Local legends may see honor

Seven weeks after the Chapel Hill Town Council voted to rename Airport Road to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the council is looking at taking on another renaming.

The council accepted a petition Monday night from Mayor Pro Tem Edith Wiggins and Mayor Kevin Foy to rename the Town Municipal Building in honor of former Mayor Howard Lee and his wife, Lillian Lee.

“I was both surprised and very flattered to be given such an honor,” said Howard Lee, Chapel Hill's first black mayor. “I certainly had not expected it.”

The petition asks that the Town Municipal Building be renamed the Lee Municipal Building. If approved, the change would take effect May 8, the same day Airport Road is officially set to change its name.

“I think it would be really great to have a Lillian and Howard Lee Municipal Building,” said Rebecca Caldwell, who contributed to Howard Lee’s successful 1969 mayoral campaign. “That would be absolutely wonderful. … (Howard) brought a lot to Chapel Hill.”

Howard Lee became the first black mayor in the South elected in a predominantly white city in 1969.

“We used to stand outside (the old municipal) building at the height of the civil rights movement to make sure the police didn’t act inappropriately,” said R.D. Smith, who also served on Howard Lee’s mayoral campaign. “It would be great to see him and Lillian honored this way.”

As mayor, Lee created the Chapel Hill bus system, despite much public opposition, and also helped modernize water and sewage systems in the Northside neighborhood.

In addition, Howard Lee was also responsible for the creation of the very building that might soon be named after him.

“When I first ran for mayor … the citizens had voted to build a new municipal building,” he said. “Part of my campaign promise was to construct the building in my first year … I achieved that.”

Lee also served five terms in the N.C. Senate, and is current chairman of the state Board of Education.

Lillian Lee began her career as a secretary at UNC Hospitals, then known as N.C. Memorial Hospitals. She moved on to teach in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools for 32 years before retiring in 2000 as dean of students at Chapel Hill High School.

She ran several voter registration drives in local high schools with much success, according to the petition.

“To be a good teacher, you have to motivate people … to make a difference,” Smith said. “She did that.”

Lillian Lee said that the petition came as a surprise, but that both she and her husband felt honored.

“We both have worked very hard in Chapel Hill but we never did things for personal recognition,” Lillian Lee said. “But it’s always nice to know that people appreciate what we’ve done. … Anyone would appreciate that.”

City Editor Ryan C. Tuck contributed to this story.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.