House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) debt limit bill, should it pass both chambers of Congress. Biden's Office of Management and Budget released a Statement of Administration Policy Tuesday morning indicating that the administration "strongly opposes the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, which is a reckless attempt to extract extreme concessions as a condition for the United States simply paying the bills it has already incurred." "The President has been clear that he will not accept such attempts at hostage-taking. House Republicans must take default off the table and address the debt limit without demands and conditions, just as the Congress did three times during the prior Administration," the statement continued. "The bill stands in stark contrast to the President’s vision for the economy. The President’s Budget invests in America, lowers costs for families, grows the economy, and reduces the deficit by nearly $3 trillion by asking the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share. Therefore, if the President were presented with the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, he would veto it." https://thepostmillennial.com/tucker-carlsons-executive-producer-follows-him-in-exit-from-fox-report?utm_campaign=64487 Tucker Carlson’s executive producer follows him in exit from Fox Tucker Carlson's executive producer Justin Wells is also leaving Fox News, according to Jack Posobiec. The announcement of Carlson's leaving was made on Monday, after his last show was on Friday, April 21. Fox News Tonight will now feature rotating personalities as an interim show until a new host is named. Carlson's departure comes just weeks after a former booker, Abby Grossberg, sued Fox, citing "vile sexist stereotypes" working for Carlson. Grossberg claims that she was fired after filing a lawsuit that claimed Fox lawyers coerced her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case. Fox maintains that she was fired for divulging privileged information. The decision to part ways with Carlson came less than a week after the broadcaster and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787 million settlement, although his show was not a main focus of Dominion's lawsuit. Carlson's show was frequently the top-rated show on cable news, often surpassing 4.5 million viewers per episode. The show premiered in November 2016 and took over the coveted 8 pm EST time slot in 2017. Fox News Media is currently the number one network in all of cable and reaches nearly 200 million people each month.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, April 26th, 2023. Before we get to the news today… how about a little on this day in history? On this day in history… April 26th. 1514 Copernicus makes his 1st observations of Saturn 1564 William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England 1607 Jamestown expedition makes first landing in America at a place named Cape Henry, in what would become Virginia, but they quickly depart for a better site 1654 Jews are expelled from Brazil - this was known as the “Capitulation Protocol” -According to the terms of the capitulation protocol of January 26, 1654, Portugal decreed that Jewish and Dutch settlers had three months to leave Brazil. Approximately 150 Jewish families of Portuguese descent fled the Brazilian city of Recife, in the state of Pernambuco. By September, twenty-three of these refugees had established the first community of Jews in New Amsterdam. 1755 1st Russian university opens in Moscow 1859 Dan Sickles is acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity - 1st time this defense used successfully in the US 1865 Confederate General J E Johnston surrenders remaining forces to Union General William Sherman at Bennett Place in Durham, North Carolina, ending the US Civil War 1904 General Kuroko leads the Japanese Army against the large Russian force at the Yalu river during the Russo-Japanese War 1968 Students seize administration building at Ohio State - In 1968, two months before Martin Luther King's assassination, students seized the administration building in a dispute over the right of the campus newspaper to criticize the policies of the university president. 1982 Argentina surrenders to Great Britain on South Georgia Island, near the Falkland Islands - The Falklands War was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The conflict began on 2 April, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed during the hostilities. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. 1982 Rod Stewart is mugged, gunman steals his $50,000 Porsche on Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 1986 World's worst nuclear disaster: 4th reactor at Chernobyl nuclear power station in USSR explodes, 31 die, radioactive contamination reaches much of Western Europe And that… was on this day in history. https://www.theblaze.com/news/city-of-chicago-forced-to-rehire-pay-lost-wages-to-workers-fired-for-refusing-covid-vaccine-mandate City of Chicago forced to rehire, pay lost wages to workers fired for refusing COVID vaccine mandate A Chicago judge recently ordered the city to rehire and pay lost wages to workers who were fired for refusing to comply with Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot's 2021 COVID vaccination mandate. On April 19, administrative law Judge Anna Hamburg-Gal ruled that Chicago violated the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act by failing and refusing to bargain in good faith over COVID vaccine requirements for city workers. The city was ordered to "make whole" unionized workers who refused the mandate and lost pay and benefits. The affected employees will also receive 7% annual interest on lost wages. The order applies to city workers, including carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, machinists, and operating engineers, represented by trade unions or by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The judge's ruling does not affect police officers. However, the Fraternal Order of Police has its own pending case before the state board. Lightfoot stated in 2022 that 16 police officers were placed on no-pay status after failing to abide by the vaccine mandate. In response to the judge's recent ruling, AFSCME spokesperson Anders Lindall told the Chicago Sun-Times, "We think it's a strong decision and favorable for worker rights generally." A Chicago Federation of Labor spokesperson stated that the judge's order "defends the rights of workers to have a say in their workplace through collective bargaining." Lightfoot announced in 2021 that all city employees must be fully vaccinated by October and warned that those who refused would face "consequences." According to Hamburg-Gal's ruling, "multiple" city employees were placed on non-paid leave for missing the October deadline, and some were terminated. In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the mayor's office said, "The record before the Administrative Law Judge tells a completely different story. Yesterday's ruling was an erroneous decision that does not follow the law, facts nor importantly the science. We are currently reviewing the ruling and evaluating next steps." Lightfoot, the first Chicago mayor to lose a re-election bid in 40 years, will be replaced by Democrat Brandon Johnson on May 15. https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-faces-growing-pressure-to-release-nashville-school-shooters-manifesto_5216890.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport Officials Face Growing Pressure to Release Nashville School Shooter’s Manifesto Law enforcement officials are facing increasing pressure to release the manifesto of Nashville, Tennessee, school shooter Audrey Hale, with a U.S. lawmaker accusing the federal government of delaying its release. Local officials said that Hale, a female who used transgender pronouns, left behind a suicide note, journals, and other materials. However, none of that has been released to the public, and a motive hasn’t been publicly identified in the case. MNPD “is leading this investigation … any and all information that may or may not be released will be at the direction of MNPD,” an FBI spokesperson told The Epoch Times on April 24. MNPD officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and several other Republicans have also called for the document to be released to the public. The shooter’s notes “could maybe tell us a little bit about what’s going on inside of her head,” Burchett told the New York Post. “I think that would answer a lot of questions.” Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) told the paper that if the documents don’t make it to the public, “then we need to investigate why.” Hale, 28, was a former student at The Covenant School, where she fatally shot three children and three adults on March 27. Hale was killed by police within minutes of the first call of an active shooter. Since the shooting, a range of conservative commentators have publicly called for Hale’s manifesto to be made public and have accused the federal government of delaying its release as part of a coverup to keep the public from knowing about the dangers of transgenderism. About a week after the Nashville mass shooting, a 19-year-old male who reportedly identified as female was arrested in Colorado with detailed plans for several school shootings. Days after the shooting, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said that Hale was suffering from mental health issues and was under a doctor’s care for an unspecified emotional disorder. Her parents didn’t know that she had multiple weapons hidden in the house, Drake added. The Metro Nashville Police Department said in a statement earlier this month that Hale’s writings would be “under careful review by the MNPD and the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, Virginia,” while the “motive for Hale’s actions has not been established and remains under investigation by the Homicide Unit in consultation with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.” From that statement, it isn’t clear when—or if—Hale’s writings will be released. But the department said that Hale “considered the actions of other mass murderers,” without elaborating. FBI officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment. https://thepostmillennial.com/antifa-members-arrested-after-allegedly-attacking-protestors-outside-of-fort-worth-family-friendly-drag-show?utm_campaign=64487 Antifa members arrested after allegedly attacking protestors, police outside of Fort Worth ‘family-friendly’ drag show On Sunday, three members of Antifa were arrested outside of a Fort Worth, Texas family-friendly drag show after allegedly attacking protestors of the event. Samuel Fowlkes was arrested on charges of resisting arrest, search, or transport, assaulting a peace officer, evading arrest or detention, and four counts of assault causing bodily injury, according to booking documents. https://twitter.com/i/status/1650261782542315520 - Play Video 0:00-0:25 What you just heard in that audio clip, was another antifa member being arrested after they attempted to “de-arrest” a fellow antifa member from the back of a police cruiser. Fowlkes, who is being held on $22,500 bail, has been revealed to identify as nonbinary. Meghan Grant was arrested on charges of resisting arrest, search, or transport, and interfering with public duties. Christopher Guillott was arrested on charges of assaulting a peace officer and interfering with public duties. The incident occurred outside Fort Brewery and Pizza, which held the drag brunch on Sunday. In an event description, the brewery stated, "This is the perfect event to celebrate a special occasion with your friends, family, or coworkers, or to simply indulge in a fun-filled day out with your loved ones." The three arrested are reportedly part of the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, members of which are frequently armed at protests and riots. The group is currently advertising its CashApp account on Twitter to raise bail for the arrested members. A CashApp spokesperson told The Post Millennial, "Customer security is our number one priority. Our team takes all security concerns seriously and will take action when appropriate." The group claimed that the arrested members were "trying to aid an injured drag defender." Protect Texas Kids, one of the groups protesting the event, said that Antifa members "were outside assaulting police officers and macing members of [the New Columbia Movement] who were peacefully praying. On to politics… https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/biden-will-veto-mccarthys-debt-limit-package Biden will veto McCarthy's debt limit package, White House announces President Joe Biden will veto House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) debt limit bill, should it pass both chambers of Congress. Biden's Office of Management and Budget released a Statement of Administration Policy Tuesday morning indicating that the administration "strongly opposes the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, which is a reckless attempt to extract extreme concessions as a condition for the United States simply paying the bills it has already incurred." "The President has been clear that he will not accept such attempts at hostage-taking. House Republicans must take default off the table and address the debt limit without demands and conditions, just as the Congress did three times during the prior Administration," the statement continued. "The bill stands in stark contrast to the President’s vision for the economy. The President’s Budget invests in America, lowers costs for families, grows the economy, and reduces the deficit by nearly $3 trillion by asking the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share. Therefore, if the President were presented with the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, he would veto it." https://thepostmillennial.com/tucker-carlsons-executive-producer-follows-him-in-exit-from-fox-report?utm_campaign=64487 Tucker Carlson’s executive producer follows him in exit from Fox Tucker Carlson's executive producer Justin Wells is also leaving Fox News, according to Jack Posobiec. The announcement of Carlson's leaving was made on Monday, after his last show was on Friday, April 21. Fox News Tonight will now feature rotating personalities as an interim show until a new host is named. Carlson's departure comes just weeks after a former booker, Abby Grossberg, sued Fox, citing "vile sexist stereotypes" working for Carlson. Grossberg claims that she was fired after filing a lawsuit that claimed Fox lawyers coerced her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case. Fox maintains that she was fired for divulging privileged information. The decision to part ways with Carlson came less than a week after the broadcaster and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787 million settlement, although his show was not a main focus of Dominion's lawsuit. Carlson's show was frequently the top-rated show on cable news, often surpassing 4.5 million viewers per episode. The show premiered in November 2016 and took over the coveted 8 pm EST time slot in 2017. Fox News Media is currently the number one network in all of cable and reaches nearly 200 million people each month.

