The Assembly

We are dedicated to bringing you engaging, well-researched, and thoughtful stories about North Carolina. The Assembly is an online magazine focused on the individuals, organizations, and concepts that influence our state. Our articles are crafted by freelance writers and enhanced by the work of freelance photographers and creatives. We invite you to share your story ideas with us, and you can learn more about how to pitch your ideas here.

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How Siembra NC Sorts ICE Fact From Fiction

6 days ago | theassemblync.com | Heidi Pérez-Moreno

About two months ago, a Greensboro-based advocacy group got a call from two Durham residents who had seen unfamiliar vehicles looping around their Northgate Park neighborhood. They saw law enforcement officers with their faces covered, and they thought they knew what was happening: an ICE raid. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement put three men in handcuffs and drove them away, the pair said. They sent in video of someone wearing a Customs and Border Protection badge.
At The Back Table in Greensboro, There Are No Strangers

6 days ago | theassemblync.com | Sayaka Matsuoka

On a wooden post in Greensboro’s Back Table coffee house hangs a honey-colored, acoustic Cordoba guitar. The instrument was a favorite of the late local singer-songwriter Matty Sheets, who is remembered for both his talent and community building. “He’s the thread that involved a lot of our music scene,” said Laura Jane Vincent, Back Table’s events manager.
‘There is No Place for Us’

1 week ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

When journalist Brian Goldstone set out to write a book about homelessness in Atlanta, he thought he knew some things. He’d lived in Atlanta for years, and been a reporter writing about poverty and inequality for publications like Harper’s and The New York Times. In reality, he told a crowd at an event at First Lutheran Church last week, he found himself confronting even his own misguided assumptions about who becomes homeless, how, and why.
Greensboro Cannabis Crawl Offers A Different Kind of Buzz

1 week ago | theassemblync.com | Sayaka Matsuoka

Imagine a typical bar crawl—St. Patrick’s Day, a friend’s birthday, a bachelor or bachelorette party. There’s a good chance someone has a little too much to drink and finds themselves slumped over a bar, or worse, a toilet. Now, imagine a different kind of bar crawl. One in which you still get to try cocktails or fizzy refreshments at every stop, but you don’t feel sluggish or out of control. Instead, you feel kind of light, relaxed. At worst, you might feel a little sleepy.
Helene Recovery Task Force Urges 'Cautious Approach' to FEMA Reform

1 week ago | theassemblync.com | Calen Razor

This story is republished from NOTUS as part of our partnership with the D.C.-based outlet. Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina has unveiled the recommendations he delivered to the White House to fix the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It specifically argues against abolishing the agency quickly, which administration officials have said they want to do.
Why Hampton Dellinger Ended His Legal Battle Against President Trump

1 week ago | theassemblync.com | Anne Blythe

Hampton Dellinger was on his way back to Washington from his Durham home on a Sunday night, making the same interstate commute he had many times while serving as head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. This trip was different, though. Just two days earlier, the Trump administration had informed him in a two-sentence email that he had been terminated “effective immediately,” putting him at the crest of the tsunami of firings, layoffs, and job cuts crashing through the federal government.
N.C. Supreme Court (Sort of) Rules for Allison Riggs

1 week ago | theassemblync.com | Jeffrey C. Billman

After months of legal wrangling, Republican justices were not willing to disenfranchise 67,000 voters to help Jefferson Griffin overturn his loss in last year’s North Carolina Supreme Court election. Instead, on Friday afternoon, four justices ruled that at least 267 votes should be thrown out and put about 5,000 more on thin ice. Two justices—Republican Richard Dietz and Democrat Anita Earls—partially dissented. The incumbent who defeated Griffin, Democrat Allison Riggs, recused herself.
In Hillsborough, A Battle Over Who Gets To Be The ‘Big Spoon’

1 week ago | theassemblync.com | Lena Geller

When Mark Overbay started making his own nut butters in 2011, he named the company Big Spoon Roasters in honor of his dad, Gary, whose penchant for eating spoonfuls of peanut butter from the jar landed him the sobriquet “Big Spoon.” Two thousand miles west and a decade on, after Lani Chan and her partner, Nathan Bender, caught Bender’s mom digging into a jar of the couple’s homemade chili crisp with—you guessed it—a big spoon, they decided they had a perfect name for their pandemic-born...
Edenton's Confederate Monument Wars Continue

1 week ago | theassemblync.com | Anne Blythe

After a group of eastern North Carolina residents sued elected officials in the town of Edenton and Chowan County over a controversial vote to relocate a Confederate monument, the local governing boards took a mulligan. The residents had accused the boards of hammering out details of the relocation in secret in violation of the state’s open meetings law.
Before He Quit, UNC-CH’s Provost Was Involved in Messy Fight at School of Civic Life

2 weeks ago | theassemblync.com | Matt Hartman

Before Chris Clemens unexpectedly announced his resignation as UNC-Chapel Hill’s provost on April 3, he was embroiled in a contentious faculty battle over hiring at the university’s new School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL), The Assembly has learned. Several professors have left the school over the past year, with some complaining SCiLL’s leadership inappropriately sidelined them as it hired more faculty.