Former Fayetteville Councilman Curtis Worthy, outspoken advocate for west Cumberland, dies

Curtis Worthy, an outspoken former member of Fayetteville City Council who was among the first council members elected when the city expanded westward, died Sept. 20. He was 76.

“He was fun-loving,” says Jill Harris Gates, his daughter and the middle child of three — Jan, Jill and Curtis II. “A self-taught, self-made man.”

He died due to complications from a brain injury sustained 14 months earlier in a fall, Gates said. Services are scheduled for noon at Kingdom Impact Global Ministries on Murchison Road.

Worthy made lowering crime a priority throughout his five terms on council, and for years fought to get a police substation built in the area of Bunce Road. His concern for city residents’ safety was rooted in his concern for — and interest in — their lives.

Worthy, a tax auditor, accountant and businessman, lived in Hollywood Heights, a sprawling historically Black neighborhood off Skibo Road to the east and Cliffdale Road to the north. He and his wife of 56 years, Janice McLaurin Worthy, raised their family there. Worthy took an active role in the neighborhood watch, and support from his neighbors became a springboard for his launch into public service.

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Gates said that since her father's death, she and her mother had heard from many people who the former councilman impacted in some way but never sought to make a big fuss about it.

“I have had so many people reach out to me and say, ‘Hey, I remember when your dad gave me my first job,’” Gates said. “‘I remember when your dad was the first and only man who taught me how to change a tire.’ ‘I remember when your dad took me to vote for the first time.’”

He won a newly created seat

Worthy won a seat on the City Council after it had gone through adversity. In 1998, he was elected as one of eight new people on council: Incumbent council members had faced fierce backlash for replacing the police chief and city manager after allegations that the Police Department had discriminated against four Black officers and retaliated when they complained.

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Worthy, however, had not replaced an incumbent but was one of three council members elected in new districts after the city's annexation westward into Cumberland County. He won the District 7 seat by just over 80 votes.

He said at the time that council members needed to find common ground.

“I truly believe Fayetteville needs us to come together and put all this other stuff behind us,” he said.

‘One of the most vocal council members’

His narrow win in his first race notwithstanding, Worthy became a popular incumbent, winning a total of five races on City Council and 10 years of service.

He quickly gained a reputation for being outspoken.

“He was clearly one of the most vocal council members that I served with,” said former Fayetteville Mayor Marshall Pitts Jr., brother of the writer and the city's first Black mayor. Pitts considered Worthy an ally and a friend. “He never hesitated to make you aware of his opinions — that’s for sure.”

Worthy and one of his fellow west Cumberland politicians and fellow veterans, Don Talbot, who was elected in then-new District 8, engaged in memorable clashes that sometimes took on a racial cast. Worthy is Black, Talbot, white.

Talbot in a 2001 email to The Fayetteville Observer complaining about a story referred to Worthy as "his royal blackness." He would claim later the remark was not racial but a comment on how Worthy carried himself.

Someone later defaced a campaign sign of Talbot's with the words, "Vote King Saltine," which Talbot said he took in good humor.

Worthy, however, did not see any humor in the situation — Talbot's comment or what was written on the sign.

''One is no better than the other,'' he said.

Pitts noted that the two men served on the same City Council with former Councilwoman Juanita Gonzalez, also outspoken. It was a mix that made for "spirited" discussion and debate Pitts said.

Sometimes council members struggled to get a word in edgewise.

“Mr. Mayor, did you see my light?” Worthy would sometimes ask Pitts, the former mayor recalled with a chuckle, referencing when council members pressed their button to signal to the mayor they wanted to speak.

Pitts does not believe Worthy was just talking to hear his own voice but was passionate about his beliefs.

“At the end of the day, when all the political jousting was done — which he loved — he always did what he thought was right.”

Beyond that, Worthy enjoyed interacting with people, Pitts said.

“I think politics came natural to him for that very reason,” he says.

‘We would call Curtis’

Bessie Hayes, a neighbor of Worthy in Hollywood Heights said he could be counted on to help his fellow neighbors in many ways. He was a leader in the community, she says, and he will leave an indelible impression on the city.

“When we needed a representative, all we had to do, we could call Curtis,” she said.

Hayes said she and other neighbors leaned on Worthy's business expertise. They called him when they had a business question.

Once someone complained that Worthy was buying properties in the neighborhood and Hayes asked the person would they rather a white person bought it or “would you rather for him to have it?”

Hayes, a retired schoolteacher who first started teaching when schools were segregated, taught two of Worthy’s children — Jill and Curtis II — at what was then Ireland Drive Elementary School. She said with a laugh she really liked that he believed the teacher was always right.

