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< Back Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity Bethune-Cookman University. 1950. Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity dressed in tuxedoes and prepared for a ball on campus. Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity Bethune-Cookman University. 1950. Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity dressed in tuxedoes and prepared for a ball on campus. The group is composed of African American men who are all wearing tuxedoes and bowties. Some are wearing boutonnieres. Four of the men are wearing white tuxedo jackets; the rest are wearing black jackets. The decorations include crepe paper hanging from the ceiling, as well as balloons and palm trees line the floor. President Richard V. Moore is the sixth person standing from the left, and Dr. Texas Adams, the college physician, is the first man standing on the right of the image. The photographer of the image is unknown. Source: Bethune-Cookman University Photograph Collection Previous Next

< Back America's Tenth Man A Pictorial Review of One-Tenth of a Nation -Presenting the Negro Contribution to American Life Today Published 1957 A Pictorial Review of One-Tenth of a Nation -Presenting the Negro Contribution to American Life Today Published 1957 Edited and Compiled by Lucille Arcola Chambers The North Carolina Nurses Association dissolved in 1949 and the Negro Nurses were given membership into the State Association with all other nurses. Standing center is Mrs. Alma Vessels John, formerly Executive Secretary of the now dissolved National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. She has her own "Home Makers" radio show on WWRL, in New York City, now in its third year. Previous Next

< Back Black History-White Artists-Black Models ​ Black History-White Artists-Black Models ----- "One of the central aims of "Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today," which is currently up at Wallach Art Gallery, is to recognize the centrality of black women in the French artistic canon. One under-acknowledged figure of the Parisian art world was Aïcha Goblet. Goblet worked as a model and actress while rubbing shoulders with the starving artists of Montparnasse. She was painted by Félix Vallotton in her signature turban in 1922—though she also sat for Jules Pascin, Amedeo Modigliani, Man Ray, Moïse Kisling, Henri Matisse, Marc Vaux, among others." This post is shared from the fb page, Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom https://www.facebook.com/.../a.456027.../957488037779911/... Previous Next

< Back Leonard Medical School Leonard Hall, left, was constructed in 1881 and served as the base of operations for the Leonard Medical School. The "new" hospital, shown right, was completed in 1910, just 8 years before the school's closing. Courtesy State Archives of North Carolina. In our posts on Thomas J. Bullock and Henry Johnson, we discussed the unique challenges military training and service posed to Black North Carolinians in a racialized south. African American soldiers were often relegated to labor roles and served in racially segregated units that were typically officered by White men. One beacon of hope during this time, however, was the establishment of an officer candidate school for Black men at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. The selection process for the school was extremely competitive, with the Army selecting only 1,249 candidates nationwide. Just a little over half of that number earned their commissions. In North Carolina specifically, only 49 of the 21,609 Black men who served during the war were selected for the training. Of these, 27 received commissions. But there was one other way Black men could earn commissions during World War I, and that was through medical training. Just 104 Black physicians graduated from Medical Officers Training Camp (MOTC). Many of these men were recent medical school graduates of schools such as Mehary Medical College in Nashville, the medical school at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Leonard Medical School at Shaw University in Raleigh. In 36 years of operation, from 1882 to 1918, Leonard Medical School produced nearly four hundred African American physicians. Thirteen of the 104 Black physicians commissioned for service in the army during the war had attended and graduated from Leonard. Perhaps the most notable of Leonard’s alumni who served in the First World War was Urbane Francis Bass. Bass was a Richmond native who graduated from Leonard in 1906. In the years between graduation and the war, he operated a pharmacy and medical practice in Fredericksburg, VA. As war loomed on the horizon, Dr. Bass wrote the Secretary of War to offer his services, telling a friend that he was willing to give up his life in order to save others. “He was committed to the end,” his friend recalled. Upon completion of the MOTC, Bass was commissioned a first lieutenant and assigned to 93rd Division, an all-Black infantry division serving under French command. During the course of heavy fighting on October 17, 1918, Lieutenant Bass was treating wounded soldiers at a forward aid station. A shell hit very near the station’s vicinity, sending shrapnel through the tent. Both of Lieutenant Bass’s legs were severed. He died before he could be evacuated, leaving a wife and four children behind. For administering “first aid in the open and under prolonged and intense shell fire, until he was severely wounded,” Lieutenant Bass was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross. Leonard Medical School encountered hard times during the war as well. Advancements in science had moved medical study from the classroom to laboratories, an exorbitantly expensive transition. The knockout blow came in 1910 when a report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching called for more rigorous training standards and recommended the shuttering of all but two black medical schools—Meharry and Howard. Leonard continued to hemorrhage money until officials, determining they could save Shaw only if they let Leonard go, closed the medical school for good. Interested in learning more about African American physicians in World War I, including the other twelve Leonard Medical School graduates who served in uniform? I highly recommend the groundbreaking study of W. Douglas Fisher and Joann H. Buckley called African American Doctors of World War I: The Lives of 104 Volunteers. Source: https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../leonard-medical-school-and-war... Previous Next

< Back Emma Dupree Emma Dupree (1897-1992) was an influential black herbalist from Falkland and Fountain, in Pitt County in North Carolina. She was known locally as “granny woman.” She was the daughter of freed slaves and grew up on the Tar River. She was known for her work with native herbs: Sassafras, white mint, double tansy, rabbit tobacco, maypop, mullein, catnip, horseradish, and silkweed. Here is an excerpt from an article published shortly after her death: "From the time she could walk, Emma felt drawn to the land. She would roam the woods, plucking, sniffing, tasting weeds. She grew up that way, collecting the leaves, stems, roots and bark of sweet gum, white mint, mullen, sassafras in her coattail or a tin bucket. She'd tote them back to the farm, rinse them in well water and tie them in bunches to dry. In the backyard, she'd raise a fire under a kettle and boil her herbs to a bubbly froth, then pour it up in brown-necked stone jugs: A white-mint potion for poor circulation; catnip tea for babies with colic; tansy tea - hot or cold - for low blood sugar; mullein tea for a stomach ache. Mixed with molasses or peppermint candy to knock out the bitterness. Her kind of folk medicine dates back centuries. In the 1600s, African slaves brought root-doctor remedies to America. Indians and immigrants had cure-alls, too. In some rural areas, scattered herbalists still practice." She was born on July 4, 1897, the seventh among 18 siblings, Emma Williams Dupree grew up on the Tar River and was known in her family as "that little medicine thing" because of her early understanding of herbs. Her parents, Pennia and Noah Williams, were freed slaves farming in Falkland, NC. She told an interviewer in 1979 that her mother remembered being "on the porch of the old Wooten's farm home when freedom came. She was 16 when Mr. and Mrs. Wooten walked out on that porch and told her she was 'as free as they were, but they loved her just the same.'" She was married for one year to Ethan Cherry, a farmer. She divorced him and remarried another farmer, Austin Dupree, Jr., who was born in 1892. Emma and Austin moved to Fountain, NC in 1936 and had five children, whose ages in the 1930 U.S. Census are indicated in parentheses: Lucy (12), Herbert (9), John (5), Doris (3), and Mary (1). They remained married until his death at age 90. She died at home, at 3313 N. Jefferson St, Fountain, on March 12, 1996. She is buried at Saint John's Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery, in Falkland,NC. Emma Dupree's "garden-grown pharamacy" included sassafras, white mint, double tansy, rabbit tobacco, maypop, mullein, catnip, horseradish, silkweed and other plants from which she made tonics, teas, salves and dried preparations. These were cultivated in her yard and gathered from the banks of the Tar River. She told Karen Baldwin that she grew a special tree in her back yard, which she called her "healing berry tree." She explained, "Now that tree, I don't know of another name for it, but it's in the old-fashioned Bible and the seed for it came from Rome." She also told Baldwin of being an especially alert baby: "They said I was just looking every which way. And I kept acting and moving and doing things a baby didn't do. And I walked early. I was walking at seven months old, just as good and strong. When I got so I got out doors, I went to work. I was pulling up weeds, biting them, smelling in them, and spitting them out. And folks in them days, they just watched me, watched what I was doing. Awards and Recognition In 1984, Dupree was awarded the Brown-Hudson Award by the North Carolina Folklore Society, recognizing her as an individual who contributed significantly to the transmission, appreciation and observance of traditional culture and folk life in North Carolina. In 1992, Dupree received the North Carolina Heritage Award, lifetime achievement recognition for outstanding traditional artists in North Carolina NOTE: Here is a link to a video of Mrs Emma Dupree being interviewed by students of the ECU medical research department. This video is Produced by the office of Health Services Research and Development, School of Medicine, East Carolina University. It is 40 minutes long. Link: https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/58575... Source;https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/ncpi/view/5581 Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Dupree --- Herbalist, 94, Lets Nature Heal by Paige Williams Feb 20, 1992 Because she prays, she brews herbs. Because she brews herbs, she heals. Because she heals, she is the undisputed sage of Pitt County. They say her home remedies can quiet a colicky baby, cure a mean cold and scare lice off a hog. "All that we see, everything that is growin' in the earth," Emma says, "is healin' to the nation of any kind of disease." Before her came African root doctors and Indian medicine men. People believed their mystical potions could cure body and soul and sometimes they could. Some modern medicines still use herbal derivatives. Few old-time herbalists like Emma are left in North Carolina. Hospitals first forced her kind out of business. Death is finishing the job. Emma Dupree's hanging tough, though, pushing 10 decades. She takes the tonic, see. Drinks it like water. She jumps out of her chair, props fists on her waist and swivels her hips Hula-Hoop style. She holds both hands out flat and squirms her wrinkled fingers all around, crossing and uncrossing, like she's making a million wishes. No arthritis there. "There's something to that stuff," said her granddaughter, Sandra White. Joe Exum, town grocer, keeps a Crown Royal bourbon bottle under the front seat of his pickup truck. It holds the slimy remnants of Emma's tonic: oily brown syrup that looks like tobacco spit, stings the nose like paint thinner and tastes like pine tar smells. "I'd pay $50 for a bottle right now," Exum said. "Two swallers and it'll knock the sore throat right out." He's waiting for Emma to brew another batch. She stewed her last at Christmas. She used to make the tonic right steady, every day almost, the way she learned 80 years ago, when the woods first called her. Pitt County borders the Pamlico River 80 miles east of Raleigh. Its largest town is Greenville, the county seat, population 44,972. One of its smallest is Fountain, population 445, founded in 1900 on the western rim. Emma Dupree was Emma Williams then, a 3-year-old growing up the daughter of freed slaves on a farm 9 miles east in Falkland, where she was born the Fourth of July, 1897. Emma was the knee baby, second from the youngest of seven girls and four boys, and always hanging on her mama's knee. Early on, Pennia and Noah Williams knew she was nature's child. From the time she could walk, Emma felt drawn to the land. She would roam the woods, plucking, sniffing, tasting weeds. She grew up that way, collecting the leaves, stems, roots and bark of sweet gum, white mint, mullen, sassafras in her coattail or a tin bucket. She'd tote them back to the farm, rinse them in well water and tie them in bunches to dry. In the backyard, she'd raise a fire under a kettle and boil her herbs to a bubbly froth, then pour it up in brown-necked stone jugs: A white-mint potion for poor circulation; catnip tea for babies with colic; tansy tea - hot or cold - for low blood sugar; mullen tea for a stomach ache. Mixed with molasses or peppermint candy to knock out the bitterness. Her kind of folk medicine dates back centuries. In the 1600s, African slaves brought root-doctor remedies to America. Indians and immigrants had cure-alls, too. In some rural areas, scattered herbalists still practice. "It's dying out," says Charles Reagan Wilson of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. "People more and more rely on modern science." Pitt County's got both. Modern medicine and Emma Dupree. Her school was God's school; her classroom, the land. While the other children played, she picked herbs. Sometimes she caught the other children talking about her: "There comes that ol' rovin' gal. Reckon where she goin' now?" Yet they always followed her. When Emma was about 20, she married Ethan Cherry, a farmer. It lasted about a year. The story goes that Cherry went one wisecrack too far about how many women it takes to satisfy a man. Emma whacked him with a chair. Knocked him out cold. Then she divorced him. "He wasn't no good husband." She married another farmer, Austin Dupree. They moved to Fountain in 1936. Old age killed him in the the early 1970s. He was nearly 90. Of Emma's five children, only Doris, 66, is left. She lives next door to Emma's little white-and-green house on Jefferson Street, a longtime magnet to the afflicted. Herbs' earthy aroma herbs brewed day and night. Their warm earthy aroma filled the whole house. Emma poured her tonic up in glass vinegar jugs and canning jars and kept it in a pantry off the kitchen. Somebody was always knocking on the front door. Emma would fetch it: "Now you take this with faith because it's not me. I'm just the instrument." She never set a price. People paid what they could, sometimes $5, sometimes $30. "It was a common thing for people to literally be waiting in line," said White, 38, the granddaughter Emma raised. People sought advice, too. They'd bang on the door, pull her aside: "Can I talk to you?" Fountain's own Ann Landers. "You can tell her a problem and she can work it out so it don't seem so bad," White said. Some, she couldn't help. Once, a young girl dying of leukemia and weary of doctors showed up at Emma's door. Emma suspected it was hopeless. Still, she couldn't say no. She gave her the tonic. "I don't want to make her sound like a saint," White said, "but she tried to help everybody." Emma won't take the credit. "Whatever your talent, whatever you is, you come with it," she said. "When you come into this world, God's done fixed you with what you got to do." To townspeople, she's "Aunt Emma." In December, they made her grand marshal of the Fountain Christmas parade, all two blocks of it. She waved from the back of the long white limousine borrowed from the local funeral home. Only the best for the sage of Pitt County. Source:https://www.tulsaworld.com/.../article_3b0e06d1-4af9-5567... Previous Next

< Back G.C. Hawley High School Class of 1939 G.C. Hawley High School-Creedmoor, NC This is the first graduating class- 1939 Principal G.C. Hawley, is on the left side of the graduates. G.C. Hawley High School-Creedmoor, NC This is the first graduating class- 1939 Principal G.C. Hawley, is on the left side of the graduates. ----- A Brief Summary of The G. C. Hawley High School's History G. C. Hawley High School began as a one teacher elementary school in the early '20'. It was an old tobacco barn with a dirt floor, no heat, no bathroom, no running water. In 1933, two teachers were hired and in the fall of 1936, Reverend Grover Cleveland Hawley, a 1931 graduate of the college and theological departments of Lincoln university, Lincoln, Pennsylvania, was selected to serve as principal of the Creedmoor Negro Elementary School. During this same year Principal Halwey established a high school department From 1936-1938, children either walked to school or were transported by the parents that were able to do so. By the Spring of 1938, a school bus was purchased with contributions made by the parents, teachers and the county, which resulted in rapid student growth for the school. The first class was graduated in 1939, and at that time the school was named, The G. C. Hawley School. The progress made was tremendous, with land being donated to expand the school into a modern, spacious environment for learning for the negro students. The parents volunteered to clear the land by hand and Principal Hawley lead the determined group to Butner, NC to glean wood from Camp Butner that the military structures no longer needed. In September 1952, the doors of a new facility opened with 44 teachers and 1380 students. Under the leadership of Rev. Hawley, the school had been brought from three teachers to 44; from 100 students to 1380; from one small room to five educational buildings and from no buses to 15 school buses. The G.C. Hawley School was a segregated union school for the Negro students in Creedmoor, until 1969, when the high school department was closed and it's students were integrated into the White South Granville High School. Then, on a cold January night in 1970 a fire destroyed he predominantly White Creedmoor Elementary school. Four days later, the faculty and students Creedmoor Elementary School were transitioned and housed with the faculty and students of The G. C. Hawley School. The fire brought a change from segregation to integration in Granville County,NC Today, G. C. Hawley is a Middle school, which still continues serving not just the African American students of the area but, all students in the district. The vision of Rev. G. C. Hawley, continues to do what he set out to do, provide an equal and proper education. *NOTE, unfortunately, at this time we don't know the names of these graduates and we are searching through records to identify them.* Previous Next

< Back Legacy of New Farmers of America Below is an article from hbcuconnect dot com. Posted By: Kennedy Williams on May 23, 2022 N.C. A&T Professors, Alums Pen Historical Book on Black Farmers The book explores the Black youth organization which was founded in 1935 to promote vocational agriculture education in public schools throughout the South and teach farming skills and leadership and citizenship values to young Black males. It is available at Barnes &Noble, Target NFA’s first national headquarters was at A&T, and S.B. Simmons, an A&T faculty member in agricultural education, served as a senior NFA leader for two decades. Similar in purpose and structure to Future Farmers of America, NFA had more than 58,000 members in 1,000 chapters when it merged with FFA in 1965, a year after the federal Civil Rights Act banned racial segregation. A&T has what it believes to be the largest collection of NFA materials to be found anywhere — documents, records, correspondence, banners, medals, photographs and many other items. Much of it has never been seen publicly. In February, Cox and Alston received a three-year grant of $324,422 from the National FFA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the National FFA Organization to digitize an estimated 150,000 pieces of memorabilia from New Farmers of America. The project also will offer online access to the materials so students, scholars and the public can learn more about an organization that played a vital role during segregation. Cox, who serves as head of serials and government documents at F.D. Bluford Library, is the principal investigator on the grant. Alston serves as the co-principal investigator. The New Farmers of America History and Legacy Collection held by the library will add important pieces to the historical record because agriculture employed so many people throughout the South and the nation during NFA’s existence. Founded in 1928, the National FFA Organization develops leadership, personal growth and career success of youth through agricultural education. FFA has more than 735,000 student members in grades 7-12 in more than 8,800 local chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. SOURCE N.C. A&T About The Authors: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University professors and alumni co-authored a new book about New Farmers of America, a former national youth organization that helped train generations of Black farmers and leaders. Released on May 2 by Arcadia Publishing, "Legacy of New Farmers of America," was penned by Antoine J. Alston, Ph.D., a professor of agricultural education and associate dean of academic studies in A&T’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, and Netta S. Cox, a university librarian and associate professor of library services, and Dexter B. Wakefield, PhD, Alcorn State University professor and associate dean for academic programs within the School of Agriculture and Applied Sciences. Previous Next

< Back Ernie Barnes Born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, Ernie Barnes is the artist behind the iconic image, "The Sugar Shack," featured on the series, Good Times, and Marvin Gaye's album, "I Want You!"-Image: The Sugar Shack. Copyright © Ernie Barnes Family Trust The North Carolina Roots of Artist Ernie Barnes Exhibit -Jun. 29, 2018, through Mar. 3, 2019 Born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, Ernie Barnes is the artist behind the iconic image, "The Sugar Shack," featured on the series, Good Times, and Marvin Gaye's album, "I Want You!"-Image: The Sugar Shack. Copyright © Ernie Barnes Family Trust This exhibition showcases many unpublished Ernie Barnes original paintings, as well as artifacts from his life. Barnes was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina. After five seasons as a professional football player, he retired at age 27 to pursue art. In his prolific body of work, Barnes chronicled his personal experiences with football, music, dance, love, sports, education, church, and the South. Widely-known as the real painter of the artwork in the groundbreaking African-American sitcom Good Times, Barnes' style has been widely imitated. It is best exemplified by his iconic Sugar Shack dance scene that appeared on a Marvin Gaye album cover and in the closing credits of Good Times. This painting, "The Sugar Shack," was inspired by an actual dance at the Durham Armory. Barnes is best known for his unique style of elongation, energy, and movement. Affectionately nicknamed “Big Rembrandt” by his teammates, he is the first professional American athlete to become a noted painter. “Although I never got a chance to meet Ernie in person, I was so honored to be able to work on this exhibit- because now I feel like I do know him,” said exhibit curator Katie Edwards. “He was a remarkable human being who defied odds and became a renowned artist. This exhibit is an amazing opportunity for the state of North Carolina. It’s a chance for visitors to see a number of Ernie’s works that he painted throughout his life and see the impact that the state had on him and his career.” Born July 15, 1938, Barnes grew up in Durham (Durham County). Shy, sensitive, and bullied throughout childhood, he sought refuge in his sketchbooks and eventually transformed his body and attitude through exercise and discipline. In high school, Barnes excelled as an athlete. By his senior year at Durham’s Hillside High School, he became the captain of the football team and state champion in the shot put. Barnes graduated high school in 1956 with 26 athletic scholarship offers. Segregation, however, prevented him from considering nearby Duke University or the University of North Carolina. He attended the all–African American North Carolina College at Durham (formerly North Carolina College for Negroes; now North Carolina Central University), where he majored in art on a full athletic scholarship. Barnes was selected in the 1960 National Football League draft by the Baltimore Colts. After five seasons as an offensive lineman for the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos, he retired in 1966 at age 28 to devote himself to art. He settled in Los Angeles, where he died of cancer at age 70 on April 27, 2009. “The family is proud to kick-off Ernie Barnes’ 80th birthday here in his home state with his first public exhibition in 11 years,” said Luz Rodriguez, Barnes' longtime assistant and estate trustee. “I hope his fans -- and those new to Ernie Barnes -- discover more about his extraordinary career. His unique journey is inspirational and important to American culture.” ----- Here Is A Podcast Interview with Luz Rodrigues About Ernie Barnes Ernie Barnes and the Merger of Art and Athlete, a conversation with Luz Rodriguez, trustee of the Ernie Barnes Estate Noted for his unique style of elongation and movement, artist Ernie Barnes was the first American professional athlete to become a noted painter. His work as an artist led him far from his home in Durham, yet his childhood roots remained a constant influence as shown in an exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of History, The North Carolina Roots of Artist Ernie Barnes (June 29, 2018–March 3, 2019). Approximate run time: 29 minutes. https://soundcloud.com/.../the-north-carolina-roots-of... Previous Next

< Back Elizabeth City State University founder, Mr. Hugh Cale, who was born in Perquimans County, NC in 1835 and died July 22, 1910. ​ Image: undated, Mr. Hugh Cale, who was born in Perquimans County, NC in 1835 and died July 22, 1910. Note: There are different historical writings about Mr. Cale's life in which some say he was born enslaved, others say he was born free because his parents were free. We are adding in both types of historical accounts to this post. -End Note- --- Hugh Cale. by Lisa Y. Henderson Historical Documents of Genealogical Interest to Researchers of North Carolina's Free People of Color Born free in Perquimans County in 1835, Hugh Cale worked at Fort Hatteras and on Roanoke Island during the Civil War. In 1867, he moved to Elizabeth City where he worked as a merchant and held a host of offices including county commissioner. He was one of thirteen African Americans to serve in the state legislature in 1876, the first of his four terms. In 1882, Cale, an active A.M.E. Zion layman, was appointed a trustee of Zion Wesley Institute in Salisbury, which in 1885 became Livingstone College. He was among the initial group of nine trustees of the North Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race (now North Carolina A. & T. State University) in Greensboro and served in that position from 1891 to 1899. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention of 1896.In 1891, during his last legislative term, Cale introduced House Bill 383 to establish “Elizabeth City Colored Normal School” for the education of black teachers. Now known as Elizabeth City -State University, the institution has honored Cale with a scholarship in his name. He died in 1910. Source: https://ncfpc.net/2013/03/28/hugh-cale/ --- FREE BLACKS - NORTH CAROLINA HUGH CALE by Benjamin R. Justesen Published in print:15 March 2013 Published online: 31 May 2013 Excerpt: "...merchant, public official, religious leader, and longtime state legislator, was born in Perquimans County, North Carolina, the eldest son of free, mixed-race parents John Cail (Cale) and Elizabeth Mitchell, a homemaker, who were married in 1827. His father worked as a miller, later as a fisherman, and moved his large family—as many as nine children—to Edenton in nearby Chowan County in the 1850s. Little is known of Hugh Cale's early life or education, although he had learned to read and write by the end of the Civil War. After the Union army occupied much of northeastern North Carolina in early 1862, Cale began working as a manual laborer for federal installations at Fort Hatteras and Roanoke Island. In 1867 he moved to Elizabeth City North Carolina where he commenced a singularly successful career as a grocer and held a number of local offices during and after ...Source: https://oxfordaasc.com/browse;jsessionid... Previous Next

< Back Allegra Westbrooks ​ Beatties Ford Road Library Renamed For Allegra Westbrooks, NC's First Black Public Library Supervisor WFAE | By Gracyn Doctor Published August 3, 2021 at 5:25 PM EDT You may notice some changes at the Beatties Ford Road Library. Last April, it officially became the Allegra Westbrooks Regional Library: Beatties Ford Road. But the COVID-19 pandemic quickly scrapped plans for a ceremony to celebrate the name change. “Our monument sign was changed. The etching, my glass doors was changed,” said branch manager Hannah Terrell. “We sent out a press release. So, for all intents and purposes, we weren't defeated by COVID in that we are officially the Allegra Westbrooks Regional Library.” Terrell joined the Beatties Ford Road team three years ago, after the decision to change the branch’s name was already in place. But she jumped in and began planning the ceremony. Since it was canceled, she’s spent the pandemic working to make people aware of the change and the history of Westbrooks. Allegra Westbrooks was the first Black public library supervisor in North Carolina. She served as head of acquisition for all Charlotte Mecklenburg public library branches from 1950 to her retirement in 1984. Westbrooks was born in 1921 in Maryland. She attended Fayetteville State Teachers College, now known as Fayetteville State University. At 26, she moved to Charlotte to head Acquisition of Negro Library Services and the Brevard Street Library. This was 1947, a time where the Brevard Street branch was one of two locations open to Black residents in North Carolina. Westbrooks made great strides for the Black community while in this position. She was known as a pioneer and became the bridge between the Black community and the public library. Branch librarian Jeremy Lytle said Westbrooks created many ways to connect Black people to books. “She would work with community organizations, churches, schools, to try to put library books in their facilities so that instead of having to go all the way to the Brevard Street branch, they could go to their local organization,” Lytle said. In addition to starting a delivery service between the Brevard Street branch and the main branch, Westbrooks started a mobile book service in 1948 that lasted 17 years. She would travel to schools and areas in the county where Black people couldn’t easily access the library — or even books. Regardless of her position, she still faced challenges from people who didn’t support her or her work. In a 2007 interview for UNCC’s Brooklyn Oral History Project, Westbrooks detailed an experience she had while out in the bookmobile at Sterling High School. “I remember the county superintendent happened to come when I was out there one day with the bookmobile and he said, 'What are you doing with this thing out here? You just get it away from here, get it away from here,'” Westbrooks said. “And I said, 'Well Mr. Wilson, the school library doesn't have books to serve them. And this was a central place where I could meet them.' And he said, well, to 'get it away from here.' So, I moved.” Although she had a lot of power as the supervisor of all the public libraries in Charlotte, she wasn’t really able to use it. She wasn’t even allowed to enter branches outside of the Brevard Street location until 1956, when the library officially integrated. “Whoever is in that position now can just send an email and say 'You need to do this, make it happen,'” Lytle said. “She couldn't really do that, so she had to be more gentle and suggestive about it as opposed to, you know, 'I'm your superior. I'm giving you an order.'” Westbrooks spent a good chunk of her life serving the Black community in Charlotte. The prominent Black speakers she invited to the library helped increase attendance at the Brevard Street branch. She helped form a coalition of people working in human services to strengthen what the library had to offer. She even served as a co-director of the North Carolina Library Association, giving her the opportunity to speak at the American Library Association’s convention in Canada. She was a member of the Charlotte Links Organization and of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. As a Black woman, branch manager Hannah Terrell says she’s honored to head the branch named after Westbrooks. She says Westbrooks' sacrifice is why she’s able to lead a library today. “This location is named and was renamed after just a humble woman who didn't think at the time that she was making the impact that she did by being the courier in some instances, being the connector in other instances, from the Black community and literature, the Black community and access,” Terrell said. As more people learn about the name change and of Westbrooks, Terrell says she just wants people to be present in the significance of the moment. The Allegra Westbrooks Regional Library: Beatties Ford Road isn’t just the only branch in Charlotte named after a person, but also the first branch in the city to be named after a Black woman. Westbrooks retired in 1984 after 37 years of service. She died in April 2017 at 96 years old. Image description: Left image - Westbrooks and the library's bookmobile, with children lined up to get books. The bookmobile ran for 17 years offering services for the Black communities. Middle image- Allegra Westbrooks at her desk in the Branch/CMS Library. Right image- photograph of the Brevard Street Library for Negroes. Bottom image - Allegra Westbooks sitting in chair with paintings on easels behind her. Westrbooks retired in 1984. She died in 2017 at 96 years old. Source: https://www.wfae.org/.../beatties-ford-road-library... Previous Next

