Growing up, if Anjanée Bell needed five dollars from her father, he didn’t just hand it over. He asked her for a budget. He wanted to see a breakdown of how she was going to spend it. And Anjanée Bell wanted that five dollars, so she became very good at budgeting.
Anjanée Bell’s father was big into budgeting, and it was important for his kids to learn how to spend money wisely. After all, as chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners, and later as mayor of Durham, he had a big budget to manage.
No longer a child, now 48 years old, Anjanée Bell hopes to get into the family business: eight years since her father, William “Bill” Bell, left the office, she’s running for mayor of Durham.
“I’m fortunate that I paid attention in one of the most amazing master classes that one could experience,” she said of her childhood.
Anjanée Bell grew up in Durham where she attended various Durham Public Schools. In 2001, she returned to the Durham school system as an educator to train dancers at most of the local high schools. Since she left DPS in 2016, she has worked in various roles within the arts—including founding her own dance company. And she’s raising her three children in Durham as a single mother.
Watching her father in the spotlight
Although her father served Durham as a county commissioner and as mayor for a total of 47 years, Anjanée Bell had not envisioned a career in political leadership for herself. It wasn’t until election night in 2023 that she wondered if it might be in her future.
“I might have to run,” she chuckled to her father in his kitchen, as they watched the election results pour in. (The results did not reflect her preferences, she said.)
“But I’m an introvert,” she said, disregarding her idea.
“So am I,” said her father.
The next morning, she made an appointment on her father’s calendar. Initially Bill Bell was not keen on the idea—in fact, he tried to dissuade her.
“I know the demands that position can put on you,” he said in an interview, concerned for his three grandchildren who would need supervising during the campaign. But Anjanée Bell was determined. And 21 months later, she had her father’s endorsement.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that she can do the job,” he said.
She says her leadership style comes, in part, from watching her father in the spotlight. Mayor Bill Bell was a skilled listener, patient and unemotional as he considered different points of view in City Council meetings. He was mindful about his words and direct, transparent, and firm on his decisions.
“What you see, you get,” said Anjanée Bell about her father.
This is the type of leadership that she hopes to emulate. And the older she gets, the more she realizes they are more alike than different. Her priority is to bring diverse voices to the table and to inspire listening.
“I’m working to listen, so therefore I can respond.”
A personal listening tour — as an Uber driver
But before Anjanée Bell filed her candidacy, she put this into practice. She drove around Durham as an Uber and Lyft driver. She (and her parents) had reservations about taking on the job: would she be safe as a woman alone in a car with a stranger?
“And so it was easy for me to say: ‘Okay, I’m not going to do this,’” she said. “But I felt that it was required because how could I possibly serve an entire city if I was afraid to go where I was being called?”
She wanted to understand the city inside-out. And in picking up riders last summer, she met Mikayla Cunningham: a 25-year-old who works at the recreation center on Weaver Street. Although Cunningham is a self-described introvert, the pair dove into a long conversation—and in the end, exchanged contact information.
“I remember her having really good energy and just being genuine,” Cunningham said about Bell. “It was a bright part of my day that day.”
But what really stood out to Cunningham was Anjanée Bell’s natural ability to forge a human connection.
“It was a beautiful connection, and it was vulnerable. I just felt like I could express myself to her,” Cunningham said. “[It] felt like she was genuinely invested and cared about the conversation.”
Overcoming dysfunction
Anjanée Bell thinks that ability has been lost in local leadership in the years since her father’s retirement. In several candidate forums, she has spoken about the “dysfunction” of the current City Council.
The council has often clashed over development issues, with several members approving most requests that come to the board, and several other members asking more questions or voting no. This has left council members “chasing [their] tails,” as Anjanée Bell put it.
Bell is focused on creating diverse housing opportunities that meet the needs of Durhamites. She would like to see fewer “unimaginative boxes” and more housing that accommodates mixed incomes, mixed ages, and families.
“My vision ensures that we do not just accept what comes across the desk—we direct it,” she said.
If elected mayor, “I will set the clear vision, establish policy filters, and hold every proposal to that vision,” she said. “That means using the tools of City Hall—zoning, incentives, public land use, infrastructure investments, and bond allocations—to guide development toward outcomes that serve the whole city.”
Bell would have voted against the recent series of votes on rezoning in southeast Durham.
“Growth in Durham must be planned, not rushed. If developers cannot show how their projects align with the city’s needs—schools, roads, water, affordability, and community stability—then my vote is no.”
She believes that communities are healthiest, and development is fairer and more ethical, when developers are personally invested in the place—not “driven strictly by the dollar.”
Anjanée Bell also proposes raising the minimum hourly wage of city employees to $25: the more money people have in their pocket, the better housing they can afford.
She believes that if the city sets the standard of “dignified wages,” the broader market will follow suit. And she plans to work with businesses and labor organizations that are not city-owned to advocate for broader wage increases across the city.
Bell’s campaign seems, at times, to focus less on policy specifics. At a candidate forum in late August, her answers were decidedly short and a little fuzzy—taking up only 30 seconds of her two-minute time slot.
Anjanée Bell considers herself a “people person,” and she does come across as warm, friendly, and easy to approach. And of course, she benefits from the 16 years of watching her father lead the city as mayor. He calls her “forward-thinking,” “visionary” and “practical.”
Since Bill Bell’s endorsement of his daughter, he has stepped up in her campaign. But he’s there for her primarily as a father, rather than Durham’s longest-serving mayor. In fact, he made a point of refusing to pass on contacts or resources to her, she said. There is no special treatment for the mayor’s daughter.
“I’m not running. She’s running,” said Bill Bell.
He’s watching, and he’s paying attention. But he’s just the safety net to catch her if she falls. This campaign is Anjanée Bell’s.