Worthy's high opinion of teachers and education was part of a 2001 opinion piece in The Fayetteville Observer titled, “Make this a better America for everyone," in which he shared his philosophy on a range of issues. Hayes saved the clip.

In the article, Worthy talked about his poor upbringing. He remembered bringing for school lunch “a biscuit, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and maybe, just maybe, a little piece of meat, in a brown paper bag."

“Some people looked down on us poor folks, but our teachers never did," the city councilman wrote. “They never saw the students as poor, dirty children in ragged clothes. They saw the potential for all to learn and went the extra mile to make sure we did.

“If you don't know where you are going, you surely will never get there."

Early tragedies, self-reliance

Jill Harris Gates said her father had a great love for people which manifested in a number of ways. He sometimes liked going to Sam’s Club off Skibo Road or Zorba’s restaurant on Raeford Road just to meet and talk to people.

He was an elder in his church, Kingdom Impact Global Ministries on Murchison Road, and strongly supported his alma mater, Fayetteville State University, where an endowed scholarship is in his name.

“Also, brotherhood meant a lot to him,” Gates said, noting he was a former past master of the Eureka Lodge #3.

Worthy, one of five children, experienced tragedy early in life. His father, Floyd Worthy, died in a fire when he was in fourth grade. Two years later, his mother, Ella Mae, died from an illness.

He was raised by his older brother and his wife.

Gates believes her father’s penchant for self-reliance stemmed from those early tragedies. He worked as an auditor for the Internal Revenue Service, retiring after 30 years, and then opened the Worthy's Tax Consultant company in Spring Lake. He operated other businesses, too, in the Murchison Road area — where his wife had family ties — including a popular ice cream shop.

Gates said that he made sure to instill in her and her siblings the value of hard work, and she remembers days helping out at the ice cream shop.

“My dad was stern,” she said, “but fair.”

She continued: “He basically taught us early about a work ethic and about values, and that if life gave you a lemon, you have to make lemonade. He taught us that your hard work can truly pay off.”

‘He was willing to go in there and just try it out.’

Ernest Vinson and Worthy were friends for many years, and fellow members at Kingdom Impact. Vinson said Worthy brought a business mind to church affairs and was knowledgeable of church structure. Worthy would later pastor his own church.

“He was a true man of God,” said Vinson, a deacon at the church. “He was just a go-getter and a make-it-happen type person.”

Vinson saw up close the personable manner Worthy showed toward other church members — which was similar to the “people person” skills he showed on the campaign trail.

Vinson and Worthy went out for breakfast regularly, often at Zorba’s. But one time, Worthy and he drove out to rural Angier, in Harnett County. Vinson believes it was related to politics.

Vinson was a bit on edge because he said the busy breakfast spot was full of “good ol boys.”

“He goes in there speaking to everybody like everybody knew,” he said. “He knew people everywhere we went.”

Sometimes, Worthy and Vinson worked out together at the Renaissance Spa off Bragg Boulevard.

“The times that I could get him to work out, of course,” Vinson said.

He added with a light laugh: “I talked him into going into the water aerobics one day. He might have lasted 15, 20 minutes out of 45 minutes. I looked back behind me and Curtis was against the wall.

“Of course, he could swim. He was willing to go in there and just try it out.”

A strong voice

On the City Council, Worthy, while firm in his beliefs, was not inflexible. In 2003, he wrote an op-ed seeking reelection and explained why he supported further annexation by the city — when he had initially opposed it in Hollywood Heights.

Worthy wrote that he could see the improvements, including a new fire station, better water and sewer infrastructure and the then-new Cliffdale Recreation Center, with a center in the Westover area on the way.

“If we had built my community, Hollywood Heights, in accordance with today's city standards, we would have sidewalks, curbing and gutter, area lighting, fire hydrants and a drain development plan,” he said. He added: “My opposition to annexation was a fear of the unknown.”

He said in the op-ed he had been an advocate for residents' concerns and a strong voice.

“With each and every vote cast, residents have always been my first priority,” he said.

It is an assertion people who know Worthy would say was clearly true.

Elder Curtis Worthy is survived by his wife, Janice McLaurin Worthy; his children, Jan Worthy, Jill Harris Gates (Derrick) and Curtis Worthy II; a brother, Charles Worthy (Gwen) and sister, Flora Mae Worthy, along with four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, according to obituary information from Herring Funeral Care & Cremations.

Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville former councilman Worthy dies; tough fighter, heart for people