The Man from Manteo: Marc Basnight, Northeast North Carolina and the Last Great Democratic Organization
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Gottschalk, Alex
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of American Studies
- Abstract
- For over thirty years, Marc Basnight stood in Raleigh as the voice of the Northeast. During this period, Basnight, first as the region’s representative on the North Carolina Board of Transportation and later as a state senator, worked tirelessly to win better conditions for his home area. Elected as the Senate President Pro Tem in 1993, Basnight continued in that role until the 2010 Republican electoral wave installed a new party in power in Raleigh. In those eighteen years, Basnight used the power vested in him by his colleagues, and a “servant’s heart,” to drive forward numerous projects that built a better North Carolina for all North Carolinians. Even as the Basnight period now recedes into the history books, the impact of the Man from Manteo remains. Above all else, Basnight brought to the forefront one prevailing principle: all of North Carolina deserves access the modern economy and no region of the Tar Heel State should ever be left forgotten in obscurity. From decades of neglect, the Northeast saw a brief respite with a powerful figure fighting for its equalization. As Jim Hunt described it, Basnight was from the category of “great leaders who came from the soil, maybe came up kind of hard, who worked for a living” and “who understood what is like not to have it, what it takes to get it, how hard we have to work for it and the fact we can do it.” None of this success was pre-ordained. Rather, the journey was both surprising and inspiring. The career of Marc Basnight, if it did not occur, could not have been invented. How did a young coastal native, without polish or formal education, from a forgotten region of the state, rise to become one of the central power brokers in the state of North Carolina? How did a man, who mainly learned about the issues in the world by staying up deep into the night after a day’s Senate session reading, “Abe Lincoln style,” become such a “special jewel” for North Carolina? Just how did Marc Basnight use his power for the extraordinary benefit of the Northeast, a region so fraught with isolation that for many it was easier to attend the State Fair not in Raleigh but in Richmond? And last, but not least, how did Basnight build an operation which managed to win the North Carolina State Senate in election after election, even as Republicans increasingly made gains throughout the North Carolina political landscape? Herein, the story of Marc Basnight must be and will be told, for the life of Marc Basnight is a monumental one.
- Date of publication
- spring 2014
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: SURF
- Advisor
- Leloudis, James
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 62
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