< Back SOUL CITY FARM COVID-19 Relief Bill Offers Long-Denied Aid to Black and Other Minority Farmers By Martha Quililin /N&O March 16, 2021 09:00 AM, Updated March 16, 2021 02:30 PM In 2017, Latonya Andrews bought a 60-acre tract of Warren County land to become the fourth generation of her family to farm it. A former Air Force medic who now works as a research assistant at UNC, she took a methodical approach to reintroducing agriculture on land that had lain dormant for more than a decade. She consulted with other Black farmers in the community, and they all offered the same advice. “Read the fine print,” Andrews said they told her. “Don’t let anybody take your land from you.” Since the end of Reconstruction, Black farmers have learned their biggest threat is not drought, blight or insect infestation, but something more insidious: Discriminatory practices by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the very agency that is supposed to help farmers stay on the land and be productive. The USDA has admitted it systematically denied Blacks and other people of color access to the same loan and grant programs that have helped generations of white farmers get the financing they needed to hold onto their land in lean years and even expand their operations. Help may be on its way finally through a provision in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill approved by Congress and signed into law last week by President Joe Biden. The package provides $5 billion for socially disadvantaged farmers of color, including $4 billion for the forgiveness of outstanding debt and $1 billion for training, outreach, education, technical assistance and grants. “It’s a significant piece of legislation that’s going to help thousands of farmers get relief,” said John Boyd Jr., founder and president of the non-profit National Black Farmers Association. Boyd, also a fourth-generation Black farmer, launched the organization in the mid-1990s to fight discriminatory practices at USDA that contributed to his losing one of his two farms and were a factor in the massive loss of land by other farmers of color. LOSING PROPERTY At the turn of the 20th century, formerly enslaved Black people and their heirs owned 15 million acres of mostly Southern farmland, according to America’s Black Holocaust Museum and federal agricultural census data. In an investigative series published in 2001 called “Torn from the Land,” the Associated Press documented how Black landowners had lost their property as a result of violence, intimidation, trickery and legal manipulation well into the 1950s. By 2012, just 1.6% of U.S. farms were Black-owned, accounting for 3.6 million acres. North Carolina reported 1,435 farms on which 1,699 Black farmers were the principal producers in the USDA’s 2017 Census of Agriculture. Black owners held 3% of North Carolina’s 46,418 farms in that most recent census. Black people make up just over 22% of the state’s population according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1997, Cumberland County farmer Timothy Pigford filed a class-action lawsuit in which he and other claimants said federal farm programs had systematically discriminated against Black farmers by denying loans, loan-servicing and benefits, or by setting unfair terms on Black farmers’ loans. That suit, and a subsequent suit referred to as Pigford II, resulted in settlement payments totaling more than $2 billion. Similar suits later were filed on behalf of Native American farmers and Hispanic farmers. Advocates continued to argue on behalf of socially disadvantaged farmers, saying the USDA had not done enough to correct its policies and to prevent discrimination by agents in local field offices. Throughout the South, including in North Carolina, Boyd said, thousands of Black and other minority farmers remained at a financial disadvantage, holding less competitive loans on smaller farms compared to their white counterparts. “White farmers were getting their debts written off, or getting loan amortization and rescheduled payments,” said Boyd, who still farms in Virginia, near the North Carolina border. “They weren’t offering any of that to Blacks. The USDA hasn’t been friendly to Black farmers.” TILLIS OPPOSITION The Black farmers aid provision in the COVID-19 relief bill was controversial, with some Republican lawmakers saying it was unfair to offer debt relief only to people of color. Sen. Thom Tillis was opposed to it. In a statement, he said, “All North Carolina farmers work hard to feed our state and the rest of the country and they have faced an especially difficult time during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was unfair and potentially unconstitutional for Congressional Democrats to award federal assistance based solely on a farmer’s race instead of their individual economic need.” Boyd, who worked with advocates in Washington to help craft the provision in the federal relief bill, said the most important part of it is debt relief. For eligible farmers, that will mean forgiveness of loans made or guaranteed by the USDA, plus enough money to cover the tax that will be levied on the forgiven debt. The USDA makes and guarantees loans for farmers unable to get loans from commercial lenders. The loans can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Debt relief gives farmers a chance to regroup,” Boyd said. “If you don’t have that debt hanging over your head, you can revamp your farming operation.” Boyd said the next challenge will be making sure the USDA uses the money as the bill intends, and that it makes sure field agents don’t discriminate in deciding who is eligible “A lot of Black farmers don’t trust USDA,” Boyd said, so the agency will have to invest in outreach to encourage farmers to apply for aid provided in the relief bill. Latonya Andrews didn’t ask the USDA for money when she bought her farm, in part, she said, because mentors in the farming community cautioned her about the agency’s tainted history in dealings with Black people. Andrews, 42, grew up in Raleigh but was a frequent visitor to the family farm outside Norlina. It came into her family in the 1940s, when her great-grandmother, Suzie Valentine Andrews, bought it. On her death, it passed to Andrews’ grandfather, Merlin, who raised pigs, goats, soybeans, tobacco, cucumbers and other crops on the gently rolling property. As a child, Andrews visited her grandparents regularly in the summer and on weekends. She can still remember where the hog lot stood, and which crops were grown in which fields. Andrews’ father, John, later inherited the property, but he had no interest in farming and leased the land for a time to other growers. When he retired, he told Andrews he planned to sell the property. ‘I’LL TAKE ON THE FARM’ Andrews had gone into the Air Force in 1997, right after graduating from Enloe High School. She got out in 2006. For the past five years, she has worked full time as a research assistant at UNC on a project studying HIV in women. “I was away from home for a long time while I was in the Air Force,” Andrews said. “I never thought about going back home, going back to the farm, until I was back here and the opportunity came, and I was like, ‘Sure. I’ll take on the farm.’” Andrews said she wondered whether, as a Black woman veteran and first-time farmer, she would have trouble getting financing. But she borrowed the money from a bank and paid her dad, giving him a cushion for his retirement. She set about learning land-management techniques from the USDA and extension specialists, forming a plan to bring the farm back to life. In 2018, she planted broccoli, squash, cabbage and collards. As the 2021 spring growing season approaches, Andrews has seedlings at her home in Raleigh getting ready for transplant. On the farm last week, she had a crew cutting young pines and clearing undergrowth, burning the debris. Gray smoke lifted and swirled against the blue sky on an unseasonably warm afternoon. Ash from the fire will be churned back into the chocolate-brown soil to enrich it. Andrews will plant about 11 crops on about three cleared acres this year, most of which she expects to sell through a faith-based CSA, or community-supported agricultural cooperative. Arugula, several varieties of lettuce, bok choy, turnips, beets — Andrews is learning to grow them all. She hopes to get certified as an organic grower, relying on natural pest-control practices that will make the food she raises more healthful and worth more on the market. She has other plans for the farm as well, leasing some to hunters, keeping some in forest, and developing an outdoor event site along a creek that runs through it, for weddings and family reunions. SOUL CITY FARM Andrews named her operation Soul City Farm, because it’s close to one of the boundaries of Soul City, a planned development designed in the early 1970s as a new town that would provide housing and employment opportunities for minorities and the poor. Soul City floundered when it lost federal support, but Andrews has fond memories of summer visits to the pool there, and hopes the development might one day be revived. Walking through a deeply furrowed section of field in her cowboy boots and jeans, Andrews said she feels the presence of her forebears on the farm, and feels lucky to be able to keep it in the family, something many Black farmers have been unable to do. “I think about what my great-grandmother had to endure to get the money, to save it, and for people to believe that she could actually do it,” Andrews said. “That’s emotional. It means so much for me. “I feel like with this new bill coming into play, that will give me the opportunity to pass down that generational wealth that we are all looking to give to our children and our children’s children. Every farmer’s hope and dream is that their hard work can be passed down to their kids and then their kids, so that they can enjoy the fruits of their labors. “That’s a precious gift.” ---- Photo collage description with article: -Left image is of Latonya Andrews standing in a newly cleared field Friday, March 12, 2021, in Norlina, NC, that will be returned to farming. Andrews is the 4th generation of her family to farm these 60 acres, starting with her great-grandmother, who bought it in the 1940s. Congress is considering providing $5 billion in aid to disadvantaged farmers (including debt relief) in the federal relief bill. credit: Juli Leonard/N&O -Right top image is a green colored street sign named "James Andrews DR". it is a private road. There is a brick house behind the sign. Latonya Andrews named a road on the family's land in Norlina, NC, after her father. Andrews is the 4th generation of her family to farm these 60 acres, starting with her great-grandmother, who bought it in the 1940s. Congress is considering providing $5 billion in aid to disadvantaged farmers (including debt relief) in the federal relief bill. credit: Juli Leonard/N&O. -Bottom right image is of Demetrius Hunter, a friend of Latonya Andrews, he is helping remove large stones from a newly cleared field Friday, March 12, 2021, in Norlina, NC, that will be returned to farming. Andrews is the 4th generation of her family to farm these 60 acres, starting with her great-grandmother, who bought it in the 1940s. Congress is considering providing $5 billion in aid to disadvantaged farmers (including debt relief) in the federal relief bill. credit: Juli Leonard --- Martha Quillin is a general assignment reporter at The News & Observer who writes about North Carolina culture, religion and social issues. She has held jobs throughout the newsroom since 1987. Source: https://www.newsobserver.com/.../article249839933.html... Previous Next

< Back Clara Adams-Ender Clara Adams-Ender was born In Willow Springs, North Carolina on Tue, 07.11.1939. She is an African American U.S. Army General, Nursing advocate and author. General Clara Adams-Ender, Army Trailblazer *Clara Adams-Ender was born In Willow Springs, North Carolina on Tue, 07.11.1939. She is an African American U.S. Army General, Nursing advocate and author. She was the fourth child of ten and grew up in a family of sharecroppers. Her parents were Caretha Bell Sapp Leach and Otha Leach. She attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University earning her B.S. degree in nursing in 1961. After that Adams-Ender joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She entered the service as a second lieutenant and received training at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In 1963, she was assigned overseas, beginning as a staff nurse for the 121st evacuation hospital in the Pacific theater near North Korea and would later serve in Germany. In 1964, she worked as a medical-surgical nursing instructor at Fort Sam Houston. In 1967, she became the first female officer to receive an Expert Medical Field Badge and returned to school. After earning her M.S. degree from the University of Minnesota, she began working at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Adams-Ender’s first assignment was as a medical-surgical nurse instructor, then as an assistant professor, until she was promoted to education coordinator in 1972. In 1975, while the assistant chief of the Department of Nursing at Fort Meade in Maryland, Adams-Ender entered the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. She graduated in 1976 as the first woman to earn a Master of Military Art and Science degree at the College. She graduated from the U.S. Army War College in 1982 as the first African American Nurse Corps officer in the Army. in 1987, after working as the Chief of the Department of Nursing in the 97th General Hospital, Chief of Nurse Recruiting at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, Chief of the Department of Nursing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Adams-Ender was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General and became the Chief of the Army Nurse Corps . In 1991, she was selected to be Commanding General, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and served in this capacity as well as the Deputy Commanding General of the U.S. Military District of Washington until her retirement in 1993. Throughout her career, Adams-Ender was known for being active in nurse recruiting, initiating nursing units and advocating on behalf of critical care nurses for increased pay. She has received a Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Legion of Merit award, an Arm Commendation Medal and Meritorious Service Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters. She has also received non-military awards, including the Roy Wilkins Meritorious Service Award of the NAACP, the Gertrude E. Rush Award for Leadership from the National Bar Association, and, in 1996, was named one of the 350 women who changed the world by Working Women magazine. She is currently the President of Caring About People With Enthusiasm (CAPE) Associates, Inc. In 2001, she published her autobiography, My Rise to the Stars: How a Sharecropper's Daughter Became an Army General. Reference: Black Box interview African American Registry Box 19441 Minneapolis, MN 55419 Previous Next

< Back Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Assination Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated while standing on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m. Photograph by Joseph Louw / The LIFE Images Collection. . Summary of events leading up to his assassination: On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed while standing on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was in the city to speak on his growing Poor People's Campaign and to support an economic protest by Black sanitation workers. About two months earlier, 1,300 African American Memphis sanitation workers began a strike to protest low pay and poor treatment. When city leaders largely ignored the strike and refused to negotiate, the workers sought assistance from civil rights leaders, including Dr. King. He enthusiastically agreed to help and, on March 18, visited the city to speak to a crowd of more than 15,000 people. Dr. King also planned a march of support. When the first attempt was violently suppressed by police, leaving one protestor dead, Dr. King resolved to stage another peaceful march on April 8. He returned to Memphis by plane on April 3, braving a bomb threat on his scheduled flight. Once in Memphis, he stayed at the Lorraine Motel and gave a short speech reflecting on his own mortality. The next evening, April 4, Dr. King was shot as he stepped out onto the motel balcony. He was rushed to nearby St. Joseph's Hospital and pronounced dead at 7:05 pm, leaving a nation in shock and sparking mournful uprisings in more than 100 cities across the country. Just 39 years old, Dr. King left behind a wife, Coretta Scott King, and four young children. James Earl Ray, a white man, was later convicted of his assassination. Narrative source: eji Previous Next

< Back Lincoln Hospital-Durham, NC II Lincoln Hospital (1901-1976) was a medical facility located in Durham, North Carolina founded to serve the African Americans of Durham County and surrounding areas. With original hospital construction financed by the Duke family, Lincoln served as the primary African American hospital in Durham until 1976, when it closed and transferred its inpatient services to Durham County General Hospital. Despite its cultural setting within the Jim Crow South, Lincoln Hospital developed and thrived due to a complex web of inter- and intraracial cooperation. Lincoln's medical staff sought to reduce morbidity and mortality of Durham blacks by targeting maternal and child health, infectious disease, and health behavior through health education programs, specialized clinics, and free medical care. Lincoln expanded educational opportunities for blacks through their nursing, residency, and surgery programs during a time where few opportunities existed for blacks in healthcare. ORIGINS African Americans experienced serious health disadvantages in 20th century Durham, North Carolina. Modern analyses have shown that inadequate housing, insufficient heat, poor ventilation, inadequate diet, and overwork contributed to multiple medical problems, including malnutrition and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid, pneumonia, diphtheria, measles, and influenza. Rapid industrialization from the tobacco and textile industries increased the spread of diseases caused by particulate matter and caused strain on existing infrastructure. Excluding stillbirths, the death rate among Durham African Americans in 1910 was 26.0/1000 compared to 16.6/1000 for whites. Widespread belief that blacks were physically and mentally inferior to whites led to white apathy towards disparities in white and black morbidity and mortality. Separation of Durham's black and white communities allowed health disparities to flourish. While this segregation widened the socioeconomic and health gap between black and white communities, it also facilitated the development of a strong black business community and a black elite with the power to address these disparities. The rise of "Black Wall Street" (Parrish Street, Durham) and black businesses at the turn of the century, such as NC Mutual Life Insurance, brought success and credibility to select members of Durham's black community. Leaders of these organizations exhibited social dexterity in maintaining good relations between blacks and whites through these economic connections. Recognizing Durham's health disparities, black leaders garnered support for a black hospital from white philanthropists. Arguing that a black hospital would ultimately benefit whites and maintain segregation, Aaron McDuffie Moore, Stanford Lee Warren, and John Merrick persuaded the Duke family (Washington Duke) to fund Lincoln Hospital in lieu of building a monument on the campus of Trinity College (today Duke University) to commemorate slaves who had fought in the Confederate Army. Aaron McDuffie Moore (Durham's first black physician) reminded the Duke family that blacks worked with whites in small intimate spaces, and that high rates of disease in blacks would affect the health of whites. Ben and James Duke gave an original donation of $8,550 for the hospital's construction in Hatyi, a black neighborhood in Durham. The cornerstone read: With grateful appreciation and loving remembrance of the fidelity and faithfulness of the Negro slaves to the Mothers and Daughters of the Confederacy during the Civil War, this institution was founded by one of the Fathers and Sons: B.N. Duke, J.B. Duke, W. Duke. Not one act of disloyalty was recorded against them. The Duke Family remained patrons of the hospital until its closure Financial And Material Support Lincoln hospital's black leaders claimed the hospital was "a striking example of what can be accomplished in a community where both races work together." However, in the beginning, whites generally kept a distance by confining their involvement to financial contribution. Eventually, this relationship evolved to include whites in the running of the hospital. For example, Dr. Max Schiebel, who worked at the hospital in 1944, joined the surgery department long before official integration of the medical staff in 1925. The hospital functioned with support from private institutions, black and white individuals, and the governments of Durham County and other surrounding counties. Community support was reflected in the hospital's leadership bodies, including the Lincoln Hospital Board of Trustees. Begun in 1921, the 21-member board was made up of one-third members selected from the white community, while the rest were appointed from African American leading institutions and families in Durham, as well as the local city and county governments. The Board also included a member of the Duke family, an appointee from NC Farmers and Mechanics Bank, and a representative from NC Mutual Life Insurance Company. Finally, a black woman, white man, and black man were elected from the community to serve on the Board. Black and white women in the Durham community were responsible for supplying linens, furnishings, and other supplies for the hospital and the nurses' home through community-wide donation drives. White clubwomen tracked the hospital's quality of care, supervised nursing students, and acted as liaisons between the institution and the white community. Lincoln Hospital's Lady Board of Managers acted as a female leadership body in the hospital, responsible for fundraising for the hospital and institutional improvements. Durham County also supplied funds to run the hospital. With community support, the hospital established a mission to provide care regardless of a patient's ability to pay. The amount of charity patients admitted to Lincoln was not confined to a certain quota. According to its 1938 report, two-thirds of Lincoln Hospitals 1,879 patients were charity cases. On move-in day for the new facility in 1925, 18 of the 85 patients admitted were from other towns where there were no healthcare facilities for blacks. Reflecting the broad-based community support of and corporate pride in the institution, Durham residents frequently referred to Lincoln as "our hospital Facilities The original wood-frame hospital building, located at the corner of Cozart St. (Alley) and East Proctor St. and housing up to 50 patients, was damaged in a 1924 fire. Recruitment of additional funds initially meant to expand the original facilities allowed the immediate construction of a new building, which was completed in 1924 and opened on January 15, 1925. The Nurses Home was also added in 1924 as a gift from B.N. Duke in memory of his son, Angier B. Duke Medical Services Consonant with its primary mission of patient care, Lincoln Hospital provided access to some of the best black physicians on the East coast through its departments of medicine, gynecology and obstetrics, and surgery. The department of medicine at Lincoln Hospital provided general services for venereal disease prevention and treatment, emergency care, cancer, and routine adult medicine. Over the years, the medical departments adapted to the specialties of the attending physicians, and the needs of the public at large. Radiology and laboratory services Full-time doctors at Duke and Watts hospitals provided lab and radiology services for Lincoln, providing qualified supervision for these specialties without on-site expertise. A notable pioneer in this department was Margaret Kennedy Goodwin (head radiology technician, 1938-1976), the first female African American to be elected to membership in the American Registry of Radiology technicians. Goodwin also led a two-year training program for lab and radiology technicians that began in 1950 Gynecology And Obstetrics The hospital focused on increasing the number of hospital deliveries, developing maternal education programs, and maintaining birth follow-up programs to reduce maternal and infant mortality. At the time, infant mortality was very high: 411 deaths per 1000 live births among black children, excluding miscarriages and stillbirths, versus 137.5 per 1000 for whites in 1910 and many mothers died at home due to birth complications. Education about the risks of birth increased rates of hospital deliveries for black women in Durham. Prenatal care at Lincoln Hospital also included screening for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as syphilis. Mothers who tested positive were counseled and treated to prevent transmission of STIs to their babies at birth.[ Pediatrics In addition to STI screening at birth, Lincoln also worked to reduce child mortality through postnatal and childhood care in the Well Baby Clinic. Black mothers were encouraged to bring their children back for check-ups, to ensure that their babies were reaching growth and weight standards for their age. Proper diets and feeding schedules were also taught to the mother. All babies at the clinic were immunized. In 1963, the state calculated the rate of infection among African American children to be lower than the rate among white children in Durham. The pediatric department also later offered specialized programs such as the Crippled Children's Clinic—a joint effort between Lincoln and Duke Hospital's orthopedic departments. In 1937, the infant death rate for babies under one year of age in Durham County was reduced to 52.2 per 1000 live births among whites and 94.2 per 1000 among blacks. Surgery The Lincoln Hospital surgery department provided comprehensive surgical services to African Americans unavailable at nearby hospitals. While services were considered subpar in the early years of the hospital, Dr. Max Schiebel (Chief of surgery, 1944-1971) revitalized the program by raising standards and providing surgical expertise. Dr. Charles DeWitt Watts (1917 - 2004) served as Chief of Surgery during the 1950s and 1960s he began training Howard University residents in a joint program with Duke University Medical School, where -because Duke was segregated - residents would come through Duke but be trained at Lincoln. Health Education In the hospital's early years, a partnership with Leonard Medical School at Shaw University (the first four-year medical school for blacks in the U.S. and the first medical school in North Carolina) served as a pipeline to practice at Lincoln. Seven of the original Lincoln physicians were graduates of Leonard Medical School. The Leonard school closed in 1918, limiting local opportunities for black medical education and spurring Lincoln to establish its own training programs. Lincoln became a magnet for some of the most talented black physicians on the East coast. Partnerships with Duke, Watts, and other hospitals in North Carolina ensured a steady supply of residents for Lincoln's education programs. The Lincoln Nursing School (1901-1976) drew young African American women to its well-regarded program throughout the hospital's tenure. In 1934, the reorganization of Lincoln hospital and the acquisition of funds from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and the Duke Endowment led to the establishment of medical internship and residency programs Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing The Board of Trustees organized the Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing in 1903. The program was approved by the Board of Nurse Examiners of the State of North Carolina. Julia Latta was the first director of nursing from 1903 to 1910. The curriculum design included courses to be taken at North Carolina College in Durham, N.C, and formal affiliation with the college was established in 1930. The specialty areas of Pediatrics and Psychiatry were taught through affiliations with other hospitals including Meharry Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee and Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, N.C. After the first year of training, nursing students worked alongside nursing graduate students to take care of patients, supplying essential, inexpensive, primary care. The Nursing School provided greater job and educational opportunities for young black women in Durham. The hospital maintained accreditation with the NC Board of Nurse Examiners until loss of patients compromised the school's clinical program in the 1960s. Medical Internships And Residencies Lincoln Hospital was accredited by the American Medical Association for internship training in 1925 and by American College of Surgeons in 1933. Pediatric, orthopedic, internal medicine, surgery, and ob-gyn residents, primarily from Duke University medical school rotated through Lincoln from 1930 into the late 1960s. Medical and surgical staff of the hospital spent time teaching residents and interns on rounds in the wards. Many Lincoln students, both black and white, went on to achieve distinction in their field. Continuing Medical Education Beginning in the 1930s, Lincoln hospital became a popular place to host continuing medical education conferences due to the proximity of the N.C. College for Negroes dormitories, which provided a place for physicians to stay in a time when most blacks were barred from southern hotels. In 1935, Lincoln hosted its first postgraduate clinic, which became an annual event. The clinic drew black and white physicians from all over North and South Carolina and Virginia to join speakers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. Later Years The hospital emerged from the Depression as one of the leading hospitals for blacks or whites in the Carolinas. However, by 1950, Durham residents recognized that both Lincoln and Watts hospitals were providing outmoded services. A joint proposal for Federal funding to expand both Lincoln and Watts Hospitals was submitted to the North Carolina Medical Care Commission in 1950. A local bond measure passed, providing money for construction of a new 33 bed wing, completed in 1953 and increasing Lincoln's bed total to 123. Like many black institutions, Lincoln Hospital declined after integration. By the 1960s, both Lincoln and Watts Hospitals were providing subpar medical services to Durham. In 1965, Lincoln hospital integrated its medical staff. While white and black medical staff continued to practice at the hospital, patients of both races were increasingly admitted to other hospitals. Charles DeWitt Watts founded Lincoln Community Health Center (LCHC) in 1971. The health center and hospital operated together in the Fayetteville St. facility until September 25, 1976, when inpatients were transferred to Durham County General Hospital. Today, the center offers a wide range of health services including adult medicine, pediatrics, dental, social work/mental health services, family care nursing, and community outreach. Prenatal and family planning services are available at the Center in cooperation with the Durham County Health Department. Building on the legacy of its predecessor institution, Lincoln Hospital, LCHC is dedicated to fulfilling its mission statement: "As a leader in the provision of community health care, Lincoln Community Health Center is committed to collaborating with other institutions dedicated to the continuous improvement in services being provided to decrease health disparities, while assuring access to all. Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Lincoln_Hospital_(Durham... Previous Next

< Back The Black Church Food Security Network "Fourtee Acres is a 45-acre family owned forestry, farming, natural gardening and rental property operation established in 1994 that is engaged in sustainability for the future. Fourtee Acres is part of the 195 acre century old Williams Family Farm (established 1916). For Tussie and Roxanna Williams, married in 1910 (our grandparents) farming was a way of life. Fourtee Acres is owned by Tyrone and Edna Williams along with their three sons, Trevelyn, Tremaine and Tyron. The name Fourtee Acres is a play on the proverbial “forty acres and a mule” that was promised to African-Americans after slavery, with a twist to acknowledge the “Four T’s” (Tyrone, Trevelyn, Tremaine and Tyron). The “double” EE’s at the end represent the “Energizing Effort” that Edna has brought to our family and to the continuing legacy of the Williams name. She has embraced this endeavor as her own legacy (as it is) and has made all of the work worthwhile. She is our backbone! We have established the following goals for our beloved Fourtee Acres. ​ We believe in leaving things better than we found them, and to that end, we hope to share our story, our journey to enlighten, entertain and educate others.” Previous Next

< Back A Day of Blood The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot "In this thoroughly researched, definitive study, LeRae Umfleet examines the actions that precipitated the riot; the details of what happened in Wilmington on November 10, 1898; and the long-term impact of that day in both North Carolina and across the nation". LaRae Umfleet, who researched and wrote the definitive study examining the riot and its impact as a watershed moment in post-Reconstruction North Carolina politics, Wilmington had been considered a mecca for African Americans at a time when the political process was more fairly representative of them than at most other times in US history; they held roles in the management of the city and county, seats on the board of alderman, in the state legislature and in the US House of Representatives. Wilmington was also the largest and most prosperous city in North Carolina, largely due to its status as a critical, deep-water port. Umfleet explains in the film that African Americans at every economic rung of society experienced relative prosperity. Black shrimpers and fishers continued to pass down trade expertise in the Cape Fear River region; black literacy rates soared; African Americans owned an astonishing number of businesses on main streets, including restaurants; served as police and firemen; practiced medicine and law. About the Author "LeRae Sikes Umfleet is Chief of Collections Management for the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. She holds a B.A. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. in history from East Carolina University. From 2003 to 2007, Ms. Umfleet was a research historian in the Research Branch of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History. In 2007 she received the American Association for State and Local History's Award of Merit and WOW Award for her work on the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report". Previous Next

< Back The Negro Midwives Association Over 100 midwives existed in Pitt County, NC in the 1920s and only 4 were left in 1968. Requirements included being in good health, being a high school graduate, having good character, and being between ages 21 and 45. Midwives were required to complete a course at the midwife institute, which was usually in Fayetteville, NC. Licenses were renewed every five years. (Courtesy of ECMC.) *Researcher-Stan Best* Previous Next

< Back Exploring Fannie Lou Hamer's Legacy 45 Years After Her Death March 9, 2022 Fannie Lou Hamer, who passed away 45 years ago this month in Mississippi at the age of 59, was a giant of the U.S. civil rights movement. A sharecropper who lived in poverty, she didn't learn that she had the constitutional right to vote until 1962, when she was 44. Hamer almost immediately began organizing for voting rights with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). For this, she was forced off the land where she was sharecropping, was threatened, and faced attempts on her life. Jailed without cause in Mississippi while returning from a Southern Christian Leadership Conference gathering in South Carolina, she was beaten so severely with a blackjack by inmates on the order of police that she suffered permanent kidney damage and nearly died. After SNCC created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to protest Black people's exclusion from the official state Democratic Party, Hamer served as a delegate to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where she shocked the nation with her televised testimony about her arrest and beating. "All of this on account we want to register to become first-class citizens," Hamer told the American people. Less than a year later, moved by the work of Hamer and many others, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. Despite the critical role Hamer played in shaping U.S. history, her achievements have been largely ignored in the nation's public schools and even its universities. Consider the experience of Keisha N. Blain, born in 1985 and now a professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and president of the African American Intellectual History Society. Blain double majored in history and Africana studies as an undergraduate at Binghamton University in New York, taking classes on the Black experience in the U.S. and across the African diaspora. But it was not until her senior year of college that she learned about Hamer and her Democratic National Convention testimony. "Hamer truly inspired me," Blain told Facing South. "Learning her story emboldened me because I found that I can relate to her in some ways, certainly as a Black woman, but even more so as someone from a working poor background." Blain would go on to earn a master's and doctorate in history from Princeton University and complete postdoctoral research at Penn State's Africana Research Center. Last fall her book about Hamer's ideas and political strategy, "Until I Am Free," was published by Beacon Press. The title comes from a quote that Hamer would often repeat: "We have a long fight, and this fight is not mine alone, but you are not free whether you are white or Black, until I am free." "Until I Am Free" was the National Book Critics Circle 2021 biography finalist and was nominated for the 53rd NAACP Image Award for biography/autobiography. Speaking of Hamer's profound impact on the civil rights movement, Blain said, "Hamer's story is such an important one. Lots of people did not take her seriously initially because of her limited formal education, but they came to learn through experience that you don't have to have a college degree to be a genius." During the last months of writing the book, Blain was thinking about its urgency — particularly as it related to the recent people's uprisings protesting the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and too many others. As many voices were calling for a "racial reckoning," Blain was surprised to see how quickly those calls gave way to attacks on critical race theory. "It's interesting, because when you sit down and you write a book you could never predict how it will be received by others," Blain said. "But you also cannot predict the atmosphere in which the book will ultimately be published." In addition to Blain's timely book, a recently released documentary titled "Fannie Lou Hamer's America" also seeks to teach the nation about the organizer's legacy. The film, which initially aired last month on PBS and is now streaming, was directed and edited by Joy Davenport and produced by Monica Land, Hamer's great niece. Land, Davenport, and Blain recently took part in a panel discussion hosted by World Channel. A child when Hamer died, Land described her great aunt as someone who "loved to laugh, loved to joke, was an extremely hard worker, and was very hospitable." She also described Hamer as someone who had sacrificed so much and deserved to have her story told. Land first got the idea for the documentary in 2005 and started working on securing grants in 2016. The film is completely narrated in Hamer's voice — because as a white woman Davenport understood that she did not need to overly insert herself into Hamer's story, and also because Hamer's voice is so powerful. Listening to it, viewers can hear Hamer's sense of urgency, which still resonates today. "Knowing the contribution that she made to society, I just wanted her to be recognized and remembered," Land said. _End Article_ ---- Book Summary: UNTIL I AM FREE Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America By Author: Keisha N. Blain “[A] riveting and timely exploration of Hamer’s life. . . . Brilliantly constructed to be both forward and backward looking, Blain’s book functions simultaneously as a much needed history lesson and an indispensable guide for modern activists.”—New York Times Book Review Ms. Magazine “Most Anticipated Reads for the Rest of Us – 2021” · KIRKUS STARRED REVIEW · BOOKLIST STARRED REVIEW · Publishers Weekly Big Indie Books of Fall 2021 Explores the Black activist’s ideas and political strategies, highlighting their relevance for tackling modern social issues including voter suppression, police violence, and economic inequality. “We have a long fight and this fight is not mine alone, but you are not free whether you are white or black, until I am free.” —Fannie Lou Hamer A blend of social commentary, biography, and intellectual history, Until I Am Free is a manifesto for anyone committed to social justice. The book challenges us to listen to a working-poor and disabled Black woman activist and intellectual of the civil rights movement as we grapple with contemporary concerns around race, inequality, and social justice. Award-winning historian and New York Times best-selling author Keisha N. Blain situates Fannie Lou Hamer as a key political thinker alongside leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks and demonstrates how her ideas remain salient for a new generation of activists committed to dismantling systems of oppression in the United States and across the globe. Despite her limited material resources and the myriad challenges she endured as a Black woman living in poverty in Mississippi, Hamer committed herself to making a difference in the lives of others. She refused to be sidelined in the movement and refused to be intimidated by those of higher social status and with better jobs and education. In these pages, Hamer’s words and ideas take center stage, allowing us all to hear the activist’s voice and deeply engage her words, as though we had the privilege to sit right beside her. More than 40 years since Hamer’s death in 1977, her words still speak truth to power, laying bare the faults in American society and offering valuable insights on how we might yet continue the fight to help the nation live up to its core ideals of “equality and justice for all.” Includes a photo insert featuring Hamer at civil rights marches, participating in the Democratic National Convention, testifying before Congress, and more. -End Book Summary- ------- Link To Listen to Fannie Lou Hamer's 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey: https://www.facingsouth.org/.../i-question-america ... Link To Watch "Finding Your Voice Through Fannie Lou Hamer | Meet the Makers" Panel Discussion: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=fannie+lou+hamer+panel&&view=detail&mid=EBC366D426701161510FEBC366D426701161510F&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=/videos/search?q=fannie+lou+hamer+panel&FORM=HDRSC4 Link to Watch "Fannie Lou's American" film: https://www.fannielouhamersamerica.com/ Previous Next

