From Protests To Elected Office To Building Community: Randee Haven-O’Donnell Looks Forward and Back

GOVERNMENT

CARRBORO – Carrboro’s Randee Haven-O’Donnell remembers protesting at Stonewall, protesting against the Vietnam War, hitchhiking across America, and falling in love with North Carolina the first time she flew over it.

A Town Council member since 2005, the seventy-four-year-old Haven-O’Donnell chose not to run again this year. However, she told The Local Reporter, she’s still going to be active in town affairs, working to increase the town’s sense of community and unity of purpose. “I truly believe in participatory democracy.”

Coming to Carrboro

Brought up in NYC, Haven-O’Donnell came to Carrboro in 1977-8, when UNC recruited her husband as a full-scholarship soccer player. Flying from LaGuardia Airport to RDU, Haven-O’Donnell looked down and fell in love. “Back then, you flew over the Outer Banks, then you’d fly inland. The state was completely covered by pine trees. It was the most breathtaking view.” It had added meaning for someone who’d been active in the environmental movement since 1969. “Seeing North Carolina the way I was introduced was incredible.”

Before arriving in the Triangle, all she knew of Carrboro was that it was the home of folk and blues musician Elizabeth “Libba” Cotton. Haven-O’Donnell knew Cotton’s name because when she learned how to play guitar in college, one of the first songs she tried playing was Cotton’s signature song “Freight Train.” “I think I was here about two years when I got to see Libba Cotton play in Durham with Sweet Honey of the Rock. Certain things align, you follow the alignment and you know that’s right.”

With a science degree from Stony Brook University and a graduate degree from Manhattan’s Bank Street College of Education, Haven-O’Donnell worked as a science teacher for years. She loved the job, she says, because it’s important to teach students how to question, “and in science, they can question and test concretely.”

Even then she had a passion for politics, something that dated back to when she was in junior high school. She lists her role models as New York Reps. Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm. Rep. Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the federal House of Representatives, used “unbossed and unbought” as a slogan, which Haven-O’Donnell said resonated with her. “You can see just by my voting record I’m not going to be bossed.”

Time to go

When Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris for president 2024, Haven-O’Donnell says, alarm bells went off in her head. She’d read about Project 2025 when it was first released and realized there were forces “trying to redirect our democracy and dismantle it.”

After Harris’ defeat, she decided it was essential to work in the community, “developing their sense of voice and participation and empowerment. You cannot get people to work deep or wide on national and state issues unless they understand how their voice can be built up and amplified locally.” She compared it to a classroom project where you want all the students involved and with a stake in what’s being created. “It’s work of a very different nature than just showing up and voting.”

Fred Joiner, one of the town’s former poet laureates, won the open council seat.

The biggest issues

Haven-O’Donnell says that when she first arrived in Carrboro, the population was between 5,000 and 7,000. Its population is currently above 21,000, one of the most densely populated municipalities in the state. The challenges of density have shaped many of the problems the council has had to address over the past two decades. “One of the most important things was economic development, a ‘buy local’ campaign and getting folks deeply engaged with the local living economy.”

The town’s 2020 strategic plan, she said, aspired to both expand the town’s revenue sources and to cut the burden for homeowners and single families. “It kept falling short but we did develop a stronger local economy. We also engaged Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and Orange County, looking to fortify Carrboro as a destination. You see that through the festivals and all the different ways culture and character are starting to express themselves.”

Haven-O’Donnell said the town’s advisory boards and outreach efforts also help build community by inviting more people to weigh in. “When you have people engaged across a broad spectrum by race, by religion, you have the growth of public trust. A sense that the government does belong to them.”

What’s she proudest of during her time on the council? One accomplishment is Carrboro’s opening of North Carolina’s first center for day laborers. Haven-O’Donnell said having led a strike while working as apple-orchard day labor in British Columbia, she’d wanted to see local day laborers have a better place to find work than waiting on street corners. “Work gives us purpose and dignity. It should always bear the fruit of the time we put in.”

Another point of pride is the town’s commitment to the environment and climate resilience, including recycling programs and the green neighborhood initiative.

The biggest challenge for Carrboro’s future, she said, is the challenge running through America: “Folks are feeling very anxious, for good reason, about politics and the whole structure of society.” Still, she’s proud not only to have been part of Carrboro’s leadership but to have had the ability to propel the town forward. “It’s been a lot of work, but you know what? It’s been a hell of a lot of fun working with people, getting folks engaged. Woodstock nation still lives in my heart.”

Fraser Sherman has worked for newspapers, including the Destin Log, the Pensacola News-Journal and the Raleigh Public Record. Born in England, he’d still live in Florida if he hadn’t met the perfect woman and moved to Durham to marry her. He’s the author of several film reference books and has published one novel and several short story collections. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocalReporter.press