The Henderson City Council has approved naming a couple of city-owned properties for two former residents who helped shape the community and make it a better place for their neighbors.
The Operation and Service Center will be renamed in memory and in honor of Dr. Andrea L. Harris, who grew up in Henderson and went on to become a community activist and organizer. She also was instrumental in establishing the N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development, becoming its president in 1990.
And the public parking lot beside Sadie’s Coffee Corner in downtown Henderson will be named for the late Stephen Pearson, who opened Sadie’s in 2019 and was a vocal proponent of downtown revitalization and development.
Neither Harris nor Pearson was born in Henderson, but both made significant contributions to the place they called home.
City Manager Terrell Blackmon told WIZS that Council in August had asked him to investigate possible locations to consider. “(It) made a lot of sense to consider the parking lot next to Sadie‘s Coffee as an opportunity to honor Dr. Pearson,” Blackmon said Monday. The Council voted unanimously to approve both recommendations at its Sept. 13 meeting. Making signs for the two locations are next on the to-do list.
Councilwoman Melissa Elliott suggested the Operations Center, he said. Harris was an advocate for contractors and the building industry and she also was a civil rights leader, which made the operations center a very fitting site – the operations center is the largest voting location during city and county elections.
Pearson died in March at the age of 57. He was chair of the Henderson-Vance Downtown Development Commission, and took pride in promoting new business in downtown Henderson.
Harris died in May 2020.
Although Harris was born in South Carolina, she grew up in Henderson and graduated from Henderson Institute in 1966 and then received her undergraduate degree from Bennett College in Greensboro in 1970. She started teaching school in 1971 – the first year of integration – at West End School like her mother had, and then began participating in community activism. She established the first rural transportation program in the state for older adults, among other things, at the local level.
Then, in the early 1980’s Harris began working in Raleigh at the state level. She began at the Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency. It was during this time that Harris and her colleagues established the minority economic development institute.
She was active locally and participated on a variety of boards, councils and commissions.
She received many accolades and awards over the years, including the Order of the Long Leaf Pine from three governors and an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Bennett College.
In 2018, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Duke University’s Samuel Dubois Cook Society.
She was a member of the Oxford-Henderson Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and a life member of the NAACP. Andrea was a trustee and member of Kesler Temple AME Zion Church. She was small in stature but a forced to be reckoned with. She was always willing to be a “voice” for the underrepresented, breaking down socio-economic, racial, and gender barriers as a broker for change and equality for ALL people.
Pearson, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army, is remembered for being the Army’s first Web Master. He earned a doctorate in Global Business Leadership in 2019 and wrote numerous books topics from entrepreneurship to cyber forensics. He taught required and elective classes at the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill and New York’s Utica College and owned several businesses, including Sadie’s.