North Carolina's Black History
Here are twelve reasons to feel proud of your home state. Explore one of these destinations this weekend!
- Greensboro, N.C. marks the 50th anniversary of the lunch counter sit-in that inspired a national civil rights movement. The International Civil Rights Center & Museum opened on Feb. 1, 2010, in the 1929 F.W. Woolworth building. The museum's 30,000 square feet of 16 educational exhibits features the spot where four A&T freshmen sat in on Feb. 1, 1960. The historic lunch counter and stools have never been moved from their original footprint.
- North Carolina Central University, Durham, opened in 1910 as a private school and in the 1920s became the nation’s first state-supported four-year liberal arts college for blacks. It became a full university in 1969 and joined the UNC system three years later. Originally known as the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua, the institution's mission is still to develop students' character and academics for higher service to the nation.
- The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture is Charlotte's newly constructed 46,500-square-foot home for the former Afro-American Cultural Center. For 35 years the organization has celebrated the cultural contributions of Africans and African-Americans and serves as an epicenter for music, dance, theater, visual art, film, arts education programs, literature and community outreach. The new building's exterior texture is reminiscent of quilt designs from the Underground Railroad era and woven textile patterns from West Africa. Named for Charlotte's first African-American mayor, the Center hosts both permanent and temporary exhibits, including works by Romare Bearden, Juan Logan and David Wilson.
- In the 1700s, New Bern became known as a popular town for both slaves and free blacks in Colonial America. In 1860, free blacks composed 13% of the city’s population and prominently shaped its political, economic and cultural life. Tour the city's historical homes, churches and businesses that have rich legacies, including sites of local sit-ins spawned in conjunction with the Greensboro Woolworth sit-ins.
- On the North Carolina coast, the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony is an historic National Underground Railroad “Network to Freedom” site. The majority of this land’s 3,000 residents had been slaves before forming a colony here between 1862 and 1867. Major General John G. Foster, Commander of the 18th Army Corps, ordered Horace James, a Congregational minister from New England who was serving as a chaplain in the Union army, to establish a colony of former slaves on the island. Although the Roanoke Island freedmen’s colony was an experiment of national significance, few people are aware of its history.
- Built in 1861, St. Philips Moravian Church in Winston-Salem is the oldest standing African-American church in the state. It stands adjacent to the newly reconstructed 1823 log church with exhibitions conveying the African-American experience in the Moravian community. Today, the church is part of Old Salem.
- Executive Chef Walter Royal gained national fame and prominence when he won "Iron Chef" in 2006 for his unique ostrich dishes. Thirteen years of his influence on the wine list and use of local ingredients at Raleigh’s famous Angus Barn and Wine Cellar continues to be a national and North Carolina source of pride. CBS's “48 Hours” and Southern Living magazine have featured Chef Royal; the restaurant has won the Ivy Award, Wine Spectator Grand Award, Fine Dining Hall of Fame Award and numerous other honors. You can sign up for "Walter Royal's Teaching Kitchen" classes at
- In the 1870s, at the Pea Island Life-Saving Station at the Outer Banks, a station keeper who bungled a rescue was fired and replaced by Richard Etheridge, an African-American who was renowned to be one of the best surfmen on the North Carolina coast. Surprisingly for the times, Etheridge was promoted from the lowest to the highest position: Keeper of the Pea Island Station. No black man in the country had ever held that position. His all-white crew quit. Etheridge had no choice but to recruit only blacks from nearby stations. So, not by design, the station became the only one for a period of time to have an all African-American crew. That crew was posthumously awarded the Gold Life-Saving Medal in 1996 for their heroic 1896 rescue of all nine passengers on the three-masted schooner E.S. Newman during a hurricane. Today, the efforts of this heroic crew and all the others who were the Guardians of the Graveyard of the Atlantic along North Carolina’s Outer Banks are honored at the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site and Museum in Rodanthe, one of the most complete, historic life-saving stations in the United States.
- The Chuck Davis African-American Dance Ensemble, now based in Durham, combines dramatic staging, pulsing rhythms, masterful choreography and colorful costumes with consistently enthusiastic audiences to create an artistic experience impossible to forget. Founded in 1968 in New York City, the company has gradually established itself as one of the premiere African-American dance ensembles in the United States. The company performs both nationally and internationally. The Dance Ensemble considers itself an agent of social change that stresses the best in human values of peace, love and respect.
- The YMI Cultural Center is the most enduring African-American socio-cultural institution in Western North Carolina. It offers permanent and rotating exhibits by African-American artists in 7,500 sq. ft. of museum space as well as cultural arts programs. The former Young Men’s Institute was designed by Richard Sharp Smith, supervising architect for Biltmore, and built by George Vanderbilt in 1893. It was intended to serve not only the many African-American workers who helped build Vanderbilt’s mansion, but also the entire African-American community.
North Carolina is a state of heroes, storytellers, artists and visionaries. From the fledgling colony on Roanoke Island to today’s role as a leader in culture and commerce, North Carolina invites visitors to absorb its natural scenic beauty and experience its personality firsthand.
added: January 28, 2010
updated: March 22, 2010