< Back George H. White North Carolina Congressman delivered his now-famous "Phoenix" Farewell Address. On this day January 29, 1901, North Carolina Congressman George H. White delivered his now-famous "Phoenix" Farewell Address. *He was attentive to local issues and appointed many blacks in his district to federal positions. After the passage of legislation disfranchising black voters, White declined nomination to a third term, saying “I can no longer live in North Carolina and be treated as a man.” In his farewell speech he stated that “Phoenix-like he (the negro) will rise up some day and come again (to Congress).” * White was the last black member of Congress for twenty-eight years, and the last black Southerner in the body until 1973. North Carolina did not see another African-American in congress until Eva Clayton and Mel Watt took their seats in 1992 and 1993, respectively. George Henry White was born on December 18, 1852, in Rosindale, Bladen County, North Carolina, and he died on December 28, 1918, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A successful attorney, White was among the most notable black Republican political leaders of his era: the last African American elected to Congress during the 19th century, and the first to serve in the 20th century. One of four black congressmen elected from North Carolina’s Second District, called the “Black Second” for its black-majority population, during and after Reconstruction, White served two terms (1897–1901). He was the only black member of the U.S. House during his two terms, and the nation’s last black congressman until 1929. Born to a free mixed-race father and an unnamed mother, perhaps a slave, George White was raised as a free child in Columbus County, North Carolina. Wiley Franklin White was a justice of the peace in Columbus County during Reconstruction, before moving to Washington, D.C., in 1872 to work for the U.S. Treasury Department. George White was raised by his stepmother, Mary Anna Spaulding White, a granddaughter of former slave and prosperous turpentine farmer Benjamin Spaulding. Educated privately before the Civil War, George White later attended Freedmen’s Bureau schools and the Whitin normal school in Lumberton. After graduating from Howard University in 1877, he then worked as a schoolteacher and principal in New Bern while reading the law under former Superior Court Judge William John Clarke. Among the first half-dozen black attorneys admitted to the N.C. bar (1879), White established a thriving legal practice in New Bern and became active in Republican politics, winning election from Craven County to the N.C. House of Representatives (1880) and the N.C. Senate (1884). In 1886, he won office as solicitor of the state’s Second Judicial District, a six-county area in northeastern North Carolina; reelected in 1890, he was the nation’s only elected black prosecutor for eight years. After Craven County was removed from the Second district, White moved to Tarboro in 1894 to pursue the congressional nomination. He lost in 1894 to his brother-in-law, former Rep. Henry P. Cheatham, who lost his bid at reelection. White came back to defeat Cheatham in 1896 for the nomination, and defeated Democratic incumbent Frederick A. Woodard and a Populist opponent in the general election. In March 1897, George White was sworn in as a member of the 55th Congress; he was reelected to his seat in November 1898, again in a three-way race. White also served as a state delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1896 and 1900. From 1897 to 1901, White became a national spokesman for equal rights and fair treatment for the nation’s African American population, as well as an outspoken opponent of lynching violence and Southern disfranchisement of black voters. In early 1900, he sponsored a bill to make lynching a federal crime punishable by death, but that bill died in committee. During his terms, he arranged appointments for more than three dozen black postmasters in the Second district, the largest number appointed in any district in the 19th century. After voters amended North Carolina’s constitution to ban illiterates from voting—effectively disfranchising more than 100,000 black voters who could not qualify under the new “grandfather clause”—George White chose not to seek reelection in 1900, and moved his family to Washington, D.C. On January 29, 1901, he delivered an oft-reprinted farewell speech to the U.S. House, pleading for equal justice for black Americans and predicting the eventual return of blacks to Congress. An active member of several civil rights organizations after 1898, White served as a national vice president of the National Afro-American Council (1900-1902), and helped found the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP in 1913. After leaving Congress, White practiced law in Washington, D.C., and created the George White Land Development Company, through which shareholders established the all-black town of Whitesboro, New Jersey, after 1901. In 1906, he moved his law practice to Philadelphia, where he also established that city’s first black-owned commercial savings bank, People’s Savings Bank. In 1912, he unsuccessfully sought his party’s nomination in a special election for a vacant Congressional seat from Philadelphia. He remained active in local Republican politics, and in 1916, became the state’s first black alternate delegate to the Republican national convention. A year before his death, he was appointed as an assistant city solicitor for Philadelphia. White was married four times. His first wife, Fanny Randolph White (m. 1879), died in 1880. His second wife, Nancy Scott White (m. 1882), died in 1882. In 1887, he married Cora Lena Cherry, who died in 1905. He had four children: Della, Beatrice, Mary (Mamie), and George, Jr. He died of natural causes in Philadelphia in December 1918, and was survived by his fourth wife, Ellen Avant McDonald White (m. 1915). State highway historical markers in White’s memory are located in New Bern and Tarboro. He is buried in Eden Cemetery outside Philadelphia. Written by Benjamin R. Justesen Sources Benjamin R. Justesen, George Henry White: An Even Chance in the Race of Life (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2001); George W. Reid, “George Henry White,” in Dictionary of American Negro Biography, ed. Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982); Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, ed. William S. Powell (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1986); Black Americans in Congress, 1870–2007, ed. Matthew Wasniewski (Washington, DC: GPO, 2008). Previous Next

< Back The Eugenics Program Photo Collage Description: Left image- A page from a eugenics pamphlet in the 1930s Handout Pamphlet- Courtesy of the UNC Wilson Library, NC Collection- Transcript of words on pamphlet At bottom of Post* Right Image: In this June 22, 2011 photo, Elaine Riddick has her face in a handkerchief and wipes tears from her eyes as she listens to other victims testify before the Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation task force compensation hearing in Raleigh, N.C. Between 1929 and 1974, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,600 individuals in the name of “improving” the state’s human stock. Jim R. Bounds- AP For more than four decades North Carolina’s statewide eugenics program forcibly sterilized almost 7,600 people — many of whom were Black. That wasn’t a coincidence, according to a new academic paper. Duke University professor William A. Darity Jr. co-authored a report published in the American Review of Political Economy that correlates 10 years of forced sterilizations in counties across the state with the number of unemployed Black residents, finding the program was all but designed to “breed (them) out,” according to a university news release. “This suggests that for Blacks, eugenic sterilizations were authorized and administered with the aim of reducing their numbers in the future population — genocide by any other name,” the paper states. Eugenics is another word for selective breeding. From 1929 to 1974, North Carolina’s eugenics program sterilized close to 7,600 men and woman, making it impossible for them to reproduce or conceive, according to The Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. The foundation was established by the N.C. Department of Administration in 2010 to pay reparations to the surviving victims of the state’s eugenics program. Legislators ultimately set aside $10 million in the state budget to pay those victims, The News & Observer reported. The first checks, written for $20,000 each, were mailed to 220 of those survivors in 2014. The law does not, however, apply to individuals who were sterilized by local health or welfare departments, The Charlotte Observer reported later that year. North Carolina’s eugenics program was one of many in the U.S. targeting people with illnesses or disabilities living in state institutions, but it was later touted “as one of several solutions to poverty and illegitimacy,” the foundation says. That meant sterilization petitions weren’t just submitted by hospitals but also by local welfare officials and county boards of commissioners, according to Darity’s paper. “As such, the scope of North Carolina’s eugenic sterilization law extended directly to recipients of public welfare,” the paper states. According to The Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation, the majority of victims in other states were sterilized before World War II, but more than 70% of North Carolina’s occurred after 1945. Many of those victims were white woman not living in institutions and Black people, the foundation says. Darity is a professor of public policy, African and African American Studies and economics at Duke. Together with lead author Gregory N. Price, an economics professor at the University of New Orleans, and Rhonda V. Sharpe, the founder and president of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity, and Race, they analyzed more than 2,100 forced sterilizations that occurred between 1958 and 1968 in North Carolina. The trio specifically looked at what’s known as “surplus population” — meaning people who are not part of the labor force and often need government assistance, according to the university news release. During that 10-year period, Darity and his co-authors found local sterilization rates paralleled the size of its surplus population only when that population was Black. “The United Nations’ official definition of genocide includes ‘imposing measures to prevent births within a (national, ethnically, racial or religious) group,’” Darity said in the release. “North Carolina’s disproportionate use of eugenic sterilization on its Black citizens was an act of genocide.” NOTE: below are links from the article. 1. Duke University professor William A. Darity Jr. co-authored a report published in the American Review of Political Economy that correlates 10 years of forced sterilizations in counties across the state LINK: https://www.arpejournal.com/.../did-north-carolina.../ 2. the program was all but designed to “breed (them) out,” according to a university news release. LINK: https://today.duke.edu/.../new-paper-examines... 3. Eugenics is another word for selective breeding. LINK: https://ncadmin.nc.gov/.../office.../about-office-foundation 4. From 1929 to 1974, North Carolina’s eugenics program sterilized close to 7,600 men and woman, making it impossible for them to reproduce or conceive, according to The Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. LINK: https://files.nc.gov/ncdoa/JSV/JS-brochure.pdf 5. in 2010 to pay reparations to the surviving victims of the state’s eugenics program. Legislators ultimately set aside $10 million in the state budget to pay those victims, LINK: https://www.newsobserver.com/.../und.../article10109309.html 6. The law does not, however, apply to individuals who were sterilized by local health or welfare departments, LINK: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/.../article9241226.html *Words on Eugenics pamphlet from image above: "Selective Sterilization Also Protects Children. for no child should be born to sub-normal parents - denied a fair, healthy start in life - or doomed from birth to a mental institution" Previous Next

< Back St. Agnes Hospital Nursing School In June of 2015, Penelope Johnson Brown of Pikesville, MD, identified her mother, Madie L. Johnson White (Green), as being the nurse in the middle of the front row of three sitting in the grass. Madie L. Johnson White (Green) was born and raised in Chester, Maryland (Kent Island). She was one of 10 children. After graduating from Queen Anne's County High School, she attended and graduated from the St. Agnes School of Nursing in June of 1950 and went to work at Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, IL. Later she worked at Hubbard Hospital in Nashville, TN, married, and returned to Maryland where she worked for over 30 years as a public health nurse for the Baltimore City School system. During that time obtained a BA in Health Administration and a Master's Degree before her sudden passing in 1997. See more of the collection: https://flic.kr/p/53BG1c ----- From a collection donated to the State Archives of NC. Album description Located on St. Augustine's College campus in Raleigh, NC, St. Agnes Hospital first opened its doors in October 1896 and served as a hospital and nurse training center for African Americans. The hospital was expanded in 1903 to include new facilities, including an operating room. A 1904 fire severely damaged the building, prompting students of the college, under the direction of Reverend Henry Beard Delany (North Carolina's first African American Episcopal bishop) to quarry and lay the stone that makes up the current structure. Construction began in 1905; the cornerstone and electric lighting were installed in 1906. The completed hospital was ready for occupation in June 1909. Its straightforward and functional design includes granite walls laid in random ashlar and segmental-arched windows of various sizes. By the 1920s, St. Agnes hospital was the largest hospital for Blacks between Atlanta and Washington. In the 1940s the college and school separated; in 1961 the hospital closed when the Wake County Medical Center opened. The property was returned to St. Augustine's shortly thereafter. St. Agnes Hospital was declared a Raleigh Historic Landmark in 1979. From localwiki.org/raleigh/St._Agnes_Hospital See also goodnightraleigh.com/2008/07/the-crumbling-st-agnes-hospi... LINK to collection at State Archives of NC: https://www.flickr.com/.../north.../albums/72157682100383726 Previous Next

< Back Dr. Selma Burke Photograph: Mooresville, NC native, Artist/Sculptor/Educator Dr. Selma Burke won a competition to create a relief sculpture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1943. Photograph: Mooresville, NC native, Artist/Sculptor/Educator Dr. Selma Burke won a competition to create a relief sculpture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1943. Photograph Credit: John W. Mosley Photograph Collection, Charles L. Blockson AFRO-AMERICAN Collection, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA. Who Really Designed The American Dime? The Controversy That Has Long Roiled The Coin World. By Christina Ayele Djossa- January 17, 2018 WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME you looked—really looked—at a dime? It is the smallest coin in U.S. circulation, so it takes a keen eye to see the very subtle “JS” just beneath Franklin D. Roosevelt’s truncated neck. These are the initials of John Sinnock, the U.S. Mint’s Chief Engraver from 1925 to 1947, who is credited with sculpting the profile of the 32nd president. However, institutions such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum—and even Roosevelt’s son—credit another sculptor with inspiring the design: Dr. Selma Burke, the illustrious Harlem Renaissance sculptor. So where is credit due? The answer is … complicated. In 1943, 43-year-old Selma Burke won a Commission of Fine Arts competition and a rare opportunity to sculpt the president’s likeness for the new Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington, D.C. Burke, renowned for her Booker T. Washington bust, ran into some problems, since she didn’t feel that photographs captured Roosevelt’s stature. So the sculptor wrote to the White House to request a live-sketch session. The administration, to her utter shock, agreed. On February 22, 1944, Burke met with Roosevelt for 45 minutes, sketched his profile on a brown paper bag, and engaged in a lively conversation about their childhoods. At one point, Burke said, “Mr. President, could you hold your head like this?” He invited her back for another session the following day. About a year later, just months before Roosevelt’s death, Eleanor Roosevelt visited Burke’s home in New York to see the profile-in-progress. The first lady told her, “l think you’ve made Franklin too young.” To which Burke replied, “I didn’t make it for today, I made it for tomorrow and tomorrow.” Roosevelt died five months before the official unveiling of the plaque, in September 1945. To commemorate his legacy and his founding of the March of Dimes to combat polio, the U.S. Mint and Congress proposed engraving his portrait on the dime, which at that point held the profile of the goddess Liberty wearing a winged cap. U.S. Mint Director Nellie Tayloe Ross (the first woman elected governor, in Wyoming), tapped Sinnock for the job. Sinnock had experience sculpting presidents in profile. For years, he taught at Philadelphia Museum Art School, and in 1917 joined the Philadelphia mint as an assistant engraver. There, he designed presidential medals for Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, and later Roosevelt’s third inaugural presidential medal. In a 1946 interview with The Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine, Sinnock said he referenced old photographs and a “composite of two studies (sculpted in relief)” of Roosevelt for his work on the dime. He also sought “the advice and criticism of two prominent sculptors” who specialized in relief portraiture before submitting his final sketch to the Commission of Fine Arts on October 12, 1945. The new Roosevelt dime rolled into circulation the next year to much celebration—and controversy. The dime’s most vocal critic was Burke. She claimed that the dime bore a striking resemblance to her portrait. Edward Rochette, former American Numismatic Association president, supported her argument, and went a step further, suggesting that the reverse of the dime was also inspired by the Four Freedoms sculpted into Burke’s plaque, though it’s not entirely clear how. According to Rochette, Sinnock allegedly had also taken undue credit for the design of the Sesquicentennial of Independence half-dollar coin, which he sculpted based on sketches by another artist, John Frederick Lewis, after Sinnock’s own designs were rejected. Burke believed the administration change after Roosevelt’s death and her political affiliations were reasons her claims were dismissed. When she demanded an investigation into Sinnock, Burke said the FBI investigated her instead. Mooresville Museum president David Whitlow and Andy Poore, a local historian from Burke’s hometown in Mooresville, North Carolina, confirm Burke’s sentiments about the FBI. Under J. Edgar Hoover’s direction, Whitlow states, “the FBI was investigating everyone,” including many artists. Burke was also clear that she believed racism played a role. In a 1994 interview with journalist Steven Litt, she said, “This has happened to so many black people.” Sinnock denied Burke’s accusations, and died just a year after the coin was issued. Years later, debate among numismatists continues. Some credit Burke unequivocally, while others have conducted side-by-side comparisons to suggest significant differences between the sculptures, particularly in Roosevelt’s nose and hair. U.S. Mint officials cite Sinnock’s previous Roosevelt work as evidence that his initials on the coin are warranted. Brenda Gatling, a former U.S. Mint public spokesperson, told Litt that “both Ms. Burke and Sinnock conducted live sittings with the president” for their designs. Current U.S. Mint Curator Robert Goler states that, according to archival records, Sinnock began sculpting Roosevelt in 1936 for “a presidential medal,” and that he “used that particular design of Roosevelt multiple times between then and the president’s death in 1945, and it’s the same the design” on the dime. (Though the 1936 medal and dime profiles face opposite directions). Burke continued sculpting, founded the Selma Burke School of Sculpture in New York and the Selma Burke Art Center in Pittsburgh, and was honored with the Women’s Caucus for Art lifetime achievement award in 1979. Even without credit for the dime, Whitlow says, “she was great in her own right,” and Poore concedes that “Sinnock was a talented artist.” But even until her death in 1995, Burke held on to her conviction about the dime: “Everybody knows I did it.” #IrememberOurHistory #SelmaBurke #USMINT #Rooseveltdime #TheyStoleHerDesign #SheDidIt #TellTheWholeTruth #NCNative #BlackArtists #NCBlackHistory365 #BHM #BlackCulture #WomenArtists #NCMAAHC Source:https://www.atlasobscura.com/.../who-designed-american... Previous Next

< Back The Myth of Black Immunity: Racialized Disease during the COVID-19 Pandemic Photo description: A Public health doctor giving tenant family- a Black mother and her children who are standing on the steps of their front porch-- medicine for malaria near Colombia, South Carolina, 1939 (Photo: Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress). Black Perspectives By Chelsey Carter & Ezelle Sanford III April 3, 2020 As the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic sweeps across the world, troubling associations between race and disease have gone viral. On social media, theories of Black people’s immunity to the novel coronavirus spread rapidly and widely, with the initially small number of cases in Africa often cited as evidence. Since then, the virus has spread to the continent and will surely exacerbate already compromised health systems. The virus was also erroneously labelled as the “Kung Fu Flu” and the “China Virus,” among other epithets, by members of the United States Presidential administration—including the President himself. While these labels may have the air of jest, white supremacists have sought to use the novel coronavirus for bioterrorism, targeting racial minorities specifically. Claims of immunity falsely suggest that Black people across the entire Diaspora cannot contract the disease. Meanwhile, labels that construct the disease as Chinese obscure the vital pathways the contagion has taken irrespective of racial categories. These claims are more than just racist and xenophobic—they are dangerous to everyone’s health. It is times like these, amid existential fear and anxiety, where we must be most attuned to the ways in which race is deployed, to the historical origins from which these ideas emerge, and to how these ideas undergird social fear and political inaction. Race has no biological basis. Rather, it is historically, politically, culturally, and affectively produced not only by systems and structures, but by moments, just like the one we are presently in. The embedded effects of oppression, marginalization, and racism have very real biological consequences. We must consistently ask ourselves: (1) What does the racialization of disease reveal and what does it occlude? (2) What meanings do we attach to a condition and create in these processes of racialization? (3) How do these meanings impact people’s day-to-day lives both now and in the future? COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. The disease causes respiratory illness (like influenza) with symptoms such as cough, fever, and in more severe cases, difficulty breathing. This virus disproportionately impacts the elderly and people with “preexisting conditions.” We know that 50 to 129 million non-elderly Americans have such conditions. This figure increases substantially when you consider individuals over the age of 55. Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities bear a disparate burden of these conditions. We know that COVID-19 will disproportionately impact communities of color. The racialized experience of COVID-19 will be further exacerbated at the intersections of class, gender, and age. These racialized associations, new and old, have historical roots and have been the subjects of scholarly critical analysis for decades. Claims of “Black immunity” and the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus, are not wholly distinct. Rather, they are, two sides of the same coin. These claims have erased the suffering of marginalized people and continue to do so. As these individuals succumb to disease, they are inevitably blamed, if not entirely feared and demonized as vectors of disease. These pervasive ideas of racialized disease are dangerous for our health. Assertions of Black immunity to COVID-19 represent the persistent afterlife of slavery and the pervasive power of white supremacist thought. As historian Rana Hogarth argues, these theories emerged in the era of enslavement, as the system itself made such observations of racial difference possible in the Atlantic world. According to Hogarth, “Slavery apologists would, of course, eventually use this claim to suggest that Black people’s peculiarities were a sign of their fitness for servitude.”1 While a pandemic of this size and scope is unprecedented in our generation, the world bore witness to major outbreaks of the past. Black immunity theories emerged, perhaps most prominently, in Philadelphia in the late eighteenth century in the face of successive Yellow Fever outbreaks. Prominent Declaration of Independence signatory and abolitionist, Dr. Benjamin Rush, ardently believed that African Americans were immune to the disease as a result of their purportedly acclimatized bodies. In Philadelphia, Rush worked with African Methodist Episcopal ministers Absalom Jones and Richard Allen to recruit the city’s free Black community to care for dying white citizens. When African Americans themselves succumbed to disease, their suffering was ultimately erased, unexplained by immunity. Even today medical students are taught to quickly associate disease with racial and ethnic identity. Sickle Cell Anemia is associated with African Americans, Cystic Fibrosis with European descendants, and Tay-Sachs disease with Ashkenazi Jews. While these shorthand associations facilitate consultation speed and efficiency, they are dangerous and sometimes fatal. A classic case of the consequences of associating race and disease has been shared widely by legal scholar and critical race theorist, Dorothy Roberts. 2 Roberts recounts a Pediatrics journal article on the misuses of racialized diagnosis when a young Black girl repeatedly returned to the emergency room for pneumonia or respiratory concerns over a six year period. At a subsequent ER visit, the 8-year-old’s x-rays were examined by a radiologist, who exclaimed, “Who’s the kid with cystic fibrosis?” Her medical records illuminate a narrative of racialized assumptions that rendered her invisible to the myriad clinicians who treated her over the years—because of her skin color. Instead of getting a treatment-targeting diagnosis, she went untreated for years. Diseases without clear etiologies—like ALS, which has been dubbed a “white” disease—often accrue false, racialized narratives as well. Scholars have discovered that Western medicine’s beliefs that particular races cannot contract certain disease does not just impact patient diagnosis or misdiagnosis but impacts the entire care system. While some scientists and physicians rely heavily on associations between race and disease, less attention is devoted to serious analysis of the social determinants of health, i.e. the structural forces that often lead to disparate disease burden in racial minorities. A preliminary paper by a group of epidemiologists in Wuhan, China drew on myths about minority immunity based on blood type, claiming, “#COVID19 deaths likely higher in Europe but less so in Asia/India (more B) or Latin Americans (more O).” Yet, who was the first person to die of COVID-19 in Brazil? A Black female domestic worker. The first person to die of COVID-19 in St. Louis, Missouri, a hyper-segregated city and home of “Ferguson,” was an older Black woman who worked as a nurse. Beyond social media arguments, we have not attended to the real reasons that Black people are showing up around the globe with lower rates of COVID-19. Those that are the most invisible, most marginalized, and who lead the most precarious lives will be the ones most affected by COVID-19. They certainly are not always the first individuals diagnosed, but they are usually the first to die. COVID-19 spread globally for two chief reasons: (1) a particularly high R0, the “reproduction number” indicating how contagious an infectious disease is, and (2) individuals who had access to resources which allowed them to travel. Thus, in locations like St. Louis, the first case of COVID-19 emerged in a white-majority county suburb—a white student was infected in Italy before returning to St. Louis. Early on, it was easy to “joke” that the virus was a “white disease.” And then a Black woman succumbed first. In Brazil, most people cannot get a COVID-19 test, leaving those without money or sick-time undiagnosed and ultimately invisible to public health workers. When we consider the afterlife of slavery, ongoing medical racism, global histories of medical mutilation and experimentation, and Black invisibility within white supremacist medical systems—asking why Black people would joke about our own susceptibility is warranted. Theories of Black immunity sound like the perfect reward for generations of racialized violence, amid a dystopian global nightmare. The reality is, regardless of diagnosis, we are particularly susceptible and arguably among the most vulnerable. As we attempt to identify who COVID-19 most severely impacts, we must resist the rapid, yet uncritical, definition of certain risk populations. Currently the disease is propagandized as a “Chinese” virus. Elderly populations are considered most vulnerable. And yet, there is powerful anecdotal evidence that such conclusions are flawed: take the example of Dez-Ann Romain, a 38-year-old New York City School Principal who succumbed to the disease, or Judy Wilson-Griffin, a Black nurse beloved by coworkers and family members who became St. Louis’s first COVID-19-related death. In an effort to find control in chaos, racialized claims like Black immunity ultimately represent a scrambling for power and a desire to make sense of uncertainty. We deploy these ideas which ultimately play into our own oppression and the oppression of others, however. Although the history of race and the cultural innovations created in response to oppression, do give communities of color resilience in the time of great anxiety, racialized rhetoric about diseases can be dangerous for your health. This language is as dangerous when Black people co-opt it. COVID-19 has no demonstrated biological association with any racial or ethnic group–viruses do not discriminate. Popular Black British actor, Idris Elba, himself impacted by COVID-19, responded directly to the “conspiracy theory” of Black immunity. In fact, the virus has the ability to infect us all, and will inevitably indirectly touch each and every human life in the world. Its most severe impact will be on those who are most socially vulnerable—the incarcerated, the unemployed, the unhoused, the uninsured—groups in which Black and brown individuals are disproportionally represented. Racializing disease on those grounds alone has no impact other than to promulgate dangerous assumptions. Seemingly banal claims of “Black immunity” may bring some semblance of humorous communal bonding, but they are not funny. These claims are not Black people’s invention—instead they are White people’s invention, driven by white supremacy, and they ultimately leave us biologically disadvantaged. We must uproot the myth of Black immunity and the related myth labeling the virus as a Chinese pathogen. The stakes are entirely too high! Source: Rana Hogarth, Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World 1780-1840, (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2017) ↩ Roberts, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century, (New York: The New Press, 2012) Previous Next

< Back Vinnie Bagwell ​ I'SATTA", The first-of-five life-sized bronze sculptures for an urban-heritage sculpture garden to celebrate enslaved Africans, the Enslaved Africans' Rain Garden. For more information, please visit www.enslavedafricansraingarden.org Artist Vinnie Bagwell Jonathan Lewis, photographer Previous Next

< Back Marjorie Lee Browne On September 9, 1914, Marjorie Lee Browne was born. She was an African American mathematician and professor. She was one of the first African-American women to receive a Ph.D in mathematics. She was born in Memphis, TN., her father was a railway postal clerk and her mother died before she was two years old. Because her father had taken two years of college, excelling in arithmetic, he passed on his love for math to mathematical concepts to her. On September 9, 1914, Marjorie Lee Browne was born. She was an African American mathematician and professor. She was one of the first African-American women to receive a Ph.D in mathematics. She was born in Memphis, TN., her father was a railway postal clerk and her mother died before she was two years old. Because her father had taken two years of college, excelling in arithmetic, he passed on his love for math to mathematical concepts to her. After attending public schools, Browne was sent to LeMoyne High School (a private school) and then attended Howard University. While in high school, Browne won the Memphis city singles tennis championship and, while at Howard, she sang in the Howard University choir. In 1935, she graduated cum laude. She taught for a while at Gilbert Academy in New Orleans and received her M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1939. She joined the faculty of Wiley College in Marshall, TX., where she began her work on her doctorate in mathematics, which she obtained in 1949. Browne then taught at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) until 1979, and for 25 years was the only person in the department with a Ph.D. in mathematics. She was a busy person while teaching, writing proposals for equipment, and obtaining grants for scholarships from IBM, Shell, and other corporations for NCCU. The Ford Foundation awarded her a fellowship to study combinational topology at Cambridge University in 195-1953. From 1958 to 1959, Browne was a National Science Foundation Faculty Fellow studying numerical analysis at UCLA. In 1974, before retirement, she was the first recipient of the W.W. Rankin Memorial Award for Excellence in Mathematics Education. After retirement, she used her own money to provide financial aid to many gifted young people so they could pursue their educations. Marjorie Lee Browne died of a heart attack in Durham, North Carolina, on October 19, 1979. After her death, four of her students established the Marjorie Lee Brown Trust Fund at North Carolina Central University which sponsors the Marjorie Lee Browne Scholarship and the Marjorie Lee Browne Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series. Since 1999, the Mathematics Department at the University of Michigan has hosted the Marjorie Lee Browne Colloquium, which annually brings a speaker "to present a talk that highlights their research but also addresses the issue of diversity in the sciences." Source: Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York ISBN 0-926019-61-9 Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Lee_Browne Previous Next

