2000
Mary Lightheart, a 53-year-old grandmother, was arrested on this day for trespassing at CMN Business Park II in northern Fayetteville. Lightheart climbed into an oak tree on May 3, moved to a larger tree soon after and had spent three weeks living in it to protest a decision by the city planning commission to allow most of the trees at the site to be cut down for construction of a Target and a Kohl’s department store.
More than a dozen other Fayetteville residents were arrested for acts of civil disobedience over the course of the three weeks when unsuccessfully trying to take food or medicine to Lightheart. A small group of oaks were saved between the two buildings.