So why is the food history of a community so important? And can Durham's food history be applied to other places? Who owns land, who can grow food and make a living doing so, and who has access to food, any food, least of all healthy food? The answers are deeply influenced by historical policies and practices. These in retrospect, clearly exacerbated, supported, and even created food related calamities, the dual burden communities face of both food insecurity and diet related chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity. Understanding these practices is important in creating change. And in understanding that conditions imposed on neighborhoods rather than personal failings of residents explain what we see today. This is a story about Durham, North Carolina. These days, Durham is famous as one of the South's foodiest towns and known for its award-winning chefs, thriving restaurant scene, and reverence for even the most humble foods served with down-home charm. But Durham, just like the rest of North Carolina, like other states and other countries, has discouraging any high rates of food insecurity. This is juxtaposed to high rates as well of obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related chronic diseases. It is helpful of course, to know how things are now, but a more complex and highly important question is how we got here. Enter history. What can be learned from a detailed historical analysis, in this case of Durham, and how relevant is this information to other places?   The Duke World Food Policy Center worked with historian, Melissa Norton to write a report titled, "Power and Benefit On The Plate The History of Food in Durham, North Carolina". This recording is an abridged version of that report and features documented historical quotes from the relevant periods in history as read by contemporary voices.   Let's go back to the beginning. Durham, North Carolina is the ancestral home of the Occaneechi, the Eno, the Adshusheer and the Shocco indigenous peoples. Before European colonizers came, land was not something that people owned. Instead land and its natural resources were shared so that everyone could benefit.   “To our people land was everything, identity, our connection to our ancestors, our pharmacy, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands, were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself. It was a gift, not a commodity. It could never be bought or sold.”  Robin Kimmerer, Potawatomi Nation.   Durham's tribes and clans supported themselves through hunting, foraging and communal farming. They managed the habitat for fish, fowl and other wild animal populations. They used controlled fires to clear land, had complex farming irrigation systems and created a network of roads for trade and exchange. When European settler colonists came into North Carolina life for indigenous people changed dramatically. At first, they taught colonists how to forage and clear land, what to plant and how to care for crops. The colonists came to North Carolina believed that they had the spiritual, political and legal blessing of Pope Alexander the sixth through the doctrine of discovery. This decree labeled indigenous peoples as subhuman because they were not Christian and treated their land as available for the taking.   “The Indians are really better to us than we are to them. They always give us rituals at their quarters and take care we are armed against hunger and thirst. We do not do so by them, generally speaking, but let them walk by our doors hungry and do not often relieve them. We look upon them with scorn and disdain and think them little better than beasts in humane shape. Though if we're examined, we shall find that for all our religion and education, we possess more moralities and evil than these savages do not.” John Lawson, English settler colonist in North Carolina, 1709.   Settlers forced native people off ancestral homelands and took possession of the stolen land and its resources. As a result, many indigenous people left to join other tribes, some hid in order to remain in the area. And some were forced into assimilation programs or enslaved and shipped to the Caribbean.   Going back to the early colonial settlers, most were small scale farmers who grew corn, fruits and vegetables and commodities such as tobacco, wheat, and cotton for their own use or to barter. As farms grew from the 1500s through the 1800s, colonists brought West African people by force to use as free farm labor. West Africans brought seeds from their homelands and foods such as hibiscus, yams and sweet potatoes, watermelon and bananas and millet, okra and sorghum became a permanent part of the Southern food culture. Food was an essential connection to home, to community and resiliency. Indigenous and enslaved African people interacted and exchanged practical and cultural traditions.   “My name is Alex Woods. I was born in 1858. In slavery time I belonged to Jim Woods. My Missus name was Patty Woods. They treated us tolerable fair. Our food was well cooked. We were fed from the kitchen of the great house during the week. We cooked and ate at our home Saturday nights and Sundays. They allowed my father to hunt with a gun. He was a good hunter and brought a lot of game to the plantation. They cooked it at the great house and divided it up. My father killed deer and turkey. All had plenty of rabbits, possum, coons and squirrels.” Alex Woods   In 1854, the development of the North Carolina railroad transformed agricultural markets. The farming economy shifted from fruits, vegetables, and grains toward large scale cash crops, such as tobacco. The railroad stop in Durham became the center of the city. By the time the civil war began in 1861, nearly one out of three people in Durham county were enslaved. A quarter of the area's white farmers legally owned enslaved people. Cameron Plantation was the largest plantation in the state with 30,000 acres and 900 enslaved people.   To be self sufficient, create security and build wealth. People needed to own land. The federal government passed the homestead act of 1862 to create new land ownership opportunities. As a result in the west 246 million acres of native people's land were deeded to 1.5 million white families.   That same year, the federal government also passed the moral act. This established North Carolina State University in Raleigh as a land grant university to teach white students practical agricultural science, military science and engineering. 29 years later in 1891, North Carolina Agriculture and Technology University in Greensboro was established to serve black students, but the institutions were never funded equally.   In 1865, the civil war ended at Bennett Place in Durham with the largest surrender of Confederate troops. Reconstruction occurred in the subsequent years from 1865 to 1877. During this time, Durham struggled with its own political, social and economic challenges. One of which were the circumstances faced by formerly enslaved people who were freed with no land, no jobs, no money and no citizenship rights. Historians estimate that more than a million freed black people in the country became sick for malnutrition, disease and near starvation. And tens of thousands of people died.   Listen to the words of Martha Allen, a young black woman at the time.   “I was never hungry till we was free and the Yankees fed us. We didn't have nothing to eat, except heart attack and Midland meat. I never seen such meat. It was thin and tough with a thick skin. You could boil it all day and all night and it couldn't cook. I wouldn't eat it. I thought it was mule meat. Mules that done been shot on the battlefield then dried. I still believe it was mule meat. Them was bad days. I was hungry most of the time and had to keep fighting off them Yankee mans.” Martha Allen   In the years after the war, a few people had cash, but landowners still needed farm labor, poor farmers and families of all races struggled. Landowners began hiring farm labor through share cropping and tenant farm contracts.   “The Negros have as their compensation, a share of the crops that shall be raised one third part of the wheat, corn, cotton, tobacco, syrup, peas, sweet potatoes and pork. But the seed wheat is to be first passed back to the said Cameron, the hogs to be killed or pork shall be fattened out of the corn crop before division. The said Cameron is to have the other two thirds of said crops.” Cameron share cropping contract 1866.   Sharecroppers work plots of farmland, and then received a fraction of the crop yield for themselves as payment. For newly freed black people. Many of whom worked the same land, lived in the same housing and worked under the close supervision of the same overseers sharecropping felt like slavery under another name.   In 1868 and 1877 North Carolina passed the landlord tenant acts, which legalized the power imbalance between landowners and sharecropping farmers. For poor farmers there was simply no way to get ahead. And so-called black codes, laws enacted throughout the south in the 1860s and beyond denied black people the right to vote, to serve on juries or to testify in court against white people. With tenant farming, workers paid rent to landowners and kept all the proceeds from the crops.   “We lived all over the area because we were tenant farmers, very poor living on the land of the owner who was of course, white. We used his mules and he paid for the seed and the tobacco and the stuff that we planted. Of course, as I look back now, I know how they cheated us because we never had anything.” Theresa Cameron Lyons, 1868, on growing up in a black tenant farming family in Durham County.   North Carolina politics during this time was dominated by white supremacist ideology and by efforts to keep blacks from voting and from holding political office. In 1896, the US Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal treatment of blacks was legally permissible. This created the legal basis of racial apartheid known as Jim Crow. From 1896 to 1964 Jim Crow laws imposed racial segregation on nearly all aspects of life, including schools, transportation, and public facilities. These laws institutionalized economic, educational and social disadvantages for black and indigenous people, such court sanction exclusion combined with violence and intimidation from white people created severely hostile living conditions for North Carolina's black people. As a result, registered black voters in North Carolina plummeted from 126,000 in 1896 to only 6,100 in 1902.   As the year 1900 dawned, more than half of the US population were farmers or lived in rural communities. Durham County was still largely farmland, but there was incredible urban growth in the early decades of the 1900s. This too had an impact on Durham's food and the community.   Demand for tobacco and textile factory workers was growing in Durham. Although only white workers could work in the textile factories. Both black and white migrants found work in Durham's Liggett Myers and American tobacco factories. Black workers had the lowest pay, most backbreaking jobs in the factories and were paid less than the white workers.   Outside the factories black women had more job opportunities than black men, but as cooks and domestic servants. And they also held some administrative positions. As people traded farm life for the city, they had to adjust to a new way of life. This meant living off wages in the new cash economy and the crowded close quarters of urban living.   Textile mill owners in the East Durham Edgemont and West Durham areas built subsidized mill villages to provide housing for white workers close to the factories. Each mill village had its own churches, schools, recreation centers, and stores.   “Yeah, it was a complete store. They'd have very few wise work in the mills. They would have a man that went out in the morning, they'd call it taking orders. He'd go to all the houses and the woman of the house and tell him what she wanted. He'd bring it back in time to be cooked and served up for what they called dinner, which is of course lunch. And he'd go do the same thing in the afternoon. Have it back in time for a good supper.”  Zeb Stone, 1915, a white business owner from West Durham, North Carolina.   Many textile workers had grown up on farms and knew how to garden and raise chickens, pigs, or even cows in their yards. Families preserved extra garden produce and meals for the winter. Home canning became popular and increased during World War I and later in World War II, as food shortages meant rations for canned food. The federal government urged people to rely on produce grown in their own gardens called victory gardens and to share resources with neighbors.   Six predominantly black neighborhoods developed in Durham, along with black churches, schools and businesses, people form close relationships with each other. And even though the yards were often small, many black people also maintained gardens, kept chickens until the local government banned livestock in the city limits in the 1940s. Buying from black businesses meant investing in the whole black community. Community leaders preached how each dollar spent would flow in a wheel of progress throughout black Durham. Neighborhood grocers were owned by and for people who lived in black neighborhoods, here's what longtime Durham state representative Henry Mickey Michelle has to say about growing up in the Hayti area of Durham.   “We didn't have to go across the tracks to get anything done. We had our own savings and loans bank, our own insurance company, our own furniture store, our own tailors, barber shops, grocery stores, the whole nine yards.” Durham state representative Henry Mickey Michelle   Black and white farmers came to Durham's urban areas to sell fresh produce on street corners and created popup farm stands throughout the city. Many came to Hayti, Durham's largest black neighborhood and to the center of black commerce that was dubbed Black Wall Street. Durham established the first official farmer's market then called a curb market in 1911 to connect county farmers with urban consumers.   The federal government helped farmers stay informed of developments in agriculture, home economics, public policy, and the economy. The Smith Lever Act of 1914 launched cooperative extension services out of the land grant universities. In 1914 extension services for Durham County's white people began and services for black communities started in 1917, hoping to draw young people into farming.   Segregated schools in Durham offered agriculture training. Programs for the future farmers of America served white students and new farmers of America programs served black students.   By 1920 farmers comprised 50% of the population in Durham County outside the city core. Nearly half of these were tenant farmers. Arthur Brody, a black man who made his home in Durham had this to say about his family's experience.   “My granddaddy had 50 acres of land. They said he was working for this white family and the man took a liking to him. And back then land was cheap. And that man told him, Robert, what you ought to do is buy an acre of land every month. He gave him $12 a month. So he bought an acre of land a month, a dollar a month for a year. And he bought that farm with 52 acres of land in it. And he built his house out of logs. I remember that log house just as good I can.” Arthur Brody   Black families were beginning to acquire farmland. Although black owned farms were generally smaller and on less productive land than white owned farms. At its peak in 1920, 26% of farms nationally were owned by black farmers.   The shift to industrialized agriculture concentrated on just a few crops, created new pressures for farmers, especially small scale farmers who were already struggling with the depressed economy, depleted soil, outdated farming tools and the constant demand for cash crops, black and white farmers alike struggled with a lack of fair credit and chronic indebtedness. Here is what the Negro Credit Unions of North Carolina had to say about the farm credit system in 1920.   “Perhaps the greatest drawback to the average poor farmer, struggling for a foothold on the soil and trying to make a home for himself and family in the community is the lack of capital. If he buys fertilizer on time, borrows money or contracts to be carried over the cropping season, it is usually at such a ruinous rate of interest that few ever get out from under its painful influence. The man who owns a small farm as well as he who rents one has long been victimized by the credit system.” Negro Credit Unions of North Carolina brochure   In Durham, life still followed the seasonal cycles of farming. There were special times for communal rituals, such as berry picking, corn shucking and peach canning. Mary Mebane described growing up in a black farming community in Northern Durham County in this way.   “Berry picking was a ritual, a part of the rhythm of summer life. I went to bed excited. We didn't know whose berries they were. Nobody had heard about the idea of private property. Besides the berries wild, free for everybody. The grown people picked up high and the children picked low. We children ate them on the spot, putting purple stained fingers into our mouths, creating purple stained tongues while the grown people wiped sweat and dodged bumblebees.” Mary Mebane   Many black Durhamites joined in the great migration of black people to cities in the North and Western parts of the country. More than 6 million black people left the South between 1917 and 1970. Those who stayed found themselves caught between traditional farming culture and an increasingly modernized urban world and black farmers had the further burden of discrimination in federal farm lending programs, which hampered their ability to sustain, adapt and expand their farming.   In the 1930s, the country was grappling with a great depression and the dust bowl. The textile industry was hit hard by the reception and white textile factory workers struggled. Families survived on cheap fat back, flower beans and their own homegrown produce. Through bouts of unemployment or underemployment. Hunger was never far off. Durham's black working class occupied the bottom rung of the economic ladder even before the great depression. Poverty and food insecurity increased to such an extent that black Durhamites were six times more likely to develop pellagra than whites in 1930. Pellagra is a disease caused by niacin deficiency. It was the leading cause of death in the city after tuberculosis. Nurses counseled Durham's black residents to eat green vegetables and fresh milk, but they were told that economics not lack of knowledge led to poor eating habits.   As one black patient remarked: “We would like to do everything you say, but we just haven't got the money.”   During the great depression, the food situation became so desperate that the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Works Progress Administration and charities such as the Red Cross began distributing food relief. The supplies staved off hunger to some extent, but black and white residents were both complaining the food wasn't what they would normally eat. Here an unemployed white textile worker in East Durham described his family's struggle with the emergency relief rations during the great depression.   “I go around to the place that the WPA distributes commodities and the last time they gave me four packs of powdered skim milk, five pounds of country butter, three pounds of navy beans, 24 pounds of flour. That was grand flour to mix awful bread. I've tried every way I could think of to cook it. And it ain't been able to do anything with it yet. That stuff just ain't fitting for a dog to eat, but I have to use everything I get. One of the boys gets up early every morning and goes out and picks berries for breakfast. They with butter do make the flour eat a lot better. He wants to pick some for preserves, but we can highly get sugar for our needs right now. But there is something about us that keeps us hoping that in some way, the future will take care of itself.” Unemployed white textile worker in Durham during the Depression   Over time federal, state and local Durham aid efforts shifted toward training and getting people new jobs, but black men and women did not get the same opportunities as Durham's white residents. In 1933, the federal government passed the agriculture adjustment act later known as the farm bill. This legislation raised market prices and paid farmers to rest soils depleted from intensive farming. But this created new problems for small farmers already struggling to survive. Davis Harris reflects on the changes these policies caused in the black farming community of Northern Durham County.   “The federal government started paying farmers to put their soil in what they called the soil bank. At the time the US was producing more grain than they needed. So they asked farmers in order to preserve the land and soil, if they could just let the soil rest. And if you did that for 10 years, the people like me growing up who got public jobs, it was difficult to go back to the farm because you get accustomed to getting paid every month. And to go back to once a year was difficult, almost impossible. And then the farmer's equipment gets obsolete and the facilities get obsolete and there is no help. So I see that as a turning point because you've lost all your resources, your equipment, your facilities, and your workforce, and the farmers are 10 to 12 years older. So a lot of the farmers had to get public jobs so they can get enough credit to draw social security.” Davis Harris   Black land owners also contended with private property laws that put them at a very real disadvantage. Black families had little reason to trust institutions and were far less likely to have a will than white families. So when a property owner died without a legal will, their property passed to all their direct heirs as partial shares. A form of ownership transfer called heirs property. Over several generations property ownership became increasingly unclear as dozens or even hundreds of heirs could own a small share. Heirs were then more vulnerable to land speculators and developers through a legal process called partition action. Speculators would buy off the interest of a single heir. And just one heir, no matter how small their share, and this would force the sale of entire plot of land through the courts. Black farm ownership peaked between 1910 and 1920, and then dropped dramatically due to the changing farm economy, discrimination and coercive means. From 1910 to the 1930s, the total number of farms in Durham declined dramatically. But black farmers lost their land at more than twice the rate of white farmers.   Willie Roberts, a black Durham County mechanic and farmer was interviewed in the 1930s and had this to say about the tensions of the time: “We got some mean neighbors around here. They hate us 'cause we own, and we won't sell. They want to buy it for nothing. They don't like for colored people to own land. They got a white lady, Ms. Jones on the next farm to say that I attacked her. I hope to be struck down by Jesus if I said or did anything she could kick on, it's all prejudiced against a colored family that's trying to catch up with the whites. They hated my father because he owned land and my mother because she taught school and now they're trying to run us off, but we're going to stay on.”   In 1942, many young men were serving in world war II and black agricultural laborers were leaving farms as part of the great migration to Northern and Western states. So the federal government enacted the Bracero Program to address severe farm labor shortages. This allowed contract laborers from Mexico into the country to fill the labor gap. Where you live, determines where you buy food and what food is available. And Durham's black urban residents were grappling with Jim Crow laws and with segregation.   “In all licensed restaurants, public eating places and weenie shops where persons of the white and colored races are permitted to be served with and eat food and are allowed to congregate. There shall be provided separate rooms for the separate accommodation of each race. The partition between such rooms shall be constructed of wood, plaster or brick or like material, and shall reach from the floor to the ceiling…” The code of the city of Durham, North Carolina, 1947, C13 section 42.   Segregation and racial discrimination meant that opportunities for home ownership, loans, and neighborhood improvements favored white people, discriminatory policies and practices also impacted access to nutritious foods and to restaurants and resentment was building.   A black woman recalls her childhood experiences during this time: “When I was a child, the Durham Dairy was a weekly stop on Sunday evenings as part of our family drive, we would park, go into the counter and then return to the car with our ice cream. After my father finished his, we would drive around Durham while the rest of us finished our ice cream. I had no idea as a young child that the reason we took that ice cream to the car was because the Durham Dairy was segregated and being an African American family we were not allowed to eat our ice cream on the premises. I was shocked to learn as an adult how my parents had been so artful in sparing this ugly truth from me and my younger siblings.”   As early as the 1920s, Durham's white homeowners had to agree to racial covenants on their suburban home and land deeds, such covenants explicitly prevented black ownership and restricted black residents in homes, except for domestic servants. This practice was legal until 1948. The National Association of Real Estate Boards code of ethics at that time directed real estate agents to maintain segregation in the name of safeguarding, neighborhood stability and property values. The industry practice known as steering remained in effect until 1950.   “A realtor should never be instrumental in introducing in a neighborhood members of any race or nationality whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in the neighborhood…” National Association of Real Estate Boards code of ethics   The great depression stimulated the country's new deal, social safety net legislation, including the social security act of 1935, which offered benefits and unemployment insurance. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a national minimum wage and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 created the right for workers to organize. However, agricultural and domestic workers positions held predominantly by black people during the 1930s were specifically excluded from these programs, losing out on both fair pay and labor protections.   Historian Ira Katznelson wrote extensively about the impact of these policy decisions on the country's African Americans: “Southern legislators understood that their region's agrarian interests and racial arrangements were inextricably entwined. By excluding these persons from new deal legislation it remained possible to maintain racial inequality in Southern labor markets by dictating the terms and conditions of African American labor.”   