Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

Discusses the problems that have been developing in Robeson County’s high unemployment rate; drug dealing; increase in homicides as well as stab and gunshot wounds seen at the hospital; and high rates of problems affecting children, such as below-average SAT scores, juvenile arrest, teenage pregnancies, and high school dropouts. The recession seems to have hit the county hard. Some attribute many of the problems to drugs; others feel that big-city problems eventually hit rural areas and have done so in Robeson County. Vast attention has been drawn to the county by the murder of James Jordan (Michael Jordan's father) by two Lumberton youth. This is the third highly publicized crime to happen in Robeson County (the other two were the Robesonian hostage-taking and the murder of Superior Court judgeship candidate Julian Pierce, both in 1988). Many residents feel these incidents give the county a false or exaggerated image as a violent community.