Dems to drop controversial leaders' names from signature dinner

RALEIGH (Winston-Salem Journal) - Three years after a majority of North Carolina voters cast their ballots for the country's first black president, the state Democratic Party is dropping the names of a Confederate leader and a white supremacist governor from one of its signature annual activities.

For decades, the party's yearly fundraiser in western North Carolina had been known as the Vance-Aycock Dinner, after two former Democratic governors. This year the dinner, which is held in October, will be dubbed the Western Gala while a committee works on a permanent replacement title, party spokesman Walton Robinson said.

"The tradition of the Democratic Party being what it is, folks just felt it was time for a change," he said.