< Back John Chavis ​ On June 15, 1838 John Chavis, died. He was a free Black man, a teacher, preacher and a Revolutionary War veteran. He was born in Oxford, NC sometime around 1763, Chavis had an extensive education for the time period, likely the best education of any African American of his day in North Carolina. In 1778, Chavis enlisted in the 5th Regiment of Virginia, serving for three years with the patriots. Honorably discharged, he studied at what is now Washington & Lee University. Between 1801 and 1807, Chavis did mission work for the Presbyterian Church among slaves throughout the southeastern United States. In 1809, he moved to Raleigh, where he began preaching as a part of the Orange County Presbytery. It was around this time that Chavis began his school, where he taught white students during the day and black students in the evening. In 1832, free Blacks lost many of their rights in North Carolina, and Chavis lost his freedom to preach and to teach. In 1833, he published his only written work, a sermon entitled An Essay on Atonement. The piece was successful and widely read, and helped to supplement his income during the final years of his life. Information about Chavis's early life is scant as well, with few records to document it. It is believed that he may have been the 'John Chavis' who was employed as an indentured servant by a Halifax, Virginia lawyer named James Milner. A 1773 inventory of Milner's estate does list an "indentured servant named John Chavis." Since Milner possessed a large library, it is likely that Chavis received some schooling during his period of service. Chavis served as a soldier during the American Revolutionary War. He enlisted in December 1778 and served in the 5th Virginia Regiment for three years. Captain Mayo Carringtonof the regiment wrote in a bounty warrant dated March 1783 that Chavis had "faithfully fulfilled [his duties] and is thereby entitled to all immunities granted to three year soldiers." A 1789 tax list of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, shows that he was listed as a free black man owning one horse. He had married a woman named Sarah Frances Anderson, and they had one son, Anderson Chavis. In 1789, he was employed by Robert Greenwood's estate as tutor to Greenwood's orphans. In the 1790s, Chavis lived in Princeton, New Jersey, where he took private classes under John Witherspoon to prepare for entering the Presbyterian ministry. The recorded minutes of the meeting of the trustees of the College of New Jersey (later to become Princeton University) dated September 26, 1792, includes a recommendation by Reverend John Blair that "Mr. Todd Henry, a Virginian, and John Chavis, a free black man of that state, ... be received" on the school's Leslie Fund. After Witherspoon's death in 1794, Chavis transferred to Liberty Hall Academy in Virginia. Chavis arrived at the Liberty Hall Academy in Lexington, Virginia in 1795. The following year, George Washington donated 100 shares of James River Company Stock to the school. It changed its name to Washington Academy to commemorate Washington's gift. (Washington Academy later developed as Washington and Lee University, long after Chavis' time there.) On November 19, 1800 Chavis completed with high honors a rigorous theological examination that began on June 11, 1800 in Virginia. On this date, he was also granted a license to preach by the Presbytery of Lexington, Virginia. Six months later, with high character recommendations from the Presbytery of Lexington, Chavis was transferred to work under the Hanover Presbytery. In April 1802, Chavis had applied for freeman's papers and received them from Rockbridge County Court. It was recorded that "said [John] Chavis has been known to the Court for several years ... and that he has always ... been considered as a freeman, and they believe him to be such, and that he has always while in the county conducted himself in a decent orderly and respectable manner, and also that he has been a student at Washington Academy [sic] where they believe he whent [sic] through a regular course of academical [sic] studies." Between 1801 and 1807, Chavis served as a circuit riding missionary for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to slaves and free blacks in the states of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. He also converted whites. Chavis went to Raleigh, North Carolina sometime between 1807 and 1809, where he was licensed to preach the Christian gospel by the Orange Presbytery. Although not called by a parish, he continued to preach to Black and White congregations in Granville, Orange, and Wake counties. Some of the white congregations included slaveholders. In 1808, Chavis opened a school in his home, where he taught both white and black children. He placed ads in the Raleigh Register to encourage enrollment. At first he taught both races together. After some white parents objected, he taught white children during the day and black children in the evenings. He charged white students $2.50 per quarter, and black students $1.75 per quarter. As an educator, Chavis taught full time and instructed his college-bound white students in Latin and Greek, which were required classical subjects in the colleges and universities of that time. His school was described as one of the best in the state. Students from some of the most prominent white families in the South studied at Chavis' school. His students included Priestly H. Mangum, brother of Senator Willie P. Mangum; Archibald E. Henderson and John L. Henderson, sons of Chief Justice Henderson; Governor Charles Manly; The Reverend William Harris; Dr. James L. Wortham; the Edwardses, Enlows (Enloes), Hargroves, and Horners; and Abraham Rencher, Minister of Portugal and Territorial Governor of New Mexico. Chavis maintained a long friendship with one of his white students, Willie P. Mangum, who was elected as a US Senator from North Carolina. For many years, they conducted a correspondence where Chavis often criticized the senator's political positions. Chavis reportedly privately supported the abolition of slavery, greatly disliked President Andrew Jackson, and opposed Mangum's advocacy of states' rights. Chavis did not publicly support abolition, and publicly condemned Nat Turner's slave rebellion, positions he likely took out of concern for his own safety and to maintain his status as a freeman and position as an educator as southerners expelled free Blacks and violently suppressed Turner's rebellion. John Chavis's Letter Upon the Doctrine of the Extent of the Atonement of Christ was found by one of his descendants, Dr. Helen Chavis Othow, who published his biography, John Chavis: African American Patriot, Preacher, Teacher, and Mentor 1763 - 1838 (McFarland Publishers, 2001). She found the letter in the library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A copy of Chavis's sermon is included in the study with an Introduction by Dr. Othow. Rev. Chavis had appealed to the Orange Presbytery to assist with the publication of his sermon, but they refused, stating that it was a subject that had been adequately discussed and would be of no interest to the public. He went ahead and published his sermon in 1837 through J.Gales and Son in Raleigh. After Turner's 1831 rebellion resulted in the murder of dozens of white men, women and children, slave-holding states quickly passed laws that forbade all blacks to preach. Although Chavis was forced to give up preaching and teaching school, the presbytery continued to pay Chavis $50 a year until his death to support him and his wife. Before his death, Rev. Chavis left the Orange Presbytery and joined the Roanoke Presbytery The presbytery continued payments to his widow after his death until 1842. At that time, Chavis's widow told the presbytery that her family could take care of her and her children Chavis died in June 1838 in circumstances that remain unclear. According to his biographer, Dr. Helen Chavis Othow, the oral tradition suggests that Chavis was killed by whites who did not want him educating blacks. Local legend says that Chavis was beaten to death in his home. In 1986 Othow founded the John Chavis Historical Society. One of its goals was to locate Chavis' gravesite. Dr. George Clayton Shaw wrote the first biography about Chavis, published in 1931. He wrote that Chavis was buried on the plantation of Senator Willie P. Mangum, Chavis' former student. After numerous searches for the gravesite, in 1988 members of the John Chavis Historical Society found the old cemetery. The group appealed to the state archaeologist to investigate the site, but this has not occurred as of 2013. The Old Cemetery was added to the map of Hill Forest (the former Mangum plantation) by Michael Hill, historian of the North Carolina Archives. Chavis is the subject of historical markers in both North Carolina and Virginia. Both Chavis Heights apartments and Chavis Park in Raleigh, North Carolina, are named after him, as are a residential house and board room at Washington and Lee University. Several schools are, as well, including John Chavis Middle School in Cherryville, North Carolina. References: Marker H-13: John Chavis Archived 2013-01-04 at the Wayback Machine ^ John Tavis, Teacher of both races Archived 2013-02-04 at the Wayback Machine ^ Tyson, Timothy B. Blood Done Sign My Name, Crown, 2004. ISBN 0-609-61058-9, pg. 132. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-07-01. Helen Chavis Othow. John Chavis: African American Patriot, Preacher, Teacher, and Mentor 1763 - 1838. (McFarland Publishers, 2001) Further Reading: Court Order Book, April 6, 1802. Rockbridge County, Virginia Washington and Lee University Trustees Papers (Folder 21) Room Rent Book, 1794-95. Washington and Lee University Library, Lexington, Virginia. Berlin, Ira. Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1974. Franklin, John Hope. The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860 Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1943. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, ed. African American Lives. Article author Theodore C. DeLaney. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. Kaplan, Sidney & Emma Nogrady Kaplan. The Black Presence in the Era of Revolution. Revised edition. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the American Revolution Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va., 1961. Shaw, G. C. John Chavis, 1763-1838. Binghamton, New York: The Vail-Ballou Press, 1931. Weeks, Stephen. "John Chavis: Antebellum Negro Preacher and Teacher." Southern Workman (February 1914): 101-106. Woodson, Carter G. Negro Makers of History Washington, DC: The Associated Publishers, 1928. Previous Next

< Back Mary Hayden Photograph: Black Mountain, NC Midwife "c1942-Mary Hayden, 84, with her granddaughter, Mary O. Burnette, about 1942 and two of Hayden's great-grandchildren. (Photo: SPECIAL TO BMN) "Mary Hayden 84 who was still working, Mary Burnette standing next to Granny holding my nephew his sister born with veil over face" (Editor’s note: Anne Chesky Smith is director of Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center.) This is how it was, then, for Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden. “She used to tell me how she would have to outsmart a catamount that picked up her scent as she walked home through the mountains at night, carrying a chunk of fresh pork, her payment for a new delivery,” Mary O. Burnette said last week of Hayden, her grandmother and a midwife and herbalist renowned in the Valley. “She would hear this animal squeal and … she would start pulling off garments. Pull off a bonnet, throw it down and she’d hear that animal stop long enough to tear that up and she’s still running. Then she’d pull off something else, maybe a vest, and then an apron, and then undergarments or even stockings if she needed to and had the time, so she could make it home.” Often descended from enslaved midwives, midwives in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries were typically African-American women who learned the trade from their mothers. Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden of Black Mountain was no exception. Born in January 1858 to Hanah Stepp (c. 1832–Nov. 6, 1897) on the Joe Stepp farm in Black Mountain, Mary learned to deliver and care for babies from her mother, who had served as a midwife from a very young age, having been sold to the Stepps from a plantation in Alabama when she was 13. Though Mary O. Burnette never met Hanah Stepp, she heard stories about her. “My mother said (she) had very black skin, but not African black," Burnette said. "And she had a strange dialect. My grandmother said she was part Native American.” According to the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, in the early to mid-1800s, when Hanah Stepp would have been practicing, slave ownership included directing treatment for sick or injured slaves. African-American beliefs about the causes of illnesses, however, often differed greatly from the beliefs of white slaveholders and their physicians, who called for treatments that were typically much harsher than the natural remedies favored by enslaved people. Despite these conflicting beliefs, many enslaved midwives would deliver their mistress’ children and have their services sold to other white women in the area. After slavery was abolished, African-American women continued to practice as midwives and herbalists. Though Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden told Burnette little about being enslaved, Burnette recalled one story that stood out. “She remembered when slavery was abolished. She told me that a man came on a horse and stood before her mother’s cabin door and read to them the Emancipation Proclamation. She was 5 years old. It would have been in January of 1863. It was one of the most wonderful things she told me.” Mary Hayden and her mother most likely stayed in Black Mountain at the Stepp farm until the end of the Civil War in 1865, and perhaps in Black Mountain for a time afterwards, so that Mary could learn to read and write at a local school for former slaves. Hanah’s skills were not place-dependent, and she was able to help sustain the family – Mary Hayden and her two sisters, Margaret and Easter – as a midwife. The family eventually moved to Polk County. Mary married her first husband, Squire Jones Burnette, by the time she was 18. They had many children, but only two survived to adulthood – Mary O. Burnette’s father, Garland Alfred Andrew Burnette, and her Aunt Margaret. Mary Stepp Burnette and Squire divorced, and her second marriage to Andy Hayden was short-lived. In the 1910s, Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden moved back to Black Mountain, following her son, who had purchased a small farm in town. Hayden would live in Black Mountain for the remainder of her life and continue to support herself as a midwife and herbalist. Mary O. Burnette, who was delivered by Hayden along with her six siblings, remembered of her grandmother, “She was small. Tiny woman. Maybe 100 pounds. Very small foot, but very hearty. Tough. And a very straight nose, small mouth. Intense, stern eyes. Bushy eyebrows. “She had long straight hair that hung below her waist. Her hair was twisted into two ropes and those ropes were twisted tight at the back of her neck. I used to stand behind her chair and comb and brush her hair, and I’d have to keep backing up because her hair was so long.” One day, Hayden went out to pick blackberries. As she was picking through the brambles a long, black thing fell down over her shoulder. Startled, she jumped away from the what she thought was a black snake. Upon closer inspection, she declared, tossing her head back and clapping her hands, “Gentlemen, it was just a braid of my hair!” “That was Granny's manner of speaking when she wanted to make a point,” Burnette said. Hayden dressed modestly, in skirts down to her ankles; rarely, if ever, buying new clothing. “She made her long white aprons by hand,” Burnette remembered. “She would sew a pocket that went all the way to the hem because that’s how she carried things. I never remember her having a purse, she would drop things in that apron pocket so she would have things handy, particularly her snuff ... She would reach down and pull the hem up so she could get her hand all the way down to the bottom of that pocket.” (Editor’s note: In next week’s edition, Anne Chesky Smith writes about how the two African-American midwives in the Swannanoa Valley used their knowledge of herbs to treat blacks and whites.) Link to another photograph of Black Mountain, NC Midwife "c1942-Mary Hayden https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=378129472911641&set=a.176792746378649 Source: https://www.blackmountainnews.com/.../catch.../337914002/... Previous Next

< Back Charlie Kennedy, M.D. When Charlie Kennedy was a kid, his hopes for a medical career seemed an impossible dream. But with the help of benevolent strangers along the way, scholarships and a fervent determination for greatness, Kennedy would become the first black resident at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and, later, the first black pediatrician in Winston-Salem. “My family, we had no money. By any definition we were poor,” said Kennedy, 85. “I think about how lucky and how fortunate I was that someone else believed I could do it, too, and they were willing to risk it to give me that opportunity.” The kindness Kennedy was shown growing up inspired him to give back by hosting fundraising galas at his home in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Kennedy and his wife, Willie, raised several million dollars for the United Negro College Fund to support, among many things, college scholarships, like the ones that made his medical career possible. “Sometimes, you need somebody to come along and put a hand out to you,” he said. “Believe me, I know.” A passion for medicine Kennedy’s path to medicine was, at times, choppy and stunted by obstacles, but he never gave up. Now retired, Kennedy provided medical care to generations of Winston-Salem children in a long-underserved area of town after opening his own practice on Highland Avenue. “The kids that came through my office, they hadn’t ever seen a doctor before. There wasn’t a doctor in town that would see them,” Kennedy said. “I told them, maybe one day if they played their cards right and worked hard, they could be doctors, too.” Kennedy’s passion for the medical field stemmed from a childhood of caring for his mother, who was often sick. Because the family didn’t have a vehicle, the doctors would perform house calls. After high school, Kennedy couldn’t afford college so he left to serve in the Air Force as a radio operator with the promise of tuition-free college after four years. He became the first person in his family to attend college when he enrolled in Johnson C. Smith University in his hometown of Charlotte. “Growing up, my teachers were unusually kind and understanding,” Kennedy said. “As I look back on it, the faith they had in me was important in my decision to pursue school and medicine.” ‘One chance’ Still determined about becoming a doctor, Kennedy applied and was accepted to both of the black medical schools — Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. But money remained an issue and banks refused to loan him money, he said. “You should’ve seen the look on the bank teller’s face when I walked in. He thought I was going to rob them,” Kennedy said. “At that point, segregation was still very much in play.” Luckily, the state of North Carolina had set funds aside for black students to attend the school in exchange for serving two years in a community no larger than 15,000 people after graduation. It was a boon that ensured Kennedy a slot at Meharry Medical College, although he still had no money to get there. When he was told he had to be at the school by 8:30 a.m. or he would lose his place in the program, he thought it was the end of his dreams. But a local grocer, Mr. Little, offered to give Kennedy the money — no strings attached — to cover the plane ticket to Nashville. “I studied hard all the time because I knew I had one chance. There wouldn’t be a second,” Kennedy said. “I told myself ‘Climb the education ladder, go as high as you can go and don’t ever be in fear of falling.’” Overcoming racial barriers After graduating in 1963, Kennedy learned that the medical program at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center had decided to integrate. He applied and was accepted, making a groundbreaking leap across the chasm of segregation as the first black resident at the hospital. An educational loan provided by the Winston-Salem Foundation allowed him to overcome the financial restraint of attending. “They’d never had a black doctor or a black student, they hadn’t seen black people in the hospital before,” Kennedy said. “The biggest thing to me, the honest truth, I did not have a single incident. Nobody called me (the n word), nobody said they didn’t want me touching their child. That, to me, was the amazing part.” Only once, during his medical board exams in Tennessee, did Kennedy have a disheartening encounter with an examiner who was dismissive of him because of his race, he said. “He clearly wanted nothing to do with black folks,” Kennedy said. “He asked me two questions that didn’t really have a right answer. Then he said, ‘Have a good trip back home.’ When you go into a situation like that, you just have to give it your best shot.” But others, including the chief of pediatrics at Baptist at the time, stepped in with support and told Kennedy: “We know what happened to you in there,” and proceeded to test his medical knowledge. The next day, Kennedy received a call and was told he had done extremely well and had passed his boards. Kennedy went on to open his own pediatric practice in an under-served part of Winston-Salem. For years, he was one of the few private pediatricians in town who would see Medicaid patients and was on call 24/7, he said. In the late 1990s, he said he sold the practice, Aegis East Winston, to Baptist because the hospital promised to recruit pediatricians, general practitioners and obstetricians and build an up-to-date clinic. “It has increased the availability of health care on the east side of the city,” Kennedy told the Journal in 1999. “In a lot of cases we had no providers available at all.” Kennedy went on to practice with 12 other doctors on New Walkertown Road. He retired about 10 years ago, he said. ‘Evening of Elegance’ As a doctor, Kennedy made it his life’s work to help others — a philosophy he carried into his personal life, as well, with annual fundraising events. Kennedy and his wife of 55 years, Willie, became known in the community for their swanky, glamorous fundraising galas where guests in ball gowns and tuxedos were serenaded by strolling violinists. “I saw it as a twofold purpose to raise funds for a very, very worthy cause, but also it was the social event of the year to be invited to,” said Brenda Diggs, an attendee at several of the galas. “He was truly remarkable to open up his home and be able to do this.” The money raised went to support the United Negro College Fund, which provides scholarships, grants, textbooks, school equipment and more to students at historically black member-colleges in North Carolina. In 2003, the United Negro College Fund honored the Kennedys with its President’s Award for raising more than $2 million for the organization over the previous nine years. “Education was a passion of his and mine,” said Willie Kennedy, 79, now a retired lawyer. “I grew up in a household where if you were reading you didn’t have to do anything else, so I had a book in my face at all times.” A handful of students, who were directly benefited by the donations, attended the parties, and were grateful and excited to be there, Diggs said. The prestigious “Evening of Elegance” parties featured exquisite arrays of catered food amid blooming crape myrtles draped in lights and an extensive patio with a pool table and big-screen TV. Guests were even shuttled in Mercedes-Benz vans from a church parking lot to the couple’s three-story brick home off Shattalon Drive that sits atop a hill overlooking a pond, a fountain and a gazebo. The annual parties were themed, one year featuring a tropical tiki hut open bar and palm trees. Each year’s party raised about a quarter of a million dollars. Kennedy said he simply wanted to help people the way he was helped. “So often people forget to give back when they’ve reached a point in their lives where they can do so, but Charlie Kennedy and his wife always made it a priority,” Diggs said. “I deem them as heroes, the people that have made a difference in the lives of so many.” Previous Next

< Back Harold Nicholas Harold Nicholas Was A Tap Dancing Legend and one half of the Nicholas Brothers. Harold Nicholas Was A Tap Dancing Legend Nicholas was born 3.21.1921 to drummer and orchestra leader Ulysses Domonick and pianist Viola Harden in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. By the age of three, his older brother Fayard enjoyed sitting in the audience of the black vaudeville theater where his parents performed, enraptured by the great performers on stage. Immersed in show business, when the Nicholases added a second son to the family, seven-year-old Fayard insisted that the child be named after his idol, Harold Lloyd, the silent-screen comedian. The two brothers soon began dancing, and they quickly gained acclaim for their elegant acrobatic moves and mastery of tap. When Fayard was 16 and Harold nine, they made their first appearance at the legendary Cotton Club in New York City and were a popular success immediately. Their reputation grew rapidly, and Harold and Fayard became established superstars at Twentieth Century Fox with their astounding dance numbers in the studio's musicals features. The brothers began appearing in musical films with Eubie Blake. They performed in vaudeville, on Broadway, in nightclubs, on television, and in movie musicals. Harold appeared in more than 50 feature films, including The Big Broadcast (1936), Down Argentine Way (1940), Tin Pan Alley (1940), and Sun Valley Serenade (1941), which features the show-stopping "Chattanooga Choo Choo" tap dance number performed by Harold, Fayard, and Dorothy Dandridge. Fred Astaire told the brothers that their dazzling footwork, leaps and splits in the Jumpin’ Jive dance in Stormy Weather (1943) produced the greatest movie musical number he had ever seen. In the number, the brothers dance on a piano and leap over performing musicians. The Nicholas Brothers’ Hollywood career began after movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn spotted them in a nightclub and cast them in Kid Millions (1934). The two became big film stars despite racial restrictions at the time prohibiting speaking parts and scenes with white co-stars. Their last film together was 1948’s The Pirate, in which Gene Kelly danced with them, breaking the color barrier. Harold went on to work as a solo artist, moving to France and touring as a singer and dancer. He appeared in the French film L’Empire De La Nuit (1964). Nicholas returned to America occasionally to do shows with his brother. Harold also appeared in the films Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Tap (1989), The Five Heartbeats (1991) and Funny Bones (1995). In 1985-86, Nicholas played the role of "Daddy Bates" in the National Tour of the Broadway musical The Tap Dance Kid. In 1993, he starred in the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre's world premiere of If These Shoes Could Talk, which also starred Tony nominee Ted Levy, an original tap dance musical by Lee Summers and Kevin Ramsey. The leading character, a seasoned triple threat/hoofer, "Dr Rhythm," was written for Nicholas and would be his farewell stage performance in a musical. Carnegie Hall sold out for a tribute to him and his brother in 1998, who were both present. By that time he had been living on New York's Upper West Side, where he lived for approximately 20 years with his third wife Rigmor Alfredsson Newman, a producer. Harold Nicholas, like his brother, was married more than once. His first marriage, on September 6, 1942 was to the celebrated actress, singer and dancer Dorothy Dandridge. They met at the Cotton Club in Harlem in 1938. Together they had a daughter, Harolyn Suzanne, who was born on September 2, 1943 with severe brain damage that prevented her from speaking or even acknowledging her parents. By 1948, their marriage had deteriorated and Nicholas abandoned his family. Their marriage lasted nine years, ending in 1951. Nicholas had a son, Melih, with his second wife Elyanne Patronne. At the time of his death, he was married to Rigmor Newman Nicholas. Harold Nicholas was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 2001, along with his brother Fayard Nicholas. Nicholas died on July 3, 2000, at the age of 79, from heart failure. Photograph: Promotional portrait of American tap dancers Fayard (left, not shown) and Harold Nicholas (1921 - 2000), known as The Nicholas Brothers, for the stage production of the musical 'St. Louis Woman,' c. 1940. The musical was directed by Rouben Mamoulian, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Source: National Public Radio 635 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20001 All Media Guide 1168 Oak Valley Drive Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Nicholas Previous Next

< Back Son of Farmsteader at Roanoke Farms Son of farmsteader at Roanoke Farms-Halifax County--Enfield. North Carolina - 1938 Apr. Photographer: John Vachon, (1914-1975) Source: LOC- Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives Previous Next

< Back Herbert Smitherman ​ Dr. Herbert Smitherman the inventor of the most popular Proctor and Gamble’s Products. Crest Toothpaste, Folgers Coffee, Bounce Fabric Softener and Safeguard Soap were all created by an African-American Man? I have talked about Dr. Herbert Smitherman Sr. before on The African History Network Show before.. Dr. Herbert Smitherman was a pioneering executive and professional chemist at Proctor & Gamble who led the way for other African-Americans at the prestigious company in the 1960s. He was the first black person with a doctorate hired at Proctor & Gamble. With a Ph. D in physical organic chemistry, Dr. Smitherman developed a number of incredibly popular patents, including Crest toothpaste, Safeguard soap, Bounce fabric softeners, Biz, Folgers Coffee and Crush soda, to name a few. Not only are they still on the shelves, but many of them are on display at the Cincinnati Museum Center in the featured exhibit, “America I AM: The African-American Imprint.” Dr. Smitherman spent 29 years there before turning in his labcoat to work as a professor at Wilberforce University. But after serving at the historically black college, Smitherman turned his attention to starting a high school called the Western Hills Design Technology School to help black students perform better in math and science. A child of the south, Dr. Smitherman’s family lived in Birmingham, Alabama, where his father served as a reverend. A young Smitherman would see his father’s church burn down twice during their push for voting registration and voting rights. He died on Oct. 9, 2010. Previous Next

< Back Winston Salem State University-Delores “Dee” Todd , WSSU Class of ‘72, Winston Salem, NC. ​ Delores “Dee” Todd , WSSU Class of ‘72 - Winston Salem State University, Winston Salem, NC. Todd broke barriers throughout her career. In 1980, she became the first African American to appear on a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. In 1983, she was named Big 10 Coach of the Year for Cross Country. After successful stints at Northwestern and Georgia Tech, she became the ACC’s first female commissioner in 2000. Five years later, she became North Carolina A&T’s first female director of athletics. She was inducted into the WSSU Clarence E. "Big House" Gaines Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001. . DeLores “Dee” Green Todd – Trailblazer in Women’s Sports by Tyson Waters | Feb 24, 2023 DeLores “Dee” Green Todd, a Camden, NJ, native, is a hidden gem in her community. From being a barrier-breaking first in many of her professional endeavors to inspiring an industry in ways she could not have imagined, Green Todd is truly a phenomenon. Born in Washington, D.C. on February 29th, 1948, the leap year baby grew up a middle child, flanked by an older brother, Lonnie, and a younger brother, Juan. She likes to joke and tell people she’s technically only eighteen years old (if only counting the times we actually saw February 29th). As a young athlete, Green Todd was often limited to intramural competition because Title IX had not yet become law. Title IX requires educational institutions to reward male and female athletes equally and ensures the prevention of discrimination in access to sports facilities, training centers, equipment, and other supports provided to sports programs. Until the passing of this federal civil rights law in 1972, there was no legal requirement of equal sports access and support for women. Green Todd did enjoy cheerleading. “I was a cheerleader growing up. I cheered all four years at Winston-Salem [University] for basketball and football. I became a captain my freshman year and [still to] this day, I’m the only four-year captain,” she proclaimed. Green Todd went on to earn a Master’s degree in Human Relations & Psychotherapy and pledged Delta Sigma Theta Sorority at Northwestern University. After college, she taught physical education and coached girls basketball, cheerleading and track at two high schools. While still teaching at one of them, a friend who owned a modeling agency encouraged Green Todd to start modeling. So she auditioned and landed a McDonald’s modeling gig. As her portfolio grew, she worked with Jet and Ebony magazines, Dr. Scholl’s and Fashion Fair cosmetics and other companies. In 1980, when the United States boycotted the Olympics, Kellogg tapped Green Todd to grace the cover of their Corn Flakes box. The model, educator, athlete and coach was the first Black woman to do so. She did not initially recognize the significance of the cover photo until she learned the cereal boxes were flying off of shelves and people wanted her autograph. “It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done in terms of publicity. Every time the boxes would restock, it would sell out, and people would ask me to autograph their cereal boxes,” said Green Todd. Green Todd is a woman of many firsts. She was the first African American woman to coach at Northwestern University. When named track coach at Georgia Tech in 1985, she became the first African American coach in any sport in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). In 1988 she became the first woman and the first African American to serve as assistant commissioner of the ACC. In 2005, she became North Carolina A&T University’s first woman athletic director. She broke barriers coaching at Northwestern University and Georgia Tech, paving a path for other women in sports. Along the way, Green Todd led advances in women’s sports, convincing the NCAA to staff women’s basketball with the same number of officials as men’s roundball. She successfully championed live television coverage of women’s college basketball rather than recording them for playback later. “Women’s basketball was a growing sport but nobody was able to [notice] it because the conferences wouldn’t invest money in it. Equity was the main reason. It just made sense to me and I wanted to help do the right thing,” she said. Delores Green Todd has long believed in inspiring people to make a way for others as she did for them. “‘It’s hard to be what you can’t see, so be an example.’ I came up with that quote myself, and I always say it because [growing up] I didn’t see the example, so I became it,” said Green Todd. She recently finished a six-year term on the Board of Legal Specialization in North Carolina. After retiring, the former track standout accepted a job coaching track at Heritage High School in Wake Forest, NC. There, this trailblazer continues sharing her invaluable experience and insight with another generation of athletes. *Tyson Waters is a freelance reporter and storyteller based in Camden, New Jersey. He enjoys sports, fitness and music. Source link: https://lovenowmedia.com/delores-dee-green-todd.../ Previous Next

< Back Mu Psi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. NC A&T, Greensboro, NC. Civil Rights activist Jesse Jackson can be found sixth from the left in the top row. Mu Psi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. NC A&T, Greensboro, NC. Civil Rights activist Jesse Jackson can be found sixth from the left in the top row. Source: Archives of North Carolina A&T , 1963 yearbook, The Ayantee, Previous Next

< Back Somerset Plantation ​ “Somerset Homecoming” at Somerset Place State Historic Site in Creswell, NC. The August 30, 1986 homecoming was the first-ever event of its kind: a reunion of descendants of the enslaved community of the large southern Somerset plantation in Creswell, NC. Organized by then site manager Dorothy Spruill Redford–who also was a descendant of the enslaved community–the happening brought together hundreds of family members from around the country and garnered international attention. Somerset Place was home to more than 861 enslaved people when it was active from 1785 until 1865. Now as a historic site it was interpreted for years mainly in terms of the wealth of the slaver Collins family, which owned the plantation, and the fact that the operation was among the largest and most economically successful in the state. Redford shifted the site’s focus and began telling the stories of all the families who lived there with focus on learning and telling the life stories of the enslaved Black people population. Recognizing that the enslaved people’s forced labor was the central impetus for the success of the plantation, Redford was quoted by the New York Times during the homecoming, saying, ”From this day forward, there will always be a shared recognition. They’ll think of the Josiah Collins family, but they’ll think of my family too.” She described the state historic site as ”a living monument to ordinary folks – to our toil, our lives, our lineage. Image source: NO.55976-From the N&O negative collection, State Archives of North Carolina. ---- Read More about the enslaved Black population and the Homecoming event Here: Generations of Somerset Place: From Slavery to Freedom (Images of America) August 31, 2005 by Dorothy Spruill Redford https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=294217801302809&set=a.169158510475406 And Here: Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage By Dorothy Spruill Redford Introduction by Alex Haley https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1022234008501181&set=a.169158510475406 Previous Next

