On today’s show, we’re talking with Gene Merritt, a developer and advocate who spent most of his long and interesting career working to make Wilmington a better place. That’s been contentious work at times, pitting him against moralists, organized criminals, industrial giants, and, perhaps most dauntingly, the status quo. His fans call him outspoken, and I can’t repeat on the air what his critics sometimes SAY, but he’s done more than most to change the place I call home.
In a way, for me, this conversation is a long time in the making.
I decided to move to Wilmington in 2003 on the advice of a friend who’d just gotten a job on the last season of Dawson’s Creek — an almost comically melodramatic but hugely popular TV show that was being shot here. As the show wrapped, a lot of the crew were excitedly hoping to keep working on One Tree Hill, another high-school ensemble drama that was shooting a pilot.
As I was still wrapping up my college career in New Jersey, rumors began to fly that the show would move to Vancouver, Canada — where subsidies and lower production costs had already enticed a host of other successful shows. (The reason, after all, that no matter where in North America agents Mulder and Scully went to investigate an X-file, it always kinda looked like Vancouver.)
Then, all of the sudden, it was announced: One Tree Hill would stay in Wilmington. And it did, for nine seasons, pumping tens of millions of dollars into the local economy and creating tons of jobs — including for me — I moved into my first Wilmington apartment, on North Fourth, shortly after the announcement and one of my first jobs in town was working craft services on the Screen Gems lot.
I remember standing at a hotdog shop on Front Street, drinking a PBR, and watching the pilot episode. I asked what saved the day, and someone told me: not what, who – Gene Merritt.
At 23 years old, a recent transplant to Wilmington, I didn’t know who that was. Over a decade later, I’d left and come back to the Port City, and started reporting for Port City Daily. The name kept coming up, whether I was digging into film subsidies, or trying to understand the arcane politics of interstate highway construction, or looking into the history of voter-initiated ballots: Gene Merritt.
Over the years, I’ve collected many stories about Merritt, some that I could verify I’ve published, others, more apocryphal, I save for cocktail parties.
So, last year, when I ran into Merritt at a downtown watering hole and he told me was writing a book — a memoir of sorts — I was happy to hear it.
Citizen Warrior, published last month, is an autobiography, but also a manual on community advocacy and activism. It offers case studies in resilience and creativity, when to hold them and when to bluff, and how to keep at it without losing your sense of humor.
Merritt tapped John Meyer, a veteran StarNews reporter and editor, who covered many of the key battles Merritt has fought, as an editor and fact-checker. He joins us today as well, to bring receipts — and to keep Merritt honest.
You can find more about Citizen Warrior from Dram Tree Books here. The book is available for sale online here.
Below: The promotional poster for the liquor-by-the-drink campaign, as shown in Citizen Warrior.
