APEX, N.C. _ Lynn Council survived an attempted lynching, and now he is being forced to move out of his house of 61 years.
And recently the federal government told him it wants its home-repair money back.
In 1952, Council, who is now 87 years old, was arrested for a robbery he did not commit.
Two deputies took him of the jail and into the woods behind what is now Ten Ten Road and hanged him from an oak tree when he would not confess.
Council survived.
Now he is being forced to pay back a 20-year-old, $20,000 federal home-repair loan because he is moving out of his old house.
The loan requires recipients to pay the money back if they move and sell their home. If they die in their home, their family has to pay off the loan.
But Council is only moving out because the state is buying his property for a Department of Transportation project to widen Interstate 540.
Gerald Givens, president of the NAACP Raleigh-Apex branch, and local attorney Paul (Skip) Stam, a former state legislator, argued unsuccessfully that Council should get more time to pay because the state was forcing him to move.
But help came another way with a GoFundMe page set up by Garrett Raczek, who ran for Holly Springs Town Council in 2019.
By Monday afternoon the campaign had raised more than $18,000, with more than 500 donors.
Council, who will live at his new house with his daughter, is grateful.
"Everything y'all did, I appreciate it with my heart," he said.
"Everybody worked hard on social media, everybody that knew somebody who would help out," Givens said. "I'm so proud of our community coming together for such a worthy cause."
Council is set to sign the deed for his new house this week. He must move out of his old one by Feb. 18.
His new home is located in the Amherst neighborhood in Apex. He wanted a ranch-style house with three bedrooms close to church, said his realtor, Renisha Battle.
"I got the one I want," Council said. "I hope I will be living there."
Toby Holleman, a retired minister who wrote a book about the history of Apex, spoke about segregation in the town at the unveiling of a bench in Council's honor outside the Police Department last year. "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it," he said.
Apex Police Chief John Letteney apologized to Council last spring, saying Sam Bagwell, the police chief in 1952, did not deserve to wear the badge, WRAL reported.
Tuskegee University found 3,446 out of 4,745 lynchings in the United States and 86 out of 101 lynchings in North Carolina between between 1882 and 1968 involved black victims, The News & Observer previously reported.