< Back Durham Colored Library Durham Colored Library, opened in 1916 at the Corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew streets. The Durham Colored Library, opened in 1916 at the Corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew streets. It would later become The Stanford L. Warren Library. 1913 - 1939 The Early Years Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore was born in 1863 to free, black, land-owning parents. He established a medical practice in Durham in 1888, becoming Durham’s first African-American physician. Moore became actively involved in the economic and cultural life of Durham, pursuing numerous successful business ventures. An avid reader and a lover of books, he lamented the lack of “good, wholesome reading matter” available to the young people in Durham’s African-American community. In 1913 Moore set out to remedy this deficiency. He started a library with 799 donated books in the basement of White Rock Baptist Church, where he was superintendent of the Sunday school. The church library met with limited success—denominational differences in the community impeded its use by all residents. Undeterred, Moore enlisted the help of his friend and business associate John Merrick. Merrick, born a slave in 1859, was the owner of a successful chain of barbershops and, along with Moore, was instrumental in establishing such landmark African-American institutions as the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company (at one time the largest black-owned business in the United States) and Lincoln Hospital. In 1916, the two men established the Durham Colored Library in a building Merrick owned at the corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew streets. Community donations supported the library for its entire first year. In 1917 the city of Durham began granting the library a meager monthly appropriation, but the library still relied heavily on community financial support. In 1918 the library began receiving an additional appropriation from Durham County, and that same year the North Carolina General Assembly incorporated an association to be called Durham Colored Library, Inc. Hattie B. Wooten was the library’s first librarian and initially its only employee. Wooten earned a salary of $40 per month and was granted living quarters above the library. Wooten worked diligently to promote the library. In 1925 she launched a three-point plan intended to increase circulation: 1) Promote the library as an institution of interest to visitors to the city, 2) Invite all community groups to have meetings in the library, and 3) Have the library placed in the Negro Yearbook. She organized popular activities for children and young adults, sometimes in cooperation with local schoolteachers. Wooten held the position of librarian until her death in 1932. Under the guidance of Wooten and the board of trustees, the library became increasingly popular. As usage increased, it became apparent that the library was outgrowing its cramped quarters. The board had discussed the need for a new library building since the early 1920s; however, it was not until the late 1930s that they were able to make a serious effort to relocate. In 1939 the board passed a resolution to build a new library at the corner of Umstead and Fayetteville streets. The new building was financed chiefly by a $24,000 loan from North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. Several individuals contributed significant amounts of money, including long-time board president Dr. Stanford Leigh Warren, who donated $4,000 to buy the land on which the library would be built. The new library, named in his honor, opened on January 17, 1940. Source: https://durhamcountylibrary.org/exhibits/slw/early_years.php Previous Next

< Back Home of Negro tenant farmer. Halifax, North Carolina April 1938 Home of Negro tenant farmer. Halifax, North Carolina April 1938 Photograph: Home of Negro tenant farmer. Halifax, North Carolina April 1938 Contributor Names John Vachon, 1914-1975, photographer Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-And-White Negatives (170,902) American Memory (502,740) Prints and Photographs Division (847,558) Library of Congress Online Catalog (977,675 Previous Next

< Back Elizabeth City State University-Cheerleaders, Elizabeth City State Teachers College, 1949. ​ Cheerleaders, Elizabeth City State Teachers College, 1949. From the 1949 edition of the Viking, Elizabeth City State University's yearbook, (p. 87). Image courtesy of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center. Previous Next

