Join the Museum of the Albemarle in downtown Elizabeth City for the monthly History for Lunch (Redux), both in person and via Zoom video, on Wednesday, September 1, 2021 at 12 p.m.
Alex Gottschalk, Currituck native, who wrote about Basnight for his UNC Senior Thesis, will discuss Basnight’s origins from a small town in an isolated region of the state, his ascent into statewide political leadership, and how he leveraged this clout to attempt to ensure that Northeast North Carolina received the connecting roads, educational opportunities, and economic improvements that we deserved.
For eighteen years, Marc Basnight was president pro-tem of the North Carolina Senate. From this lofty perch at the Legislature, Basnight was at the intersection of every major moment in the last generation of North Carolina politics.
The limelight that trailed Basnight could be immense, but for all that glory, the one singular item that mattered to him was helping the region that he felt the state lost for over a century.
Bred by generations of hardscrabble men and women who lived off the sea, Basnight was driven to make a difference and help Dare and all of Northeast North Carolina combat what his cousin, North Carolina State Senator and Museum of the Albemarle advocate Melvin Daniels, once called, “The Curse of the Great Dismal Swamp.”
For Daniels, this meant that the region “never got the jobs that count.”
If you’d like to watch through Zoom please register by clicking the link: