WS Chronicle

BY TODD LUCK 

THE CHRONICLE

The late Earline Parmon, a local lawmaker and community organizer, now officially has a road bearing her name.

A ceremony was held on Thursday, Dec. 15, to rename Maple Street between 16th and 17th streets Earline Parmon Drive. After leaving the General Assembly in 2015, Parmon worked as outreach director for Rep. Alma Adams. The congresswoman was among the speakers who paid tribute to Parmon.

Adams said Parmon wasn’t just an employee, but also a friend and prayer partner.   She said Parmon was greatly devoted to her faith, her family and the community she served.

“When she was for you, she was for you, she stood with you all the way,” said Adams, who also served with Parmon in the General Assembly.

City officials and Parmon’s family attended the ceremony. Parmon’s daughter Tracy Parmon Ingram said her mother made her mark on history.

“Even though my heart is at this point still grieving, we, as her family, thank her for her legacy,” she said. “She left something great for us to follow.”

Mayor Allen Joines called Parmon a “great conscious for us.” City Council Member D.D. Adams described her as a “giant of a woman” who had a great influence on both her and the city. City Council Member Derwin Montgomery said she never stopped being a champion for the people of Winston-Salem.

“There will always be a legacy of Earline Parmon in this community, and that is one person who lived her life as a bridge builder because today there are still people who are walking across the bridges that she built,” said Montgomery.

Parmon was a longtime activist and politician who helped mentor a generation of local African-American leaders. She served 12 years as a Forsyth County commissioner beginning in 1990. In 2002, she was elected to represent District 72 in the N.C. House of Representatives. She became the first black senator from Forsyth County when she was elected to the N.C. Senate in 2012.

Parmon was also an educator and school principal who founded the now-defunct LIFT Academy and was an associate minister at Exodus United Baptist Church.

Among her major accomplishments in the General Assembly were passing compensation for victims of the state’s eugenics sterilization program and the Racial Justice Act, which let those on death row appeal for a lesser sentence if they believe race was involved in their sentencing. The RJA was later repealed by the Republican-majority General Assembly.

Joines said the portion of Maple that was renamed will be extended to go farther east down the street. There was previously an honorary sign at the corner of Bates Drive and Carver School Road dedicating it as “Honorary Earline Parmon Drive.”