The federal government also recognized home ownership as one of the best ways to stabilize the economy and expand the middle class. The homeowner's loan corporation, a government sponsored corporation created as part of the new deal developed city maps and color coded neighborhoods according to lending risks, these maps became the model for public and private lending from the 1930s on. In Durham and elsewhere, red lines were drawn around black, mixed race and the poorest white neighborhoods, the effects of redlining now close to a century old had profound effects that are still felt to this day. Over time these maps discourage investment in home ownership and also business development in these areas ringed in red and encouraged and supported these things in white neighborhoods.   By defining some areas as too risky for investment lending practices followed, poverty was exacerbated and concentrated and housing deserts, credit deserts and food deserts became a predictable consequence. Redlining maps also shaped lending practices for the GI Bill Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. The GI Bill made mortgages available to World War II veterans with little or no down payment. And with very low interest rates. The aim was to create financial stability and the accumulation of generational wealth for those who would serve the country through home ownership. However, most homes were in suburban neighborhoods, primarily financed by the federal government. Between redlining lending practices and real estate covenants restricting black buyers, home ownership simply wasn't possible for the vast majority of the 1 million plus black World War II veterans. Between 1935 and 1968, less than 2% of federal home loans were for black people. The GI Bill also did not issue home loans on Indian reservations, which excluded many Native American veterans.   In the late 1950s, Durham received federal money for a local urban renewal program to clear slums and blighted areas through the Housing Act of 1949. The city chose to demolish a large section of the Hayti area, the city's largest and most prominent black neighborhood and home to most black owned businesses. This changed everything. City officials cited the poor physical conditions of Hayti as the reason for demolition. The land was then used to build North Carolina highway 147, a freeway connector.   Louis Austin editor of the Carolina Times wrote in 1965: "The so-called urban renewal program in Durham is not only the biggest farce ever concocted in the mind of moral man, but it is just another scheme to relieve Negroes of property."   Hayti's destruction included a significant part of the neighborhood's food infrastructure, such as grocery stores and restaurants. What was once a thriving and resilient food economy where wealth remained in the community became a food desert.   Nathaniel White, formerly a Hayti business owner in Durham had this to say about the destruction of the Hayti neighborhood: “Well, I think we got something like $32,000 for our business. As I look back on it now, if you're going to drive a freeway right through my building, the only fair thing to do is to replace that building. In other words, I ought to be able to move my equipment and everything into a building. If they do it like that, you will be able to stand the damage. Now, the highway department has a replacement clause in their building, but the urban renewal had what they call fair market value, and that won't replace it. And that's where the handicap comes. Just say, you give them $32,000 that probably would've bought the land or whatever, but it wouldn't put the building back and everything like that.”   In the 1950s, Durham built federally funded housing projects for low income families. But by the late 1960s, public housing in the city was almost exclusively for black people and clustered in existing black neighborhoods. This further reinforced patterns of residential segregation, Durham's lunch counters and restaurants became rallying points during the civil rights movements. North Carolina's first protest was at Durham's Royal ice cream restaurant in 1957.   Virginia Williams, a young black woman at the time was a member of the Royal Ice Cream Nine who staged the protest: “None of it made any sense, but that had been the way of life. And that's the way the older folk had accepted it. And so I guess I was one of them who thought, if not us, who, if not now, when. So the police officers came and they asked us to leave. I remember one of them asking me to leave and I asked for ice cream. And he said, if you were my daughter, I would spank you and make you leave. And then I said, if I was your daughter, I wouldn't be here sitting here being asked to leave.”   In 1962, more than 4,000 people protested at Howard Johnson's Ice Cream Grill in Durham. The struggle to desegregate eateries intensified in 1963, when protesters organized sit-ins at six downtown restaurants on the eve of municipal elections, hundreds of people were arrested and protestors surrounded the jail in solidarity. And in the weeks that followed more than 700 black and white Durhamites ran a full page ad in the Durham Herald newspaper. They pledged to support restaurants and other businesses that adopted equal treatment to all, without regard to race. The mounting public pressure resulted in mass desegregation of Durham Eateries by the end of 1962, ahead of the 1964 federal civil rights act that legally ended segregation.   Although civil rights wins brought about new political, economic and social opportunities for black people, desegregation didn't help black businesses. They suffered economically because black people began to explore new opportunities to shop outside their neighborhoods, but white people didn't patronize black owned businesses in turn.   In 1964, the federal government passed the Food Stamp Act as a means to safeguard people's health and wellbeing and provide a stable foundation for US agriculture. It was also intended to raise levels of nutrition among low income households. The food stamp program was implemented in Durham County in 1966. A decade later the program was in every county in the country.   From 1970 through the 1990s, urban renewal continued to disrupt and reshape Durham central city. As both white and middle class black residents left central Durham for suburban homes, banks and grocery stores disappeared. Textile and tobacco factory jobs were also leaving Durham for good. Thousands of workers became unemployed and the domino effect on home ownership, businesses and workplaces disrupted much of Durham's infrastructure and its community life.   From 1970 through the 1980s, the availability of home refrigerators and microwaves also changed how families stored and cooked their food. Durham already had higher numbers of working women than the national average. As a result, convenience foods, foods from restaurants, prepared meals at grocery stores and microwavable foods from the freezer were in demand.   Like many Americans, Durham residents had become increasingly disconnected from farming and food production, both physically and culturally. Food corporations now used marketing in the media to shape ideas about what to eat and why. The food system became dominated by increasing corporate consolidation and control. And by large scale industrial agriculture emphasizing monoculture. Corporations were fast gaining political and economic power and used their influence to affect trade regulations, tax rates, and wealth distribution.   In the 1980s, the federal government passed legislation that boosted free market capitalism, reduced social safety net spending and promoted volunteerism and charity as a way to reduce poverty and government welfare. These policies negatively impacted Durham's already historically disadvantaged populations. Nonprofit organizations began to emerge to deal with the growing issues of hunger and food insecurity and nonprofit food charity became an industry unto itself. More than 80% of pantries and soup kitchens in the US came into existence between 1980 and 2001.   The H-2A Guest Worker Program of 1986 allowed agricultural workers to hire seasonal foreign workers on special visas who were contracted to a particular farm, but workers did not have the same labor protections as US citizens.   That same year, the US launched the war on drugs to reduce drug abuse and crime. Low income communities were disproportionately targeted when Durham's housing authority paid off duty police officers to patrol high crime areas, particularly public housing developments. Hyper policing, drug criminalization, and logger sentencing for drug related offenses caused incarceration rates to rise steadily. Durham's jail and prison incarceration rates from 1978 to 2015 rose higher than anywhere else in North Carolina.   Here is an excerpt from an interview with Chuck Omega Manning, an activist and director of the city of Durham's welcome program. “Being totally honest, high incarceration rates for people of color is very detrimental to our health. Even in the Durham County Jail, you have a canteen that's run through a private company who only sell certain things like oodles of noodles that are not healthy. And then in prisons, you don't get to eat vegetables unless it's part of your dinner. And even then it's oftentimes still not healthy because of how it's cooked. But if you don't work in the kitchen, you don't get to decide, you just get it how it comes and you pray over it and eat it. But then over time, people get institutionalized in the system. And when they return home, they continue to eat the same way because they're used to it. And the financial piece only enhances that because you have individuals coming home, looking for employment, trying to do something different. And there are just so many barriers even with food stamps. So it almost feels like you're being punished twice. And it's very depressing.”   In the 1990s, Durham wanted more investment in the downtown area. Instead of the factory jobs of the past, the downtown area shifted to offer low paying service jobs and high paying jobs in research and technology. Wealthy newcomers were called urban pioneers and trailblazers and purchase properties in historically disinvested city areas.   Low wage workers today cannot afford new housing prices in Durham, in most cases, or to pay the increasing property taxes. Many people are losing their homes through when increases, evictions and foreclosures. Gentrification has also changed which food retailers exist in the local food environment. Sometimes this creates food mirages where high quality food is priced out of reach of longtime residents.   The North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA of 1994 also changed Durham and North Carolina. Farmers from Mexico and Central America driven out of business by the trade agreement immigrated to places like North Carolina, looking for agricultural and construction jobs. Durham's Latino population grew from just over 2000 in people to 1990, to nearly 40,000 in 2014, one out of three Durham public school students was Latino in 2014. Today, 94% of migrant farm workers in North Carolina are native Spanish speakers.   In 1996, the federal government made changes to the nation's food assistance security net. It dramatically cut SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps and limited eligibility to receive benefits and the length of benefits. In Durham, SNAP benefit participation rate decreased by 14% between 1997 and 2001 despite a 2% increase in the poverty rate.   Durham's Latino Credit Union opened in 2000 at a time when three quarters of Latinos did not bank at all. Over the next 20 years, Latinos developed and operated restaurants, grocery stores and services across Durham. This provided the Latino population with culturally resident food, community gathering spaces and jobs.   Processed foods had become a central part of the American diet by the early two thousands. And the vast majority of food advertising promoted convenience foods, candies, and snacks, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks and desserts. In addition, companies did and still do target black and Hispanic consumers with marketing for the least nutritious products contributing to diet related health disparities, affecting communities of color.   During the great recession of 2007 to 2009, job losses, wage reductions and foreclosure crisis increased the number of people struggling to afford and access enough nutritious food. As a result, SNAP participation rose dramatically in Durham.   In 2008, the farm bill included language about food deserts for the first time. A food desert was defined as a census track with a substantial share of residents who live in low income areas and have low levels of access to a grocery store or to healthy affordable foods in a retail outlet. Today some scholars describe such places as areas of food apartheid. This recognizes the outcomes of past policy decisions that disinvested in disadvantaged populations and locations, the cumulative effects of living under food apartheid have profound impacts on the health, wellbeing, and life expectancy of people of color and the poor.   Here's an excerpt from an interview with Latonya Gilchrist, a Durham county community health worker: “I've suffered a lot in this body for a lot of people it's genetic, but I feel like, and this is my personal feeling based on what I've experienced and my whole family. It's the role of food deserts and the cost of food, not being able to have a community grocery store and what I'll say for Northeast Central Durham or the East Durham area where I grew up, we always had corner stores that sold everything we didn't need. And very little of what we did need. Back when I was a child growing up, potato chips cost 16 cents a bag, and you could get potato chips all day long and all night long, and people could get beer and wine in the neighborhood, but you couldn't find fruits and vegetables until my daddy started selling them on a truck. So diseases come about genetically, but it's increased or enhanced through living in poor poverty stricken neighborhoods.”   