Hilton Dunlap and Bobby Person have fought discrimination and intimidation, for much of their lives, and they’ve won. Person sought to rise through the ranks at the correctional center where he worked but was passed over repeatedly in favor of white employees. He complained about racial jokes, but they only increased. Dunlap, working at another correctional center, pointed out mismanagement and favoritism to no avail.

Person’s efforts for fairness resulted in his family being targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan burned crosses in the Person yard, harassed the family, and threatened to kill Person. Again, when he complained to local authorities, nothing happened. But with his new ally, Dunlap, and with help from the Southern Poverty Law Center, he sued the Klan, won, and in the process bankrupted it.

Their reputations for getting things done spread, and before long people with EEOC complaints and other employment issues came to them for help. For more than two decades, they have been the go-to people in Moore and Hoke counties.

Lately, their attention has been on larger, community-wide issues. Five poor, predominantly African-American communities in Moore County systematically have been excluded from basic services, such as water, sewer, streets, and police protection as larger, white, and more affluent communities annexed up to and, in some cases, around their neighborhoods. Dunlap and Person have brought the communities together, shamed the affluent communities through publicity, including a major article in The New York Times, and put pressure on them to annex and provide the needed services.