Orgen Printing Company

Pictured in the middle, is the Orgen Printing Company that was located at 115 East Hargett Street, Raleigh, NC, ca. 1917.
This was Raleigh's first Black American weekly newspaper.

The left and right photos are of Mr. Lawrence Macauga Cheek.

The Orgen Printing Company was established in 1916 by Lawrence Macauga Cheek, he is standing on the far right of the middle image, leaning on a countertop.

Mr. Cheek was born in Warren County Nov 20th 1886.
He moved to Raleigh, NC when he was accepted into Shaw University in 1910.
Mr. Cheek graduated from Shaw magna cum laude.
Shortly after graduating, he moved to Houston, Texas in 1912 to accept the position of chair of Latin and Greek department at Houston College.
In 1915 he moved back to Raleigh to establish the printing company seen in the middle photograph.

Out of this venture grew the Raleigh Independent newspaper, a weekly African American publication, now known as the Carolinian.

In 1919, Cheek and businessman/architect Calvin Lightner, and Dr. Manassa T. Pope who was a Spanish War veteran and one of the first licensed doctors in NC, all ran for Raleigh City Council to motivate their communities to participate more in the political process.

They knew they wouldn't win, because of the highly racial divides in Raleigh and the state of NC at that time.

According to Lightner, their motives for running for office during a particularly racially charged time were to “wake our people up politically.”

Sadly, Cheek died at the young age of 35 from kidney disease in 1921.

He and Ellean Elizabeth Whitaker married on June 24, 1914, she was the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. William Whitaker of Raleigh, NC.

Mrs. Ellean Elizabeth Whitaker Cheek was born in Wake county on Sept 15, 1887, and she died in Raleigh on Sept 27th 1956 at age 69.
They are both buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Raleigh, NC.

The Orgen Printing Company continued to operate at 115 East Hargett until 1929, becoming the Capital City Barber Shop in 1931.

Source: .96.7.47
From the General Negative Collection, State Archives of NC.

Source: History of the American Negro, North Carolina Edition

Link to Hill's Raleigh City Directory 1928
http://www.ancestraltrackers.net/.../hills-raleigh-city...