Durham foreclosure spiked during the great recession of 2008 and were disproportionately located in historically black neighborhoods. Owners in high poverty neighborhoods have been targeted for high cost subprime loans by lenders through a practice known as reverse redlining. As neighborhoods gentrify and longtime residents get displaced, there is an increasing spatial disconnect between services and amenities and those who utilize them and need them the most. Food, housing and retail gentrification are closely intertwined.   Here's an excerpt from an interview with Eliazar Posada, community engagement advocacy manager of El Centro in Durham: “Gentrification is affecting a lot of our community members and not just affecting the youth, but also the families, unless we can find ways to subsidize housing or find a way to make gentrification not so dramatic for some of our community members. The youth are not going to be staying in Durham if their parents can't stay.”   Durham's people of color and low income people overall have disproportionately high incidents of diabetes. In a 2016 survey in the Piedmont region, 16% of respondents with household incomes, less than $15,000 reported having diabetes compared to only 6% of residents with household incomes of more than $75,000. By 2017 black patients were 80% more likely than white patients to have diabetes in Durham.   In Durham County in 2019, the average hourly wage for food preparation and serving jobs was $10.83 cents an hour or $22,516 annually before taxes. Such wages are all been impossible to live on without government assistance. The fair market rent for a two bedroom housing unit in Durham in 2018 was $900 a month or about $10,800 a year.   Food inequality is a lack of consistent access to enough food for a healthy, active life is caused by poverty, the cost of housing and healthcare and unemployment and underemployment. It is also impacted by the interrelated forces of home and land ownership, political power, economic resources, structural racism, gender oppression, and labor rights. Durham's communities continue to build community solidarity and mutual aid as people lend money, time and other resources trying to make sure everyone can access adequate and healthy food.   In a remarkable feat of resilience the Occaneechi band of the Saponi Nation was awarded official recognition by North Carolina in 2002, following 20 years of organizing and sustained advocacy. They purchased a 250 acre plot of land just outside of Durham County and planted an orchard of fruit bearing trees for collective tribal use. This is the first land that the tribe has owned collectively in more than 250 years.   Durham's black farmer's market emerging from 2015 to 2019 is also a testament to community building through food. The market supports local black farmers and makes healthy eating attainable for individuals living in some of Durham's food apartheid areas. Market organizers are challenging social norms, classism and racism, and believe that healthy living should be possible for everyone.   So why is the food history of a community so important? And can Durham's food history be applied to other places? Who owns land, who can grow food and make a living doing so, and who has access to food, any food, least of all healthy food? The answers are deeply influenced by historical policies and practices. These in retrospect, clearly exacerbated, supported, and even created food related calamities, the dual burden communities face of both food insecurity and diet related chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity. Understanding these practices is important in creating change. And in understanding that conditions imposed on neighborhoods rather than personal failings of residents explain what we see today.   A few pieces of this history are specific to Durham, the role of tobacco and textiles, for instance, but most of the fundamental influences on the economic and food conditions are broad social attitudes and practices around race and poverty. And from federal, economic, agriculture and housing policies that have affected urban rural areas in every corner of the country, there is hope from local ingenuity to change food systems and from people in local, state and federal policy positions who are working to reverse inequality and to re-envision the role of food in supporting the physical and economic wellbeing of all people, learning from the past is really important in these efforts.

About this episode:  It was a Tuesday, April 11, 1865 - only two day after Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia.  Down in North Carolina, with Major General William T. Sherman’s relentless blue wave only some 30 miles to the southeast of Raleigh, NC, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston’s men of the Army of Tennessee began to march in and through the Old North State’s capital.  Women, lining both sides of Raleigh’s Fayetteville Street, greeted them.  They handed out meat, bread and tobacco.  On the western edge of town, a favorite place for soldiers to linger as they poured westward - at St. Mary’s, a school for women - where dozens of young ladies doled out food, water and encouragement.  Before them, Johnston’s ragtag force acted soldierly but, one of the young ladies, unable to mask the reality of what she was witnessing, gasped, “My God! Is this the funeral procession of the Southern Confederacy?”  Indeed, it was, for Johnston and Sherman’s men were on the final stretch of road that would lead to a rustic dwelling near Durham’s Station - the Bennett Place.  There in the North Carolina Piedmont region was the humblest of stages for the surrender of the last major Confederate army and, numerically speaking, the largest surrender of the great and terrible American Civil War.  Here, the story of those last days.   ----more----   Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:  Zebulon Vance David L. Swain George Stoneman Smith D. Atkins John A. Logan William H. Battle   For Further Reading - May We Suggest: This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place by Mark L. Bradley   Get The Guide: Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.   Producer: Dan Irving

We wrap up our discussion aboot the Carolina's Campaign with a discussion aboot the surrender of Johnston to Sherman at Bennett Place in April of 1865!

In episode 3, The Concert Goers take a look at Tony Bennett's 2009 concert at Place Des Arts in Montreal as a part of the world-renowned Montreal Jazz Festival. Tony Bennett has performed in Montreal over 20 times over the span of his 70-year career.

Robert M. (Bert) Dunkerly, author of "To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the Surrenders of the Confederacy"

Robert M. (Bert) Dunkerly, author of "To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the Surrenders of the Confederacy"

Robert M. (Bert) Dunkerly, author of "To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the Surrenders of the Confederacy"

Robert M. (Bert) Dunkerly, author of "To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the Surrenders of the Confederacy"

On location in Charlottesville (our first episode recorded in America), Frank talks to David about his new book, Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War. David is doing a book tour -- interested listeners can hear him in person in the coming weeks at the American Civil War Museum, Bennett Place, Museum of Civil War Medicine, Shepherd University, and Washington and Lee.  Last Drops David: Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia Frank: Getting Word exhibit from Monticello coming to Edinburgh

Introduction A couple of years ago, it was the summer of 2014, I had the privilege to speak at a seminary graduation in Serbia. I was there with my daughter Caroline, and while we were there, we took a tour of a military museum in Belgrade in Serbia, and it was fascinating for me. I don't know how Carolyn felt about it, but I love military history. I think she said she had a good time. She's not here to defend herself this morning, but we walked into this museum and it was really extensive, it was amazing. I didn't realize how warfare has really shaped the history of Serbia and of the capital city of Belgrade. According to one display in that museum, since Roman times, 1st century AD until the present time, the little country of Serbia has experienced 143 wars. Now, to put that in perspective, I looked up on a website in the state of North Carolina, and there have been, since North Carolina was founded as a colony, only six wars in our history. Three of them were Indian wars. Actually four of them Indian wars, and The Revolution and the Civil War. Since the surrender of the Confederate army at Bennett Place, there's not been another war in our state. But in Belgrade in Serbia, there's on average, a war every 12 or 13 years. And what was cool about this museum, it was like an arsenal of different weapon systems, both offensive and defensive, over that 20 century history, and it was laid out in chronological order. So you went from the Roman times, which would have been in the times of the Apostle Paul, depictions of the suits of armor that Romans would have worn in different battles that were fought during the Roman era. And then it just, it continued to unfold and it was just fascinating to me, fascinating things. The Celts were there for a time and the Ottoman Turks invaded in the 13th century, they came in, there was lots of battles against Islam, and then there were swords and shields and bows and arrows, and then eventually gunpowder, the development of guns, they actually had some very old weapons that were breech-loading muskets and different things, and then on through into the 18th century, 19th century, and on into the 20th century. World War I gas masks, machine guns, different things then on into World War II. Outside of the museum, they had all these German tanks, these panzers that were there, anti-aircraft weaponry, and then right up into the recent conflicts between the Serbs and the Croats. And so, as I was walking through this I was just amazed by the diverse historical arsenal of weapons, both offensive and defensive. 2000 years of Serbian military history. Now, as we come to the text that we're looking at today, Ephesians 6:10-18, this section, and we're looking just at a portion of it today, Paul in effect is leading us through an arsenal of spiritual weapons, of defensive protection that the Lord has laid out for his children, laid out for us who are warriors in a different kind of warfare, a spiritual warfare. Now, I imagine that each of the citizens of Serbia or of Belgrade that lived through those 143 wars knew they were in a war. There's no doubt about it. The kind of terror and the upheaval that would come. But I would say, as I said last week, the overwhelming majority of Christians live their lives hour by hour, day by day, it seems, unaware of spiritual warfare, unaware of the fact that we have a vicious powerful resourceful enemy who is seeking our very lives at every moment. We're unaware of it and that's much to Satan's benefit. So, we are most certainly at war. When we come to faith in Christ, it is not true that all our problems in this world have ended. Actually quite the opposite. We may most certainly be confident that all our problems in the next world have come to an end. And praise God for that. The world of eternity to which we are heading is a world without death or mourning, or crying, or pain. And it is a world in which we will have no enemies at all. The gates of the new Jerusalem will stand open continually, and that's a clear evidence that there are no enemies left. But we have not arrived there yet. No, not at all. We have resourceful intelligent, powerful invisible enemies that are stalking us at every moment. Now, a new Christian, having come to faith in Christ, may be somewhat bewildered to discover the nature of this warfare, not even know necessarily what's happening to him or her. A whole array of new griefs and woes and struggles that he or she never knew before. A new Christian may be stunned to find that they're barraged with temptations and thoughts and feelings and ideas that are deeply troubling. After the initial joy and peace, the euphoria of coming to faith in Christ that comes with conversion, they may find themselves struggling with assurance of salvation, or with new dark thoughts that they had never noticed, or didn't know that they were sinful, but now they're struggling with them. They may find difficulties with other people that they didn't have before. And then internal wrestlings, temptations, doubts, guilt and torment in their conscience they've never known before. And they may say, "What is happening to me? Where's all that joy and peace that I knew before? Why all the strife and turmoil? For a while as a Christian, I was happy and fulfilled and at peace. But now, what is this? What is going on?" Well, what's happened is you crossed over from darkness to light. As I prayed in my prayer, you were rescued from the dominion of darkness out of Satan's kingdom and brought into the Kingdom, transferred into the kingdom of light, the Kingdom of Christ. Now before that transfer occurred, the Book of Ephesians tells us that “we were, all of us, dead in our transgressions and sins in which we used to live. When we followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Satan. All of us, all of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the desires of the flesh, following its nature and its thoughts.” Paul