< Back Plantations of New Hanover County ​ Revolutionary War Era Plantations of New Hanover County, NC Plantations of New Hanover County, NC Source: "A History of New Hanover County and the Lower Cape Fear Region", 1723-1800, vol. 1, by Alfred Moore Waddell, c. 1909 Transcribed by K.T. Source: http://genealogytrails.com/ncar/newhanover/plantations.html Image: Cape Fear River, Harnett, NC CHAPTER II THE NAMES OF THE EARLIEST PLANTATIONS, THEIR LOCATION AND THEIR OWNERS, WITH ITEMS OF BIOGRAPHY AND INCIDENTS. As already stated, settlements were made on the Cape Fear River, and in its vicinity as early as 1723. A grant for 48,000 acres was made to Landgrave Thomas Smith* as early as 1713, but no attempt to settle on that grant (which included Bald Head at the mouth of the river and extended above Wilmington) was made for some years [*A recital in a deed (N. H. Records, C. 77) says this grant is in the Secretary's office of South Carolina.] These settlements were chiefly on the west side of the river below Wilmington, and in the locality known then and ever since as Rocky Point on the northeast branch above Wilmington, but some were on the sound and on the upper Northwest river. There were a few grants for land as far south and west of the river as Lockwood's Folly, but these were isolated places to which no historic interest attaches. We will begin our account of these oldest plantations and their owners by first taking those farthest down the river and proceeding up it as high as Wilmington, and then take those above on both branches in the same order, and finally those on the sound. And, as preliminary to the subject, it will be "news" to the present generation of Cape Fear people to learn that in the early days fine crops of wheat were raised in the Rocky Point neighborhood on the northeast branch of the river. In those days rice, indigo, corn, and tobacco were the principal crops, but there is contemporary evidence of the culture of wheat also in the region referred to, and probably in many other places. In a letter written by a lady from her residence near Castle Haynes to Mr. John Burgwin in London, in the year 1775 (August 25th), is this language: "We have prodigious crops of wheat this year-better never known in the memory of men. The corn will also be very fine if these deluges of rain do not spoil it." In speaking of the British troops grinding grain at Rutherford's mills, above Rocky Point in 1781, McRee [*Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, Vol. I, 526, note.] says: "With the exception of a small experiment by Dr. J. F. McRee on Rocky Point, wheat has not been cultivated in that region since the Revolution." The reason, or one of the reasons, probably was that after that time it was found to be cheaper to buy flour brought from the back country to Fayetteville, and thence by boat to Wilmington, than to raise the wheat and send it miles away to be ground on toll at the few mills that were equipped with proper stones for grinding that grain. It certainly was not because the land was not capable of producing fine wheat crops. GOVERNOR'S POINT. The southernmost estate on the river was called Governor's Point because Governor Burrington bought it from the first grantee, John Porter. John Porter came from the Albemarle region, where he had been for many years a leader of the people. He moved to the Cape Fear country in 1723 and died at Rocky Point in 1734. Members of his family intermarried with the Moores, Ashes, Lillingtons, and Moseleys. In a lecture delivered before the Historical and Scientific Society of Wilmington, on the 26th of November, 1879, entitled "A Study in Colonial History," the Hon. George Davis overwhelmingly vindicated the memory of Porter from the grossly unjust attacks upon it by Dr. Hawks and other writers of our colonial history. Under his claim, clear and masterful analysis of the facts concerning the Cary rebellion and the characters, connected with it-an analysis illuminated by flashes of satire and genial humor-the true character and valuable services of John Porter were portrayed, and his claim to the admiration and respect of posterity was triumphantly established. Like too many others who have lived in troublous times, and have taken an active part in public affairs, Porter was the victim of party rancor and the personal hostility of those in authority who used their power to defame him and destroy his influence and reputation, but it was almost worth undergoing the wrong and injustice to have received after many years such a splendid vindication as the lecturer pronounced. HOWE'S POINT. Job Howe, father of Gen. Robert Howe of Revolutionary fame, was the son of a prominent man of the same name in South Carolina, and was the grandson of Governor James Moore (the first) of that State. His residence at Howe's Point, the next place above Governor's Point, was in rear of an old colonial fort, built, according to tradition, for defense against pirates, who infested the harbor and river, and the ruins of both his residence and the fort were visible until a comparatively recent period. In his interesting little book, entitled "Tales and Traditions of the Lower Cape Fear," Mr. James Sprunt says: "Mr. Reynolds, the present intelligent owner and occupant of the Howe place behind the colonial fort, who took part in building Fort Anderson, says that his father and his grandfather informed him forty years ago that this fort was erected long before the War of the Revolution as a protection against buccaneers and pirates; that his great-grandfather lived with General Howe on this place during the war (Revolution) and took part in a defense of this fort against the British who drove the Americans out of it; that the latter retreated to Liberty Pond, about a half mile in the rear, pursued by the British; that a stand was made at this pond, the Americans on the west and the enemy on the east side, and that the blood which flowed stained the margin of the beautiful sheet of water which still bears the name of Liberty Pond, and that the Americans again retreated as far as McKenzie's mill dam behind Kendall, where the British abandoned the pursuit and returned to their ships of war." And Mr. Sprunt adds: "Since the foregoing was written Mr. Reynolds's statement with reference to General Howe's residence has been fully corroborated by the well-known Cape Fear skipper, Captain Sam Price, now eighty-six years old. He remembers distinctly and has often visited the house known as General Howe's residence, which he says was a large three-story frame building, on a stone or brick foundation, on the spot already described just below Old Brunswick, and still known as Howe's Point." General Howe was one of the really brilliant officers of the Revolution, having been promoted to the rank of Major General in October, 1777, although his advancement had been most ungenerously obstructed by persons in South Carolina and Georgia. He was a man of much more than usual culture and ability, and who, by his intelligent activity in supporting the rights of the people against the unconstitutional aggression of King and Parliament before the Revolution broke out, had become so obnoxious to the Government that when pardon was offered to all who would abandon the American cause during the war, he and Harnett, who was his close friend and coadjutor, were specifically excepted from clemency, and his plantation was plundered by a British expedition. It would require a volume to adequately present his most valuable services to his country from early manhood to the day of his death, which occurred in December, 1786, at the residence of his friend and brother hero, Gen. Thomas Clark, at Point Repose, while on his way to attend the session of the Legislature, of which he was a member, then assembled at Fayetteville. We shall have occasion to refer again to this brave and gifted soldier and patriot, and therefore postpone further comment now. YORK. The place next above Howe's Point, and just below the town of Old Brunswick, belonged to Nathaniel Moore,* a brother of Col. Maurice Moore and "King" Roger Moore, but he owned several other plantations up the river and does not seem to have lived at York. [*Nathaniel Moore married Sarah Grange April 13, 1720, in South Carolina, as we learn from the Annals and Register of St. Thomas's and St. Denis's Parish, S. C, and after her death married a Miss Webb.] There is, or recently was, a steamboat landing and post-office about forty miles farther up the river that has for more than a hundred years borne the name of "Nat Moore," but generally spelled Natmore. RUSSELLBORO. Immediately north of the town of Brunswick was the historic place called Russellboro, a residence with 55 acres of land attached, which was bought from Roger Moore's estate by Captain Russell of the British navy, [*Captain Russell owned the land on which the town of Campbellton (adjoining Cross Creek, now Fayetteville] was built, which land descended to his sons John and William, who are named as the owners in the Act of 1762 establishing the town, and who were pensioned by the British government, and were Tories in the Revolution. Their father died prior to 1762, and Andrew J. Howell, Esq., of Wilmington, tells me he is one of his descendants. Captain Russell commanded the sloop of war Scorpion.] and afterwards was sold to Governor Dobbs, whose son, Captain Edward Brice Dobbs, sold it to Governor Tryon in 1767.* [*Book B, 308, N.H.] It was at this residence that the Stamp Act patriots interviewed Tryon to his great indignation and humiliation. As in nearly every other instance of the places, there is nothing left of Russellboro but a few broken bricks.* [*The North Carolina Society of Colonial Dames have erected, with the foundation stones of the building, a memorial structure, and have placed on it a large marble tablet reciting the history of the place] It was a part of the Orton estate. ORTON. The first plantation above Brunswick, which from its first settlement to this day has been one of the largest and most beautiful estates on the Cape Fear River, is Orton. It was settled by "King" Roger Moore in 1725, and remained in his family for three generations, and then was bought by Richard Quince, a wealthy merchant, in whose family it remained for about thirty years, when Gen. (afterwards Governor) Benjamin Smith owned it. It was the southernmost rice plantation on the river. KENDALL. Adjoining Orton on the north is Kendall, where Governor Smith's brother James lived. He was the father of R. Barnwell Smith, who, with his brother, took the name of Rhett and moved to South Carolina. Kendall was first granted to Col. Maurice Moore in 1725, conveyed by him to his brother Roger Moore in 1726, and sold by the latter's son George to John Davis, Jr., in 1765* [*Book E, 242] It was later owned by the McRee family. The first of this family in North Carolina was Samuel McRee, who settled in Bladen County about the year 1740, having come from Ireland. His son, Griffith John McRee, born in Bladen February 1, 1758, was an enthusiastic patriot at the beginning of the Revolution, and was commissioned on the 16th of April, 1776, captain in the 6th Regiment, Continental Line of North Carolina. He was at the battle of Fort Moultrie, and afterwards at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. Being transferred in March, 1779, to the 1st Regiment, Continental Line, he marched in the next fall to South Carolina, and was at the long siege of Charleston, where he was made prisoner. After his exchange he joined Greene's army and fought at Guilford Court House, Hobkirk's Hill, and Eutaw Springs. In the last named fight his conduct secured his promotion to the rank of Major and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel. After the Revolution, in 1785, he married Miss Fergus, of Wilmington, and lived at Lilliput, next adjoining to Kendall. General Washington appointed him Captain of Engineers and Artillery in 1794, and while in command at Fort Johnston he was appointed, in 1798, collector of the port of Wilmington. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati and was distinguished for his exceptional Christian character. Only five of his children reached maturity, but of these, three were men of marked ability, viz: Col. Wm. McRee, who graduated at West Point in 1805 with the first honors, distinguished himself in the War of 1812, was made Chief of Engineers U. S. Army in 1814, Lieutenant Colonel of Engineers in 1818, resigned 1819, and died in 1833. Also Col. Sam McRee, who graduated at West Point, reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Mexican War as General Taylor's Chief Quartermaster, and died in 1849; and Dr. James Fergus McRee, perhaps the most learned, scholarly and accomplished physician and scientist ever reared on the Cape Fear. He was distinguished for his attainments in natural science as well as in the different branches of his profession and in general literature, and was a correspondent of the Royal Society and a friend of the celebrated Lyell, who with his wife once visited Dr. McRee at his Rocky Point plantation. He was an upright gentleman and devoted Christian, who, after a life of nearly seventy-five years crowned with honors, died in 1869 at his home in Wilmington. He had two sons who sustained the intellectual reputation of the family, viz: Dr. James F. McRee, Jr., a prominent physician and surgeon in the Confederate army, and Griffith J. McRee, author of the "Life and Correspondence of James Iredell," Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. LILLIPUT. The plantation next north of Kendall was Lilliput, which was granted in 1725 to Eleazer Allen, an educated gentleman and native of Massachusetts, who had previously been a member of the Assembly in South Carolina, and a member of the Council there, and who came with the early settlers from there in 1734. He lived at Lilliput until his death in 1749, and, with his wife, [*A lady of culture, who had traveled in Europe, a daughter of Col. William Rhett, of South Carolina.] is buried on that place under two of the best preserved tombstones on the Cape Fear. The stone over his remains is inscribed "Chief Justice of North Carolina." He had also been a member of Council, Receiver-General, Judge of Oyer and Terminer, and Treasurer of New Hanover precinct. Lilliput was afterwards owned by the McRee family, as above stated. PLEASANT OAKS. Next above Lilliput was the plantation called Pleasant Oaks, granted to the widow of John Moore, (another brother of Maurice and Roger) in 1728, and from whom it is believed that the "Widow Moore's Creek," where the first victory of the Revolution (February 27, 1776) was won, took its name* [*She was, before marriage, Justina Smith, daughter of Landgrave Thomas Smith the second, and died in Philadelphia after a brief illness while on a visit to relatives in 1742. Her will is recorded in Philadelphia.] OLD TOWN CREEK. This list of the plantations brings us up to the mouth of Old Town Creek, on the western bank of the river, about eight miles below Wilmington, where the colony of Sir John Yeamans settled the first Charlestown in this country, in 1664-65. RICE'S PLANTATION. Now, leaving the river and following up Old Town Creek, one of the plantations on the south side, was that of Nathaniel Rice, the remains of the fine residence there having been visible as late as the early youth of the late Hon. Geo. Davis, who said he had seen them.* [*"An Episode in Cape Fear History," in South Atlantic Magazine, January, 1879.] Nathaniel Rice was the son-in-law of Col. Martin Bladen, one of the Lords of Trade and Plantations, and was a prominent man in the Province, having been first the Secretary of the Province and later a member of the Council and acting Governor for a short period, just before Matthew Rowan, the next senior member of the Council, who succeeded him until the arrival of Governor Dobbs in 1754. The order in which the plantations up Old Town Creek came is not known, and we can only give the names of a few of them. SPRING GARDEN. In a deed from Maurice Moore to John Baptista Ashe, dated December 5, 1727, in which Moore is described as "of Bath County," he conveys 640 acres on the north side of Old Town Creek, "about five miles above ye Old Town, commonly known by the name of Spring Garden," granted to said Moore, June 20, 1725. The name of this place was afterwards changed by some of Mr. Ashe's successors to Grovely, by which name it has been known for more than a hundred years past. It was given, by the will of Ann R. Quince, to her cousin, A. D. Moore, son of Maj. A. D. Moore, and for sixty years or more last past has belonged to the estate of the late Dr. John D. Bellamy. BELGRANGE. Another plantation, on Old Town Creek, containing 2,500 acres, was owned by Chief Justice Hasell and was conveyed to James Murray, Trustee, in a marriage settlement between Hasell's son, James Hasell, Jr., and Sarah Wright, February 20, 1750, [Book D, 188, N. H.] and this place was called Belgrange. HULLFIELDS. Next to Belgrange was Hullfields, owned by Schencking Moore, son of Nathaniel Moore, and sold by him to John McKenzie. DAVIS PLANTATION. Another place at the head of Old Town Creek, containing 750 acres, was sold by Eleazer Allen to John Davis, June 9, 1744. DALYRMPLE PLACE. Another place "on the north side of Old Town Creek, adjoining the land of the late John Baptista Ashe at Spring Garden," containing 550 acres, was sold by the executors of Joseph Watters to "John Dalrymple, Gent.,* [*Afterwards (in 1755) commander of Fort Johnston. His brother (?) Sir Wm. Dalrymple, married Miss Martha Watters, sister of Joseph Watters. Captain Dalrymple had trouble with Governor Dobbs, was removed from command of the fort, and was succeeded (1758) by Captain (afterwards general) James Moore.] - September 12, 1744 [*Book C, 32, N.H.] DOBBS PLACE. Governor Dobbs owned a plantation on Old Town Creek, where he is supposed to have been buried, but its name and locality are unknown, and the same may be said of most of the plantations located there, of which there were a dozen or more. The best known of these proprietors, except Dobbs, was John Baptista Ashe, who was the father of Col. John Ashe of Stamp Act fame, and of Governor Samuel Ashe. He went from South Carolina to the Albemarle country, where in 1719 he married the daughter of Samuel Swann, and afterwards removed with his relatives, Porter, Moseley, Moore, and Islington, to the Cape Fear and took up his residence at Spring Garden in 1727, where he died in 1734. OLD TOWN. Returning now to the mouth of Old Town Creek and proceeding north on the river, the first place is the site of the Old Town, which still retains its name of the Old Town plantation. In 1761 Judge Maurice Moore, son of Col. Maurice Moore, bought this plantation from his brother Gen. James Moore, and in 1768 sold it to John Ancrum, one of the early settlers and a prominent man, who was a leading merchant, chairman (after Harnett) of the Safety Committee, and one of its most active members from the start. CLARENDON. The place next north of Old Town was called Clarendon, and still retains the name. Who gave it the name we do not know, but it was owned by Mr. Campbell at an early period, and afterwards by Mr. Joseph Watters. THE FORKS. Next above Clarendon was the estate called the Forks, which was owned by Richard Eagles in 1736, and was afterwards bought by John Davis, Esq., and later by Mr. Joseph Eagles. Richard and Joseph Eagles were among the first settlers on the Cape Fear. Their descendants were prominent, but the family is now extinct. They came from Bristol, and it is a remarkable fact that this writer some years ago, being introduced to a Mr. Eagles living about 25 miles from Wilmington, upon inquiry discovered that he had come with the Northern army which captured Fort Fisher in 1865, had never heard of the Old Cape Fear family, was an Englishman, was from Bristol, and was named Richard! BUCHOI. The next place was Buchoi, owned by Judge Alfred Moore. The origin of this name puzzled the present writer because he knew that while there was a number of French names, then fashionable for estates, Judge Moore would not have written the name Buchoi (intending Beauchoix) but his puzzle was solved when he discovered several years ago, that one of the old Moore estates on Goose Creek, S. C, bore an Indian name which was spelled in the records there Boo-Chawee, the spelling in both cases being according to the sound, or, in modern phrase, phonetic. BELVILLE. Adjoining Buchoi was Belville, owned by Mr. John Waddell,* son of Gen. Hugh Waddell, who also owned three other plantations farther up the river. [*Mr. Waddell used to tell of an incident that happened not far from this plantation during Craig's occupation of Wilmington. He was a little boy eleven years old at the time, and was being carried by his guardian, Mr. John Burgwin, to Charleston to be sent to school in England, where his two elder brothers were. A sentinel halted the vehicle and demanded Mr. Burgwin's pass, which he received and solemnly inspected and returned, saying it was all right. After passing, Mr. Burgwin began to laugh heartily, and the little boy asked the reason, to which he replied that the sentinel held the pass upside down while pretending to read it. Mr. Waddell also related that when the ship that carried him to England was entering the Thames a great ship, called the Royal George, hailed, and asked, "what news from America," to which the answer was shouted : "A great victory for His Majesty's troops at Guilford Court House." Mr. Waddell married Sarah, daughter of Gen. Francis Nash. '] BELVIDERE. Then came Belvidere, owned by Col. Wm. Dry, and later by Governor Ben Smith. This place is nearly opposite the City of Wilmington, but intervening is Eagles' Island, formed by the cut-off now called Brunswick River, but in the earliest period called the Northwest or main branch, which latter was then called the Thoroughfare. This completes the list of places on the west side of the river from below Brunswick to the forks of the river at Wilmington, all of which except those on upper Old Town Creek, were rice plantations with large tracts of timber land adjoining them to the westward. NEGRO HEAD POINT. Between the forks of the river opposite Wilmington was the Negro Head Point plantation which at an early period belonged to Col. Peter Mallett, and from his time to the present has been called Point Peter. The name of this place has long been erroneously supposed to have been given to it from the fact that a negro's head was said to have been stuck up there at the time of the Nat Turner insurrection in 1831, but this is a mistake, for the point was called Negro Head Point in court records as early as the year 1764. How it originated is not known. There is a similar error as to the name of the stream called Jumping Run, just below Wilmington, which has long been attributed to an alleged incident of the American Revolution, but that name also appears in court records more than ten years before the Revolution. Now, beginning at Wilmington and going up the Northeast River, the first place was Hilton, owned by Cornelius Harnett, "the pride of the Cape Fear." HILTON. There has been much misinformation about this place. As early as June 3d, 1730, in a deed from John Gardner Squier* to John Maultsby for land on Smith's Creek, he described it as "adjoining Harnett's," showing that Cornelius Harnett, Senior, owned it at that time, for then the younger Harnett was only seven years old. [*A, B, 161. Squier got a grant for the Hilton tract November 5, 1728. It was conveyed by Wm. Moore to C. Harnett, Jr., (150 acres) May 3,1753 ; so that the elder Harnett must have sold or mortgaged it before his son bought it from Wm. Moore.] About that time the elder Harnett had a ferry at Maultsby's Point. The land was called Maynard by Harnett, and the name Hilton was not given to it until the widow of C. Harnett, Jr., conveyed it to John Hill and he sold it to his brother, Wm. H. Hill, who says in his will that he named it Hilton after his family, although in doing so he left out one L, and thus gave color to the tradition that it was named after the first explorer in 1663, Captain Hilton. HALTON LODGE. Adjoining the Hilton estate on the east and fronting on Smith's Creek (which was named for Chief Justice Smith, who owned land at the head of it) was Halton Lodge, owned by Col. Robert Halton, one of the founders of Wilmington. This place was between where the county road and the present track of the A.C.L. R.R. cross the creek, and contained 640 acres. It subsequently bore several names. [*D 488. It seems most probable that this was the " Poplar Grove " from which Harnett dated all his published letters. Poplar Grove was certainly not the same as Hilton (called Maynard by Harnett), for Harnett applied for permission for his "negro man Jack to carry a gun on his two plantations, Maynard and Poplar Grove."] It was sold under execution by Arthur Benning, Sheriff, on the 14th October, 1765, to satisfy a debt to Caleb Grainger, administrator of Joshua Grainger, and was bought by Cornelius Harnett, Jr., for nine pounds proclamation money. It was stated in the Sheriff's deed that the property was in possession of "John Rutherford, surviving administrator of Robert Halton." Of the history of Colonel Halton prior to the year 1730 we have no knowledge. In that year Burrington recommended him for a seat in the council, and he served both under him and under Governor Johnston. He was also Provost Marshal (changed by the Act of 1738, Ch. 3, to Sheriff) of Bath County. Probably on the suggestion of Burrington, who had located patents there, he removed to the Cape Fear about 1734, and was one of the original settlers at Wilmington, * [*Colonel Halton owned Eagles' Island, opposite Wilmington, and sold half of it to Roger Moore December 13, 1737.] He was an officer of the troops that left the Cape Fear on the expedition to Carthagena in 1740. SANS SOUCI. The plantation next north of Hilton has for a hundred years borne the name Sans Souci, which was probably given it by one of the Hill family, but the original owner was Caleb Grainger, Sr. Caleb Grainger, Sr., was the son of Joshua Grainger, one of the founders (1733) of Wilmington, then called Newtown. He early took an active and prominent part in public affairs, being a member of the Assembly in 1746, and Sheriff of the county in 1749. In the numerous deeds recorded in the county from him he signs himself as planter, inn-holder, and esquire. He was Lieutenant Colonel of Innes's regiment on the expedition to Virginia in 1754, the other officers being Robt. Rowan, Major, and Thos. Arbuthnot, Edward Vail, Alex. Woodrow, Hugh Waddell, Thos. McManus, and Moses John DeRosset, Captains. Upon the reorganization of the regiment after Braddock's defeat (1755) he went on the expedition to New York (1756) as a Captain under Major Dobbs, son of the Governor, and for some years afterwards was prominent in civil life. He was a large landholder and was described by Governor Dobbs as a "gentleman of good fortune in the province." He was a prominent Mason, and having bought from George Moore the land on which Masonboro was settled, is believed to have given it that name, as the first deed in which the name is mentioned was made by his widow and executrix. He died in 1769 or 1770. ROCK HILL. Then came Rock Hill, the residence of John Davis, Esq., who also owned the Mulberry plantation on the Northwest River, or main branch. ROSE HILL. Then came Rose Hill, the residence of Mr. Quince, a member of one of the oldest families on the Cape Fear. They came from Ramsgate, England. ROCKY RUN. Next to Rose Hill was Rocky Run, the home of Maurice Jones, Esq., and later of his son-in-law, Dr. Nat. Hill, a distinguished physician and graduate of Edinburgh. CEDAR GROVE. Near Rocky Run was Cedar Grove, owned by the DeRosset family, of the earlier generations of which we give the following biographical notes. The "Annals" of this family have been recently published in a beautiful volume. About 1735 there arrived in Wilmington from England a gentleman with his wife and two sons, whose name from that time to the present has been an honored one on the Cape Fear, Dr. Armand DeRosset. He was descended from three noble families of France and was a distinguished graduate of the University of Basle, Switzerland, from which he received his medical diploma in 1720; but being a Huguenot and son of an exile he neither assumed nor claimed any right to consideration on that account. He practiced his profession with modesty and diligence, and because of his charity and benevolence was beloved by the people among whom he had cast his fortune. He was recognized from the start as a leading and public-spirited man, and was assigned to positions of trust and honor in the community. He was a devoted member of the Church of England, and he and his sons exerted themselves to establish the parish and church of St. James, so much so as to be called the founders thereof. His two sons, Louis Henry and Moses John DeRosset, inherited his virtues, and each attained distinction in the Colony. The elder one, Louis Henry, in 1751 represented Wilmington in the Assembly at New Bern, was Justice of the Peace, appointed by the Council, was a member of the Council under Governor Johnston in 1752, and continued in that position until the Revolution; was Commissioner to issue bills of credit, and Receiver General of quit rents in the Province, was Adjutant General on the staff of General Waddell in the Regulators War, and Lieutenant General under Tryon. He was a merchant and planter and accumulated what was in those days regarded as a large fortune. Being an intense loyalist, he did not, like his brother and nearly all his family connections and friends, take the American side when the Revolution began, but adhered to his convictions and followed Governor Josiah Martin, the last of the Royal Governors of the Province, when the latter was driven out of North Carolina. In 1779 he "was banished by the Province on pain of death if he returned." "There is," says one of a later generation [Annals of the DeRosset Family," by Mrs. C. DeR. Meares.] of his family, "an element of tender pathos in the story of this good man's life. Exiled in early childhood from his native Province (in France) with loss of all worldly possessions, his later years saddened by war and strife and banishment, losing again home and kindred and fortune, his life was ever tempest-tossed. * * * Through all his life, so full of trial, trouble and temptation, his integrity was always his preeminent characteristic." After the Revolution the French Government offered to restore to him the family titles and estates on condition that he would return to France, and to the Roman Catholic church, but the offer was refused, and he died in London February 22, 1786. His younger brother, Moses John DeRosset, who succeeded his father as a doctor of medicine, soon became prominent, not only in his profession, but in military and civil life. When Col. James Innes, in 1754, took his regiment to Virginia to fight the French and Indians, DeRosset was commissioned as one of the captains of that regiment. Afterwards he held prominent offices, and in the troublous time of the Stamp Act was Mayor of Wilmington, and wrote a letter to Governor Tryon, containing the celebrated sentence "Moderation ceases to be a virtue when the liberty of the British subject is in danger." He wholly differed with his elder brother on the rights of the colonies, and if he had lived until the Revolution would have been prominent in it, but he died in 1767. THE HERMITAGE. The next place was the Hermitage, owned by Mr. John Burgwin, a noted seat of generous hospitality: Mr. Burgwin was a leading merchant of Wilmington and for some time the Treasurer of the southern half of the Province before the Revolution. The Hermitage is still owned by one of his descendants, a resident of Pennsylvania. CASTLE HAYNES. Adjoining the Hermitage on the north was Castle Haynes, named for the owner, Capt. Roger Haynes, who married the daughter of Rev. Richard Marsden, who owned both these places. Captain Haynes's two daughters married Mr. Burgwin and Gen. Hugh Waddell, and General Waddell's wife's brother gave her Castle Haynes, where both she and the General were buried. [*Will of Mrs. Waddell, registered in Bladen County] He died before the Revolution in April 1773, and was the ranking officer of the Province, having been almost continuously in service in the French and Indian Wars for nearly twenty years, and dying in his 39th year. His biography was written by one of his descendants and was published in 1891.* [*"A Colonial Officer," etc., by A. M. Waddell.] POINT PLEASANT. At a sharp bend of the Northeast River to the west of Castle Haynes was Point Pleasant, the residence of Col. James Innes, a distinguished colonial officer, who came to the Province of North Carolina prior to 1735, was captain in the expedition to Carthagena in 1740, Colonel in the expedition to Virginia in 1754, a member of the Council from 1750 to 1759, agent for Lord Carteret and Colonel of the New Hanover Militia. He died in 1759, "a good and true man, who died a childless benefactor of the children of his poorer fellow-citizens" [*"A Colonial Officer," etc., by A. M. Waddell.] by leaving the bulk of his estate for their education, the first known instance of this kind in the history of the State. THE OAK. We have now reached the point where the Northeast River makes a bend to the eastward and where the lower end of the Rocky Point neighborhood near the mouth of Turkey Creek began on the opposite side; and the first place to mention was The Oak, the residence of Speaker Samuel Swann, a distinguished lawyer who, in conjunction with Edward Moseley, compiled the first Revisal of the Laws of the Province of North Carolina, (called the Yellow Jacket from the color of the binding) which was the first book printed in the Province. His residence was the finest on the Cape Fear. [*A gentleman who visited the ruins of this house more than fifty years ago, in a private letter to the writer of these pages, says : "It must have been one of the finest residences in America. * * * The stairs were mahogany. * * * The elegance one could trace in the ruins amazed me." There is nothing left of this mansion now except the broken fragments of its brick foundation. During the Revolution intrenchments for defense against the British were erected near it, and again in 1865 on the same ground, the Confederates, retreating from Wilmington, erected breastworks and delayed the enemy.] He began life as a surveyor, and was one of the party appointed to run the dividing line between North Carolina and Virginia in 1729, being then 25 years old, and was the first white man that ever crossed the Dismal Swamp, a terrible undertaking from which he emerged to the great relief of his associates, who passed around it and were ready to give him up after waiting for him several days. He was a member of the Assembly for many years and became Speaker in 1742, and was most influential in shaping public affairs throughout his career. He had one son, Maj. Sam Swann, an officer in the Revolution, who was killed in a duel with Mr. Bradley at Wilmington some years after the close of that war (July 11, 1787). SWANN POINT. Not far west of The Oak was Swann Point, the home of John Swann, called "Lawyer" John, which was also one of the finest residences on Rocky Point. SPRING GARDEN, MT. GALLANT, PLEASANT HALL. A short distance to the northwest of Swann Point was Spring Garden, the home of Frederic Jones, Esq., a prominent planter. Near it was Mt. Gallant, owned by Col. John Pugh Williams, who was Colonel of the 9th Regiment, Continental Line; and at a short distance from this place was Pleasant Hall, the residence of Wm. Davis, Esq., who also owned a place on Turkey Creek called Bloom Hill in 1809. [*A, 189]. HYRNEHAM. Above the last two places and farthest west from the river was Hyrneham, owned by Capt. Edward Hyrne, which was convey to him by Col. Maurice Moore, October 10th, 1736 [*E, 230] as a gift (as Hyrne declared in his will)* [*D, 142]. and which Hyrne devised to his son, Henry Hyrne, who in turn by his will gave it to his nephew, Harry Hyrne Watters, a minor, who afterwards married the daughter of Wm. Hooper, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. Col. Le Hansyus De Keyser, a Virginian by birth, but of French and Swiss ancestry, [*Letter from Robert Belden, his grandson, to Louis S. Belden, of Wilmington, kindly loaned to the writer.] who had been adjutant of the 1st Regiment, Continental Line of North Carolina, occupied Hyrneham as an inn after the Revolution, and tradition says that he there trained the fastest horse then in America, which belonged to a club of young men, sons of the neighboring planters. Colonel De Keyser left descendants who were among the most respectable people of the upper Cape Fear, one of whom was the mother of Hon. Warren Winslow, and others of the Belden and Gilliam families. Hyrneham was burned, like the Oaks and other places, but much later. SPRINGFIELD, STRAWBERRY, AND THE VATS. And now we reach the center of the Rocky Point settlement, the first three plantations on the south end of which-Springfield, Strawberry* [* Near Strawberry (or possibly the same tract] was The Mulberry, the residence of Thomas Hooper, younger brother of the signer, who was a merchant in Wilmington and Charleston, and a loyalist. There was also a plantation called Mulberry on the Northwest river, owned first by the Watters family.] and The Vats-having been embraced in the original grant to Col. Maurice Moore in 1725*. [* D, 278, called Rocky Point, from a point of rocks at the sharp bend of the river there.] This was the place, where Governor Burrington and Col. Maurice Moore met each other with their respective surveying parties, and came near engaging in personal combat over their respective claims to the land. Moore kept possession, and, according to tradition, told Burrington he would find as good land higher up at Stag Park, which he did. At the Vats is the ruined vault in which the body of Colonel Moore and those of his two sons, Judge Maurice and Gen. James Moore, and others of his family were entombed. The plantation was bought by Mr. Ezekiel Lane, whose son, Levin Lane, inherited it. CLAYTON HALL. Next above the Vats came Clayton Hall, the residence of Francis Clayton, a prominent citizen, who, after being a Whig leader, became a loyalist. This place was bought from the executors of Clayton by Col. Sam Ashe, son of Governor Sam Ashe, and was one of the most interesting localities on Rocky Point. Colonel Ashe was universally beloved and revered as the last noble specimen of the ancient Cape Fear gentleman and soldier, having lived until 1836. He was the grandfather of Capt. S. A. Ashe, author of the latest (and best) history of North Carolina, issued in 1908. [*The advertisement of this estate for sale was published in the North Carolina Chronicle or Fayetteville Gazette of October 25, 1790, and it was described by the executors, Archibald Maclaine, Henry Urquhart, and Henry Toomer, as follows : " That well-known valuable plantation and parcel of land, called Rocky Point on the Northeast river, in New-Hanover county, containing, by original grants, 1920 acres, with a large brick house and other buildings-one hundred and ninety acres of this has been under crop this year, and is enclosed with new fence ; and there are several hundred acres clear, and fit for immediate cultivation. These lands are some of the best in the State, both for tillage and pasture."] Clayton also owned the plantation on the Sound previously owned by Cornelius Harnett, containing 800 acres. GREEN HILL. Next above Clayton Hall was Green Hill, the home of General John Ashe, of Stamp Act and Revolutionary fame. His family graveyard is there, although he himself was buried under an oak on Col. Jno. Sampson's farm near the town of Clinton in Sampson County. MOSELEY HALL. Next above Green Hill was Moseley Hall, owned by Col. Sampson Moseley, son of the distinguished Edward Moseley, whose career in the early history of North Carolina marks him as perhaps the most accomplished man of his era, as well as the ablest. THE NECK. A short distance above these last named places was The Neck, the residence of Governor Sam Ashe, who with his family is buried there. His son, John Baptista Ashe, was also elected Governor, but died before taking his seat. MOOREFIELDS. At some distance west of the last three places was Moorefields, the home of George Moore, a rich planter, who seems to have made a brave effort to rival old King Priam in the number of his offspring, having been the father of 28 children by his two wives. He left two other evidences of his industry in the form of an immense long ditch and embankment called to this day the Devil's Ditch, because, tradition says, the rapidity of the work was so astonishing-one story being that it was done in a night-that the Devil must have had a hand in it. The other was the construction of a perfectly straight road from Moorefields to his summer place on Masonboro Sound, a distance of about 15 miles, which he did with his own slaves. The road is still known as the "George Moore Road," and according to tradition his method of changing his residence from the one place to the other was to call up fifty or more negroes and, distributing his household effects for summer use among them, chairs, tables, bedsteads, etc., to start the procession afoot along this road, and thus make the change in one day, his family accompanying them on horseback. STAG PARK. The last and uppermost estate on the west side of Northeast River was Stag Park, a name given by the first explorers under Hilton and preserved to the present. This place was granted to Governor Burrington, or rather he located there an old "Blank Patent" issued in 1711, and which (it was alleged) he altered from 640 acres to 5,000 acres. He afterwards conveyed it to Mr. Strudwick, together with the Hawfields in Orange County. BOWLANDS. In this neighborhood, but exactly where is not known, was Bowlands, a plantation owned by John Rutherford, for many years a prominent man in the Province. He also owned two other plantations, Stoney Creek and Bear Garden, [*County Court records, 1772.] in New Hanover, and lands in Bladen and Duplin Counties. John Rutherford was brought out to North Carolina by his cousin, James Murray, in 1741, when a very young man, and began life under his care. Murray provided a home for him in his own house in Wilmington, and put him to work in his store; where he learned to keep accounts and sell goods. He does not seem to have enjoyed any educational advantages prior to coming to America, but he was taught by his cousin, who was a fairly educated man, and it was not very long before he began to get the benefit of Murray's influence with Governor Johnston and others in authority, and to be advanced to official position. He was appointed Recorder of Quit Rents in 1750 and in 1756 was a member of the Council, but having displeased Governor Dobbs by not agreeing with that disputatious and obstinate old gentleman, was removed from the latter position in 1757, and again restored to it by the Crown in 1763. He owned lands in Bladen as well as in New Hanover, and in the latter county he established mills at his plantation, Stoney Creek, which were known first as Rutherford's mills and after-wards as Ashe's mills. At these mills, during Craig's occupation of Wilmington in 1781, the British erected a field work, the remains of which were plainly visible fifty years ago, and used the mills to grind the grain robbed from the neighboring fields. Rutherford married Governor Johnston's widow, Frances, and their ante-nuptial settlement, dated May 6, 1764, is on record.* [*Book F, p. 1.] LILLINGTON HALL. On the opposite side of the river, (the east side) and about four miles above the Vats, was Lillington Hall, the residence of Gen. Alexander Lillington, hero of the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, who with his command first arrived on the field, held the first line of battle, fought splendidly, and saw Caswell receive the chief honors. Lillington was a noble old patriot and soldier, who, after this first victory of the Revolution, February 27, 1776, rendered other valuable service, military and civil, to his country, and after the war dispensed a most generous hospitality at Lillington Hall. There were no valuable farm lands on that side of the river, at least in comparison with those on the west side, or Rocky Point proper, but below Lillington Hall Colonel Merrick owned a place, and there was another called Porter's Bluff, which was described in a deed made in 1751 as "the property of the late John Porter." We have now given a complete list of all the old places on the Northeast River, and will now take up those on the Northwest or main branch, above Wilmington, and in all cases we confine ourselves, both as to names of the estates and of their owners, to the Colonial and Revolutionary periods. In a few instances these places remained for one or two generations in the hands of the descendants of the first owners, but there is not one now so owned, except the Hermitage. The houses on all were burned. THE BLUFF. The first place above Wilmington on the Northwest River, situate about four miles distant, was originally called Gabourel's Bluff, being named for its owner, Captain Gabourel, where the English traveler from South Carolina in 1734 found the flourishing shipping point mentioned in the first chapter. There was in the early days a ferry from there to Newton, as Wilmington was then called. This ferry was operated by James Campbell in 1736, and by Cornelius Harnett, Sr., in 1739, who qualified as Sheriff in that year, and the records of the County Court show that there was much rivalry in securing the ferry privileges and some annoyance to the Court over it. After Gabourel's time the place was called Maclaine's Bluff, it then being the property of Archibald Maclaine, the great lawyer. It is now the site of the Navassa Guano Company's works, and if the enemies of Maclaine, who so often felt the fierceness of his invective, were now alive they would probably regard it as appropriate that his body should lie, as it does, under the acid chamber of that factory. [*"He was of sanguine temperament and irritable passions. The slightest spark sufficed to kindle into flame his combustible nature. The explosions of his wrath were sudden and terrific, and his fiery denunciations and heated satire seethed and scorched as burning lava."-McRee's "Iredell," Vol. I, 370. Maclaine married Elizabeth Rowan, daughter of Jerome Rowan by his wife Elizabeth, who afterwards married Matthew Rowan.] COBHAM. There were several plantations in close proximity above the Bluff, the first of which was Cobham, owned by Dr. Thos. Cobham, a leading physician at an early period. He and Dr. Haslin (who married Governor Nash's daughter) were the surgeons of Tryon's army at Alamance in 1771. PROSPECT. The next place was Prospect, the original owner of which is not known, but was probably one of the Moore family. In the early part of the last century it was owned by Maj. John Walker, nephew of Maj. "Jack" Walker, of the Revolution. SCHAWFIELDS. Next to Prospect was Schawfields, owned by Robert Schaw, partner in the leading mercantile firm of Ancrum, Brice, and Schaw, which firm was established some years before the Revolution, and did a very large business until about 1780. In Tryon's expedition in 1771 Schaw was Colonel of Artillery under General Waddell. MULBERRY. The next place was Mulberry, which, in his will, [*C, 323-Wills] made in 1751 Wm. Watters said was left to him by his father. In 1788 it was the property of John Davis, as appears by his will of that date*, [*C, 80-Wills.] and later it belonged to the Hall family. There was another Mulberry on the Northeast River in the Rocky Point settlement, owned by Thos. Hooper, brother of Wm. Hooper. DALLISON. Next came Dallison, which, as we learn from a recital in a deed from Maurice Moore, was "the property of Col. John Dallison, deceased." Of Colonel Dallison we know nothing. AUBURN AND MAGNOLIA. The next two places were Auburn and Magnolia, which belonged to the Watters and Hall families. POINT REPOSE. Then came a place located between Hood's Creek and the river, that has an interesting history and still bears the name given to it by its first purchaser-Point Repose. It was bought in 1735 and settled in 1739 by James Murray, a young Scotchman of an excellent family, who came as a merchant and trader first to Charleston, S. C, and then to Brunswick. Very soon after his arrival here he bought Point Repose and a lot in Wilmington, situated about where the present Orton Hotel stands. He was in a little while afterwards made clerk of the Crown and Secretary of the Council, and was for many years afterwards a member of the Council and an especial favorite of Governor Johnston. He was a man of high character, apparently, but was, as the editors of his letters say, [*Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, 65.] "although public spirited, never a true American," having been, from his arrival in the Province until he left it and removed to Boston in 1765, an unwavering Loyalist. His property was all confiscated and sold by commissioners appointed for the purpose in 1783*, [*Petition of Thomas Clark, John Innis Clark, and Anne Hooper, wife of Wm. Hooper, asking appointment of commissioners (Martin's Priv. Stat., 103 ). Report of com. (same, 113). The commissioners were Sam. Ashe, Alfred Moore, Thomas Craike, John Lillington, Caleb Grainger, John Moore, and James Gillespie.] and the deed is recorded in New Hanover County. It was all bought by his nephew, Gen. Thomas Clark, a gallant Revolutionary officer, who was his largest creditor, and General Clark took up his residence at Point Repose. There is something pathetic in Murray's case, as in all others of like kind. His adherence to King and Parliament was not dictated by the sordid and vindictive spirit that animated those who sought to make it the means of self-advancement and the gratification of personal revenge, but was inspired by a sincere conviction of the righteousness of such a course and of an honest belief that rebellion would be equally as disastrous to the colonies as to the Crown, and therefore although he erred in judgment to his own financial ruin, his motives were honorable and worthy of respect. He took no part in the Revolution, but merely got out of the trouble and sought a peaceful home elsewhere. No intelligent and fair-minded person now denounces indiscriminately those who were Tories in the Revolution. Some of them, like David Fanning and his followers in North Carolina, and "bloody Cunningham" and his crew in South Carolina, were lawless murderers and robbers, who wreaked their vengeance on their Whig neighbors and their families, and were inspired by no reverence or affection for royalty or the British Constitution; but there were others who were gentlemen of high character who venerated both, and were honestly afraid of popular government, and they acted according to their conscientious convictions of duty. Gen. Thomas Clark's father, Thos. Clark, Sr., married James Murray's sister Barbara in 1737, and in 1741 was made Sheriff of New Hanover County for two years, and was also appointed Collector of the Port of Wilmington, in place of Samuel Woodward, deceased, by Dinwiddie, Surveyor General of the colonies. He died in 1748 or 1749. His son, Gen. Thos. Clark, was born about the middle of August, 1741, in Wilmington. He was sent to England and there learned the watchmaker's trade, which, on his return, he practiced for a time in Boston, but abandoned it in 1767 and came back to the Cape Fear to take charge of his uncle James Murray's estate, of which his elder brother James had previously been manager. He seems to have been a favorite of his uncle because of his unusual intellectual capacity. When the Revolution began Clark was appointed Major of the 1st Regiment, Continental Line, and afterwards was promoted Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel, succeeding Gen. Francis Nash in the last two positions, and was later, by resolution of the Continental Congress, September, 1783, brevetted Brigadier General. He was a gallant officer throughout the war, particularly distinguishing himself in the repulse of the attack on Sullivan's Island by the British in 1776; and yet, perhaps, no other officer of equal rank and valuable services has occupied so small a space in the pages of our history. There does not seem to have been any design in this neglect to do him honor, but he has been strangely overlooked. General Nash, having been killed at the battle of Germantown, Pa., October 4, 1777, Clark, his associate and successor in rank, married his widow in 1782, and they lived at Point Repose, where both died and were buried. [*Tradition says Mrs. Clark's body was afterwards removed, although the stone over the grave remained on the ground, They left no issue.] In a letter written from Point Repose under date of 31st December, 1787, by Wm. Hooper (Clark's brother-in-law) to Judge Iredell, he says* [*McRee's " Iredell," II, 184.]: "Immediately upon my arrival at Wilmington it was announced to me that my son William at midnight had left his uncle George Hooper's house to visit General Clark, who had been attacked with a violent disorder in his head, which had utterly deprived him of his senses and left him (stone blind) to the care or inattention of nearly 40 slaves, without a white person on his plantation to attend to his distresses. *** I found the General ill indeed. He consented that I should send for his sister, proof positive that he thought himself near his dissolution. Mr. Clark is in a recovering state of health, his sight is, however, very bad, and I suppose will never be better. Mrs. Hooper and I are here, she waiting his consent to return, I preparing to leave this, tomorrow or next day." And again on March 1st, Mr. Hooper, [*The same, 158.] writing from Hillsborough to Judge Iredell, says: "I have just now returned from the most painful visit that I ever paid in my life. Your old friend General Clark is struck with blindness. He went to bed in perfect good health; rose after the accustomed hour; opened his window shutters; the yard of the house appeared to be in an undulating motion, black and yellow spots floating upon the surface of the earth; the floor of his chamber covered with dry brush, which he atempted to kick away; complained to his servants that the day was dark and cloudy, who informed him that the sun shone with remarkable brightness; bound up his eyes, and the next morning awakened stone blind. My hand was in his without his knowing me, my voice helped him to the discovery. His firmness is beyond all description. Thus he tells me, he reasoned when he was first attacked: 'Shall I blow my brains out? It will be pusillanimity. I can do it. But to dare to be blind for life will be an effort that will discover real resolution.' Not a single complaint or repining. He is now on his plantation without a single white person. It is a school to which I would recommend youth to learn philosophy and to bear misfortune. I always loved the man, I reverence him blind, he is something more than man." Hooper's estimate of Clark was corroborated by Judge Iredell, who, in a letter to his wife August 29, 1781, speaking of him, says: "His conduct, perseverance and losses as an officer must highly endear him to every friend of American liberty and virtue"; and again says: "His worth is so great everybody ought to be eager to testify their sense of it." Such tributes from such sources are not only remarkable but establish for General Clark a high claim to the veneration of his countrymen for all time. It was at Point Repose, as already stated, that Gen. Robert Howe died while on his way to attend the session of the Legislature at Fayetteville in November, 1786. Both of these heroes and patriots sleep in unknown and unmarked graves- Howe being buried a few miles from Point Repose on Grange farm, named for his wife's family, without a stone to mark the spot, and Clark's grave hidden by a tangled mass of vines and shrubbery-and the name of the historic home where both died has been corrupted by the river men and others who never heard of either of them, from Point Repose into Piney Poles! And just here the sad reflection forces itself upon us that within a radius of twenty miles from Wilmington lie the remains of at least a dozen men, who were worthy of perpetual remembrance for their splendid services to the cause of patriotism, liberty and humanity, and yet their deeds, their homes, and their last resting places are unknown to more than perhaps one per cent of the present population. It is the same old, sad story. Although a part of a comedy, one of the most pathetic utterances that ever fell from human lips was the sentence as rendered by Joseph Jefferson in the play of Rip Van Winkle: "How soon we are forgotten when we are gone." It was the exclamation of a common vagabond returning twenty years after his supposed death to his native village, and finding there no remembrance of himself. Even he felt the force of the thought and was humiliated by it. OAKLAND. Farther up the river in Bladen County was Oakland, owned by Gen. Thos. Brown, a Colonial and Revolutionary officer of distinction, and commander of a division of North Carolina troops at Norfolk in the War of 1812. He married first, Sarah Bartram, niece of the distinguished botanist, Wm. Bartram, and second, Miss Bradley, of Wilmington. General Brown also owned a place called Ashwood, where he lived. BELFONT. Belfont the* residence of Gen. Hugh Waddell, which he made his home, although he owned several, and is buried at Castle Haynes on the Northeast River, in New Hanover County. , [*On this plantation the body of Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, Cornwallis's favorite officer who was mortally wounded at Guilford Court House, was buried.] OWEN HILL. Owen Hill, the home of Col. Thomas Owen, a hero of the battle of Camden and father of Governor John Owen, (who succeeded him as the owner) and of Gen. James Owen. Colonel Owen married Eleanor Porterfield, sister of Major Porterfield, killed at Camden. Governor John Owen married Gen. Thos. Brown's daughter Elizabeth. LAURENS. Col. James Morehead, another hero of the Revolution and a leader in the assault and capture of Elizabethtown, owned a place called Laurens near that town. He was "a tall, thin man," married the widow of John Owen, brother of Col. Thos. Owen, and left two daughters, one of whom married Hinton James, the first student at the University of North Carolina, and the other, Isaac Wright. Colonel Morehead died November 11th, 1807, and was buried at Owen Hill. BROMPTON. Brompton was owned by Governor Gabriel Johnston, whose brother, Gilbert Johnston, lived there, and to whose two sons the Governor devised it. It was at Brompton that Gen. Francis Marion, Huger, the Horrys and others met to reorganize Marion's men, a large proportion of whom were North Carolinians from Bladen and Brunswick counties. It would seem, from a letter written by James Murray, that Governor Johnston intended to make Brompton his home, but, if so, he changed his intention. This list of places in Bladen does not include all that were owned by prominent men there, but only some of those nearest the river. Col. Thos. Robeson, a gallant soldier for whom Robeson County was named, owned large estates there, his residence being called Walnut Grove, and was always a leader of the people. He married Mary Bartram, sister of General Brown's wife. [*For further items about Colonel Robeson, see note Chapter V.] On the east side of the river, below Wilmington, and between the river and the sound, there were only a few estates, as the land, except on one or two small creeks, was not suitable for profitable cultivation. Rev. Christopher Bevis, referred to in the first chapter as one of the early ministers of St. Philip's church at Brunswick, owned a place two or three miles below Wilmington on the east side of the river, which by his will, made in 1750, he devised to the church wardens for the benefit of that church; and Dr. Samuel Green owned Greenfields, about a mile below Wilmington, which still retains its name. There were also one or two places on Barnum's Creek, lower down, the early names of which, if they had any, are unknown. SEDGELY ABBEY. Now, beginning on the east, or sound side of the lower river, there was a place nearly opposite Brunswick called Sedgely Abbey, of some pretensions to unusual elegance of structure and equipment, according to tradition, but there is no record by which the tradition may be corroborated. That there was a place so named is certain, and that its owner's name was John Guerard is equally so. He is buried at Brunswick, and the inscription on his tomb says he died April 25, 1789, and had been "for many years an inhabitant of Cape Fear." His widow married Peter Maxwell, who came from Glasgow, and died at Wilmington, September 23, 1812, she having died two years previously. Thus the tradition that the place belonged to "an Englishman named Maxwell" who lived in great state, had a private race track on it, and so forth, is accounted for. It was not a plantation, as the land there is all a sandy plain, thinly covered by pines and scrub oaks, but was doubtless a summer residence, where the sea breeze made life comfortable. A large number of the planters on the west side of the river made their summer homes on the sound, and among them James Hasell, Chief Justice, who owned Belgrange on Town Creek. HASELL'S PLACE. Judge Hasell's place was next north of Sedgely Abbey. These places were just above the present summer resort called Carolina Beach, the head of the sound, and opposite the inlet then called Cabbage Inlet. James Hasell was a very prominent man for forty years, having been first a Justice of the inferior court and afterwards Chief Justice of the Colony, member of the Council, President of the Council and acting Governor of the Province. When the Revolution broke out he remained a loyalist, but kept quiet, and continued to live at his home until his death in 1786. His estate was confiscated, but afterwards restored to his family by an Act of 1802. PROSPECT HALL. Next above Hasell's was Prospect Hall, owned by Maj. "Jack" Walker, who was one of the remarkable characters of the Cape Fear, but in a different way from others. He was an Englishman, born December 10, 1741, at Wooler, county of Northumberland, of a family of land-holding farmers, one of whom was steward of the estates of the Duke of Northumberland, and came to North Carolina in early manhood (1761). He was a man of powerful frame and tireless energy, and in a comparatively short time accumulated a large fortune. He early took an active part in the troubles preceding the Revolution and was a Captain in Tryon's expedition against the Regulators in 1771. At the beginning of the Revolution he was appointed Captain in the 1st Regiment, Continental Line, September 1, 1775,* [*He raised and equipped his company from his own private means.] brevetted Major at the battle of Brandywine, April 25, 1777, and was an aide with rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on Washington's staff. He was afterwards Colonel of New Hanover County, where he reorganized the militia at Washington's request, and so continued to the end of the war. He cherished an intense hostility to the Tories after the war, which caused much feeling between him and those who, like Hooper and Maclaine, favored a more forgiving spirit toward them. In the gift of vituperation he excelled, and if he and Maclaine ever "locked horns" in that way the atmosphere must have been very blue while the contest continued. He was uncultured and unrefined, and a great fighter, but good natured and a great practical joker, who never seriously injured an antagonist, although a tradition (preserved in McRee's "Iredell") says that when greatly angered the revenge in which he took the greatest delight was to pull one of the teeth of his prostrate antagonist, forceps for which purpose he generally carried in his pocket, and regarded it as a good joke. And McRee also gives the following anecdote about him, viz: that a mad bull on one occasion rushed through the streets to the great terror of the people, and as he tore by, Maj. Walker seized him by the horns, threw himself on his back, and to the great horror and astonishment of the people rode him around several squares. Major Walker, being a bachelor, brought over from England two of his nephews, Carlton Walker in 1797, and John Walker, his namesake, in 1803. Both of these gentlemen served with the rank of major in the war of 1812, the former on the staff of General Gaines, and both had plantations on Rocky Point. Upon his death at Wilmington in 1813, Major Walker left his large estate to his namesake, Maj. John Walker, and it is an interesting fact in this connection that the latter, who went several times to Europe, was within less than fifty miles of Waterloo when that famous battle occurred. Maj. John Walker, Jr., married the daughter of Col. Thos. Davis, of Fayetteville, and died in 1862, leaving a large family. Maj. Carlton Walker married three times, but had children only by his third wife, who was the daughter of Col. Peter Mallett. He died at Hillsborough in 1839. PURVIANCE. Above Hasell's place on the creek then called Purviance's Creek, and in recent times by the intoxicating name of Whiskey Creek, lived Col. William Purviance, an active patriot and member of the Safety Committee, and a useful officer of the militia, who rendered valuable service during the Revolution, as appears by his letter, hereinafter published. MASONBORO. Then came the settlement called Masonboro, which still bears that name, in which, among others, the following distinguished characters had summer residences, viz: Hooper, Harnett, Lillington, and Maclaine. Mr. Hooper named his place Finian, and there he dispensed a delightful hospitality. Judge Iredell described in a letter* [*McRee's Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, I, 393] the reception he met with at that place from Mrs. Hooper during the absence of her husband, whom he expected to meet there, which is a charming picture of the hospitality characteristic of the people of that day, and a fine tribute to the remarkable gifts of that lady, who was the sister of Gen. Thos. Clark. [*In regard to the social life and hospitality of the people of the Cape Fear in the early days, the following quotation from a work published some years ago presents a truthful picture: * "It was a life given to hospitality, and, though marked by some features which appear rude and unattractive to modern eyes, was characterized by others which might be imitated with profit by the present generation. The respect for authority, the deference paid to age, to parents, and to women, and the sense of personal honor among men which prevailed, would be regarded as quite fantastic in this age of superior enlightenment; but they are, after all, the truest signs of real civilization, and the safest guarantees of good government." And again, speaking of the social life of the people, is this passage: "Some of them had town residences, but most of them lived on their plantations, and they were not the thriftless characters that by some means it became fashionable to assume that all southern planters were. There was much gayety and festivity among them, and some of them rode hard to hounds, but as a general rule they looked after their estates and kept themselves as well informed in regard to what was going on in the world as the limited means of communication allowed. There was little display, but in almost every house could be found valuable plate, and in some excellent libraries." [A Colonial Officer and His Times, 188.] It is unnecessary at this late day to pay a tribute to Wm. Hooper, and we will not attempt it. It is equally needless to discuss Cornelius Harnett, with whose name and fame every school child in North Carolina is familiar. Of Archibald Maclaine, Attorney-General, member of the Safety Committee in 1776, of the Congress at Hillsboro in 1775, and of the Convention there in 1778, we have spoken elsewhere, and the services of General Lillington have also been briefly referred to. To the northward of Masonboro and across Deep Inlet Creek, as it was called, there were fewer residents but larger tracts. The creek took its name from the inlet opposite to its mouth, but when that inlet was closed by the restless sea the creek was called McKenzie's, and for many years past, Hewlett's Creek. On the north side of it, on a tract patented in 1737, lived Wm. Nichols, whose descendants lived there for nearly a century, and near the mouth of that creek was the summer residence of George Moore, of Moorefields, heretofore spoken of as both the Priam and the road-builder of his age. Next north of this place and extending to Lee's Creek, now called Bradley's Creek, the land was owned by Martin Holt, the maternal grandfather of Harnett and father of Obadiah Holt, Sheriff of the County. After Martin Holt's death both Harnett and Obadiah Holt moved from Brunswick to Wilmington and the sound. North and east of Lee's Creek and embracing the front of what is now Wrightsville, the land was owned by Governor Gabriel Johnston, to whom it was conveyed by Thos. Clark, the father of General Clark, in 1738, as part of the Ogden patent; and beyond Wrightsville to the northward Job Howe owned a place which he called Howe's Point, after the old Howe place below Brunswick. Beyond this was the residence of Mr. Bridgen, whose sister was the second wife of the first Dr. Armand DeRosset (1751), and this place bore four different names at different times, according to a deed recorded, being called Royal Oak Point, Bridgen's Pastime, Bridgen's Hall, and Ludlow Hall. [*D, p. 490.] Beyond the Bridgen place, up the coast, the next place of which we have any knowledge was Porter's Neck, the property of John Porter, the third of that name. It was afterwards owned by Dr. Corbin, Governor Sam Ashe, and others, the original tract having been divided into two or three.* [* The last owner, prior to 1861, of Porter's Neck was N. N. Nixon, Esq., whose peanut crop for 1860 netted him over twenty thousand dollars.] There were other places beyond that up to Sloop Point, of which we have no early history, except that the latter was owned by Mr. Whitfield about the time of the Revolution, and has been owned by his descendants, the McMillans, ever since. Previous Next

