The Market House was a major topic of discussion during Fayetteville’s City Council meeting Monday night and will continue to be for the next few months.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which held two workshop meetings with 80 members of the community in October and January, presented a final report to the Council.

Dion Lyons, a specialist from the DOJ who oversaw the two meetings, says these meetings were different than his usual City-SPIRIT workshops. This was because a decision was already made by the City to repurpose the Market House so the groups that met could not talk about demolition or moving the Market House. Instead, they discussed topics surrounding structural modification, art exhibits and themed events.

“Both groups want to see the Market House as a symbol of education. They want the true comprehensive story of the history of the Market House to be told. Both groups want to see the Market House handicap accessible and ADA compliant. They want to see vibrant displays of art that connect Market House visitors with activities that promote positive emotional responses and insight. It would feature various genres of art that represent African-American culture and history, as well as an alternate space that is representative of Fayetteville. There were recommendations to enclose the arches to allow the structure to be secured once the proposed solutions are implemented," a spokeswoman for the Human-Rights Commission told the council.

The goal of the DOJ report and the Human-Relations Commission was for the council to approve the report so the commission can go back and create a more detailed plan on which suggestions took the highest priority and create detailed plans on how to fulfill the suggestions.

“We've narrowed down the community's input into a set of sort of action plans and recommendations for city council,” Lyons said. “Instead of reconvening all 80 or more citizens who participated, we would now go forward with the recommendations that we have and a subcommittee on a subcommittee of those same 80 people now represented by five from the first group in October and five from the second group in January. Those would be the people on the committee now tasked to work with the City Council to implement the plans that they came up with.”

However, many council members felt that not enough community input was allowed for the DOJ meetings. The meetings were not open to the public, and the number of people allowed in the meetings was limited because of COVID-19. The people involved in the decisions were also chosen by the Fayetteville-Cumberland Human Rights Commission.

Councilmember Courtney Banks-Mclaughlin motioned for the council’s staff to open these discussions back up to the public in order to receive more input about the repurposing of the Market House. That motion was approved 9 to 1, with Councilmember Johnny Dawkins voting against it.

Fencing to come down
The City Council also voted Monday night to take down the fence surrounding the Market House.

The fence was put up around the Market House shortly after rioters set fire to the building following protests in May of 2020. City Manager Doug Hewett says the repairs are completed and it was up to the council to decide whether or not to keep the fencing up.

"We're having open dialog on how to deal with it with the citizens of Fayetteville and we trying to hear back from them because it is a sticky, sticky subject,” Councilmember D.J. Haire said. “But I just don't see where the need to continue to have it surrounded with the temporary fence with all of the work has been done and the improvements has been done and the fence doesn't make it look any better.”

Councilmember Antonio Jones said that he believes the fence is divisive and this is the right time to take it down.

“At some point we have to trust the community to do the right thing, just like some would trust them to do the wrong thing,” Jones said.

The motion passed nine to one, with Councilmember Banks-McLaughlin voting against.

The City Manager said that the fence wouldn’t come down immediately, but would probably happen within the month.

“We would probably want to make sure we gave notice so that we had made everyone aware and probably several days for that. We would need to remove the fencing, clean up, probably brush and sweep the area,” Hewitt said.