says, “there like the rest, we were, all of us by nature, objects of wrath.” That's where we were, we were in Satan's kingdom, we were enslaved, we were in chains we could not see. And we were unaware of our true status, we didn't know really what was going on. Jesus spoke about how he rescues people from Satan's dark kingdom. How he actually does that, he likens Satan to an evil warrior, a strong man, fully armed, He calls him. In Luke 12 or Luke 11:21 and 22, He says, "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe." What that means literally is, his possessions are at peace at one level. I would put it similar to paralyzed, unable to move, causing Satan no trouble at all. But in Luke 11:22, it says, "But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which he trusted and divides up his spoils." So in that parable Satan is the strong man, fully armed, we were his possessions, we were at peace, or I would say tranquil and paralyzed dead in our transgressions and sins. Someone stronger is Jesus, he's the only one who's stronger. He comes and overpowers Satan, praise God, strips his armor, showing that Satan's armor is nothing compared to Jesus' omnipotence, and then he plunders his kingdom. We are the plunder, we're the spoils, we've been rescued. But having been rescued, having been transferred into the Kingdom of Light, we are then equipped and empowered and sent back into Satan's dark kingdom to rescue other souls who haven't been rescued yet. And at that point Satan becomes, as he always has been, but overtly now, our vicious enemy fighting us at every point. We become targets of Satan's attacks. And we are called on in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 10 and following, to fight. We're told that we have a fight. Listen again to these words you just heard read, ”Finally be strong in the Lord." This is Ephesians 6:10-12, "Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." So Satan tries to deceive us, that we don't have any fight at all. This warfare isn't really existing, but it is. He can trick us into thinking that the afflictions and the troubles that we're going through are merely natural. They happen to everyone else. They are troubles common to man. So this text calls on us as brothers and sisters in Christ, my call is to you, my spiritual family, to wake up, to realize what's actually going on, that you are at war, that Satan and his demons are at war with you. Satan is attacking you every single day. Perhaps you would say every hour constantly, and you have a responsibility to fight, you have a responsibility to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, the might of his power. Now, why do you have to do that? What's at stake? Well, I don't believe that Satan can kill you, spiritually. If you're a Christian, you have been given eternal life and he cannot kill you. But what he can do is he can prevent you from doing the good works that God has ordained that you should walk in them, and he can prevent you from being characterized moment by moment, by the fruit of the Spirit, that's what he can do. And that is devastating because then, effectively, he's rendered you worthless to Christ. We have these two journeys set before us, we've talked about it again and again. This is why God left us here on Earth, we are left here for the glory of God, and the progress we are to make in two journeys. Internally in holiness that we would become more and more like Christ. We are journeying to conformity to Christ, to be more and more like Jesus. And then externally to win the lost, locally right around us, and to the ends of the earth, to rescue them from Satan's dark kingdom. Now these journeys are going to be opposed every step of the way by Satan. He's going to fight you every step of the way. You must put on your spiritual armor and fight or you will make no progress. And so, that's what's at stake. I. Walking Into The Armory So now what I want to do this morning, is walk into the armory and begin looking at the full armor of God, to try and understand what God has provided for you for this warfare. And this, praise God, is not a museum of military artifacts. One thing that was common with all of the weapon systems and all of the depictions I saw at that museum is that every single one of them were obsolete, they've all been superseded by modern military technology. No soldier would ever want to take those weapons on a battlefield, modern battlefield, they'd be slaughtered. But the beauty of the spiritual armor that God's provided is that it will never be obsolete, it's been effective in every generation, it's got the power and the wisdom of God behind every article. It's as new and fresh and effective now as it was in Paul's day, and that's a powerful, powerful thought. Now last week, we had three clear commands given to us in reference to spiritual warfare. In verse 10 through 12, you see it. First, “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” We talked about that last week. Secondly, “put on the full armor of God.” And then thirdly, “stand your ground in the day of testing,” “in the evil day.” Those are the three commands that we're being given here. So, be strong in the Lord, draw near to Jesus and in his mighty power. Secondly, “put on the full armor of God.” We're going to begin talking about that today, and then “stand your ground in the evil day.” So let's talk about this full armor of God, the full armor of God. First thing that we have to note is that this is something that is crafted by God, not by us. This is going to be a key interpreted principle, it's not something we make, it's not something we craft in our garage and our workshop spiritually. It's external to us, it's handed to us by Almighty God, and it's something that we have the responsibility to take up and in some way, put on ourselves. That's the full armor of God, we could almost say full armor from God. It's God's armor as He's given it to us. And it is sufficient to meet every need, it's sufficient, it's enough, God has provided for us, we're fully equipped. It is high quality, it's 100% effective, it is impenetrable, much of this is defensive, it's impenetrable. It's durable, beautiful. I don't know what else to say. Lightweight, travels easily with you. High quality and sufficient for the warfare that we're going to face. Now, in terms of interpretation, we just need to stop and say, "Is it appropriate for us to go slowly through this, and look at all of this carefully? Is this an allegory? Are we allegorizing these things? Are we going to try to take each article and spend a lot of time on it?” Now I have in my library a work by a Puritan, and that tells you something right there. William Gurnall, who wrote The Christian in Complete Armour, an extensive treatise on these nine verses. When I say extensive, you don't even have the first idea how extensive. It was published in three different volumes, 1655, 1658, 1662. Banner of Truth has published it in one thick book, about that thick. You open it up and the print is so small, that you need like a magnifying glass to read. It's over 1200 pages, on nine verses of Scripture. I think he might have taken it a little too far. Friends, be at peace. We're not doing anything like that here, but I think you can go so far in that. That's too far, maybe too much detail. It ends up just a gateway into just a topical study of various aspects of the Christian life. That's really what he does, and however helpful that is, I don't know that it's the best way to approach this, but you can go so far the other direction. I think effectively, most Christians go the other extreme. They don't really look at the details of this, they don't really think that Paul put some intelligence behind the actual article of weaponry that he has, or shielding and how it lines up with this part of the body. And so they just skip the whole thing, say, "Well, whatever, just pray about it, just need to pray about it and then go," and you're going to get shredded, friends. Paul's saying he's not saying, "Just pray about it," he actually has some things to say. So I want to be somewhere in the middle, not too long or too short. I want to look at it and say, What is the article? How does he identify it? What does it correspond to in our salvation? And what are we practically to do about it? Why does he line it up with this part of the body, etcetera? And try to think about it at a reasonable length. I think that's the best way to handle it. So first, this full armor of God is something we must put on. It's something that must be appropriated. I would say each of these elements to some degree, have to be put on your souls by thoughtful prayer, meditative or scripture-based meditation and prayer. And I would say that continually, not like every single instant, but again and again, not like one time in the morning and then you're good for the day. But as needed and again and again, we're going to come back to the idea of these elements. So I would say, thoughtful meditative prayer based on it. And there's a hymn that I think captures it very well for us. In 1858, a Presbyterian pastor named George Duffield Jr, penned the hymn, "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus." Maybe you've heard it before or sung it before. One of the verses says this, "Stand up, stand up for Jesus, stand in his strength alone. The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own." Now listen, "Put on the Gospel armor. Each part put on with prayer." So that's it, "where duty calls or danger, be never wanting there." So the idea is that we would take up these elements, and based on, I think, an explanation I'm going to give you that will help you understand what we mean by you to them, put them on yourself. Put them, put them into your soul through prayer. At the end, in verse 18 he says, And pray in the Spirit, on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests with this in mind. Be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. He doesn't link that to any article of armor. It's really linked to all of them. And so, the idea is not just in a general amorphous sort of way, "Just pray about it." But in a meditative way, be mindful of the way that Satan can attack and how the Lord has provided for you in those areas. So, that's the approach we're going to take, in general. Now, before we go into talking about the two elements we're going to look at today, there are six elements of the full armor of God, we're going to look at two of them each week, God willing. But I want to just talk about the nature of the spiritual warfare, what is actually happening, how does it work? And I have lots of images or ideas about this, but this is the one that I have for you right now. Fundamentally, Satan is hurling ideas at us. Concepts. He has, as I mentioned last week, access to our minds, he has the ability to insinuate thoughts into your mind, and then affect your feelings through the thought he is planted, and then affect your behavior from those two together. So thoughts plus feelings shaping behavior, that's the game, that's what he's trying to do. So the idea I have, the image I have here is of us walking on the strait and narrow path. You know how Jesus said, "Narrow is the gate, and strait is the path that leads to life and only a few you find it." So we, as Christians, we are walking this straight and narrow path, but the image I have now in the 21st century, I put it in a mall, so we're walking through the mall. So, picture you're on the straight and narrow but you're walking through a mall, the mall of the world, and every X number of feet, there's a store front left and right, and there are aggressive sales people right to the edge of the straight and narrow path and they're calling out to you by name, enticing you, telling you to come into their shop. They have some things for you, maybe tugging on your sleeve. They can't grab you by the arm, so that would be the idea of Satan, taking you over in contrary to your will, making you sin, he can't do that, but he's enticing all the time, pulling you to divert, to go off the path and go into the shop. And these shops are different temptations, ideas, concepts that can pollute and destroy us spiritually. That's the image I have. Now, if you turn aside in the shop I pictured, I went in, in one of these malls. There was a candle shop, I was buying a candle for someone, and I was like, "Oh my goodness, the aroma was overpowering. I don't know how you could work there. And I talked to the gal at the desk. She said, "I don't even notice it anymore." And I think she must go home supersaturated by the various aromas of the candle shop. Or picture an incense shop or something like that, and if you get diverted and go in there, you're just breathing these noxious fumes, and they're affecting your breathing and they're getting in your hair. And in your eyes and in your clothes and when the Lord Jesus in his grace goes to leave the 99 that didn't wander and find you, who is wandering and brings you back by his grace, you're going to smell spiritually of the shop you were just in for a while. It's the image I have here. If you don't like that image, you can come up with your own, but that's the picture I have with spiritual warfare. It's an enticing, alluring battle of ideas. Affecting our emotions and eventually affecting our behavior. And the command here is that we are to put on the full armor of God, piece by piece, carefully, prayerfully, thoughtfully and many I would say as often as needed, many times a day, even. Alright, so let's look at the first element. II. The Belt of Truth The Belt’s Function This morning, we're going to look at the belt of truth, and the breastplate of righteousness. Let's start with the belt of truth. It's