< Back A People's History of the United States Published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2015 Summary: For much of his life, historian Howard Zinn has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version taught in schools - with its emphasis on great men in high places - to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, Zinn's A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of - and in the words of - its women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. Here we learn that many of our country's greatest battles - labor laws, women's rights, racial equality - were carried out at the grassroots level, against steel-willed resistance. This edition of A People's History of the United States features insightful analysis of some of the most important events in this country in the past 100 years. Featuring a preface and afterword read by the author himself, this audio continues Howard Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history. -End of summary- ----- From the howardzinndotorg posted today, Monday, October 10, 2022. -Begin article- Columbus and the Lens of History For Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we feature an excerpt from Chapter One of A People’s History of the United States. Howard Zinn describes why he tells the story of Columbus’s arrival “from the viewpoint of the Arawaks” and “the inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in history.” This is followed by additional resources for examining the impact of Columbus. EXCERPT “Chapter 1: Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress” begins with a journal entry by Bartolome de las Casas, a young priest, who participated in the conquest of Cuba. Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides … they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation….in this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk … and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile … was depopulated…. My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write…. When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, “there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it….” Thus began the history, five hundred years ago, of the European invasion of the Indian settlements in the Americas. That beginning, when you read Las Casas—even if his figures are exaggerations (were there 3 million Indians to begin with, as he says, or less than a million, as some historians have calculated, or 8 million as others now believe?)—is conquest, slavery, death. When we read the history books given to children in the United States, it all starts with heroic adventure—there is no bloodshed—and Columbus Day is a celebration. Past the elementary and high schools, there are only occasional hints of something else. Samuel Eliot Morison, the Harvard historian, was the most distinguished writer on Columbus, the author of a multivolume biography, and was himself a sailor who retraced Columbus’s route across the Atlantic. In his popular book Christopher Columbus, Mariner, written in 1954, he tells about the enslavement and the killing: “The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide.” That is on one page, buried halfway into the telling of a grand romance. In the book’s last paragraph, Morison sums up his view of Columbus: He had his faults and his defects, but they were largely the defects of the qualities that made him great—his indomitable will, his superb faith in God and in his own mission as the Christ-bearer to lands beyond the seas, his stubborn persistence despite neglect, poverty and discouragement. But there was no flaw, no dark side to the most outstanding and essential of all his qualities—his seamanship. One can lie outright about the past. Or one can omit facts which might lead to unacceptable conclusions. Morison does neither. He refuses to lie about Columbus. He does not omit the story of mass murder; indeed he describes it with the harshest word one can use: genocide. But he does something else—he mentions the truth quickly and goes on to other things more important to him. Outright lying or quiet omission takes the risk of discovery which, when made, might arouse the reader to rebel against the writer. To state the facts, however, and then to bury them in a mass of other information is to say to the reader with a certain infectious calm: yes, mass murder took place, but it’s not that important—it should weigh very little in our final judgments; it should affect very little what we do in the world. It is not that the historian can avoid emphasis of some facts and not of others. This is as natural to him as to the mapmaker, who, in order to produce a usable drawing for practical purposes, must first flatten and distort the shape of the earth, then choose out of the bewildering mass of geographic information those things needed for the purpose of this or that particular map. My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians. But the mapmaker’s distortion is a technical necessity for a common purpose shared by all people who need maps. The historian’s distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual. Furthermore, this ideological interest is not openly expressed in the way a mapmaker’s technical interest is obvious (“This is a Mercator projection for long-range navigation—for short-range, you’d better use a different projection”). No, it is presented as if all readers of history had a common interest which historians serve to the best of their ability. This is not intentional deception; the historian has been trained in a society in which education and knowledge are put forward as technical problems of excellence and not as tools for contending social classes, races, nations. To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves—unwittingly—to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)—that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly. The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)—the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress—is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they—the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous Justices of the Supreme Court—represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as “the United States,” subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a “national interest” represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media. “History is the memory of states,” wrote Henry Kissinger in his first book, A World Restored, in which he proceeded to tell the history of nineteenth-century Europe from the viewpoint of the leaders of Austria and England, ignoring the millions who suffered from those statesmen’s policies. From his standpoint, the “peace” that Europe had before the French Revolution was “restored” by the diplomacy of a few national leaders. But for factory workers in England, farmers in France, colored people in Asia and Africa, women and children everywhere except in the upper classes, it was a world of conquest, violence, hunger, exploitation—a world not restored but disintegrated. My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners. Previous Next

< Back Griggs v. Duke Power In the 1950s Duke Power's Dan River Steam Station in Draper, North Carolina had a policy restricting Black employees to its "Labor" department, where the highest-paying position paid less than the lowest-paying position in the four other departments. In 1955 the company added the requirement of a high school diploma for employment in any department other than Labor and offered to pay two-thirds of the high-school training tuition for employees without a diploma. On July 2, 1965, the day the Civil Rights Act of 1964 took effect, Duke Power added two employment tests, which would allow employees without high-school diplomas to transfer to higher-paying departments. The Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Test was a test of mechanical aptitude, and the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test was an IQ test measuring general intelligence. Blacks were almost ten times less likely than Whites to meet these new employment and transfer requirements. According to the 1960 Census, while 34% of White males in North Carolina had high-school diplomas, only 18% of Black males did. The disparities of aptitude tests were far greater; with the cutoffs set at the median for high-school graduates, 58% of Whites passed, compared to 6% of Blacks. Why is the Griggs v. Duke Power Co. case so important? The Griggs v. Duke Power Co. case is important because of its legacy. It was the first case in the United States Supreme Court to utilize the theory of disparate impact and its connections to Title VII labor laws. This case assisted in ending discrimination in the workplace. Who was Willie Griggs? Willie Griggs was a Black man who worked at Duke Power Co. after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. He found that the company unfairly limited Black employees to specific jobs and would not pay them well; further, requirements for promotions and raises were specific, unrelated to the work, and unrealistic to achieve. He filed a lawsuit against the company to challenge these practices. The other twelve (12) plaintiffs with Willie Griggs were: James Tucker, Herman Martin, William Purcell, Clarence Jackson, Robert Jumper, Lewis Hairston Jr., Willie Boyd, Junior Blackstock, John Hatchett, Clarence Purcell, Eddie Galloway, and Eddie Broadnax. Griggs v. Duke Power Co.: Background Griggs v. Duke Power Co. was a case argued in the early 1970s and decided on March 8, 1971, by the United States Supreme Court. It began when Willie Griggs, a Black employee of Duke Power Co., along with several other Black co-workers, found that the company requirements to transfer between departments were unethical. These requirements, although altered since, had a pre-civil rights era rule that Black employees were only allowed to work in their labor department, even though the company had numerous other departments. In comparison to these other departments, the pay for a position in the labor department was not equitable; labor employees often were paid a fraction of what other employees were paid in departments where Black employees were not allowed to work. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this rule ended, though it was replaced with a very specific set of rules for employee transfers between departments. The new rules stated that employees wishing to transfer (or people newly seeking a job in the company) must have earned a high school diploma OR must pass two tests: one based on general intelligence, and the other an aptitude test. Duke Power had a long history of segregating employees by race. At the Steam Station, the best jobs were reserved for Whites. African Americans were relegated to the labor department, where the highest-paid worker earned less than the lowest-paid employee in the other four departments where only Whites worked. Many American men at this time did not hold high school diplomas, though Black men held disproportionately fewer high school diplomas than their white counterparts. Griggs and his team questioned the two tests and found that neither test was applicable to job duties in these other departments or to their potential performance in a role. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund represented Griggs in this case. They argued that Black employees were at a major disadvantage due to their lower likelihood to have a high school diploma and subsequent less success in passing the given tests. In addition, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund used the tests against Duke Power, insisting that such tests should not be used to hire someone in another department; the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund further stated that the tests had no direct relation to those departments/jobs and therefore seemed rather arbitrary. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people from being discriminated against in the workplace based on sex, race, gender, or nationality. As the Civil Rights Act was not widely enforced until 1965, many courts did not rule based on company practices in use prior to this time. Prior to the establishment of the rule that Griggs argued against in this case, during the 1950s the company had a rule that explicitly limited positions Black employees could hold in the company. This rule only allowed Black employees to work in one of the four total departments at the company. By the time the Civil Rights Act was passed, the limiting rule for Black employees was no longer a proper rule, though Black employees were still treated as though it remained in effect, leading to Griggs' pursuit of justice. The 1950s-era rule was outside of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court for this case because it occurred before the Civil Rights Act was enacted. However, Griggs and his team still brought forth evidence of this policy in the case, as it established a long history of discriminatory treatment against Black individuals within the company. This rule, they argued, was a strong basis for discrimination that continued after the Civil Rights Act passed. Title VII has specific guidelines as well regarding tests that became relevant during this case. The Supreme Court decided that tests are allowed to be given to employees, but that they must be based on specific job duties. Since the tests administered by Duke Power Co. at this time were not relevant to the job position(s) in question, they were in major violation of this act. Source: https://law.justia.com/.../appellate.../F2/420/1225/307832/ Source: https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/griggs-v-duke-power-co/ Source: https://northcarolinahistory.org/enc.../griggs-v-duke-power/ Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co. Source: https://study.com/.../griggs-v-duke-power-co-case-summary... Previous Next

< Back Julius Rosenwald, Photo Descriptions: Julius Rosenwald visits Hickstown School on a visit to Durham. Photo courtesy of Fisk University Franklin Library, Special Collections. Photo Descriptions: Julius Rosenwald visits Hickstown School on a visit to Durham. Photo courtesy of Fisk University Franklin Library, Special Collections. --------- This three-teacher school was built for the 1922-3 school year. It was constructed on two acres of land and cost $4,700. Of this total, $500 came from the black community, $3,300 from public funds (provided by the Durham County school board), and $900 came from the Rosenwald Fund. The Hickstown School was located in Durham Township on Crest Street, near where the Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital is now located. It was completed during the tenure of Jeanes supervisor Mattie Day. In 1927 it was one of the schools annexed into the Durham city school district. At the time the school was built, the black community of Hickstown had been petitioning for a new school building in a better location since 1919. School board meeting minutes from that year record their pledge to contribute part of the cost of the school in cash, labor, and/or materials. The minutes also record the board’s verbal commitments to the community. When work was slow to begin on the new school, members of the community asked for the assistance of white community leaders in the form of signatures on a petition to be presented to the school board. This got immediate results. For the 1924-25 school year, an addition was built, making the school large enough for four teachers. The addition cost $1,480, with $75 coming from the black community, $1,205 from public funds, and $200 from the Rosenwald Fund. This addition, like those of other schools in the county, came about because of huge population growth in Durham County at the time. Black School Patrons Named in the Durham County School Board Minutes September 1, 1919 Henry Lyon Source:http://durhamcountylibrary.org/.../schools/hickstown.php Previous Next

< Back Black Issues Forum Photo:A discussion on 'HBCU Legacy and Leadership' on UNC-TV's 'Black Issues Forum.' UNC-TV For more than 150 years, historically black colleges and universities have fostered African-American leaders and fueled social movements. Photo:A discussion on 'HBCU Legacy and Leadership' on UNC-TV's 'Black Issues Forum.' UNC-TV For more than 150 years, historically black colleges and universities have fostered African-American leaders and fueled social movements. Spurred by the release of Stanley Nelson’s new PBS documentary “Tell Them We Are Rising,” UNC-TV hosted a conversation with leaders of HBCUs in North Carolina on its weekly program “Black Issues Forum.” That episode, called “HBCU Legacy and Leadership,” takes a look at the continued relevance of HBCUs in today’s educational landscape. Click Link to Listen to the discussion http://wunc.org/post/enduring-legacy-hbcus#stream/0 Previous Next

< Back Back to Arts, Entertainment & Media The Carolina Times-Durham, NC The Carolina Times-Durham, NC -Saturday December 2, 1950 The Carolina Times-Durham, NC -Saturday December 2, 1950 Source: http://newspapers.digitalnc.org/.../1950-12-02/ed-1/seq-1/ Previous Next

< Back Mary Mills Image-Painting, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Harmon Foundation. S/NPG.67.19 In all likelihood only one individual has been awarded both Lebanon’s Order of the Cedar and North Carolina’s Order of the Longleaf Pine. Mary (Margaret) Lee Mills, at first glance, may seem like an unlikely candidate for that distinction. Born in rural Pender County, North Carolina in August 1912, Mills hailed from the disenfranchised African-American community of one of the poorest parts of NC. How did she come to travel to Lebanon, much less win the highest award bestowed by the Lebanese government? As a young girl, Mary Lee Mills wanted to “go into something that [would] pay…some money” as a route to a better life. She was one of eleven children. Hard times, including adverse weather conditions, had forced many African Americans to migrate north in the 1910s and 1920s. But Mills and her family remained in Pender County, North Carolina where her father worked as a farm laborer. With economic stability in mind, Mills charted out her future at an early age. She first considered studying law, but “saw so many hungry lawyers.” Mills settled on nursing after reading a letter that suggested that the profession would provide “income to help [her] do whatever else [she] wanted.”[1] Mills’ grandparents, enslaved and then emancipated, had lived through the hopeful but brief period of Reconstruction. White North Carolina Democrats, displeased with growing African-American political participation, began a brutal white supremacy campaign culminating in the violent coup d’état in 1898 in Wilmington, just thirty miles from Watha where Mills’ family settled. White mobs lynched as many as sixty black men, attacked the state’s only black newspaper, and deposed the elected government –which included African-Americans- in a bid to extinguish the political influence of the black community.[2] Raised in the aftermath of the turmoil, Mills faced myriad challenges, particularly with regard to education. Despite the Rosenwald Fund’s construction of schools for black children, rural African American students struggled to transcend systemic inequalities.[3] Because of her determination to seek educational opportunities, Mills was able to leave Pender County. At age 18, she moved to Durham to study nursing at Lincoln Hospital[4] where she encountered an entirely different social milieu, including that which she hoped to become—an urban middle class woman.[5] Surrounded by economic prosperity and higher education, Mills must have felt that she had come far from her impoverished life in Pender County. She had not escaped the persistent reality of racial inequality, however. Later, she would recall that while working as a midwife in Roxboro, where she helped a woman birth premature triplets, she had to drive the mother and her babies more than an hour back to Durham to the hospital for African-Americans. No hospital in Person County would accept them.[6] After a sojourn in New York City, where she studied at New York University and a midwifery school, Mills returned to North Carolina to establish a nursing school at North Carolina College as the segregated counterpart to UNC-Chapel Hill. In 1946, “Happily settled in a teaching assignment […] planning for the next year,” she received an offer for a tour of duty in Liberia from the U.S. Public Health Service. She had rejected two previous offers, but was ultimately swayed by the promise of travel. [7] After four years overseeing an inoculation program in Liberia, Mills travelled to Lebanon in 1951 to help launch the country’s nursing education program. She felt welcome in the new environment: “The Lebanese people were not strange to me,” she wrote, “I had acquaintances in other parts of the worlds whose relatives still resided there […] it was only fitting that I received the grand welcoming party so typical of Lebanese hospitality.” “For the first two to three months” she lived with an “Arab family,” Although she would never claim to be fluent in Arabic, she used colloquial phrases in informal situations, answering inquiries about her status as a single woman with a joking “Arabic proverb”: “Ma fii fluse, ma fii aruse [No money, no bride].”[8] Mills would later work in Cambodia and Vietnam as an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. Why would she, coming from a community so in need of public health and nurses -in the 1950s as now- travel to pursue public health initiatives in far-flung countries rather than remaining in North Carolina? As with many African American women in the mid-twentieth century, education expanded Mills’ opportunities for self-expression and autonomy. Travel reinforced these newfound “freedoms”: freedom to make a living, to reinvent herself, and to have leisure time (something undoubtedly rare during her childhood on the farm). Furthermore, whereas North Carolina’s classrooms and lunch counters had not been integrated by the early 1950s, many foreign countries offered public spaces free from legal segregation. Viewed through a broader lens, Mills’ story provides insight into the evolving relationship between Lebanon and the United States. Lebanon was in a unique position, among recently decolonized countries, to assimilate the new public health regime sponsored by U.S. global development projects, such as the Point Four program [9] that brought Mills to the country. Lebanon had nearly as many doctors per-capita as France.[10] In addition to the high levels of medical education among the populace, the Lebanese, many of whom had traveled and lived abroad, felt at ease with foreigners, and knew how to take advantage of U.S. technical assistance in the medical field.[11] While in Lebanon, Mills worked at Point Four’s model clinic in Chtoura, teaching nursing and helping to combat treatable diseases, like trachoma, which plagued the rural population. Along with the Rockefeller, Ford, and Near East Foundations, U.S. government projects contributed decisively to improving public health in Lebanon. Mills remained in the country until 1957, when she took new assignments in Southeast Asia. Evidently appreciative of her contribution to the well-being of the Lebanese people, the government awarded her the Order of the Cedar before she left. Education and travel enabled Mills to escape from poverty and expand her possibilities as an individual. Much like Mills, many Lebanese migrants had their own formative experiences while traveling in the late nineteenth century. While many Lebanese left the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean in search of a better life, many ultimately returned home, bringing with them new ideas. Through these avenues of transnational exchange, the Lebanese constructively adapted the U.S. public health system to fit their own needs in the 1950s. The unlikely conjuncture of Mills’ life with Lebanon’s history is a testament to the value of travel/migration and education as a force for personal and collective empowerment. Note: This article is co-written by Micah Khater and Graham Auman Pitts. Khater is a recent graduate (’15) of North Carolina State University with a B.A. in History and French. Originally from North Carolina, Pitts is currently completing his dissertation in Georgetown University’s History department on the environmental history of Lebanon. Source: https://lebanesestudies.news.chass.ncsu.edu/.../mary.../ Previous Next

< Back Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va. between 1899 and 1900. ​ Ten Afro American women in cooking class at Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va. between 1899 and 1900. By Frances Benjamin Johnston-photographer Source: LOC This photograph is part of a collection of photographs that Ms. Frances Benjamin Johnston was commissioned to create at Hampton Institute, and is part of the "Hampton Album." Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois entered the "Hampton Album" photographs in the, “Exhibit of the American Negroes at the 1900 Paris Exposition.” Below we are including a write up from the LOC Blog about the photographer and the photographs that make up the "Hampton Album". ---- -Begin Interview_ Frances Benjamin Johnston’s Hampton Album: A Researcher’s Exploration December 19, 2019 by Barbara Orbach Natanson The following is a guest post by Micah Messenheimer, Curator of Photography, Prints & Photographs Division. Conversations with visiting researchers that lead to new appreciation for the many interconnections among Library of Congress collections are one of the pleasures of my job as a photography curator. The following interview was done with Jane Pierce, Carl Jacobs Foundation Research Assistant in the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, who visited the Prints & Photographs Division to study photographs of Hampton Institute by the Washington photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952). Micah: Jane, thank you for taking the time to discuss your research. To start, can you tell us a bit about what brought you to the Library? Jane: In preparation for MoMA’s new publication Frances Benjamin Johnston: The Hampton Album, I visited the Library to research photographs from Johnston’s commission at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, which she worked on in December 1899 and January 1900. This school, now Hampton University, was founded in 1868 to provide an education to African-Americans post-emancipation, and by 1900 they were admitting Native Americans as well. Micah: How does the Hampton work at the Library differ from the photographs in MoMA’s collection? Jane: MoMA has a set of 159 of these photographs from Johnston’s commission, which used to be bound in an album, and it was invaluable to compare/contrast these with the similar set at the Library of Congress. Generally they represent the same body of work (and both were printed in the luxurious platinum process), but the Library of Congress collection holds a number of additional scenes Johnston shot in the vicinity of Hampton, but not on campus, like the photograph below. Micah: Johnston led quite a fascinating life and had a long and varied photographic career—making art, portraiture, photojournalism, and architectural photographs. What led to her being selected for this commission? Jane: Johnston is considered one of America’s first female photojournalists, and the Library of Congress holds her life’s work. She was a trailblazer, which I think she captured perfectly in this self-portrait she arranged in her portrait studio in Washington, D.C. She sits with her skirt hiked up, with a cigarette in one hand and a beer stein in the other. In 1896 this would have probably raised quite a few eyebrows, not to mention the photographs she took dressed as a man! One of the main reasons Johnston likely received her commission at Hampton Institute was that in the spring of 1899 she had taken a commission to photograph the Washington, D.C. public school system. The majority of these photographs were of white students, but otherwise the photographs look remarkably similar to the ones she would photograph months later at Hampton. In most cases, the students are arranged in equally spaced groups and all gaze attentively in the direction of whatever lesson is at hand. This photograph of a class field trip is actually one of the less-staged tableaux (some students were caught mid-motion, which Johnston cautiously avoided at Hampton), but I loved seeing the students standing below the “Printing Press” mural by John White Alexander, which can still be enjoyed today in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. The Prints & Photographs Division holds 14 booklets of cyanotypes from this project, and also the four editions of The New Education Illustrated, which Johnston co-produced to showcase the photographs and the new methods of teaching that were being introduced at the time. Micah: Johnston’s Hampton photographs were made with an intent that was partially to document, but also to promote Hampton’s educational model and the progress of the country’s African-American population. Can you talk about how they were displayed at the Paris Exposition? Jane: Johnston’s photographs were very well-represented at the 1900 Paris Exposition, a world’s fair that drew over 50 million visitors. Her photographs from the D.C. public school system were on view in the Palace of Education, and her photographs from Hampton were displayed prominently in the acclaimed “American Negro Exhibit” in the Palace of Social Economy. This exhibit aimed to celebrate African-American achievements since the end of the Civil War, and it was organized by three African-American scholars: Daniel A. P. Murray, assistant librarian at the Library of Congress, Thomas J. Calloway, a young lawyer who was the primary organizer of the Exhibit, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois submitted an extensive study of the circumstances of African Americans in Georgia, with albums of photographs and stunning, hand-drawn graphic charts. One of these charts is visible in the installation shot, immediately to the left of Johnston’s Hampton University photographs. Both the charts and the Hampton photographs were mounted on boards and displayed back-to-back in cabinets that had folding leaves. -End Of Interview_ Source: LOC blog, https://blogs.loc.gov/.../frances-benjamin-johnstons.../ Previous Next

