Q&A with Rep. Amos Quick what happens if you lift the profile of High Point other than the furniture market? We don’t want to lose the furniture market. In fact, we want to enhance the furniture market. But we also need some workforce training and development. We’ve got some things happening around here with the megasite coming, and then we’ve got the car manufacturer down in Chatham County, which is not too far of a drive from here. So, things are happening. But we have to train the workforce so we can be able to take advantage of some of those opportunities. And rebuild the middle class. When we were a manufacturing community, in Greensboro and High Point, there was a middle class. Cone Mills developed a middle class. My grandparents worked at Cone Mills and provided a comfortable living. By no means were we rich; we were probably categorized as the working poor, but we were working. Some of my family was able to go to college because of my grandparents working and having a stable income. Same in High Point … where people could look forward to the next generation having a comfortable living. Comfortable—again by no stretch wealthy, but a comfortable living. There was a stepping stone to upward mobility and we just don’t have that anymore. We have almost a sense of despair because there’s no middle class. It really becomes depressing, and a situation with a lot of despair, and we don’t have to go there. We’re a great state, we’ve got a great history, we can build on that history and build a great future, but we all have to work together, and we have to get rid of this division that is now falling on political party, to a degree that is quite frightening, to be honest with you. Do you see us coming out of it? Out of these divisions? Do you see a brighter future where we’re working together in a better way? AQ: As a pastor, I have to have hope. I preach hope. I preach faith and I preach hope. And so, I do have hope. And I think that happens—it sounds cliche, but it is true—when we focus on what we have in common more so than what divides us. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t want their children or grandchildren to have a better life than what they had. We all have that in common. That’s an ideal we all have. We all want safe communities. I don’t know anyone who says, “I don’t want to live in a safe community.” We have that in common. What divides us and has been exploited is: we disagree on the way to get there. I think if we focus on the goal—the goal is safe communities, well-educated population, and the chance for everyone to reach their full potential as North Carolinians—I think if we focus on that, then what we have in common will prevail. How we get there is we just never stop hammering that message home. We never stop keeping the goal as the main thing. We can do it. I have hope that we can do it. This dark period that we’re in right now? It has a shelf life. We have to see the light. That’s something that sounds pastoral, and in a lot of respects is, but it’s the truth. If we focus on the goal—the goal is safe communities, well-educated population, and the chance for everyone to reach their full potential as North Carolinians—then what we have in common will prevail. How we get there is we just never stop hammering that message home. We never stop keeping the goal as the main thing. We can do it. I have hope that we can do it. NCLM.ORG 21
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