the first item that Paul mentions here. It enabled the soldier to pull together all of his loose flowing clothing. You picture in the first scene you've seen movies and you've seen perhaps depictions and books, how people work too in this loose flowing clothing back then, but if you wanted to do any work, if you want to do any traveling, if you wanted to run especially, you had to kind of gather up your tunic together, and fix it with a belt around your waist, something like that. Peter uses the same image in 1 Peter 1:13, in the King James version. It says, "Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind." So that's the same phraseology here. "gird up the loins” or “gird up your loins with truth." Now, NIV in 1 Peter 1"13 says, "Prepare your minds for action." That's the concept, but it's not a literalistic translation. So the idea here is you've got this belt pulling together everything into an efficient package held close to your body. So verse 14, "stand therefore, having girded inverted your loins with truth." That would be a literalistic translation. There actually is no noun here, there's no noun belt of truth, But most translations just try to objectify it by saying there is a belt of truth, But it's more of an action. The idea of girding up your loins with truth, now the loins are the reproductive organs, those part of the body that you treat, Paul says in another place, with special modesty. So the idea I have here is of truth coming very close to us. Truth drawn into the secret places and hidden places of our souls and I think David puts it very well, in Psalm 51:6, "Surely you desire truth in the inner parts, you teach me wisdom in the inmost place." So the idea is that truth is drawn into our very being. An absolute commitment to spiritual truth. That's what we're talking about here. What the Belt of Truth Is Not Now, one translation gives us the “belt of truthfulness” in other words, that we would be characterized by speaking the truth. That is wrong. Now in one sense it's obviously true, Paul says earlier in Ephesians that we're to put off, falsehood and speak truth, but that's not a Paul's talking about here, it's not our truthfulness rather it's again the whole armor of God or from God, this is truth from God truth that comes down from Heaven to Earth, truth that is absolute, unshakable. Like you can write it in stone because God did write it in stone, it's unchanging. This is absolutely vital. The concept of spiritual truth and this comes to us, it's mediated to us not by our feelings or what we think is right, but it comes to us by the Scripture, by the word of God. The Word of God is truth. Jesus said in John 17:17, "Sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth." Now the word of God is perfect. It's wholly free from error. The perfection of the Word of God is the basis of all the spiritual fighting we're going to do, Understanding truth, meditating on it, drawing it into us like a belt around our waist. We must be humble when it comes to spiritual things. We must be humble and say we know nothing, we've got to be told everything, from the Bible. God has to teach a spiritual truth. Now, you may ask, "What's the difference between the belt of truth, and let's say later the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God?” I want you to know the six elements of spiritual armor, or spiritual weaponry that God gives us. There's a lot of overlap between them, and we're going to be covering some themes again, but I think we can make a distinction between the belt of truth and the sword of the Spirit, in this way. The belt of truth is more overarching, general truth that is, the Bible, the big themes, let's say. The truth of the scripture versus the sword of the Spirit is more of a surgically applied truth, a specific verse that meets a specific attack by the devil. And so, there's going to be some swordsmanship and skill that we'll talk about later, but that's the difference I would make. It's not a strong difference. Our Need For The Belt of Truth Now friends, do you not see how much we need this in our present day? Twenty first century Americans have been assaulted with the concept that there is no absolute metaphysical or spiritual truth. Or if there is, we can't know it. We are what's known as postmodernists, we're postmodernists, we accept truth claims from everyone. We're pluralists and we are hearing that it's arrogant to say that our metaphysical truth, our spiritual truth is absolute truth, and this is very much the battle ground that the church is facing in 21st century America, do you not see it? I hope you can see it. The idea that there is no absolute metaphysical or spiritual truth. Have you seen that bumper sticker, coexist? I think about it a lot, I've looked up, the group that puts it out, you know how they take symbols from each of the religions and they spell out the word “coexist.” Which I said before, I think isn't it wonderful that groups like ISIS are planning on not killing Christians, any more. Praise God. Fundamentally, though, it's saying all of these religions are essentially the same. No one is any more valid than any of the others. Watching that movie in the early 1980s, I watched it actually last week, Gandhi. And as he led India to independence, a lot of his world views and his philosophies and religions, came out, and he would say... Again and again, these things like, “I am Muslim,” “I am Hindu,” “I am Buddhist,” “I am Christian.” He would say these things, As though really they're all teaching essentially the same thing. There's no one more valid than the other. And we are all of us children of God. In that sense, etcetera. That was his mentality, that is not the mentality of the Bible. What I want to say the belt of truth is, is the idea of transcendent absolute spiritual truth coming to us through Scripture, fundamentally in its testimony to Christ as the Savior of the world, fundamentally focused on Christ, our savior. Jesus, when he was on trial before Pilate. You remember he was on trial because they were saying in effect he was leading a rebellion and sedition kind of thing. So they came to the issue of his Kingship, his kingdom. “Oh, you are a king,” said Pilate. Jesus said, "You're right in saying that I'm a king. In fact, for this reason I was born and for this I came into the world: To testify to the truth everyone on the side of truth, listens to me." That was the closest, most powerful invitation Pontius Pilate would ever receive. Listen to me, if you want to know the truth, Listen to me. Do you remember what pilot said? "What is truth?" Now, I don't mind somebody asking me, “What is truth?” and waiting for an answer. They think there might be an answer, Pilate didn't think there was an answer, he walked away. That's the problem, it's not the statement, it's the statement, plus walking away from Jesus, that's the problem and that's what we're living with. Those are our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, they're saying, “What is truth?” and walking away. The Centerpiece of the Word: The Testimony of Jesus We, in our battle against Satan, we have to fight that and say “No, no, no, there is truth, the word of God, is truth, and Jesus is truth.” “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John 1:1, John 1:14, "The word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us and we have Seen his glory, the glory of the only begotten who is from the Father, full of grace and truth." And he says in John 1:17, just a few verses later, "the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ," and He says very famously and clearly to our postmodern 21st century American scene. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." There is absolute truth and his name is Jesus. Now, at the end of human history, Jesus will return with the armies of Heaven. John depicts this in Revelation 19:11-15, it says, "I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true, with justice he judges and makes war, his eyes are like blazing fire and on his head are many crowns, and out of his mouth comes a sharp double-edged sword with which to strike down the nations." So that's where we're heading. That's the future. Truth comes back and brings judgment. Nothing is mightier than it is for this spiritual battle, that we're fighting with invisible satanic forces than Christ the truth or the Word of God as it testifies to Christ, the true Saviour. And we need this because Satan's kingdom is essentially a kingdom of lies. That's what it's all about, it's all about lying, he's filled with lies, we need the belt of truth, because Satan is lying to us. Isaiah said, "Woe is me, I'm ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips." Like I tell lies, and I'm surrounded by people who tell lies. Now my eyes have seen the King, the Truth, the Almighty, the Holy One. Satan’s Kingdom of Lies Now Satan has been doing this lying thing, from the very beginning of human history. He went to the garden, you remember how he approached Eve at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he used those three strategies, he uses in every generation to question the word of God. First, just raising a question, "Did God really say that you must not eat? Just asking, just want to raise a question for debate and discussion. Just raising the question. Did God really say...” Secondly, a flat-out contradiction of the word of God, “You will not surely die.” That's a lie. They did die and so have all their progeny. And then thirdly, using a portion of the truth to contradict another part of the truth, "for God knows that when you eat of it, you will become like God, knowing good from evil," that's actually true, God said it himself, But it's harnessed to the temptation. So that's like the cults and the world religions, that use portions of the truth to ensnare people, that Satan masquerading as an angel of light false teachers can lure people in by the portion of the truth. Again, think about Islam and its monotheism, it's fierce assertion that all of the gods in the nations are empty idols and are nothing, and there is only one God, that's true, but that one God is not Allah, it's the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, it's a triune God. So it's partial truth and service to an overarching lie. Satan's been doing those same three things. We need to stand against that. John 8:44, Jesus said, “Satan was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him, when he lies, he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies.” So put it all together, Satan kills, he murders souls by telling lies. So what we have to do is we have to demolish the lies that he tells. Practically: How Do We “Put On the Belt of Truth”? Now, how does this work practically? Well, if we're going to put on the belt of truth, if we're going to make progress in our journeys we have to draw in the truth. Let's take the external journey, for example. If we're going to be missionaries, if we're going to go to the ends of the earth, if we're going to sacrifice financially, to send as David Platt, President of the IMB talks about limitless pathways of missionaries all over the world. If we're going to actually do that, we have to counteract some of the weakening lies that Satan has poured into the minds of American evangelicals, that weaken our commitment to unreached people group missions such as what? Well, such as “People who have never heard of Christ are okay, spiritually, they're fine.” That's called inclusivism. The idea that if you die without ever having heard the name of Jesus, you're fine spiritually. Do you realize how obviously false, that must be when it comes to mission work? Before you came to that village in India or in Central Asia, they were fine, spiritually, but now that you came, most of them are going to Hell because they rejected the Gospel. Thanks for coming. That doesn't make any sense. Instead, it says in Romans 10, "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How can they call then on one they have not believed in. And how can they believe in someone they've never heard of, and how can they hear without someone preaching to them and how can they preach unless they are sent as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.’” What does that mean? They were in darkness,enslaved to Satan, before the missionaries got there. We have to be active in sending missionaries to the ends of the earth. You have to care about that belt of truth. It counteracts the lies of the devil. So practically, what are you going to do? What I'm going to say is immerse your heart and your mind in the Word of God every day. We're going to say similar things when I come to the sword of the Spirit, but I'm just saying embrace the concept of absolute spiritual truth, that the Word of God is truth, straight truth With no mixture of errors. Be continually feeding on God's word stored up within you that you might be transformed by the renewing of your mind, especially feed on passages that speak of Christ as the absolute truth, Think about his holiness, his nature, his great power, his purposes in the world. Have a sense of preparation. Get yourself ready "gird up the loins of your mind," get ready with truth. And especially look to see how Satan's temptations have a lie at their center. Like if you're struggling with sinning with the internet, lust with the internet, right? There is an undergirding lie there. It has to do with increased pleasure, it has to do with the fact that you're not going to be judged or condemned for it, etcetera. There's all kinds of an array of lives. See through it, and bring truth into that situation. Or when it comes to your finances, how you're spending, like your money is really your own, you can spend it