The candidate field for the District 1 school board race is getting crowded and possibly a little muddied.

As noted in today's North Raleigh News article, three candidates plan to run active campaigns. In addition to Chris Malone and Rita Rakestraw, you can add Debbie Vair to the list of people who want to replace Lori Millberg, who is not running for another term.

With Vair apparently reaching out to the same people as Malone, things could get easier for Rakestraw on Election Day.

The NAACP is now entering the fight over the H6 high school due to the potential slave cemetery on site.

Ronald White, 4th vice president of the state NAACP and president of the group’s South Central Wake branch, said he intends to mobilize people to lobby Raleigh and school leaders against going ahead with the project.

White is upset that the latest plan for preserving the cemetery, which may or may not contain the graves of slaves, has it located right by the main entrance of the school.

So are residents fighting H6 out to preserve the memories of those buried there or are they being opportunistic?

As noted in today's article, it depends on who you ask. Neighbors fighting the school say that H6 should be halted to preserve the possible slave and Native American graves there.

"We as humans, with our innate curiosity of the past, should at least take the time to examine what will be 'forever destroyed' if development moves forward as planned," said Save the Slaves in a press release.

Doubts are being cast on whether a slave cemetery exists on the site of H6, the new high school planned in northeast Wake County.

Neighbors say graves found on the site are from a slave cemetery so building the school would desecrate those who lie there. But a new report done for the school system says "we believe that the cemetery reflects the burial of Euro-American individuals."

The report from the South Carolina-based Chicora Foundation says the cemetery doesn't exhibit characteristics of an African American cemetery.

UPDATE

Go to end of post for link for report. 

For now at least, the school system doesn't have to deal with the Rev. Al Sharpton in the fight over a possible slave cemetery on school property.

Sharpton had been invited to tour the cemetery on Saturday by neighbors who are fighting a planned high school on the site. He wasn't able to attend, but representatives of the NAAACP did visit the site.

It wasn't that much of a stretch considering that Sharpton was in the Triangle on Sunday to speak at N.C. Central University in Durham.