Zack Hawkins, Running in NC House District 31

After 20 terms in the NC House, legendary civil rights activist and statesman Henry "Mickey" Michaux is retiring from the General Assembly. Stepping in to run for his District 31 House seat is Zack Hawkins, well known Democratic activist from Durham. Hawkins was one of 13 "superdelegates" from North Carolina at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He's also 2nd

Zack Hawkins with Mickey Michaux

Vice Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party and works for the office of student affairs at UNC-Chapel Hill. He previously was Director of Development at East Carolina University.

In 2008, when Hawkins was chair of the North Carolina Young Democrats, he was featured in a Bob Geary article in the Independent Weekly as one of three up-and-coming African-American men in the state:

Zack Hawkins grew up in the tiny town of Chocowinity, in Beaufort County, where his grandmother and mother were school board members, church was central, and his parents always said, "Doing the right thing is the right thing to do." He caught a break when a high school science teacher plugged him into biology, which helped him land an internship at an environmental institute in RTP. He got another break in 2000 when Democrats reached out to the HBCUs—historically black colleges and universities—while he was the vice president of student government at Elizabeth City State University.

Twice bitten, he landed in Durham where he earned his master's degree in biology at N.C. Central University and a "Ph.D. in politics" by working on campaigns for U.S. Rep. David Price and U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles. Four years ago, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, where he heard Obama's stunning keynote address and felt he was "in the moment" of history.

Michaux last had a Republican opponent in the general election of 2014. He often ran for his 20 terms (first elected to the House in 1982) without Republican opposition. Since it's now an open seat, the Republicans would be crazy lazy not to put up a candidate, but at the moment there's no announced person willing to run under the GOP label.

Zack Hawkins will be hard to beat.