Both of those districts were created to meet US Justice Department requirements under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I remember people howling about them when they were proposed - my take at the time was the districts are a joke - but will backfire. They have; we have a majority of Republican Congressmen/Congresswomen now, something we never had before - those two districts concentrated much of the black voters into to US Justice mandated black concentration areas and freed the other districts of race based voters. Butterfield has long been rumored to have been adopted - I was duck hunting with a group of lawyers from Wilson on Saturday when that topic came up again; it is said his parents went to DC one weekend and had a baby back home on Monday - who knows? He sure looks white.


One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
Archibald Rutledge