‘We intend to fight.’ Historic Morgan School in Charlotte may go up for sale
The Morgan School could soon be on the market.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board voted 7-2 Tuesday to allow the district to sell the former school building rather than solely lease the space as has been the plan. The Morgan School historically taught Black children in Charlotte’s Cherry neighborhood.
Previously, the board was considering leasing the building to local youth organization Arts+, which some in the community protested. Arts+ did not respond to questions about whether they were going to submit an offer to buy.
CMS is still able to lease the building and just voted to open the prospect of selling it, but the decision leaves open the possibility that the Morgan School, which has been vacant for nearly five years, will return to the hands of the Cherry community — something longtime residents have been requesting for months.
Some Cherry organizers would argue this actually comes nearly half a century after fighting for use of their neighborhood school. And Mylon Patton’s family has been there every step of the way.
His grandmother Yvonne Bittle is the last living cofounder of the Cherry Community Organization, which advocates for Cherry residents and functions as one of Charlotte’s first community development corporations.
The organization owns and manages properties in the neighborhood, ensuring home affordability and preventing displacement in the 130-year-old community.
Mylon’s mother Sylvia Bittle-Patton, was a Morgan School student. It stands in the heart of the neighborhood, which was known for its legacy of Black homeownership.
Now, the 21-year-old son Mylon continues his mother and grandmother’s legacy of fighting for the Morgan School.
“I’m committed to continuing carrying on the torch to ensure that I see this in my life,” he said. “I’m encouraged, but I would not call it a win just yet. It’s a step in the right direction.
“And the right direction is allowing Cherry to dictate our future, appreciate our past and recognize our present. That only takes place when our place in line is respected.”
Some neighbors don’t agree
Not everyone in the neighborhood is happy, though.
Aletha Burgess, who’s lived in the community since 2018, says the situation is ironic.
The Cherry Community Organization has long complained about being left out of talks considering the Morgan School — Burgess says some Cherry residents feel the same about the organization.
According to Burgess, the rest of Cherry feels left in the dark — from the CCO and CMS. “Frustration” is the word she keeps repeating, the feeling she can’t get out of her head.
“It’s just very frustrating that it seems like there’s just no communication or engagement with the residents who actually live here,” she said.
Stephanie Gardner, who has also lived in the Cherry community since 2018 and is a part of the CCO, says it’s true that the pandemic has stopped in-person meetings. And Zoom meetings can be hard for the organization, too — many of its members are older and don’t have access to the internet or a computer.
But Gardner also said Cherry residents who didn’t support CCO’s attempts to buy the building were not invited to past organization meetings where a plan for purchase would be discussed.
“I don’t think the CCO was reaching out to those community members because they weren’t on the same page with preserving the building,” Gardner said. “They were working behind the scenes and doing their own thing.”
Next steps
Now that the path has been cleared for the CCO to buy the Morgan School, the organization plans to move quickly, they said.
The CCO put in a “seven-figure offer” a few months ago, but it’s likely expired now, Gardner said. The district did not respond to their offer, she said. Now, the CCO will conduct an independent appraisal of the building.
The money is coming from a bank loan, Gardner said. And once the CCO is assured that the district acknowledges their place at the table, the organization will move forward.
CMS officials say they’ve just been going by the process they’re required to follow by state law.
By law, the Morgan School has to be sold either through an upset bid process or through a buy offer at full market value, which is concluded after an appraisal process — with a caveat that the county commission has the right to match whatever the final offer is if Mecklenburg officials want to use the building for government purposes. However there’s been no sign of the county intending to buy or lease the building.
“We’re just on the first leg of the relay,” CMS policy administrator Charles Jeter said. “We haven’t even got to the second, third, or certainly not the final leg of this race yet. But I think for those in the Cherry community that have understandably expressed their desire to own that property, I think [the vote] was a step in that process… the law, when it comes to school property, is cumbersome.”
Despite many things still up in the air, Jeter says one thing is certain: “No groups have been excluded.”
“Ultimately, I think anyone who can make a reasonable offer is something that we’re looking at,” he said. “And certainly, the preservation aspect weighs into this, too.”
The CCO says they will try to bypass the upset and competitive bid processes and follow the state’s preservation of historic building statute, Gardner said, which streamlines the process.
Board member Thelma Byers-Bailey said the board’s vote “did not happen out of the blue.”
“The CCO have advocated for this for a long time, and they’ve done everything that they’ve been told that they need to do to get in position to do this,” she said. “I think they were successful.”
CMS director for facilities planning and real estate Dennis LaCaria said that the CCO’s offer to purchase the building caused the board to consider changing the building’s recommendation from “for lease” to “for sale.”
“We have to have a process, regardless of anybody’s opinion,” he said. “We can’t give it away for less than what it’s worth.”
At the end of the process, though, Patton knows whose hands he wants the Morgan School to end up in.
“The thing is that that is our home and we cannot go anywhere else,” he said. “That is the home of our history, Black history, Black legacy. And that’s our home, and we intend to fight for a while.”
