For nearly 13 years, Fayetteville residents who called City Hall were greeted with the lyrics “I’m talkin’ about my hometown, Fayetteville/ She’s nestled in the sand hills on a river called Cape Fear.”
The song, “Hometown Fayetteville,” was written by Thomas Black Jr., and was the winning submission in a contest to build community pride, according to 2002 Fayetteville Observer articles.
In a statement last week, city spokesman Loren Bymer said that currently, Fayetteville does not have an official song.
Bymer said “Hometown Fayetteville” was used by the city during the early 2000s. He said the playing of the song before regular council meetings stopped in the early stages of a city rebranding effort.
In 2015, complaints about lyrics that referenced cotton mills and the downtown Market House, where enslaved people were once sold, prompted the city to stop promoting the song’s use, according to a July 2015 Fayetteville Observer article.
The Market House was built in 1832 on the site of the old statehouse, which had been where North Carolina delegates ratified the U.S. Constitution.