BECAUSE WE’RE STILL HERE (AND MOVING)

The founding of the University of North Carolina was inextricably tied up with the contributions of African-American slaves, who built and sustained many of the homes and institutions at the core of the University and town.  African-American family names date back centuries and often reflect a history of former slaveholding founders of the University.

After freedom, the community focused on creating strong, vital institutions, including churches, schools, and civic groups. Where slavery meant the violent suppression of education and interaction, these institutions broke down barriers to knowledge and congregation. In addition to the Quaker School for former slaves, Wilson Swain Caldwell, who had been a slave for University President David Swain and whose father was enslaved to President Caldwell, opened a free school for children of color.

Chapel Hill also had a graded school led by Reverend Dr. L.H. Hackney from 1898 to 1912. In 1912, Rev. Hackney donated land on Merritt Mill and opened Hackney Industrial and Educational Institute (“Hack High”) to serve non-white children in the upper grades. Numbers of small schools operated on outlying farms and in local churches and by 1919, 28 schools for non-white students were operating in Orange County.   

While the University remained the primary source for employment, by 1925, black businesses in the community included two theaters, (the Standard and the Guthrie), two garages (Caldwell’s Garage), four grocery stores, three barber shops (Craig’s, Norwood’s, and Sellar’s Sanitary Barber Shop), a hairdressing parlor, two undertaking establishments (Hargraves), three restaurants, two pressing clubs, three contractors (Craig, Hargraves), one dentist (Kirkland), one doctor (Thompson), two midwives, and a number of masons (Barbee) and other self-employed contractors. 

“All West Franklin was us. We started at downtown Chapel Hill, and we come all the way back, back to Carrboro.” 

Segregation was a powerful tool for disenfranchising a group of people – “No sewers, no schools, no street lights, no problem” – but the community used this enforced congregation to their advantage.  Business leaders, educators and clergy in Chapel Hill’s African-American neighborhoods were invested in the success of their community’s youth, as well as its social, spiritual and economic life.

Segregation created a strong community in which families, children, teachers, and leaders lived, worshipped, and played together.  Sports, plays, music, games, all took place at the churches or schools or the new Community Center. 

Although parents continued to work in the majority white community — “You either worked for the University, or you worked for the white people that worked for the University” — when they came home, they closed the door on that world and it was gone. 

“That was our world, there were no white people in it; there were no white people in our world.” 

Residents who ran community stores, schools, bands, and businesses often functioned as resourceful leaders and role models in several capacities, both to make ends meet for their own families and to provide necessary services for the community. 

The schools and churches, along with the Negro Community Center, now renamed the Robeson Street Center, served as the hub for social and academic functions, with dances after ballgames, Valentines’ Balls, and homecomings. Lincoln High School and its faculty produced celebrated leaders, athletes and musicians.

As the Civil Rights movement took hold in Chapel Hill, Lincoln High School teens were often at the forefront of demonstrations and sit-ins against segregated businesses and cafes. Shortly after the first African-American student was admitted to UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill’s public primary and secondary schools began desegregating. Although children of color were permitted access to public schools, transportation was not provided, so families once again pooled together to send their children in taxis. 

African-American students at the school faced discrimination and abuse by many teachers and students and felt the keen loss of Northside Elementary and Lincoln High. While parents and students realized that these facilities were second-rate, the focus on character, discipline, and pride at the schools was unmatched.  

The landscape of Chapel Hill is layered with a rich and complex history, much of it invisible to the uninitiated. Our evolving identity as a community takes shape in the boundaries of our experiences, marked and unmarked. 

As University and student choices continue to shape the future of Chapel Hill, it is critical that we reflect on the collective impact of these individual choices on the town that has been home for centuries to a community often overlooked.