however you want. Instead of giving your tithes and offerings to the church, and supporting the church's budget and sending missionaries out with finances, counteracting the lies of the evil. III. The Breastplate of Righteousness What is a “Breastplate”? Alright, secondly, breastplate of righteousness. Look at verse 14, “stand firm then with the belt of truth, buckled around your waist and with the breastplate of righteousness in place.” Now, you can picture the breastplate. It was basically leather strapped around this section from just below the throat, down to the base of the abdomen in that area. And it was covered with a thick plate of probably bronze, back in those days. Frequently embossed with powerful decoration like horses, or other things, or lightning bolts or something. And it would be polished to a high shine, beautiful. And it protected the soldiers' vital organs, their heart and their intestines. All of these vital organs from attack by the enemy. Well, that's the breastplate. What is the breastplate of righteousness? Well, righteousness is that which corresponds to God's word and God's nature. Righteousness. Whatever is right. Whatever is pure, whatever's right, whatever's just. That's what righteousness is. So, it corresponds to God's justice. It corresponds to God's law, God's word. Lines up with God's standard, Psalm 19:9, "The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous." Righteousness Now, let me say again, just like it wasn't the belt of truthfulness, our truthfulness, it is certainly not the breastplate of our own righteousness. I sure hope you know this. Do you know that we send out soldiers in dangerous areas of the world with body armor on? And do you know that body armor has been developed by military scientists, the best military scientists that they have to make this effective body armor. What would you think if a soldier said, "You know, I didn't put on the body armor the Army gave me. I made my own." It's like, "Really? Tell me about that." "Well, I went in my garage, and got some pots and pans in there. Flattened them out a little bit, sewed them together and I did some other things." And it's like, "Dude, you're going to die. I would suggest you go get that armor the army has provided and put it on." Alright. Well, that's even more the case here. Do you understand how effective Satan will be in shredding your own righteousness if you take the field against him, in your own righteousness? Do you have any sense at all of how he will be able to find the weak spots and the chinks in your armor and penetrate it? He's been doing that to people far more righteous than you or me, for centuries. Satan, literally, the word in Hebrew means accuser. He is the accuser of the brethren, he stands before God day and night accusing them. He has an accurate record of all your sins. He knows all your weaknesses, he knows what you've said and done. All of it. It's there and it will not be any protection. He will be able to recall your sins in an instant. "There is no one righteous, not even one," Romans 3:10. Isaiah 64:6, "All of us have become like one who is unclean and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags," or like a cobweb. You don't want to go into battle against a dreadful enemy wearing a cobweb for protection. Christ’s Imputed Righteousness: A Perfect Shield Now, no one in church history tried harder to put together his own breastplate of righteousness than did Martin Luther. You know the story, how he quit public life, went into a monastery, and spent hours and hours, fasting, and praying, and studying the Bible, and doing works of service to others, and doing whatever the authority is there in the monastery told him to do. And all of that ever happened, is he felt more, and more guilty, and more, and more in terror of the judgment of God, and more and more afraid of Hell. He knew that his real sin in nature was just being driven subterranean, it wasn't being dealt with. Now, if his righteousness can be shredded so easily, how in the world do you think you can stand up with your righteousness? You going to work harder? going to be more obedient? The greatest saints have been acutely aware of how wicked and vile they still were. King David, Psalm 40:12, "My sins have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head and my heart fails within me. My sins are more numerous than the hairs of my head." Paul said, "Here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am," not was, "am the worst." Romans 7, "The very thing I hate," Paul said this, "the very thing I hate, I do. What a wretched man I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death?" You can't stand against Satan in your own righteousness, not at all. No, this must be full armor from God. This must be a breastplate of righteousness God made, and is giving to you and it is. This is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ in the Gospel. That's what this is. This is the perfect righteousness of Jesus given to you as a gift and you're told to put on. The gift of imputed righteousness, essential to our salvation. That means that God credits Jesus' obedience to the law as though you had been obedient to the law. As obedient as Jesus. Says in Romans 3:20-24, "No one will be declared righteous by observing the law." Rather through the Law, we become conscious of sin, but now a righteousness from God, has been made known to which the Law and the prophets testify. This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified. That is, declared righteous freely as a gift of God's grace by faith in his blood. God presented Jesus as a propitiation, a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. That's our righteousness. It's a gift. Put it on. Put it on. And how do you put it on? Well, you put it on by faith. We are justified by faith. You trust that God sees you perfectly righteous in Jesus. And this is taught in many places in the New Testament. It is our only hope in this day of battle. Philippians 3:9, Paul says, "Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ," the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. That's what we put on. So, how do we put it on? Well, understand that the warfare that we have with Satan will be over our own sinfulness and his temptations and accusations. It's kind of like the old one two. I'm not a boxer. I’ve got some friends that are boxers. A left and a right, the combination. Alright. Left, right. How does it work? Temptation, accusation. It's a deadly rhythm. He'll draw you into sin and then accuse you. Draw, accuse. It's deadly. How does the imputed righteousness of Christ help that? Basically, it enables us to resist temptations by helping us to see that we are no longer God's enemies, but we are safe and secure adopted children of God. And no temptation will kill us. It gives us a position of strength. No matter how I perform today, or behave, I am perfectly righteous in God's sight. Along with that, it gives you a sense of the beauty of that righteousness. The beauty of Christ's perfect obedience to the Father. It gives us a sense of being able to say with God that we love righteousness and hate wickedness. And that we are perfectly righteous in Christ. And then if we have sinned, it enables us to stand not in our own marred behavior but in the imputed righteousness of Christ. Our “Feelings” Now, notice where it gets put. It gets put right here over the heart and the intestines, the gut. And I think there's a reason for that. In the Scripture, the heart and gut, the bowels, are the seat of affections and feelings, emotions. And we so often don't feel very righteous. You know what I'm saying? You don't feel like you are perfect in God's sight. We just are so mindful of our own sinfulness. And so, there's a protection for our feelings here. And you're like, "Well, the heart, that's where the affections are." The seat of what we love and what we hate, there's that, and then the feelings. In the KJV, they actually use the word, literally, “bowels.” Recent English translations moved away from the use of the word bowels. But in KJV and Philippians 1:8, it says, “For God is my record, how greatly I long after you and all the bowels of Jesus Christ." Alright, so NIV went with this, "God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus, with the feeling," but you know what I mean, that “gut.” Have you ever talked about that? The gut feeling. Alright. Would you ever get butterflies in your stomach? If I invited one of you to come up here right now, and let me see, hang on a second. See, some of you are like, "No. No, not me. Don't pick me." So, what are you feeling? “Butterflies. Don't do that. It will end our friendship.” Okay, butterflies. You get this feeling of butterflies, or you guys looking at a gal and you might want to ask her out. Okay? Husbands, remember when you asked your wife out the first time? You got butterflies. Remember when you got down on one knee and proposed? Butterflies. So, there's that feeling inside here. Feelings, emotions. Very vulnerable here, very vulnerable. Accusations come and we feel things. Same thing in temptations, we can feel drawn away from truth. We need the breastplate of righteousness. And we can stand up against Satan's accusations and we can glorify God by how we live. Fundamentally, the transformation that happens in us, is we love righteousness like Jesus did. You know Jesus said this, "The Father, the one who sent me is always with me, for I always do what pleases him," isn't that powerful? I would just love to say, "Lord, for the last hour, I have done what pleased you." Let's start with one hour, and then wouldn't you love to get to the point where you could say at the end of a day, "Lord, today I always did what pleased you today." That's the perfect righteousness of Jesus. He loved righteousness and hated wickedness. And we get drawn into that, and we love holiness and we are transformed. IV. Final Appeal Assurance of Salvation Under Fire One final word and then we'll be done. We are vulnerable specifically on the issue of assurance of salvation. Do you ever wonder as you're in warfare, you're in battle? One of the things, Satan's going to go after is your assurance of salvation. By the breastplate of righteousness, that's where your assurance comes. Not because you're such a great person, man or woman, but because Christ lived a perfect life and gave you a gift of salvation by faith in Christ alone is your salvation. Your assurance comes from putting on the full armor of God. So, when the time comes, and you have sinned and Satan is accusing you, you're able to put on the breastplate of righteousness and say, "You know, if we confess our sins,” 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness," and that is our righteousness. An Appeal to Unbelievers Alright. I want to just close by making a simple appeal. I've been speaking this entire time to Christians. The armor of God is for Christians only. I said at the beginning of my message that if you are outside of Christ, if you are not a Christian, you are already in Satan's kingdom. The Bible says that you are dead in transgressions and sins, even while you live, but there is hope for you. God, sovereignly, by his grace, brought you here today to hear the Gospel. And you've heard it. You've heard how God the king of the universe, sent his Son, who lived a sinless life under the Law of God, perfectly obeyed him every moment of his life, died on the cross as a substitute for our sins, rose from the dead on the third day, ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. He is the savior of sinners just like you and me. Call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved. And then your warfare will begin. And you can put on the breastplate of righteousness and the belt of truth, just as we've been talking about. Close with me in prayer. Prayer Father, we thank you for the time that we've had in your word today. We thank you for the truths of the word of God. Father, I pray that you would enable us to do our duty and to take our responsibility. What's at stake oh, Lord, is our own peace, and joy, and love in the Spirit, and the good works that you've ordained for us to walk in. Father, I pray, help us to fight the good fight of faith. And Father, for those that were providentially brought here, that have heard the Gospel today, bring them over from darkness to light, that they might know the savior. In his name we pray. Amen.

We tour historic Bennett Place in Durham and visit the Poplar Grove Plantation in Wilmington. We take in the 20th anniversary of the Orange County Artists Guild Open Studio Tour. And Patrick Woodie talks about the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center.

Researchers at the Duke Lemur Center are studying the primates behavior. The Raleigh Aquarium Society holds an annual fish auction. NATURE profiles animal misfits. Plus NCA&T's Dr. Perpetua Muganda leads an innovative study of an aggressive form of breast cancer.

Part 1 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 2 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 1 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 3 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 2 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 3 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 2 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 1 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 3 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 3 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 2 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.

Part 1 - Mark Bradley, author of This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place, discusses the North Carolina campaign of 1865.