Recently I attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a new sewage system in the Rogers Road neighborhood of Chapel Hill. This moment was the culmination of decades of struggle and setback that began in 1972 when the neighborhood was promised a number of infrastructural equalizers. Rogers Road seemed to have been overlooked when the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, as well as Orange County claimed and serviced neighborhoods all around this one.

City council members and county commissioners were present at the ceremony, smiling for the cameras as they awkwardly inserted their gold-painted spades into the clay.

Those who led the struggle were acknowledged and held brief speeches thanking other members of the community who supported them. But they stood on the fringes as the groundbreaking proceeded. When I offered one of these men a congratulatory handshake, he said quietly, “I feel uncomfortable at these things.” He may have meant…