< Back A Hayti mural depicting bluesman John Dee Holeman and friends, painted by Emily Eve Weinstein and community volunteers. The Living Legacy of the Piedmont Blues The music that grew out of Durham’s tobacco manufacturing plants influenced some of the most widely recorded musicians of the last 65 years—and still does today. Image: A Hayti mural depicting bluesman John Dee Holeman and friends, painted by Emily Eve Weinstein and community volunteers. (Photo by James Hill) Note: Hayti is a Black community in Durham, NC. -end- . The Living Legacy of the Piedmont Blues The music that grew out of Durham’s tobacco manufacturing plants influenced some of the most widely recorded musicians of the last 65 years—and still does today. by Marc Farinella / The Assembly dot com - July 14, 2023 John Locklear, who goes by the handle Lakota John, is a young Robeson County-based singer-songwriter. Like other young musicians, he performs at clubs and festivals. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he’s performed at the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress, and he has shared the stage with internationally renowned talents such as Joe Bonamassa and Taj Mahal. These are remarkable honors for a 26-year-old, and proof of the purposeful way Lakota John approaches his trade. He is building a successful artistic career by digging deep into indigenous musical traditions of the Piedmont—the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the coastal plain—and he’s combining these folk traditions with modern influences. He’s getting noticed not just because of his extraordinary skills as a guitarist and a writer, but because, in his own original compositions and performances, you can clearly hear traces of southeastern regional music of earlier times. “I’m very aware of the music of my elders,” Lakota John told The Assembly. “I build on that. It’s great music. I want to bring it forward in my music.” Some 120 miles north in Durham, Jon Shain is an accomplished singer-songwriter. A 55-year-old Duke graduate, he’s the 2019 winner of the International Blues Challenge in the solo/duo category, outplaying 260 competitors. Like Lakota John, Shain’s music takes the past and projects it forward for contemporary audiences. He creatively combines ragtime, bluegrass, and swing with the folk music of the Piedmont. Like so many other musicians, Shain and Lakota John note that a number of different styles, genres, and musicians have influenced their musical inclinations. But one thing they have in common is that the music that came out of Durham’s tobacco warehouses in the 1920s and ‘30s is foundational to the music they create and perform today. And they are in good company. The story of Durham as a vastly influential center of American musical culture has long been overlooked. Whether you listen to artists who play country, rock, blues, jazz, or folk, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear the echoes of a small group of early 20th century Black musicians from Durham and the surrounding region. Their names are rarely mentioned, or even remembered, but these trailblazers are still shaping the music we listen to today. “That music they played,” Shain told The Assembly, “is in the root system of American music.” Bull City Dirty Work In the early decades of the 20th century, Durham’s tobacco processing industry offered thousands of Black sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and rural laborers a way out of an endless cycle of debt and poverty. Demand for tobacco products seemed insatiable, and the Bull City was a land of opportunity. On the southwest corner of Pettigrew and Blackwell Streets, an enormous plant owned by the American Tobacco Company—the manufacturer of Lucky Strike cigarettes and 35 other brands of tobacco products—was turning out 5 million cigarettes an hour by 1939. On West Main Street between Cigarette and Fuller Streets, the Liggett & Myers plant had installed machines that could each produce 1,200 cigarettes per minute for their Chesterfield, Picayune, and other brands. On Morris Street between Morgan and Fernway, the massive Imperial Tobacco factory —a joint venture of 18 British tobacco manufacturers—was sorting and processing the region’s famous and cherished “Bright Leaf” tobacco for export overseas. Nearby, the annual tobacco auctions took place in gigantic warehouses. Each fall, both Black and white farmers brought their crops to the Durham warehouses where they were bundled, graded, and sold to the highest-bidding manufacturer or tobacco broker. Warehouse workers then re-dried, pressed, and packed the tobacco into barrels where it was stored until called upon by the successful bidder. To make it all work, the industry needed cheap labor. Black workers comprised the majority of the industry’s workforce, but they were hired only for the dirtiest, lowest-paying, most physically demanding jobs like stemming, cleaning, and processing the leaves by hand. Supervisory roles and positions as machine operators were reserved for whites. In the latter half of the 20th century, folklorists at universities in North Carolina interviewed community elders like Margaret Turner, who could still vividly recall life in Durham in the 1920s and ‘30s. Turner was a widow raising children when she got a job with the American Tobacco Company, and worked there for 38 years. “What they hired us for was the dirty work, not [work] in the cigarette department but in the leaf department where everything was dirty,” she told North Carolina Central University researchers for an oral history published in 1988. Still, Durham was a city where you could get a job with a salary. From Reconstruction through the industry’s demise in the late 20th century, tobacco powered North Carolina’s economy. By 1937, due largely to the federal tobacco excise tax levied on producers, manufacturers, and wholesalers, North Carolina was the fourth largest contributor to the United States Treasury. As the tobacco industry faltered in more recent decades, many of its massive structures were repurposed as office buildings, apartments, restaurants, biomedical research facilities, and event venues. They remain outsized reminders of a bygone era. What has been mostly forgotten is that tobacco also made Durham a creative epicenter for an almost-lost genre of music, known in recent years as the Piedmont blues or sometimes the East Coast blues. Durham was at the heart of this musical form from its birth in the 1920s until its disappearance at the onset of World War II. Only Atlanta can stake a greater claim in the development of the genre. Rediscovered during the folk revival of the late 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, the Piedmont blues had an enormous influence on many of the most widely recorded British and American musicians of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Like the tobacco factories and warehouses, this all-but-abandoned music was re-purposed for a different clientele. Rise of the Piedmont Blues Describing a musical genre by detailing its attributes tends to lead to generalizations and oversimplifications. The margins of musical styles are overlapping, and musicians listen to and are influenced by other musicians and styles. Separating musical expressions into neat, mutually exclusive categories is a pursuit fraught with trouble. Even so, one might say the alternating bass notes, syncopated melodies (accenting notes between the beats), and, most notably, the lively and bright ragtime flavor characterize the Piedmont blues. “I’m very aware of the music of my elders. I build on that. I want to bring it forward in my music.” Lakota John It was typically played on guitar, distinguished by its complex fingerpicking patterns. Guitarists were sometimes accompanied by harmonica, washboard, and occasionally fiddle or mandolin. It often sounded like ragtime on guitar instead of piano, and, vital to its popularity, you could dance to it. Indeed, weekend house parties were a common venue for recreation and social interaction. Dance music was essential. But most homes didn’t have a piano, so guitarists playing the Piedmont blues along with other popular up-tempo styles were called upon for the job. While this music could be widely heard in Black communities throughout the Piedmont region, it was, at the time, overlooked or dismissed as an art form. After all, it was just the crude regional folk music of a marginalized, poor, and largely illiterate Jim Crow-era population of African-American laborers, farmhands, and factory workers. In the earliest days of mass communications in the segregated South, most whites were unaware of it. And professional and middle-class Black folks listened to the “higher-class” jazz and dance bands. “They used to classify guitar music as strictly the devil’s music, and church-going folks didn’t have nothing to do with it,” Reginald Mitchiner, a former Liggett & Myers employee and sharecropper’s son, told folklorist Glenn Hinson in 1976 for UNC-Chapel Hill’s Southern Oral History Program. That could have had something to do with the lyrics. As one might expect from any kind of blues, common themes included unrequited love and infidelity, economic hardship, incarceration, oppression, failure, frustration, and rambling from one place to the next. But the Piedmont blues could also be tawdry and vulgar. The Piedmont guitarists had a seemingly endless supply of double entendres. Race Records and Folklorists No one was writing this music down. Its community was largely illiterate, and the performers couldn’t read music. They learned by ear. Fortunately, samples were recorded. In the 1920s, the Library of Congress launched an effort to search out and record indigenous American folk music. White folklorists John Lomax and his son, Alan, spent years conducting field recordings throughout the South, with an emphasis on African-American folk music. The Piedmont blues is among the musical styles they recorded. A handful of other researchers also made non-commercial field recordings of Black folk music in the Piedmont region in the 1920s and 1930s, and even into the mid-1950s. But by then, most listeners had moved on and the Piedmont blues had become a relic. Other samples were collected by commercial record companies. In the early days of the white-dominated recording industry, record companies issued recordings of Black gospel, jazz, and blues on what they called “race records” intended to appeal to African-American consumers. Still, many of the Piedmont’s finest musicians and folk songs were never recorded. They could be heard on farms, at family picnics, at wood sawings and corn shuckings, on street corners, in Black-owned diners and barber shops, and, most notably, at the seasonal carnivalesque tobacco auctions that helped make Durham a center of gravity for this music. In an era in which radio was not yet universal and before jukeboxes became commonplace, live performance was the source. “[A]ll around Durham and back up here near Stagville, there was a guitar in near about every house you went in,” Thomas Burt, a part-time musician, told the folklorist Hinson. Street Corners, Parties, and Warehouses Piedmont guitarists could always find an audience along Pettigrew Street and on Fayetteville Street in Hayti, Durham’s then-vibrant Black commercial district. “Of the old guitar pickers … the best one I heard play was Arch Hammond,” said Burt, who, aside from earning gratuities as a guitarist, strung together a living working at various odd jobs at a sawmill, brickyard, tobacco factory, and elsewhere. Arch “stayed down in Hayti, and I would go down there and me and him would get together and play all around Hayti.” Like Burt, few of the Piedmont guitarists were full-time professionals; most held one or more menial jobs. The ones who earned their living as full-time musicians were disproportionately blind or disabled and, consequently, unable to get work on a farm or in a factory. Those familiar with the Piedmont blues may recognize some of the genre’s most prominent names: Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, and the Reverend Blind Gary Davis. Harmonica master Sonny Terry was also blind but somehow avoided the moniker. They could rely only on their music and had few other options. But even part-timers like Burt could make money performing on the street corners. The most talented of the street musicians would get invited to play at often-raucous weekend house parties where dancing and gambling were encouraged, and alcohol and food were for sale. According to George Washington University ethnomusicologist Kip Lornell, some of these parties were informal, non-professional bashes that provided not just entertainment but an opportunity for the host to make a few extra bucks selling food and booze. These parties were frequently referred to as “sellin’s.” Music was essential, and guitar players could earn good money from tips. The Piedmont blues was central to the repertoire of many of the region’s guitarists, but it wasn’t the only style they played. Many started out playing gospel, and most could play all sorts of pop tunes and even the Scottish reels popular in the countryside. They were ready for whatever their audience, white or Black, wanted to hear, and would tip them for. Other house parties were commercial operations run by bootleggers where the musicians would receive a flat fee. But by the 1940s, live musicians were being replaced by Piccolos, the brand name for the original jukeboxes. Still, the most important venues in the Piedmont were the annual tobacco auctions in Winston-Salem and Durham. During the several weeks of the auctions, Durham seemed more like a county fair than an industrial city. To Piedmont musicians, the auctions meant money, visibility, and opportunity. Each fall, Black and white sharecroppers and tenant farmers would transport their crop to the tobacco warehouses and collect payment, likely for the first time since the prior year’s auction. The Piedmont musicians would converge there, too, and perform in the giant warehouses and on street corners for tips from the recently paid farmers. Richard Trice played at the Durham auctions with some of the genre’s most popular musicians: his brother Willie Trice, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Bull City Red, and Blind Boy Fuller. “See them people were neighbors, them farmers,” Trice said in the documentary Shine On: Richard Trice and the Bull City Blues. “And they sat in the back and they’d—some of them—would get charged up, man. And they were loose with the money, you know. They wanted to hear something.” Rebranded as Blind Boy According to a study Lornell conducted, about 30 percent of the Piedmont region’s blues musicians who recorded the style between 1924 and 1941 were in the Durham area. Among them was a blind guitarist originally from Wadesboro who became the most popular, commercially successful, and prolific figure in the genre and one of the most popular and influential guitarists of the era: Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller, whose real name was Fulton Allen, became blind in 1928 around the age of 21. He had worked as a laborer but was then forced to rely on playing guitar for tips outside tobacco factories and on street corners. J.B. Long was the white manager of the candy and hosiery departments in Durham’s United Dollar Store on Main Street. He was also an American Record Corporation talent scout. In 1935, he discovered Allen and soon rebranded him as Blind Boy Fuller. In an interview with Lornell for a 1976 edition of Living Blues Magazine, Long recalled the first time he came upon Allen: “As I went around the warehouses tryin’ to see some of the farmers, get ‘em to come to the store and trade you know, and I saw this blind fellow, colored boy, man, he had on a blanket-lined overall jumper. … I told him ‘I’m down here at the United Dollar Store department store. Come by and see me. I want to talk to you. You’ve got a pretty good voice, and I’d like to talk to you about going in making records if you can do it.’” Fulton Allen accepted Long’s invitation. By the time of his death in 1941 at age 37, he had recorded a stunning 130 sides—a 78 RPM record could hold 3 to 5 minutes of music per side—for the American Recording Company and Decca Records. One of the most important bluesmen of the 20th century, Fuller is buried in Grove Hill Cemetery on Durham’s Fayetteville Street, but the precise location of his grave is not known. The dormant cemetery is now the site of Fayetteville Street Elementary School and a small office building. Although Fuller was the most popular Piedmont musician of the era, it was another Long discovery, the Reverend Blind Gary Davis, who was widely regarded as among the most skilled. By most accounts, Davis was Fuller’s instructor and mentor, and his music is viewed as more creative and original. Davis “never let a string be still,” bluesman Willie Trice, who played the Durham streets with his younger brother Richard, told blues historian Bruce Bastin in an early 1970s interview. He was “the playingest man I ever saw. … He could make 500 chords while I was trying to play two.” In July 1935, Long drove Fuller and Davis—along with a Durham washboard player who Long dubbed Bull City Red—to Manhattan for their first recording sessions, lasting four days. The New York trip launched Fuller on a prolific recording career, but it was not a good experience for Davis who felt that Long cheated him. Often cantankerous, stubborn, and suspicious, Davis didn’t record again for a decade and a half. Sometime in the mid-1930s, Davis was ordained as a Baptist minister, devoted himself to the church, and often insisted on playing only spirituals. He moved to the Bronx in 1944 where he scraped together a living largely by preaching and singing on street corners—until, that is, the folk revival of the late 1950s and ‘60s brought him new opportunities. He was convinced to return to the studio, where he recorded both secular and religious music. But regardless of which he played, the Piedmont style from his days in Durham could be clearly heard. Durham also launched the internationally successful 35-year partnership of guitarist Brownie McGhee and harmonica virtuoso Sonny Terry. Originally from Greensboro, Terry began playing with Fuller at the Durham warehouses and street corners in the mid-1930s and frequently recorded with him. A few months after Fuller’s death in February of 1941, McGhee and Terry recorded together for the first time. But as interest in the Piedmont blues style faded in the South, the pair moved to New York City in 1942, where there was still a vibrant blues scene in the massive black community that had migrated northward and a budding interest in folk music among affluent educated whites. Throughout the revival, the duo recorded, played folk clubs and festivals, made television appearances, and ultimately performed in night clubs and concert halls around the world as a headline act. By the end of their careers, they had become the most famous and celebrated exponents of the Piedmont style. Back to the Future By the early 1940s, musical tastes were changing and the Piedmont blues was disappearing. Other factors upended the musical landscape, including a strike called by the American Federation of Musicians banning new recordings and shuttering recording studios. And the shellac used to make records was needed by the war effort. When the recording industry recovered, Black and white listeners converged on rhythm and blues and doo-wop, and the world was heading toward rock ’n’ roll. Years later, folklorists, most notably from UNC, set out to find surviving forgotten Piedmont artists. A few were “re-discovered” early enough to participate in the folk revival movement. Music festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival, launched in 1959, introduced them to predominantly white urban audiences far larger than they experienced back in the genre’s rural heyday. But by then, the Piedmont blues had faded away as the popular indigenous African-American folk music of the southeastern plateau. Today, several North Carolina-based nonprofits and academic institutions are leading the way in preserving this music. One of the most significant not-for-profit initiatives is the Music Maker Foundation, founded in 1994. From its headquarters in Hillsborough, Music Maker has been working to preserve and promote original indigenous American music—“roots music” —in all its forms: blues, gospel, folk, jazz, Appalachian string band, Native American music. Music Maker helps book and promote live performances, releases and promotes recordings, and provides financial support to struggling artists. Its Next Generation program connects young, talented, up-and-comers with skilled old-timers, resulting in collaborations that would have never otherwise happened. That’s how Lakota John became involved. More recently, Music Maker facilitated the connections that enabled him to get on the bill at this September’s Telluride Blues & Brews Festival in Colorado, one of the most prestigious blues venues in the nation. “Even Alan Lomax, who spent his whole life documenting indigenous music, much of it African American music, he didn’t even touch the very tip of this huge iceberg,” Music Maker Foundation co-founder Tim Duffy told The Assembly. In rural southern communities, Duffy said the descendents of the Piedmont blues creators “are picking up this music, learning it and bringing it forward. And we don’t know who it will influence 50 years from now. The main thing is to get it documented.” “Everyone likes to say, oh that’s something that happened in the past. But the past is not past. The past never really passes. It’s in the future,” he said. That’s clear to anyone who’s listening. Legions of recent American and British artists have acknowledged the influence of the pre-war Durham guitarists, including the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, the Allman Brothers, Taj Mahal, Hot Tuna, Bob Dylan, Doc Watson, Harry Chapin, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, David Bromberg, and Keb Mo’. “That music they played is in the root system of American music.” Jon Shain At least 33 artists have recorded their own versions of Blind Boy Fuller’s biggest hit, “Step It Up and Go,” including Doc Watson, Merle Travis, Bob Dylan, and Earl Scruggs. The name of the Rolling Stones’ second album, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, is a lyric from one of Fuller’s songs. Pink Floyd coined its name from two 1930s-era Piedmont guitarists: Floyd Council from Chapel Hill, who often played with Fuller, and South Carolina’s Pink Anderson. Eric Clapton learned to play guitar partly by listening to recordings of Blind Boy Fuller, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee. Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Hot Tuna, Jackson Browne, and the Grateful Dead are just a few who covered songs written and performed by the Reverend Blind Gary Davis. Davis was so skilled that a long litany of acclaimed musicians famously trekked to his home in the Bronx to take guitar lessons, including singer-songwriter David Bromberg, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, Steve Katz of Blood Sweat & Tears, singer-songwriter Harry Chapin, Dion DiMucci of Dion and the Belmonts, and Pete Seeger collaborator Tom Winslow. The musicians that the Durham guitarists directly influenced are now influencing a new generation of music makers—people like Jon Shain and Lakota John who will, in turn, influence the music of their successors. “The blues is a spirit,” said Duffy. “The Piedmont blues will never die. It keeps appearing. It’s something that’s in people’s DNA.” Wilmington resident Marc Farinella is the senior adviser to the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. Article source link: https://www.theassemblync.com/.../durham-piedmont-blues/... Previous Next

< Back ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, NU CHAPTER. Lincoln University. 1930. ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, NU CHAPTER. Lincoln University. 1930. ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, NU CHAPTER. Lincoln University. 1930. Source: Lincoln University 1930 Yearbook Archives. . Previous Next

< Back Pledges from the Zeta Phi Beta sorority gather together at the gymnasium to perform during one of their pledge rituals at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1969. ​ Pledges from the Zeta Phi Beta sorority gather together at the gymnasium to perform during one of their pledge rituals at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1969. Photo source: Robert Abbott Sengstacke-Getty Images. Previous Next

< Back In 1918 and 2020, Race Colors America’s Response To Epidemics Photo description: A photo of nine African American nurses, standing on the steps of a building, who worked at the Camp Sherman Base Hospital in Ohio during World War I. From the W. E. B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries. In American epidemics, race is a preexisting condition. .Whether it’s the influenza pandemic of 1918 or COVID-19 over a century later, race and ethnicity have been, and continue to be, enormous factors in determining whether people will receive medical attention when they become ill, and the sort of attention they will receive. In “The 1919 Influenza Blues,” Essie Jenkins documented the toll the flu took on the country, noting that viruses don’t discriminate when it comes to their victims. She sang: “People died everywhere death went creepin’ through the air and the groans of the rich sure were sad But it was God’s own mighty plan He’s judging this old land North and South, East and West can be seen He killed rich and poor and he’s going to kill some more …” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, the 1918 flu infected 500 million people worldwide and resulted in 50 million deaths around the globe, 675,000 of which were American. But while viruses don’t discriminate, people do. In cities across the nation, black people struck by the flu were often left to fend for themselves. They received substandard care in segregated hospitals, where they could be relegated to close quarters in basements, or they were only allowed admittance to black-only hospitals. Even in death, black bodies were neglected by white public infrastructure. In Baltimore that year, white sanitation department employees refused to dig graves for black flu victims after the city’s only black cemetery, Mount Auburn, could not accommodate any more graves. “The mayor then had to appeal to the War Department, which is now called the Defense Department,” said Marian Moser Jones, a social historian and ethicist of public health at the University of Maryland. “The War Department sent 342 black soldiers, black American soldiers to do the task, which is very much in keeping with the way black soldiers were treated by the Army in the war. They were detailed to the worst duties, the most grueling labor details were the ones who were most often sent out to clean out the trenches after a battle and even exhume and rebury dead soldiers’ remains. “It’s sort of a continuity from the war. The resources that were there, that were limited, the resources to address African American health and even death were overwhelmed in cities like Baltimore.” The flu epidemic is inextricably linked to World War I. The first cases in the U.S. were identified in soldiers living in close quarters in Army barracks before heading to Europe to join the war, which the United States entered in April 1917. Even the name that we use to identify the disease, the “Spanish flu,” is inaccurate, according to historian Kenneth C. Davis, author of More Deadly Than War: The Hidden History of the Spanish Flu and the First World War. “Fear driven by propaganda, censorship and lies were so much a powerful part of the spread of the Spanish flu. People were misled, often deliberately, by officials,” Davis said. “Newspapers were censored. The reason it is the Spanish flu is because of censorship. [During the war] Spain was a neutral country. It didn’t censor its news reports as rigorously as some of the warring countries did, so the first report of a massive epidemic comes out of Madrid in the spring of 1918 and that’s the reason it was reported by Reuters in London that Madrid was under a mass epidemic. That’s the reason it was called the Spanish flu. It certainly didn’t originate there.” Today, in the age of COVID-19, it’s worth examining the social dynamics of 1918 and how their legacy continues to shape modern public health. “A lot of my historian friends have a cottage industry now talking about the lessons learned. I’m a bit more cautious,” said Vanessa Northington Gamble, a medical doctor and professor of medical humanities and American studies at George Washington University. “Who you are — and I mean in terms of your race, your gender, where you live — will have a major role in how you experience COVID-19. It also will play a major role in the services that you get. … If there’s anything we can learn from the 1918 influenza epidemic, is that we really have to look at issues around race and class and racial and social inequities.” RACE AND PATIENT CARE When the flu epidemic of 1918 came to Chicago, black people were blamed, and that blame came directly from John Dill Robertson, the city’s commissioner of public health. It wasn’t just white medical officials who engaged in this sort of blame. Robertson had a tremendous influence on the way the Chicago Tribune covered migration, and there, the prejudice was plain. Even before the pandemic reached Chicago, the Tribune’s coverage of migration was alarmist. A March 5, 1917, headline from the Chicago Daily Tribune, as it was known at the time, blared, Rush of Negroes to City Starts Health Inquiry. The flu simply heightened those existing prejudices. Half a Million Darkies from Dixie Swarm to the North to Better Themselves, the paper proclaimed July 8, 1918. In the corresponding article, reporter Henry M. Hyde laid out a series of pathologies: Black people moving to Chicago from the South, he wrote, “are compelled to live crowded in dark and insanitary rooms; they are surrounded by constant temptations in the way of wide-open saloons and other worse resorts.” The reason for such ills wasn’t any innate inferiority that could be attributed to blackness. In an academic paper about Jim Crow and public health, Betsy Schroeder Schlabach, a professor of history and African American studies at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, explained how discriminatory housing policies created ghettos. Black people were relegated to limited parts of the city. Housing was overcrowded, and white landowners became slumlords, charging rents that were 15% to 25% higher for black tenants, and then refused to make needed repairs when asked. “The way that the Tribune, especially, talks about disease is the same way they talk about the Great Migration: swarms of migrants coming to the city and bringing with them all sorts of disease,” Schroeder Schlabach said. “There’s similar ways that today we talk about the border or the way definitely [President Donald] Trump talks about immigration crisis and disease.” Interestingly, the Nov. 2, 1918, edition of the Cleveland Advocate bore the headline: Flu Shuns Us, Says Health Doctor, referring to black people. The idea that black people were not getting the flu, or dying from it the way white people were, was a widely held belief at the time, Gamble said. Getting a clear picture of what black people experienced nationally during the flu pandemic is difficult. Gamble thinks that segregated black neighborhoods may have functioned as a makeshift quarantine. But it’s also likely that instances of black illness were underreported. “The only year in the 20th century when black people in the USA had lower influenza mortality than white people was 1918,” researchers Helene Økland and Svenn-Erik Mamelund wrote in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. “One hypothesis is that black people, who mainly lived in the South and under miserable living and working conditions, cramped conditions, white racism and violence, and poor medical care, were less susceptible to the 1918 influenza pandemic autumn wave due to higher exposure to the less virulent spring and summer waves. However, this hypothesis, the mechanisms for the crossover in the role of race in 1918 pandemic mortality, and the subsequent return to the ‘normal’ pattern of higher black than white mortality in 1919, have received little attention in the literature, nor has this [or other] hypothesis been theoretically or empirically substantiated.” Gamble was also circumspect about fully trusting black infection statistics. “I do not say it’s definitive. There’s some indications [that black people were less affected],” she said. “And black physicians believed it too. But even if the incidence was lower, the number of black people who got influenza in 1918 overwhelmed the health care and social services institutions that were available to black people. So black hospitals were overwhelmed. Black nurses were overwhelmed. Things such as the National Urban League, they had volunteers to go into homes to try and take care of people. They were overwhelmed, and especially because the black community, for the most part, was left on its own.” Shroeder Schlabach found that Robertson’s public health edicts functioned as another layer of Jim Crow laws, limiting the movement of black Americans, and effectively quarantining them to ghettos on the city’s South Side. Public health officials became a de facto police force. Beginning in 1917, Robertson’s health department passed 75 regulations, regulating where people could drink water to where children could play. It also implemented mandatory reporting of flu cases. “If you caught influenza, you were obligated to self-quarantine and then report that you had caught it to the Department of Public Health, and then they would come to your house and placard your house, like put a big red sign up on your house,” Schroeder Schlabach said. “That served to stigmatize disease. The Public Health Department sent visiting nurses on expeditions to find people who were sick. They would visit homes, and that resulted in about 40,000 visits [across the city] during the pandemic where nurses and public health officials could come into your house without your permission and ask if you were infected. “What that does, especially for black households during the pandemic, is it takes away the sanctity of the home, giving the Public Health Department, who also had the power of the police, entering into your home. For the black family in early 20th-century Chicago, that’s a direct threat to their safety. These ordinances about mandated reporting of disease were the ones that functioned similarly to Jim Crow laws that regulated all facets of black life.” Black people who were wealthy enough could visit a doctor in his office. Dr. Roscoe Giles, for example, placed ads in The Chicago Defender announcing his services. But for those who were less fortunate, Provident Hospital, the nation’s first black-owned and -operated hospital, was one of the few places where black people could be seen and treated. While black medical schools, such as Howard University Medical School, which grew out of the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, and Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, were instrumental in turning out black physicians, Provident was crucial in training black nurses. The Defender also ran columns by Dr. Wilberforce A. Williams advising black readers how to avoid the flu. “He combines really practical advice about washing your hands, covering your mouth when you cough, but also, ‘If you want to be a good black citizen, donate to these things,’ or, ‘Live hygienically, and that means you can be a good person,’ ” Schroeder Schlabach said. “I found that to be a really interesting mix in his articles. In one article, he chastises a young mother who didn’t want to report that her child had contracted the disease because she feared social isolation. He just rakes her over the coals like, ‘This is foolish. You can’t put your pride before the well-being of the community.’ ” Even as they were relegated to inadequate medical facilities, with black doctors and nurses facing shabby treatment and disrespect, black people still found ways to make the best of horrible situations. “Black Chicagoans responded with innovation and tremendous grit and determination,” Schroeder Schlabach said. “At one point, the Public Health Department mandated that people needed to wear a mask. And what a group of black Chicago ladies do is that they start innovating with the masks and making them out of delicate lace and exquisite jewels. So even in the face of the pandemic, they were looking fabulous in these diamond-studded flu veils. Doctors and nurses just refused to accept any form of segregation. They’re more like icons. I see that as remarkable determination.” RACE, PROFESSIONALISM AND MODERN INEQUALITY The effects of America’s doctrine of separate and unequal life permeated everything during the 1918 flu epidemic. It not only shaped who received treatment and where, but also which people were deemed qualified to provide medical care. In the midst of the first World War and the flu epidemic, there was a hope that black people could prove themselves as full Americans by serving their country, both in the medical field and in the military. The occupations, they hoped, would function as a “citizenship machine.” “It was W.E.B. Du Bois who really motivated African Americans to enlist and join the Army,” Davis said. “He thought this would really prove how they were loyal Americans who could make a great contribution to the war effort and to fighting. And some of the first American troops to go to France were African American troops, including the very famous group known as the Harlem Hellfighters.” Yet white institutions like the American Red Cross (ARC) were loath to accept black nurses into their ranks to help with the war effort until the situation was so dire that they had no choice. “Many African American women were rebuffed by ARC chapters when they sought to participate, and had to create their own alternatives for wartime voluntarism,” Moser Jones wrote in a case study of the American Red Cross’s response to the flu pandemic. “Similarly, black women seeking to enroll as ARC nurses met with frustration. During the war, the ARC served as the official recruiter of nurses for the U.S. Armed Forces. The nursing division, which required every ARC nurse to have completed three years of training in an accredited nursing school, enrolled 24,000 trained nurses. Trained black nurses, however, were rejected for service abroad, and were only enrolled as reserve members of the home defense program.” “They were finally allowed to come in and treat white soldiers, but they were still of course living in segregated facilities,” Davis said. “So, even the angels of mercy taking care of these dying soldiers still had to confront the racism of the day.” A job listing in the December 1918 Monthly Bulletin of the Department of Public Health and Charities of the City of Philadelphia was openly discriminatory: There are four vacancies for assistant physicians at the Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane. Thirty-fourth and Pine Streets, two at a salary of $900 per annum and two at $720 per annum, including board, lodging, and laundry. Applicants must be white, twenty-one years of age, residents of Philadelphia, and licensed to practice in the State of Pennsylvania. These positions are open to both sexes. Successful candidates must reside at the hospital. The Nov. 2, 1918, edition of The Chicago Defender reported that a black nurse named Olive Walker in Ohio was “denied the privilege of helping the Red Cross nurse committee to down the influenza epidemic at Hiram College. The dean of the college refused to allow her to serve when he became aware of her racial identity.” Lincoln Hospital in New York would hire black nurses, but not black physicians, Gamble said. And even the famous Dr. Giles of The Chicago Defender was asked to leave a new job at a tuberculosis sanitarium after six hours on the job. White patients didn’t want him to treat them. Public health historians say that prejudice in American health care is once again at the forefront with the emergence of COVID-19. This time, Asians are the target of racialized scapegoating, from the Trump administration labeling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” to Asian Americans being blamed for the pandemic’s presence in America. “I called my mother, who works at a hospital in Northern California,” wrote Frank Shyong, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. “I asked her to stay home, but her boss told her if she didn’t show up, she would lose her job. At work, patients sometimes refuse to be seen by her, because suddenly an Asian woman in a face mask is a threat.” In November 1918, the Rev. Francis J. Grimke preached a sermon about the flu epidemic and what lessons could be gleaned from it. His words, delivered to the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, still hold tremendous relevance: Jesus said, “The first and great commandment is, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.’ And the second is like unto it, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Upon these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Race prejudice, colorphobia, runs directly counter to both of these great commandments. And, therefore, never mind what the white man may think of it, we see clearly what God thinks of it, and it is the estimate that He puts upon it that is to determine its character. Let us hope, therefore, not only for the sake of people of color, but also for the sake of the white people themselves that the great lesson as to the folly of race prejudice — of assuming that a white skin entitles one to better treatment than a dark skin, which this epidemic has so strikingly taught, may not be lost upon them. It is a lesson which for their own sake it is well for them to learn. It will be better for them here, and it will be better for them hereafter, if they learn it, and learn it well. And, of course, it will be better for us as a race in this country. It will remove out of the way some very serious obstacles to our progress, and will relieve us of many of the disagreeable things that we are at present forced to endure, though not without protest. COVID-19 has not only brought interpersonal racism to the fore, but heightened the degree to which structural racism affects treatment and care. Public defender Scott Hechinger and defense attorney Rebecca Kavanagh have pleaded with officials to release inmates as COVID-19 has spread through the close quarters of Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail complex. Similar situations exist in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, where detainees are facing shortages of soap. Both places disproportionately house black and brown people. “My worry is that there will be two standards of care, that incarcerated patients with one set of symptoms may be denied access to hospitals, even though in the community people with the same sets of symptoms do go to the hospital,” Dr. Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer for New York jails, told The Guardian. “And then that will lead to different rates of deaths and certainly to different rates of preventable deaths among people who are behind bars.” As with the 1918 flu, responses, or lack thereof, to COVID-19 have become tied up with patriotism and xenophobia in ways that exacerbate the spread of disease. In the midst of the 1918 pandemic, Philadelphia hosted a massive parade to sell war bonds to pay for the American war effort. “There was enormous pressure,” Davis said. “If you didn’t buy the war bonds, you weren’t doing your part. You were a slacker. So 200,000 people go out, even though the health department knows that the virus is in and around Philadelphia, on the Navy bases, and they were going to have this parade and soldiers and sailors were going to be marching in the parade. Two days after that parade, every hospital bed in Philadelphia was filled and it was a complete disaster and it was a disaster because the authorities ignored the advice not to cancel this parade.” In a live chat with constituents on Facebook, Tate Reeves, the governor of Mississippi, explained his opposition to giving official orders to the public to implement COVID-19 quarantines. “Eric Worth [a constituent] says ‘China did a lockdown and it was good for them. Why can’t Mississippi?’ Well, Eric, I’m going to tell you that Mississippi is never going to be China,” Reeves said. He has since given a shelter-in-place order to one county in the eastern part of the state, but insisted that a statewide shelter-in-place order was “not sustainable.” In 1918, “things like the war effort and paying for the war and patriotism and support for the war, really outdid the concern for public health,” Davis said. “They were so interested to keep the troops going to Europe that they kept filling these ships up with sick men and these ships became what were called floating coffins. So, that’s a really important lesson as well. Misplaced priorities. When you place things like the economy over the public health, you do so at grave peril to many, many people.” Source:https://theundefeated.com/.../in-1918-and-2020-race.../amp/ Previous Next

< Back Sandra Epps ​ Largest Black Doll Show to Open a Black Doll Museum in Shipping Containers - Monday, February 15, 2021- BlackNewsdotcom Detroit, MI — Sandra Epps decided to turn her negative into a positive after surviving three near-death experiences due to lupus. In 2005, she established Sandy’s Land where the mission is to party with a purpose, to encourage women and girls to “Love the Skin They’re In!” Presently, Sandy’s Land LLC conducts art parties and hosts the Detroit Doll Show which is the largest black doll show of its kind. She founded The Detroit Doll Show in 2011 with the purpose of celebrating history, culture, self-love, and diversity with the promotion of Black dolls. Epps decided that with the up-rise and reveal of injustice to people of color and the establishment of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Black Doll Museum will be a perfect resource for visitors to learn about the positive history and culture of Black people, while little brown girls will be inspired to love themselves. The build-out shipping containers will include the Black dolls in addition be a space to host art parties, doll-making workshops, and classes taught by black historians, therapists, and gardeners. Epps comments, “The Butterflyy represents the rash that appears on a lupus patient’s face when they are experiencing a flare-up. The butterfly is also symbolic of hope, transformation, peace, and prosperity. And these vivid and powerful insects are now quasi-extinct due to lack of habitat caused by new development, pesticides, and climate change.” Her plan is to help save the butterfly by incorporating them into her business space. With the help from the community, black doll collectors, butterfly lovers, nature enthusiasts, or just admirers Epps will make her dream a reality. She will introduce an entertainment space that uplifts black culture, empower brown girls and assist the environment. The launch of the GoFundMe for the Black Doll Museum & Butterfly Garden is to raise funds to purchase land and to then kick start the foundation work for the build-out shipping containers in Detroit, Michigan. The space will be intentional with empowerment including black art, statues with affirmations, and classes to be taught by African American doll makers, historians, gardeners, entomologists, therapists, and nutritionists. Also, there will be a pond with koi fish, gazebo, and rock path of hope to pay homage to loved ones. In addition, patrons can participate with interactive Nature Fun Facts. And Epps plans to become a certified way-station for Monarch Butterflies to have a safe pesticide-free habitat to eat, to lay their eggs, to grow, and be released to migrate. Epps plans to purchase land in 2021. There are two ways to support the construction of the Black Doll Museum. People can make a donation on the GoFundMe page or with the purchase of Girlfriend, It’s Time to SOAR! A Work Journal for Personal Transformation written by Sandra Epps. The proceeds from each book will go toward the purchase of land for the Butterflyy Garden and Black Doll Museum at DetroitDollShow.com. For press inquiries, contact Ny’Ree Hardway at 313-492-6953 or info@sandyslandllc.com . Source: https://www.blacknews.com/.../largest-black-doll-show.../... Previous Next