Featured

Featured articles (below) tell the often-inspiring stories of several of the state's black entrepreneurs, politicians, philanthropists, and more.

African American

Palmer Memorial Institute

1866-1915

Nineteen-year old Charlotte Hawkins Brown, an African American educator, started the Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina in 1902 to educate elementary and high school students in rural North Carolina.  Named after Brown’s benefactor and friend, Alice Freedman Palmer, the Institute began in an old blacksmith shed. 

African American

Henry E. Frye (1932 – )

1916-1945

Governor James B. Hunt appointed Justice Henry Frye, in 1983, to the North Carolina Supreme Court. He thus became the first African American to sit on the North Carolina Supreme Court.

African American

Civil Rights Movement

1946-1990

Most North Carolinians believe the Civil Rights Movement occurred strictly in the 1960s, with the start of the Sit-Ins at the Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina.  The movement, however, began much earlier, and one can argue that its roots lay in the Civil-War period. 

African American

Thomas Day (1801 – ca. 1861)

1836-1865

Famous for his craftsmanship, Thomas Day, a free African American, became one of North Carolina's most prolific and respected furniture makers in the state. Born to free parents in Dinwiddie, Virginia, Day and John Jr., his brother, were well-educated.

African American

North Carolina Mutual Life

1866-1915

During the nadir of race relations in the United States, African Americans had difficulty finding affordable life insurance.  Inspired by fraternal solutions to societal problems, seven black community leaders started an African American insurance company: North Carolina Mutual Life.

African American

Secret Basketball Game of 1944

1916-1945

During the Jim Crow era, African American college teams were barred from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). But a brave few found ways around these restrictions. A secret game held in 1944 between a white team from Duke and a black team from NCCU was one of the first integrated sports events in the South.

African American

Willis Hinton (1840-1924)

1836-1865

In spite of his illiteracy, Hinton was a successful entrepreneur.  He ran two flourishing businesses when African Americans struggled for equality and respect and the chance to participate in a free market where each held his own.

African American

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University (NC A&T)

1866-1915

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, more commonly known as NC A&T, is the largest historically black college or university (HBCU) in the country, with 13,885 students in the fall of 2023.

African American

Anna Julia Cooper (1858 – 1964)

1836-1865

Anna Julia Cooper was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1858. It is believed she was the daughter of her enslaver, Fabius J. Haywood. Cooper was emancipated when she was nine years old and in 1867 enrolled in Saint Augustine’s Normal and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh with the aid of the Freedmen’s Bureau.  At Saint...

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History in the News

Carolina Journal

Without us, the sun also rises

The death rate plummeted from 1933 to 1971, then continued to drop into the early 1990s. The slope of the line wasn’t much different before and after the creation of OSHA, severely weakening the claims of its defenders.

Carolina Journal

What ‘the 4 Chaplains’ still teach America

In a time when American public life is often fractured by suspicion and resentment, their story calls us back to something older and sturdier: courage rooted in conviction, unity grounded in service, and prayer that moves beyond words into action.

Carolina Journal

Federalist No. 5: Concerning dangers from foreign force and influence, Continued…

Considering our distance from Europe, it would be more natural for these confederacies to apprehend danger from one another than from distant nations, and therefore that each of them should be more desirous to guard against the others by the aid of foreign alliances, than to guard against foreign dangers by alliances between themselves.